Utter devastating chaos couldn't even begin to describe what Keilan witnessed as they arrived at their destination.

  The first thing he realized when their dive ended was that there was no sun. No, what he'd mistaken for one was the tiny lights—countless— that swarmed the system... if it could still be called that now. Their combined proximity of the ships that choked the system, added to the continuous power flares generated from the exchanges between the countless fighters, formed the illusion of a star.

  On one side of space—the side they'd jumped into—humanoids in uniformed robes fought against a tide of winged beings who had the head of birds as well as bipedal bodies. Their battle blazed so hot and bright that it had formed a big ball of light that dwarfed everything, including the small green planet below.

  That wasn't all.

  Space crackled and burned as a trail of white hot beams tore from one edge to another, leaving behind lines of destruction and broken space in their wake.

  The sound projector crackled and then turned clear as a voice slipped into the command room, immediately drawing the attention of everyone. A face projected onto the screen, that of a middle-aged-looking man in a crisp military suit.

  He was sitting on an elevated chair—just like Solis—while dozens of people moved about chaotically in the background.

  "Solis boyoo, is that you?!"

  "Hello, Commander Enis."

  "Ha haaa, the young commander arrives!" The man grinned. "We saved you a seat at the table; dive in. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet!"

  Another voice joined in and a female face joined the man on the screen, shifting aside that of the first. "Enis, what are you yapping about?! Who's the new arrival? Can I shoot them, Kanos?"

  The woman behind the voice was red-haired, with skin that would have been appropriately called pink on a normal day. But now it was just flaming red, just like her hair.

  "Do not shoot," A deep male voice answered. "That's the Verrille boy."

  "Oh... The Nepo commander?"

  The room went silent instantly as everyone heard that. Solis's officers turned their heads away, as if dreading the young man's reaction. But the rest of those in the room didn't.

  Keilan expected Solis to answer back with a snapping retort, but a different voice beat him to it; the first man.

  The third man was an olive-skinned human? Elf? It was hard to tell, given the confusing mix of distinct human face and elf features he had.

  His curly hair dangled down to his shoulders, framing a beautifully bearded face that would no doubt have been a sin to call ugly.

  "Hehe, I'd put my money on him over you, Oola, aaaaaanyday."

  "What?!"

  "What Enis means to say," the third voice cut in gently, "is that Commander Solis has earned his rank and done so brilliantly."

  "Even if it was granted early," Enis added. "Toooo early."

  "Even if it was granted early," the third voice repeated, "it was earned nonetheless."

  There was a mumble from the female, but she kept her mouth shut.

  "Thank you for the praise, Commander Kanos," Solis spoke after a few moments, "but I suggest we turn our attention back to the battle at hand. Sitrep?"

  "Sitrep?" Commander Enis laughed. "What's there to know about? The evidence is right in front of us! We're losing, and losing baddd!"

  Oola laughed alongside, while the third commander—Kanos— addressed Solis.

  "First of all, before we begin, I would suggest you position your fleet alongside those of ours; let's not give the Aveanii any ideas."

  Solis nodded and turned to one of the officers, and a moment later, Keilan felt the ship jerk forward—this time with a bit more gentleness.

  After they were done, Commander Kanos's voice came through again. "Enis is right; we're losing this battle. The World Spirit is near dead and half its Sentinels are gone—taken out in the early hours of the battle. The Aveanii outnumber us two to one, which is bad on a normal day, but worse given our main objective here."

  Their screen zoomed in, and Keilan watched a train of shuttles rising from the planet below, zipping through space behind the line of Lese Warriors fighting against the small tide of avian winged warriors.

  His lips thinned as a beam of light tore across space, vaporizing an entire line of Lese Warriors to crash onto one of those rising shuttles.

  There wasn't even an explosion; the shuttle simply ceased to exist, erased, leaving nothing but tiny metallic scraps that soon began drifting listlessly.

  At least the civilians within hadn't suffered.

  Loud metallic tearing drew his attention from the screen, and Keilan watched Solis take a deep breath, removing his hands from the armchair he'd squeezed like a sponge.

  Everyone waited for the Verrille lord to get a hold of himself, which he did immediately.

