Seventh Realm Part 1: A LitRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 8)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Team Three is prepping at their tower. Here are the suspected landing areas for teleportation formations.” Niemm showed Rugrat his wrist map.

  Rugrat’s map was continuously populating with new markers. He checked the locations. “We’ll head here.” Rugrat grabbed Niemm’s wrist and pointed to a marker.

  “Okay, I’ll relay to Gong Jin.”

  “We’ll sneak in as close as possible and hit the formation with stuff powerful enough to destroy it.”

  They reached the bottom. People ran into the tunnels of the under city. The special team checked gear as they waited on their mounts.

  Rugrat jumped up onto George’s back scanning his people and the area. “We’re all here; let’s push out!” He led them out to the gates of the tower. They opened to the fighting beyond. A spell glanced off the tower’s barrier, crashing into the street and tearing through several buildings.

  Come on, boy! Time to earn our pay. Oorah!

  George leapt forward. The entire team built up their speed. They were galloping when they left the tower’s mana barrier.

  “Deni and I will jump off here. Keep moving down the street and into the buildings in partners.” Rugrat rolled off George, who shrunk to the size of a large dog.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rugrat checked his repeater and looked at Deni. “Good to go.”

  He took point, moving between two empty stores. He went up the stairs back and forth, up several floors, and past apartments. He stacked up on the door, ready to breach. Deni hit him, signalling those behind were ready.

  He used mana blades, cutting the lock on the door and throwing it open as he rushed in, moving to the right with his rifle, but there was nothing. “Clear.”

  “Clear,” Deni repeated back. They checked the other two rooms, finding an empty bedroom and bathroom.

  Rugrat moved to the bedroom window that overlooked the rear of the building. He moved the curtains slowly.

  Just a curtain moving in the breeze.

  He peered through his section of window. Two streets over, several buildings showed signs of fighting. The teleportation formation had landed in the street between buildings. Undead skeletons crashed through buildings and ran through alleyways and streets to reach the sects that had been unable to gain a foothold.

  Rugrat checked their positioning against his own. “Fire Support Control, this is Viper One-One. I have a target for you, over.”

  “Viper One-One, this is Fire Support Control. Do you have grid, over?”

  “Fire Support Control, grid two-three-two-zero, one-zero-one-three. Confirm?”

  “Viper One-One, Fire Support Control confirms grid two-three-two-zero, one-zero-one-three?”

  “Fire Control, confirmed.”

  “Viper One-One, be prepared for incoming rounds. Mortars should be with you momentarily.”

  Rugrat switched channels. “Mortars coming in on target momentarily.”

  They waited several seconds before a whistle filled the air.

  Rumbling explosions covered the area where the sects’ fighters were.

  Smoke started to clear, illuminated by the broken light of the formation activating. More fighters poured out in a flash to be met with undead that had survived the mortar strike. They had no time to react, fighting before they cleared the teleportation pad.

  “Spell scroll,” Gong Jin said.

  A spell formation appeared under the formation plate. The formation plate sank into the ground.

  “That works.” Rugrat looked at the undead who finished off the sect fighters and started moving through the area. Some grouped up and patrolled. Others pulled their fellows together who were regenerating and recovering.

  “Okay, and we’re moving.” Rugrat glanced at the fight happening in the skies above.

  We need to cut off these teleportation formations as fast as possible.

  “They’re going for the workshops!” Santos yelled.

  “Command, we have a breakaway group heading for the crafter district!” Captain Wazny yelled. He leveled off and fired his repeaters among the rider’s spells that buffeted his sparrow who strained against each near-miss.

  “Understood, kestrels moving in support.”

  A trio of kestrels dove in from their holding positions. Their gunners cut blue trails through the sky. Aerial mounts spun away, crashing into the city below.

  Spells erupted along the aerial group, taking one dozen more.

  They banked over the Battle Arena district and over the smithies that bordered the area. A beam spell hit a kestrel, throwing out wood as it punched into the cabin.

  Wazny dropped another aerial beast. His sparrow dove and yanked back up in erratic movements.

  The kestrel tried to right itself when other beams hit it. The aerial rider’s mages tore spell scrolls, forcing the Alva Air Force to go on the defensive.

  They went over a park as Wazny saw several riders bank. Formations dropped from their storage rings into the park.

  “Command, we have teleportation formations in the Solitude Park!” Wazny felt he noticed something weird.

  Focus!

  “Understood, teams will be sent. Target if you can.”

  The aerial forces were hurling out spell scrolls, making it hard to get close. They came in close to the inner wall.

  The wounded kestrel dropped out of the sky, taking a fatal blow. Escape formations were activated, destroying the cabin and hurling the crew free.

  Undead mages blasted at the aerial forces, working with the air force.

  The group broke apart and fled, using their buffing spells on their mounts.

  Wazny broke off. Whatever he had seen, it kept pulling at his mind.

  He looked over at the southern mountain range that bordered Vuzgal’s rear valleys. Then he saw them moving low. “Command, we have enemy coming low along the southern mountain range, right in the rear of the city.”

  “Understood.”

  Wazny looked back to the park. “Santos, you up for some remodelling?” A formation up on its side activated as fighters fell out on the ground.

  “Yes, Boss. Bombs?”

  “Yeah, follow me in.”

  Wazny banked, targeting the formation plates.

  “Release!” He and Santos dropped a stream of bombs that left a path of explosions through the park, tearing up dirt and trees. The fighters hadn’t had time to put up a barrier the bombs detonated among them. Wazny surveyed it all with a cold gaze, using his handles to change his direction, climbing higher to find his next target.

  He passed a street where a close protection detail massed with undead fighters. He was low enough to see one of the detail punching his repeater into the air in salute.

