Immersion World

by Max Jager

  Adamus grit his teeth and signed "split into your segments, begin moving towards the rift. Esyll bring the humans to the segment with the scientists. Also get two healers to join that group, Cora and one other."

  "We already have Lillith, so we'll just get Cora." Esyll answered as she rushed off to find Cora.

  The entire army started splitting into groups of 50-100 soldiers each while Adamus and Alissa moved to the front. Esyll lead the four Alphas to a group of 30 elves including Cora and Lillith in the back of the army. Then Adamus gave a gesture towards the surrounding forest and suddenly all the trees stood up and moved aside to clear a path. Mendelen skimmed over the soldiers, the front lines had most of the armored elves equipped with melee weapons, the middle lines had archers and riflemen with a moderate mix of elves carrying melee weapons to protect the back lines. The back lines consisted of more archers, the group of scientists, a group of healers, a group of elves carrying RPGs with a few mages accompanying them, and just a couple swordsmen to keep them protected. Every elf carried a pistol with them now as a secondary to their primary weapon. And all of the elves that had guns as a primary carried a sword as a secondary.

  Once the trees cleared the path Adamus shouted out "We are taking the first step in turning this war around. With this step the end of this war is in sight! Send them back to hell!" As he shouted he and Alicia began running through the path cleared by the trees, and like a stampede the entire army followed them in formation, most of the shouting in agreement with Adamus as they ran.

  The rift was not far, once they got through the southern side of the forest they could see the smoke in the distance and the towering flames of what used to be the elves defenses. And within a few more seconds of running Adamus began issuing orders as demons started coming into sight.

  The scientists group and the alphas within it veered off to the side, along with the archers and RPG branch of elves, while the rest of the forces hit the demons head on. Adamus and Alicia could be seen leaving the front lines and moving to meet up with the archers that were moving off to the side. Once there Alicia sat down cross-legged and focused, then suddenly her signet ring flashed and what looked like a mist left her body and turned into a spiritual form of Alicia. Adamus stood beside her and focused on the plant life, he could feel the footsteps of every elf and demon on the battlefield and could view the battle from any spot in the grass. "Scientists move up the flanks on the east and approach the rift. Alicia, I will take command of the soldiers on the west half of our forces, and will lead them to flank from the west. I need you to lead the forces on the east half, push forwards and make a wedge cutting off the demons from the scientist group."

  "On it!" Alicia's spirit said before flying off over the battlefield. With her spirit, she could watch the battle from above and fly down to issue commands to groups as needed. And with Adamus's own signet essentially allowing him to do the same thing only from the grass below their feet, it offered a massive tactical advantage over the demon leaders who could only lead the battle from within the fighting, where they couldn't see everything.

  The four Alphas could see the demon forces and scanned the battlefield ahead of them. The vast majority of them looked like warped and distorted versions of humans, elves, dwarves and a few other humanoid races. They looked mostly like their original race but were distorted in demonic ways, having horns, claws, almost scale-like skin. Those were the lesser demons, they were not armored and carried melee weapons. The second most common demons were the normal demons, they no longer resembled their original race these ones looked completely demonic with horns, claws, spikes, fangs, and red glowing eyes. But they remained somewhat humanoid in general shape, they were lightly armored and also equipped with melee weapons. Beyond them were the pure demons, they stood 8 feet tall with hooves for legs and four arms. All their veins were bright red, they had massive horns on their head like minotaurs and were huge, bulky demons. Their skin looked like metallic skin and they were covered in what expert mages would know to be blood magic scars. These had no armor or weapons, but they were massive and could be seen using incredibly powerful magic. Leading the demons were greater demons, they were the least common but there was still at least sixty of them. They stood at a intimidating 10 feet tall and were massively muscular. They had mammoth tusks, huge bone-spikes sticking out of the back of their neck all the way down their spine. Horns, claws, hooves, a monstrously demonic appearance. Their scary and intimidating form was only made worse by the massive and heavy set of armor they wore which was adorned in even more spikes and skulls. All of them wielded utterly massive weapons, the one Mendelen could see closest to them carried two battleaxes, each of which were bigger than his own body. And he remembered being told earlier, both greater demons and pure demons were masters of at least two magical elements. It was starting to sink in for all of the Alphas, the elves were serious when they said that they were nowhere near strong enough to help in this battle.

  "Cloak up!" Esyll called out to one of the mages traveling with the group. Zanath recognized the man as the light mage who had broken the solar panels previously. The man focused for a moment. Suddenly everything around them disappeared, it looked like they were inside of a big black orb. In reality, the light mage had just stopped all light from entering or reflecting off the area around them, rendering them invisible, then lit the inside of the area so they could see. Several scientists in the group were carrying the large machine and solar panels to power it, they moved towards the center as the rest encircled them and the group began moving towards the rift. "Alicia, guide us, we can't see beyond our cloak." Esyll instructed.

  "Just keep going straight, I will guide you." Alicia called out from above and the group marched forward.