  "How many civilians are left down on the planet?"

  "Of the sixty billion-plus population, we have an estimate of forty billion already on our ships, with more in transit."

  Holyy... Keilan didn't know when his mouth moved. "How long have you been down here?"

  Evacuating forty billion out of a sixty billion wasn't a small number, even for ships designed to carry thousands at a time. Which meant that they must have been fighting for...

  "You're Elason, I take it?"

  Keilan's head snapped up and he blinked, head tilted backwards when he found all eyes had turned to him.

  "Um, yes."

  Kanos nodded. "I've heard of you," the man said. "And to answer your question, we've been here for three weeks now—two weeks and a half, if we're being precise."

  Holy... To hold on for that long, against an endless tide of assaults, with next to zero reinforcement, while coordinating the evacuation of an entire world's population...

  This was a feat worthy of the millennial.

  "... Give or take, we still have somewhere between fifteen to twenty billion people down there. The evacuation is slow, but it is moving, and that's all that matters."

  "Hey, Solis! How many shuttles do you have in those tin cans of yours?" Enis asked. "We could use a little bit of help getting these people out of here, especially on the planet where their Spirit lords and Kings seem to roam like flies."

  Solis chuckled. "Don't worry, Enis, we have enough transport for everyone, and ground reinforcement, too."

  He turned to a blue elemental woman who had moved to stand behind him.

  "How many troops do we have ready for ground deployment?"

  "A little below three hundred thousand, Commander," the woman answered.

  "Hmm," Solis nodded thoughtfully. "That leaves twice that to protect the retreating shuttles?"

  Another affirmative.

  "Good. Lieutenant Shirel? You have permission to deploy the War Titans, all of them. Let them serve as the vanguard for the landing force."

  He turned to address the woman standing behind him. "Deploy all troops, both on the ground and in space here."

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  "Aren't you meant to be conservative?" A female voice butted in, and Keilan glanced at the screen, at the other commander, Oola. "You're throwing all your cards on the table. That's a recipe for disaster."

  Solis eyed the woman. "We're fighting a losing retreat, ma'am. I imagine your house soldiers are tired and would love to go home to their families. Extending this battle any further would do nothing but waste lives— precious lives. I'm putting all I have now to make sure we all get home."

  Keilan's eyes narrowed at that. He'd never seen this side of Solis in the months they'd known each other. The Verrille scion had always come off as aloof, with a huge disregard for anything and anyone who didn't match his status.

  Glancing around, Keilan expected to see surprise on the faces of Vanis and the others, but what he saw was small, barely hidden smiles. They weren't surprised.

  Vanis already had his bident in his hands and a crimson-lined black metallic armor wrapped around his body. As if on call, Nalon—in wolf form—appeared behind him, stepping out of thin air to loom behind the Verrille like a mother protecting her cub.

  The Saulae scion—Huiron—was also prepared, with one leg crossed over the other and a dagger twirling on the tip of his finger. The man whistled idly as he eyed the screen. He met Keilan's eyes and winked.

  A serpent, half hidden in darkness, half corporeal, curled around his neck, flicking its forked tongue in a motion that gave Keilan the creeps.

  They all seemed prepared, even Sareina who still held no weapons, except for her warder, the flame bird, that sat on her shoulders. Her warrior maidens weren't in the room.

  Kanos eyes spanned the room and he nodded.

  "I see you came prepared. May the Ascendants be with you."

  "Thank you, Commander Kanos," Vanis said and then turned to his brother.

  "Solis, we'll be with the ground troops."

  "Mm," the other Verrille nodded. "Lieutenant Feene will brief you on the plan on your way down. Brother," Solis stared Vanis in the eye, "she has command over the troops down there. Listen to her."

  "Got it," Vanis said without blinking. "Can I borrow Elle for a bit?"

  "Sure, but bring her back safe and sound, you hear me?"

  Vanis snorted. "She's a Spirit King, Sol, if anything, she should be the one protecting me."

  Solis didn't reply. Instead, he kept staring, which made Vanis relent with a sigh.

  "Fine fine, I'll bring your precious warder back to you. C'mon, Keilan, let's get this evacuation underway."

