Beneath the Dragoneye Moons-Chapter 622: Overthrowing the Tyrants XV
The coalition was trying to capture the city vaguely intact, and the echoes of the Cataclysm had us all agreeing that we weren’t going to simply drop a few huge skills on Ithil and wipe it off the face of Pallos. The charitable part of me thought it spoke to elvenoid’s better nature. The cynic in me said the leaders wanted to make sure we caught and killed the New Remus Empire leadership.
The coalition bombarded the city with a few huge skills. Several [Mages] with a mix of [Channel], [Trigger], or just absurdly powerful skills charged up from a distance. Our presence wasn’t unknown, and the wards around Ithil were up, powerful, and glowing, making the place look like it was in a golden snowglobe.
Then the shields flickered and failed with no obvious input from our end, and the mages released their magic. With a trio of sharp cracks, boulders the size of my cottage snapped into the buildings, knocking them over like pins. Lightning, thicker than I was and stretching for miles, tore through the city, snapping around wildly like a whip. Plants erupted around the city walls, then promptly withered and died. From the thunderous look on an elf’s face, he’d been thoroughly countered and was mad about it. A multicolored beam of every element was fired from one last elf [Mage], and I did a double take. How did he do that!? I missed Iona, I wish she could glance around at all the cool skills and whisper their secrets into my ear.
Smoke was already rising from Ithil. I didn’t receive a single kill notification, and I sent a silent thanks to the System for not considering me part of this army. I didn’t think I was one of them, and the System reflected that.
“Charge!” “Go!” “Onwards!”
I refrained from rolling my eyes as the various coalition leaders issued their orders at the same time, each urging their faction onward. I glanced over to Arachne, clearly communicating my desire for an order from her, since that sort of thing would matter for her coming political struggles. She lazily gestured with one hand, not bothering to get up.
The spider always did her best work from a distance, after all, and I was certain the wards failing was entirely her doing.
I decided it wasn’t a race, and I didn’t need to stamp on egos, and let others claim the ‘glory’ of being the first in. At which point, the entire thing devolved into predictable chaos.
Xaoc would feast today.
Thick smoke mixed with Mist and Ash quickly enveloped the city, cutting most people’s perceptions all the way down. Rubble was everywhere, and war cries mixed with terrified screams. I could see where auras were clashing against each other, Steam erupting as a Water and Fire domain mixed, silvery smoke billowing from a cleansing domain hitting a Decay aura. A million bugs exploded into motion everywhere I could see. From swarms darkening the skies, to cockroaches suddenly acting unnaturally, butterflies carrying spiders and a million more, a powerful Classer was at work. I nearly got distracted - how were they doing that!? I suppose controlling something without a System was trivial in terms of mana spent, especially that small, but the sheer number and multitasking… I thought [Luminary Mind] was an amazing skill for thinking several things at once, but this had to be an entire class worth of skills. I wish Iona were here, she could spot the Classer and sate my desire for knowledge.
There was an ever-present flicker of black wings out of the corner of my eye. Ebony feathers flickered in my gaze, none of them present to [The World Around Me].
I didn’t dare for a second think they weren’t real though. They simply weren’t part of the material plane.
Black Crow was feasting, his grim claws reaping a bloody harvest.
I walked in with my head on a swivel, looking for things I could do, people I could help. Red-banded coalition members clashed with [Soldiers] and [Guards], and I almost entirely ignored the fight. My healing was up, and the people involved knew what they were getting into. I threaded through their line, ignored the challenges, and faded deeper into the city, seeing what I could do, where I could help.
The actions of everyone else in the coalition were pissing me off immensely.
I was working very, very hard to keep in control. I was seeing red, and I wanted to lash out at everyone involved, not just the people I could. I was ignoring the threads on the ground.
I understood the mission. I got why some of the attackers were taking out their anger on property, and I was side-eyeing the looters and thieves who didn’t seem to care about the mission, instead grabbing as many valuables as they could for themselves.
Fine. I hated it, but I could live with it.
It was the rest of it that I couldn’t turn a blind eye to. Attacking civilians? Torturing them? No, fuck that. Promises made before the battle or not, I wasn’t going to ignore it, damn the consequences.
The 512 hadn’t gone out with a bang, they died with a whimper. A thousand and twenty four sneaky assaults and plots had undermined them something fierce before they’d gotten the proper groundwork done. Rumor had it that nearly a quarter of them had died last night from poison, and another third had been out of the city on various errands. Problems had erupted all over the New Remus Empire, demanding their attention. It wouldn’t matter if they survived. Too much of the leadership structure was going to die, too much of the Empire was being dismantled.
