Book 2: Chapter 51: Battle Charge

  The eastern ridgeline was wrapped in smoke and chaos of spellfire, the sound of magic crashing against steel echoed across the battlefield. Terraxum’s lines surged forward under a tide of banners and mud, the Earthbreakers at the tip of the spear.

  Their target was clear, a fortified hilltop post, bristling with wards and defenders. It was the nerve center of the enemy’s eastern defense. A fortified overlook flanking the enemies main war-camp.

  Alex’s voice cut through the clamor. “Henry! Lance! Garret! Take your squads straight up the gut. Pin their fire down. Don’t give them room to breathe.”

  The three nodded, and moments later, their formation surged forward, shields raised against the rain of aether-charged projectiles.

  “Peter, Devon, barriers up! Layered, rotating!”

  Devon tossed glyph plates and enchanted crystals into the mud, protective barriers blooming. Meanwhile Peter’s shield spells shimmered into existence, taking the brunt of the enemy’s counterstrikes.

  “Allie, Cole, you’re the line between survival and body bags. Stay sharp.” Behind them, Allie’s hands were already glowing as she pulled a bleeding soldier from the front, Cole applying enchanted patches to wounds in quick succession. Their section of the battlefield became a triage center under constant downfield fire of battle.

  Kate, Eric, Holly, and Zach broke off to the right. They were a storm of precision, a flank that sliced through thinner guard lines like blades through grass reeds. Ahead of them, three enemy lieutenants stood waiting, all were liquid-stage Adept mages clad in layered armor, their presence bending the ambient aether around them.

  “Mine,” Kate hissed, fire trailing along her rapier as Eric matched her steps, providing support. Flames and steel clashed against solidified earth, the enemy’s walls forming and shattering with each strike. The ground itself buckled under their fight, molten cracks webbing through the mud.

  On the opposite side, Holly and Zach struck with wind and shadow. Their target, a water mage lieutenant, stood waist-deep in conjured torrents, deflecting blades and slicing through Holly’s wind strikes with blades of liquid force. Dark and air battered water, the clash a whirl of hissing vapor and splintered ice.

  The third lieutenant, a brute crackling with the lightning of air magic, moved to reinforce his comrades. The hilltop trembled with his steps, sword blades hovering around his body at his command. But he didn’t get far, a figure stepped into his path, mud splattering as boots struck the ground.

  Alex.

  The lieutenant’s expression darkened at his arrival. He leveled his gaze, blades orbiting his body ominously. The lieutenants spoke confidently, his tone clipped short. “You dare stand against me alone?”

  Alex answered with a flicker of his aura, a low growl of power rolling off his frame. His fists tightened, aether thrumming beneath his skin, and ethereal horns already froming on his brow as he entered the first stance of his martial path.

  Obby, he thought.

  “Already awake, meatboy. Let’s make this fun.” A second later, spots on the lieutenant’s body were highlighted in Alex’s vision. Trajectory paths predicting movements of his rotating swords, indicators of aether potency, and maximum energy pool assessments. Obby had more at his disposal after his advancements, and he used it all.

  The lieutenant lunged, the ground erupting in shards with his charge. Alex sidestepped, aether condensing along his arm, and countered with a blow that cracked the air. Wisps of wind burst outward, a sword blade impacting his [Shield] and forced away.

  The battle for the hilltop exploded into chaos. Fire roared, wind howled, water surged, and earth broke beneath them. Each clash carved pieces out of the ground and created gouges in battlefield itself, and for every step the Earthbreakers gained, the enemy fought twice as hard to hold their ground.

  The three duels raged simultaneously, and the tide of war trembled on the hilltop as the fortress had become a storm of chaos.

  Flames streaked and cracked against solidified walls as Kate hurled herself into her opponent. Every thrust of her rapier burst with heat, every feint licked with sparks, while Eric moved at her side like a shadowed shield, intercepting blows and turning counters into openings. Their target, the towering lieutenant wrapped in earthen armor, was forced to retreat under the relentless advance, the cracks in his defenses glowing faint red where Kate’s fire seared through.

  To the left side, Holly and Zach became a rhythm of death. She cut through the mist with slicing arcs of wind, her aether twisting the air sharp enough to bleed. Zach wove between her gusts, his own strikes blooming in dark flashes, shadow-tinged blades that left the water lieutenant gasping, struggling to keep his torrents solid against their storm. They didn’t give him time to think, didn’t let him find a stance. Every step he took was dictated by their blades, every breath stolen by their relentless pressure.

  Alex’s duel roared across the battlefield like a living fault line. The third lieutenant’s air magic churned the ground as weapons spun around him. At the same time Alex had to deal with the dancing blades, air would spontaneously condense as well, striking out at him in the shape of spikes, walls, hammers of compressed form striking from every direction. He dodged, weaving, striking back with fists that sent shockwaves through the mud. Their fight didn’t stay in one place; it tore across the hilltop, ripping trenches in their wake, each exchange growing heavier, faster.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  At one point, one of enemy’s swords clipped Alex’s shoulder, cracking bone beneath flesh. Alex snarled, his breath a mist of steam, and drove forward anyway, fists glowing, the mud beneath his feet burning with aether residue. They clashed again, and again, each impact a violent percussion in the symphony of war.

  Then the lieutenant was thrown back by a blast of force from a well times [Flare], skidding across the battlefield until he landed with a crash near Holly and Zach’s duel. The water lieutenant faltered, startled, as the earth mage rolled to his knees. Holly and Zach also hesitated, unsure of what just happened.