  Keilan nodded as he turned around, following behind the Verrille scion as he led the way out of the room, with Sareina and Huiron tagging behind.

  Behind him, before the door closed, he could feel the atmosphere take on an electric charge as the command station went into battle mode.

  "Commander! We have incoming from a squadron of strike ships!"

  "Dread Two will intercept. Dread Three and Four, you will provide protection for those dropping planetside."

  "Our task, Commander?"

  "We..." Solis began, and Keilan detected amusement from his voice just as the door closed behind them.

  Solis's second in command, Feene, led them through a short maze of hallways that finally opened up into a large open space located in the bowel of the ship.

  Large metallic doors parted open for them as he and the others walked in, surprised—more on Keilan's part—when he found lines and lines of countless soldiers waiting in the massive hangar for them.

  Small avian constructs—small in contrast to the massive DreadShip—hummed loudly as they were ignited. And a moment later, their metallic wings elongated just a levitated gently above the smooth concrete ground. A moment later, the constructs, shaped like a bird in dive, blurred as they sped forward with speed that left blurs in their wake.

  At the other side of the hangar, an opening that spanned the entire width of that end opened up, the energy field closing it off from the outside environment disappearing, and then the constructs passed through, blasting into space.

  "How are those things moving?" He nudged Vanis. The man looked at him with confusion and he explained. "I'm not really familiar with these types of constructs. Ones I'm used to were all planet based and weren't as large as these."

  Truly. The avian constructs that filled this room looked small when compared to the lumbering titans that were the Dreadships. But Keilan knew that even a the biggest command ship back on his homeland would never come close to these ships in size.

  "Ahh, that explains it," Vanis nodded. "Well, I'm no military enthusiast like my brother, but I will try to explain this as best as I can." He nodded at the strike ships. "Like all ships made in the alliance—and outside—swarm fighters are outfitted with some of the best formations, majorly of which are geared for mental alignment. There's a secure room within the Dreadships that holds the comatose forms of soldiers whose main tasks are to mentally connect and pilot the ships from here."

  Keilan frowned. "How does that work? We're in a warzone with rampant energies, any of which could easily interfere and disrupt the connection."

  Connection, any form of nonphysical connection, was already fragile from the start. There was a reason why, despite it being one of the best means of long-distance communication, Spirit projection was seldom used.

  At its core, Spiritual projection was simply a soul transportation, guided, protected, and given form by the Spirit layer. And it was well known that outside the body, the spirit was very fragile. Should a hostile will or a destructive enough energy come in contact with it, that was it for the person; death with no escape.

  The mind was the same; To form a mental connection, especially over a vast distance, was a very dangerous task. It was like leaving the controls of the body to chance, subject to the whims of whoever came across it.

  Without powerful protections, the adventuring mind was likely to get destroyed or consumed, just like the spirit.

  Looking at these swarm things as they took off, Keilan didn't think they were large enough to accommodate the kind of protection needed to maintain direct contact with their host, especially in a location like this where errant wills and energies ran rampant.

  An unfortunate encounter with a Spirit lord or worse, A Spirit King, would see them brain dead in an instant.

  Vanis tapped his boot on the concrete floor, drawing Keilan's eyes to it. "While every individual ship in the swarm has an inbuilt formation and protection to protect the host's mind, the main protection comes from the formation buried within the Dreadship."

  Keilan's eyes widened. That explained it. A ship like this was no doubt equivalent to a high-tier Spirit King; with the combination of formations housed within it and those inscribed into the swarms, Keilan couldn't begin to imagine how difficult it would be for an outside force to tamper with it.

  "Let's move on."

  Keilan nodded and followed. The waiting soldiers, having sighted their leaders, immediately began boarding vehicles parked in lines.

  Unlike the sharp, avian modelled constructions that were the Swarms, these were simply huge and blocky shaped, like storage containers. Except where storage containers were simply rectangular, these had small protruding wings on the sides.

  "No, we are not taking those," Vanis said when Keilan started moving for those ships.

  "Then what are we taking? I don't see any other special ship around here."

  "You'll see," was all Vanis said before he walked up to where Solis's second in command stood.