  [Location: Front Lines]

  Alicia's spirit signaled for the archers in the back lines to spread out and form a crescent as she lead the front lines straight into battle. Following her orders the armored melee soldiers charged at the demons. Directly in front of them was a pure demon leading forty lesser demons split into four rows of ten in front of the pure demon. As the elven lines charged at them the pure demon gave out an order and the lesser demons unleashed a hail of fire and ice. Hundreds of fireballs and sharp ice spikes were fired at the elven lines. As the lessers unleashed their small attacks the pure demon took a deep breath and slammed his hands together once, then suddenly spat out a fireball. It started off at the size of an egg, but as it flew towards the soldiers it rapidly grew to the size of a house.

  As all these attacks flew towards the elven front lines Alicia shouted out "Now!" Suddenly two of the elven mages waved their staves and the ground under the feet of the elven front lines opened up and they all fell into the hole, then the ground closed behind them and they disappeared. All the fireballs and ice shards slammed into the ground and hit nothing. The house-sized fireball from the pure demon struck the ground and exploded, the explosion was massive and powerful enough to make everyone nearby stumble. The demons marched forwards towards the exposed elven back lines, all cautious and waiting for the elves to reappear somewhere, when suddenly 30 rockets came flying out from the smoke, fired by the lines of RPG elves that had been behind the front lines.

  A third of the lesser demons waved their arms upwards and created an ice-wall in front of the incoming rockets to block them, but they had never seen such weapons before and didn't know what they did. The first few rockets hit the ice and exploded, destroying the wall, leaving the demons wide open to the rest. The next several rockets flew into the demon's front lines, exploding and killing off thirty of the lesser demons. As the pure demon saw the rockets incoming it cast another spell and created a black chain connecting it to one of the other lesser demons. As several rockets struck the pure demon, it's life-link spell caused the lesser demon to take all of the damage instead leaving the pure demon completely unharmed by the attack. However, a fresh blood magic wound could be seen on it's side from it's previous fireball attack.

 
; Before the smoke from the rocket's explosions even had time to clear the elven rangers had already fired a volley of arrows into the sky, all these arrows came raining down on the demons from above. The pure demon was quick to shield itself by making an ice ceiling above it's head but several more lesser demons were picked off in the volley. Then the elven frontline soldiers all suddenly sprung out of the ground right next to the demons after the last arrows fell and immediately attacked. Several more lesser demons were taken out by the surprise attack, but the couple remaining managed to fight back. The more skilled elves focused out the pure demon while the novices aimed for the lesser demons. While more lesser demons began rushing in to replace the dead ones.

  As two elven soldiers sprung out of the ground around a lesser demon one of the elves slashed their sword at it from the front. The lesser demon blocked with it's own sword, using it's superhuman strength to overpower the elf and shove him backwards to the ground. The second elf came up behind it and took a stab at the lesser demon from behind but the demon heard her coming and jumped forwards to evade the stab, with a wave of it's hand it turned the ground under her feet to ice and threw her off balance as she slid on the ice. The elven woman stumbled on the ice trying to regain her balance, and as soon as the demon saw this it snapped it's fingers and made an ice spike shoot up from the ice under her feet.

  The elven woman jumped backwards to dodge the spike, but as she was in mid-air from her jump the demon hurled it's sword at her. She couldn't dodge again fast enough and was in no position to block. The sword struck her in the chest and pierced her armor, but the armor stopped it from killing her. She was knocked to the ground and immediately yanked the sword out of her chest as she tried to get back up.

  The other elven soldier had gotten up by now and got close enough to the demon again to attack, he slashed at the now unarmed demon, but the demon used its enhanced speed to sidestep the blade and blew a gust of frozen air on the elf's sword-arm. Covering the arm in ice so he could not swing again, then the demon clapped its hands and focused on the woman getting up. Suddenly ice appeared under her feet again, then the ice sprang upwards and engulfed her, freezing her into a solid ice-cube. The other elf slammed his frozen arm into a rock and shattered the ice, freeing his arm as he turned his attention back to the lesser demon. The demon held out it's arms and made an ice sword appear in it's hand then charged at the elven soldier. Seeing this the elven soldier grabbed his pistol with one hand and kept his sword in his other hand and charged the lesser demon. Again they clashed swords but this time as the demon overpowered him and shoved him back to the ground the elf pulled up his pistol and fired three shots at the demon, one of which hit the demon in the head, killing it on the spot. One lesser demon down only a couple hundred or so more to go, not counting all the stronger ones. The remaining soldier looked around, his nearby allies were fighting the other lesser demons and the pure demon. Beyond that hundreds of skirmishes just like this were happening all over the place. Deciding to stay with his group he moved to assist with the nearest lesser demon.

  The more skilled elven soldiers targeted the pure demon. Eight of them surrounded the massive beast and moved in from all angles. As they charged in the pure demon stomped a hoof on the ground and suddenly all the ground around it turned into ice, causing the eight attacking elves to all start slipping and stumbling on the ice. As soon as the ice appeared the demon slammed two of it's hands together and sent out a fiery explosion in all directions. Two of the elves were badly burnt and incapacitated by the attack, two of them held up their hands and created a bubble of water around them to protect themselves from the flames, and then jumped up as a large wave appeared under their feet and carried them closer to the demon. Another elf jumped incredibly high and landed off the ice further away from the demon and the flames. One of them waved their arms and made a flat wall-like barrier of magic appear in front of herself and her two nearest allies to shield them from the flames. Then she created a flat barrier over the ice and ran across it, using her superhuman speed to close in on the demon incredibly fast. The two allies she had shielded also jumped onto her carpet-barrier and used it as a bridge over the ice as they moved in.