A beam of Radiance tore through one of the main streets at chest height, the thick stench of pork filling the air as hundreds of lives were abruptly - nope. I had something to say about it, and there might be an enemy combatant there, but if there was, fucking hit only them. I moved on, only getting a few steps before the next problem emerged.
I thought ‘impaling babies on swords’ was storybook villain tier nonsense, not something people actually fucking did. Fuck.
I stepped into an alley, blasting two more elves at point-blank range. We were here to overthrow the New Remus Empire, not take revenge.
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
The woman they’d tried to victimize fled. A small girl was trembling at the end of the alley, her clothes freshly torn to shreds, dirt smearing her face. The alley had a kid-sized impact in it, and I knew how fast a body had to be going to leave a mark on concrete. She was the poster child for why I’d so carefully kept my healing up on kids. The girl ran up and introduced herself, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane.
“Come here.” I said, holding out my hand. She shyly looked around, like her parents would just pop up from around a corner. She was moving so slowly compared to the speed that everything else was happening, and I didn’t have the time to properly coax her without scaring her. I suppressed a sigh, and fired off three more [Radiance Beams], aiming two of them to be non-lethal takedowns, a warning shot before I had to do something more drastic. One of them burnt through a devil’s wings. It was immediately healed up, but the soldier jumped backwards, abandoning his attack in the favor of self-preservation. The second devil had a metallic kite shield flicker into existence an inch from his body, absorbing my beam. Unharmed, he backed off as well.
There was no warning shot for the third Immortal, a gnoll.
I didn’t want to deal with getting the life stories from the notifications. I had enough on my soul already, I just needed the confirmation I’d succeeded.
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
An arrow silently came for my head from my blind spot. I snapped up a dusk aspect of [Mantle], intercepting the arrow right before it brained me. Sara was bowled forward a moment later when the wind blast caught up to us, but I was able to righten us.
I fired off three more [Radiance Beams], then summoned [Featherstorm], split it in two, and had them rush through a building each.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is freeweɓnovēl.coɱ.
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
One of the attackers didn’t get the hint.
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
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And great, I was starting to get looks from the other red headbands. This was ugly, and it was only going to get uglier as time went on. The archer tried three more arrows, then gave up. No idea which faction the sniper was from, but if he was shooting at me, he wasn’t shooting at civilians. One elf with a red headband was dragging another out of Ithil, ranting about how mom had always said his friends were no good, how could he let them drag him into this, and that mom was so mad at him.
Naturally, I’d scared Sara with my little lightshow. I smiled gently again and knelt down, offering her my hand.
“Let’s get you back home, okay?” I asked as reassuringly as I could. She nodded and stepped forward, taking my hand. We walked out of the alley together, agonizingly slowly, and I found I needed to fire off two more [Radiance Beams], both of them melting through walls to reach their target.
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
In the time it took us to walk to the end of the alley, the street had become a bloody warzone. Quite literally. A swarm of horrific shadow beasts were purely illusionary, and I ignored them. Sara screamed in terror and started to bury her face in my tunic.
Right. Couldn’t entirely ignore them.
A flash of [A Light Shining in the Darkness] deleted all of them, and I locked eyes with the Classer responsible. Violent sparks were practically shooting off with our contact, but he turned away with a huff, and resummoned his ‘monsters’ to go off in another direction.
I knelt down next to Sara again, taking off my red headband.
I didn’t care if it got me attacked more, I was disgusted to be associated with them.
“Hey, it’s a little scary out there, do you mind if I put this over your eyes and carry you on my shoulders?” I asked, patiently waiting for an answer. A house went tumbling far overhead.
Sara looked down as she chewed furiously on her lip.
“Okay.” She said quietly. I looped the headband around on itself and put it over Sara’s head like a blindfold. I then hoisted her up onto my shoulders, and could feel her hands grabbing on the air above my head. Two powerful [Warriors] clashed in the sky above, their clashing blades creating shockwaves strong enough to shatter glass. I had to work overtime with my [Mantle] to stop Sara getting battered more, and they were getting dirty looks from the rest of the red headbands. We’d explicitly wanted to not have this happen. A [Mage] teleported in between them as they locked blades once again, and with a bolt of Darkness, both were slain. The [Mage] teleported out instantly, there for less than a second.
“But WAIT!” She cried out. I paused, narrowing my eyes at a devil who looked like he was going to attack me. He did a double-take at a System notification - probably [Identify] - and moved on. All in the space of Sara’s words. “You don’t have any horns, how am I supposed to grab on?”