  Sighing, Keilan moved to follow but was halted as a hand wrapped around his neck. "Keilan, my boyyy!"

  Exasperated, Keilan sighed, turning to meet the twinkling black eyes that stared back at him. "What do you want, Huiron?"

  "Nothing! Absoluuutely nothing! i just wanted to see how you were doing." He winked.

  Keilan raised an eyebrow.

  "I take offense at that look!" The Saulae heir said with mock outrage. "Can a man not take positive interests about the welfare of his dearest friends?!"

  "As you can see," Keilan sighed as he pushed the other man off of him, "I am well. Now, if that's all, I'd like to focus on the mission at hand."

  "I could help you! I've got some greeeaat meditation techniques that would work wonders on your psych. To add cherry on top, I procure you on that's made specifically for Air wielders."

  Wait a minute, Keilan frowned. He opened his mouth to speak but somebody beat him to it. "Air isn't your family's core element, Huiron. Far from it, I should say. Where, pray tell, did you find a meditation technique meant for Air wielders?"

  "Uhhh..."

  Sareina's eyes narrowed. "You were the one who broke into the Teralin's vault two months ago." She accused.

  Like prey caught in the sights of a predator, Huiron's eyes darted around, searching for where to flee. "Um, it's not what you think."

  "Oh," the Duveyar scion folded her arms. "Enlighten me. What am I missing?"

  "Well, err, you see... I'm keeping it for them... For when they need it. Yes! I'm helping them protect it."

  "By stealing it from them?"

  Confident, Huiron replied. "If you see it that way, then sure. Children tend to often misplace things. it is the job of the adult to keep them safe until such time as the child is responsible enough handle them."

  "Hmm," Sareina nodded. "Wonderful of you to take such honorable effort, that was matured of you. Very mature. But now this metaphorical child of yours has grown and would need their property back. Return it."

  A feigned look of indignation crossed Huiron's face. "What? You can't command me! It is my child and I will return its property when I deem the time right enough."

  "I see..." Sareina said and something crossed her face that made Huiron take a step back. "Okay then, if say you won't return it, I'll simply have to let them know. Maybe if they behave well enough, Papa Huiron will return one of their most precious toys." She smiled sweetly.

  "Err, uhh... That's not really necessary," Huiron said shakily. "They don't have to know I have it."

  "Ahh, but how will they learn their lesson and make amends if they don't know what they did wrong? Surely a word from you will set them straight, hmm?"

  "Err, like I said, it's not really necessary. They need to learn their lesson without outside dependence. It helps build character."

  "Return the technique scroll back to its rightful owners, Huiron," Sareina said, apparently done arguing with the Saulae scion, "else I'm sending a message straight to the head of their house with the full content of your deeds."

  For a few moments, Huiron's jaw didn't seem to work as he watched the Duveyar scion sashay away, heading towards the gathering in the distance.

  Keilan sighed, relieved he hadn't been drawn into that debacle. He would have been happy to remain unnoticed but unfortunately, Huiron seemed to remember at that moment that somebody else stood beside him.

  "Er, Keilan, please don't mind her. She's just jealous she wasn't offered the technique scrollinstead. What do you say to one hundred black vicari to get it off my hands?" He grinned in what would have been charming to other people.

  "Nope," was all Keilan said before he left the man to another jaw drop.

  ***

  Keilan joined up with Vanis and the rest at the end of the large hangar, close to the opening where the Swarmfighters were flying out.

  A crowd of Verrille lords and Kings, in their armored black and crimson robes, surrounded the young Verrille lord, or more likely, the elemental woman hovering in the middle.

  She was just wrapping up whatever she was saying when Keilan arrived, because the warriors soon began dispersing , some rushing off to the line of shuttle crafts in the distance, while the rest—a couple hundred or so—stood by and waited as Vanis marched up to the opening of the hangar.

  Cradled in his arms was the little turtle, Elle, who hung around Solis ever since the first day Keilan had met them, never leaving his side. He knew the creature was probably more powerful than he, but in his mind, he couldn't imagine her as anything more than the cute little turtle that rested all the time on Solis's lap, nibbling continuously on leaves.

  "Alright Elle," Vanis said. "Here we go."

  And then he threw the creature into space.