  As the barrier woman and her two allies rushed in the water-elves fired powerful jets of water at the demon from two sides. The demon attempted to freeze the water, but they just kept firing more and the frozen section ended up just being pushed aside from the force. The jets pushed the demon and made it stumble towards her as the barrier-woman moved in and slashed her axe for the demon's side. The demon stumbled right into the blow and shouted out in pain as the axe cut deeply into its ribs, but then it swung its arm at the woman to swat her away. The woman created a bubble-like barrier around herself to protect herself as the demon struck her, the blow knocked her back but she was otherwise unharmed. Her two allies rushed in to repeat her maneuver but as they moved in closer the demon slammed a fist into the barrier they were running ontop of and shattered it, causing them to fall back onto the ice. As they fell two ice spikes sprung out of the ground underneath them, one of them used his own ice magic to shove the spike under himself back into the ground. The other quickly threw her shield under her feet so that her shield hit the spike and she landed on the shield right after, allowing her to jump off it and stab her sword into the side of the pure demon's neck. As her body flew over the pure demon's shoulder she held onto her sword, dragging the tip of it through the demon's shoulder and then down it's back as she fell behind it, leaving one very long but shallow cut all the way down.

  The demon roared out in pain and stumbled backwards. The two elves surfing on waves moved in for the kill. The first one lunged in with a claymore sword to strike the demon's head while it was recoiling in pain, but the demon was too quick, it's upper left arms grabbed the elf out of the air. The demon suddenly glowed a bright red as it then took its upper right arm and slammed its fist into the hand that was grabbing the elf. The elf was crushed to death instantly by the demon's superhuman strength, and through the demon's Aether: black magic the elf's life force was absorbed into the demon. Every wound the pure demon had healed in an instant as it stole the life from the dead elf, except for one new slash that appeared across the demon's back from the use of blood magic again.

  The demon, now mostly unharmed, threw the crushed remains of the dead elf at the other surfing elf knocking him off his wave of water. As he fell to the ground an ice spike sprang out of the ground underneath him, but he was quick to hit himself with a jet of water and push himself off the ice and away from the spike. The demon then stomped his foot and a trail of sparks suddenly raced across the ground towards the water-elf. The elf landed on the ground right as the sparks reached his feet, and seeing the sparks he immediately jumped high into the air to dodge whatever they were going to do. Suddenly incredibly powerful flames exploded out of the ground into a towering pillar of fire, engulfing the elf in the flames. The elf's burnt corpse fell out of the pillar of flames and lifelessly hit the ground, the flames had been so hot that part of the elf's armor had started to melt, just a little. Everyone felt the massive wave of heat from that blow.

  "Cassi! Shield everyone!" Alicia called out from above, and following instructions the barrier woman pressed her hands together as if she was praying and focused, creating a powerful barrier around herself and her surviving nearby allies. The blonde elven woman then looked up to alicia's spirit for further instruction. But before she could ask another volley of arrows and five rockets rained down on the pure demon. Using it's superhuman speed the pure demon ducked, bobbed, weaved, and dodged most of the incoming fire but was struck by several arrows and took a rocket to the leg. It almost lost it's leg from the explosion and fell to the ground, crippled. It shouted out an order to a nearby lesser demon, whom turned and ran to the pure demon's aid.

  "Go! Finish it off!" Alicia called out as she flew off to direct the back lines to fire at another target in a different skirmish. The surviving elves all started moving in
to land the finishing blow, but the superhuman speed of the lesser demon was just a little faster than the fastest elves here, the lesser demon made it there first. And as soon as it got there the pure demon reached up and grabbed the lesser demon by the head, then slammed its head into the ground, killing its own ally on the spot. That red aura appeared around the pure demon as it absorbed the life from it's slain ally, and all of its wounds healed again. As everyone closed in on it the pure demon sprang to its feet and slammed all four arms into the ground. Thousands of huge ice spikes began springing up from the ice everywhere around it, and yet another massive blood magic wound appeared on the creature's chest. All of the elves managed to dodge this attack, they jumped high into the air but had nowhere to land with all the spikes below them. But Cassie was quick on the draw, she focused and created a floating barrier platform under herself and all of her allies so they could safely land in the air high above the spikes. "Open fire!" Cassie called out as herself and her three surviving allies pulled out their pistols and began firing down on the demon as fast as they could.

  The pure demon threw its arms over it's head to try and block the bullets but was shot numerous times before it could summon an ice ceiling above itself to protect itself from the attacks.

  "It is getting worn down from magic overuse! It's slower than before. Emar, tear the ice apart with your own ice control, force it to keep its focus on keeping its shield intact. Other guy, keep shooting even if the ice is there. Suki back me up I'm ending this!" She ordered her friends, and that one other guy.