I patted her leg I was holding.
“I won’t let you fall, and if you need to grab onto something, grab onto my hair.” I offered. A pair of tiny hands dug into my hair and grabbed on tightly, and I continued to do what little good I could in this corner of the city.
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
[*ding!* You’ve slain an enemy.]
I ignored a demon encased in a block of Ice, blood dripping from his face. It wasn’t his.
“Free me!” He roared. “I have more meek rabbits to slaughter!”
No. Just… fuck you.
A half-dozen elves with red headbands squared up against me, and I found myself reevaluating my plans. The responsibility of the small presence on my shoulders was far heavier than her weight. I opened up [Portcullis], and started to talk with the elves.
“Pardon me, let me place the audience out of harm’s way before we begin.”
I chained several [Teleports] together, my mind racing at a thousand miles an hour. In no time at all, Sara was tucked into a fluffy chair, wrapped in a blanket, with hot chocolate and a triangle-cut sandwich. She blinked in confusion. One moment ago she’d been on my shoulders in the street, the next she was deep in my [Manor], the blindfold tucked into my waist. I wasn’t sure I could stomach wearing the flag.
“I’ll go find your parents and your place while you wait here, okay?” I asked, mentally berating myself. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any toys, dolls, or picture books. I’ve got a few stories, but they might be a little too tricky for you.” I supposed I did have a number of balls, but they were more ‘heavy duty industrial’ balls, less kid-friendly. In her shoes, I wouldn’t want to have a ball. She didn’t need a high energy activity, she needed chill, calming things.
Sara’s presence was a spotlight into a hole in my collection. Something to fix in the future.
I chained a pair of [Teleports] to get back out of [Manor], slamming [Portcullis] shut on one of the elves who’d tried to walk in. Just missed his fingers, drat.
I settled down into a fighting stance, glancing between the elves. I didn’t need to, but they weren’t attacking civilians. If I could posture and talk my way out of this, I would. I’d taken enough lives today.
“Is there a problem?” I asked the six. Swords and spears were out, and I could sense a number of stone fragments floating behind two of the elves, obvious [Spellblades].
“You’re not wearing a red headband anymore.” One of the elves pointed out. I curtly nodded.
“Again - is that going to be an issue?” I asked. Sentinel Invincible turned the corner a moment later, striding down the street. The massive troll had layers of capes coating his armor, and I’d finally gotten Iona to spill the beans on what his secret was one cold winter night.
“Leave. You’re not wanted here.” One of the elves said. I huffed and rolled my eyes.
“Seriously? That’s what you’re going with? What are you, sixteen?” I said. A great aurora briefly filled the sky, before a black and white braided beam pierced through it, dispersing the skill entirely.
I pointed my finger and fired off another [Radiance Beam]. Not at the idiots, they weren’t doing anything. A berserk golem was attacking everyone, and the sooner it was put down, the happier we’d all be. My precision attack hit a few critical runes, and the whole thing shut down.
The elves flinched at the sudden light and heat. My [Radiance Beams] were tightly controlled, but they were so hot that even the minor bleed-off was enough to feel like stepping into an oven.
“That’s how you do it. Now, are you going to join your friends in an early grave, or are you going to walk the fuck away?”
Invincible loomed up behind me a moment later, clasping his enormous hand on my shoulder. A horrifying, piercing shriek erupted through the city, vibrating my bones and shattering every glass and crystal I could sense in a fierce wave of destruction. It cut out with a loud crack. With so much chaos going on, I was a little surprised I was being picked on.
“Why don’t you boys and girls let me handle this?” The troll asked. “She’s one of ours anyway.”
“You better!” One of them spat, then the six scurried off into a dead-end alley. It had gotten turned into a lake of Lava. They darted back out of the alley, flashed a rude hand gesture towards us, then scurried down a different road. I sighed, hoping my little show would scare them off anything particularly unwise.
“Hi Invincible, how’s it going?” I asked, remembering my manners. A trio of devils were flying over the city, dropping various potions and alchemical concoctions down on us all. I zapped a dozen vials heading vaguely in my direction, I didn’t want to play with whatever nonsense was going on with them.
The troll grunted at me, spinning me slightly so we could look and talk at each other.