  The air radily turned towards Holly as he stood, swords beginning to dance once more as he stepped forward, closing the distance between her and himself.

  Holly shifted, trying to get back into a ready stance, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  “No.” Alex was already there.

  His aura blazed vibrantly with new power, a surge of aether igniting across his inner channels as glowing lines from under his skin. His breath came like smoke, and his aura flared like a violent azure sun as [Vita-Surge Cloak] streamed from his form in a long tail behind him.

  Flames and dark-blue light—no, life—wreathed him, every muscle thrumming with raw force. For the first time on the Aeralith battlefield, he unleashed his creation, the spell that turned him into an inexorable weapon.

  The lieutenant barely had time to even realize he was hit. Alex slammed into him, the impact fracturing the ground like an earthquake. Armor split under his fists, metal plates and bones alike shattered, and the air itself seemed to ripple with the violence of his strikes. The lieutenant was down, but he didn’t stop.

  A punch, and a crack. A tear.

  Every blow ripped something away from his target, chunks of armor, splatters of blood and flesh, the man’s grip on reality and sense of self, all torn away. Alex was relentless, his movements primal yet precise, a predator dismantling prey piece by piece.

  He roared, driving his knee into the lieutenant’s chest, lifting him from the ground, then hammered him back down, splintering the earth beneath them. The man tried to summon another condensed air sword, another spell construct, but Alex tore through it with his bare hands, ripping the conjured aether apart like paper.

  One arm was grasped by Alex at the elbow, and wrenched. He barely heard the screams as the man’s arm was torn free and tossed aside. Another strike crushed his ribs. A final punch cratered the ground, embedding the lieutenant into the hilltop like a broken-pieced statue.

  Silence briefly fell over that corner of the battlefield. Holly and Zach froze mid-strike. Kate and Eric glanced over from their fight, the enemy mage they battled faltering as they too caught sight of the carnage he had created.

  It only took him a couple seconds, a crash, a barrage of strikes, and the man was dead. Alex stood over the wreckage, his cloak flickering, aether channels shimmering faintly where his skin cracked under the strain. His breath was ragged, blood splatter covered his body, his fists dripping crimson.

  And for a moment, even the battle seemed to pause, as if the hill itself knew a demon had just descended upon it.

  Holly and Zach didn’t waste the opening. The water-mage lieutenant was on his last legs, his spells barely holding against their barrage. Holly stepped in close, her wind spiraling around her sword like a vortex, ripping away the watery shield he was trying to form and piercing his sternum. Zach’s spear came in from the other side, slicing through the mist with a shadow-soaked thurst that found the gap in the lieutenant’s guard and into his back.

  Steel met flesh. The man gasped, frozen for a single heartbeat as both weapons pinned him from each side. Then his body went limp, collapsing into the mud with a dull thud.

  Zach yanked his spear-tip free with cold precision, while Holly exhaled sharply, her blade trembling in her grip. They exchanged a nod between themselves, and then turned to assess the field.

  On the opposite side, Kate and Eric’s opponent finally broke. The earth lieutenant’s armor was shattered, flames crawling up its cracks like veins of molten glass. His movements turned frantic, retreating, clawing for any escape as Kate’s relentless assault refused to let him breathe.

  He threw up a final wall, jagged stone bursting from the ground, and fled.

  Kate didn’t slow. Her body ignited, fire wreathing her entire frame as she launched forward with [Flame Blitz], cutting a searing line through the wall as if it were styrofoam. She came out the other side with her rapier thrust forward, pinning the mage to the earth like a banner planted on hilltop.

  “Stay down,” she hissed, and a compressed spear of fire roared from her blade, piercing straight through his chest. The body went still, smoke curling in the air.

  Eric lowered his battle stance slowly, his eyes locked on Kate, then on the flames as they guttered out. “Efficient,” he murmured, a trace of admiration in his voice.

  With all three lieutenants dead, the fortress began to crumble, not structurally, but enemy moral had been slain. The defenders, seeing their leaders fall one after another, broke. Cries of panic spread faster than any order could be given. The soldiers scattered, some fleeing, others throwing down their weapons as Terraxum troops surged into the breach.

  A cheer erupted from the surviving soldiers of their regiment. First a few voices, then dozens, until the entire hilltop echoed with victorious roars.

  Alex stood in the center of it all, breathing hard, his boosting spell taking it toll now that he had deactivated it. His joints ached and his head swam, but it wasn’t horrible, he had only activated the spell for a couple seconds. He refocused himself and assessed the situation. Mud clung to his boots, blood stained his hands, but only his shoulder was injured from the glancing blow. He sipped on a healing potion as his eyes locked on the scene past the hill, past the broken bodies, past the fortress.

  Down below, the enemy’s main warcamp sat in the distance, a massive sprawl of tents and banners under a blackened sky, the heart of Aeralith’s eastern front. And with the fortress now fallen, that heart was exposed.

  The rest of the Terraxum army was already pressing hard against the Aeralith lines, momentum shifting like a tidal wave. Now, with this high ground secured, Alex and his squad had the perfect angle to flank the enemy and cut them to pieces.

  He raised his hand, signaling to the others. No actual words were needed. Kate tightened her grip on her rapier, flames still smoldering along its edge. Holly twirled her sword once, wind swirling at her feet. Zach slid his spear back behind him into a stance, his eyes like cold steel. The Worldstriders moved, their silhouettes sharp against the smoke-filled sky.

  And as the enemy’s main camp came into view, Alex’s voice finally cut through the chaos calm, commanding, and reverberating like a demon inhabited his voicebox.

  “Forward. We finish this.”