“Dawn. Arachne wants to know what you’re doing.” Invincible said. I stared at the blank helmet, sealed so tightly not a ray of sunlight could get through. I teleported out a book from my [Manor] storage, and started to teleport it between my hands. Just casually. One hand, then the next. Invincible was one of the few Sentinels who could probably take me in a fight, or at least draw with me, and I suspected that was one of the reasons he was sent, over the speedier Skater. Maybe I was reading a little too much into Arachne. Or maybe she was reading me perfectly, and knew that there was no risk of a conflict between the two of us, because I’d demonstrate that such a conflict was futile. Or maybe I was hitting team cohesion hard. Then again, I was already hitting team cohesion by deciding to fight problems wherever I saw them.
“Making sure I can sleep at night.”
Invincible thought about that for a moment as I continued to teleport the book between my hands. I hated doing it, but I was not going to be stopped. A small section of the sky split open, and divine light came down on the far side of the city, a precision smite. I triple-checked my healing - if the gods were starting to put their thumbs on the scale, I wanted to be prepared.
“Things don’t stop being wrong just because they’re not happening to us or our people. If this was Sanguino, or any other city in Exterreri, you’d be joining me in dispensing justice. I’m not going to see the people living here as ‘the enemy’, and I’m not going to stand by while others commit atrocities!”
Invincible nodded and patted me on the shoulder.
“Keep that spark.” His voice was like rolling rocks, and his tusks looked vicious. “Don’t let anyone take it from you. I believe the final confrontation is about to go down at the capitol building.”
I relaxed at his words. I wouldn’t need to fight Invincible. Now I felt absolutely terrible about vaguely threatening him, I had to figure out a way to make it up to him. It wasn’t going to be quick or easy.
His secret to being able to ‘stand’ in the sunlight was hilarious, in my opinion. A masterfully crafted deception.
Invincible was a troll, and the touch of sunlight was fatal to him. He clad himself in adamantium armor… and skipped on the armor skill. Adamantium was the next best thing to indestructible, and his own innate regeneration fixed any blows that made it through. Nobody tried to directly impact armor on a [Warrior], there was no point to it. Given how armor, armor skills, sunlight, and the troll’s curse interplayed, his armor acted like shade, since he wasn’t extending his vitality to it. Letting the sun-cursed troll walk around in broad daylight.
Best damn smoke and mirror I’d seen in a long time.
Of course, once the secret was out, it would be trivial to fight Invincible. His helmet would be super easy to teleport off his head, at which point he’d turn to stone. Hence my little threat with the book.
Iona knew. I knew.
And I let Invincible know I knew.
I wanted to believe he wouldn’t take action against me anyway, but there was no telling in all the chaos. A subtle threat had me feeling terrible, but I could continue what I was doing. I still felt terrible about it all.
We made our way to the capitol building. A raging inferno of cursed Pyronox was getting larger every time water was added. A large explosion started in a market square, but another skill mostly froze the boom. The explosion was still occurring, but in slow motion, like a flower slowly unfurling in amber. A fascinating study any other day. All of the smoke and haze in the air was slowly coalescing into a gigantic bat in the sky, some vampire Classer or another shading the entire city for my allies. Thick clusters of Spores started to float through the air, and everyone I could sense in the area piled onto the Classer responsible hard, Invincible himself starting to run in that direction before realizing the Classer was dead. I wasn’t the only member of the coalition attacking other red headbands!
The wards around the place were strong, a single Brilliance [Barrier Mage] over level 3000 single-handedly running them. It took several dozen Classers a minute to bring them down, the [Mage] fleeing at the last second. Good for him! A few idiots went and chased him, but I wasn’t too fussed. I wasn’t sure who’d won the ‘race’ between the ward-breakers and the brutes just bashing the shields, but it didn’t matter too much to me. I raced in with everyone else, mentally shifting my healing a bit. There were a half-dozen animal companions, and I modified my healing to include jaguars, lemurs, and a sarcosuchus, among others. I side-eyed the demon who was on the same wavelength as a gigantic crocodile.
The final doors were flung open into a pitch-black chamber. Something was obscuring even [The World Around Me], and I teleported a sword out of [Manor] into my hands, just in case. I hoped Sara was doing alright. It had only been a few minutes, hopefully she was still working on her sandwich.
A brazier lit near the door with red flames. Then orange flames deeper in. Yellow, green twice, blue, purple twice. The room was nearly fully lit before the final black flames erupted.
Night was sitting at the end of the room, eight heads on pikes in front of him. His smile was full of fangs as he grinned at all of us.
“Welcome! Glad you could finally join us.”
There was a collective flinch from the group. Only Invincible, myself, and a few other former Sentinels didn’t flinch. We strode forward.
“I believe there is much to discuss.”