  Wazny banked again, Santos trailing as they went back, doing another run on the plates they’d missed.

  They were setting up for their third mission when Wazny got new orders.

  “All sparrows on this channel, group up at mana barrier tower one-nine-zero-nine. I say again, all sparrow pilots hearing this, break off and regroup at mana barrier tower one-nine-zero-nine. Suspected force coming in from the southern mountain range.”

  “Our aerial forces are experiencing heavy losses. Some of them are refusing to fly anymore,” Leonia reported to Marco.

  “How bad is it?”

  “Three in four do not return.”

  “I didn’t think that their aerial force would be so strong.” Marco held his chin.

  “Our teleportation formations have allowed us entry, but they are bombing them once they hit the ground. The footholds we had are gone,” Marino said.

  “Tell Onam and Feng Dan to use their spell scrolls.”

  “They have only made it halfway through the metal forest.”

  “We need to breach Vuzgal now. If we do not, they will gain superiority in the air and hammer our infantry and deny us access with our teleportation formations inside the city. Their forces focusing on removing the formations will reinforce those in the defensive bu
nkers and there are plenty of bunkers that have not been active. Either they don’t have the people to staff them—which I doubt, seeing as the enemy must be ten times larger than what we thought—or they are still holding back. The spell scrolls will keep their attention on the front of Vuzgal and allow our aerial forces to enter the dungeon valley and into the castle district.”

  “I will pass on the message,” Marino said.

  54

  Breach

  “About damn time,” Onam muttered under his personal barrier. Explosive bolts passed through the area where the main barrier had been. A cascading light showed as its formations burned up and its protection evaporated. Whistling weapons rained down among the metal bushes, filling the air with metal and stone that would tear a man apart without a barrier.

  Mana cannons targeted barriers, bursting them for the other weapon systems to reap the lives of those underneath.

  Trap spells the mages had missed went off here and there, wounding the clearing parties.

  A barrier failed as mana cannons punched through the formation of soldiers. The explosions of the whistling weapons and repeaters covered them.

  Won’t make it out of that.

  Onam pulled out a spell scroll. The mana in the area fluctuated wildly. Onam’s breath shuddered. It felt like his mana system had been gripped by the scroll. He felt both excited and awed. With a grunt, he tore the scroll apart.

  Runes burned free of the pages, expanding and drawing on the sparse mana available. The wind picked up. Lines of mana burned into the world, giving the runes structure and shape.

  He winced as mana being drawn into the ground leaked away from the spell scroll, weakening its power and giving it to the enemy.

  Explosive bolts were pulled off target and the storm clouds above the battlefield behind Onam were dragged away.

  Metal bushes shook against one another as the world dimmed, the elements and mana of the world channeled into the spell scroll.

  This is the power of a scroll from a mage at the peak of the Seventh Realm.

  Like a hungry beast, the spell drew in anything and everything from the surroundings.

  The world seemed to grow silent for a second. Onam shook, releasing the twisted energies, they spiralled, shredding everything in the path bursting against Vuzgal’s barrier. It flexed with the impact and darkened rapidly, and broke.

  The noise made Onam duck, the elemental spirals’ shaotic power of their combination burned through the defenses beyond and disappeared, clearing a ten-meter-wide path to the front of Vuzgal’s walls.

  “Push forward!” Onam yelled.

  The army charged with renewed vigor, passing Onam. He hung back, seeking the protection of numbers, watching for other traps that might lie ahead.

  The sects, seeing their opportunity, pushed ahead. The low buildings that had attacked them without any way to fight back were now in reach.

  “Goddamn,” Domonos hissed, looking at the updated map. He moved to a console and removed the covering. A siren blared through Vuzgal as everyone braced themselves.

  Domonos waited for the three blasts and turned the formation.

  Power flooded him as all the conqueror’s armor across the entire city linked together, buffing everyone to twice their original power.

  Second Lieutenant Acosta looked at Vuzgal’s renovations. “Shit.”

  She heard the siren. “Brace yourselves and remember your training.” She used the wide channel to everyone.

  The flood of power was heady as Acosta moved from side to side. The people in the command center shifted around, testing out their new abilities as their armor activated.

  The sects freed their mounts and charged forward, capitalizing on their progress.

  The mortars and repeaters hit harder. The spells used on them had a multiplicative effect.

  “Check mana barriers!” Acosta barked as the enemy reached the edge of Scarecrow’s Hill and passed through Vuzgal’s main mana barrier.

  “Barrier shifting to position two!”

  The barrier receded through the bunkers, stopping at the external wall behind them.

  Spells struck out at the bunkers, flaring barriers across the line as they returned the attacks.

  A titanic amount of mana gathered.

  Another one?

  Runes flew into the air, forming a formation as it drew in the surrounding mana.

  “Brace!”

  The formations completed, turning the world white. Sounds and sight were removed as Acosta yelled, unable to hear herself as she stumbled backward.

  “Neumann, take the periscope. I can’t see.” The ground shook, forcing her to her knees before the first smashed into the ground.

  The power running the formations fluctuated. The world was still a mass of white as she tried to heal it away.

  The last of the strikes ran through the ground.

  “Neumann? You okay?”

  “I’m good, Ma’am. Are you okay?”

  “I can’t see shit. You?”

  “I can still see.” She heard shuffling and felt his hands on her. She batted him away and felt for a chair or wall to support herself.

  “Don’t worry about me. Our spotters will be blinded. Give the teams bearings and corrections. Report what happened to command.”

  Acosta used healing spells on herself.

  “Shit,” Neumann hissed. “Command, this is Dragon one-alpha-one-four actual. We’ve been hit with some kind of artillery spell. It targeted the bunker line. Broke through in several locations. Trying to reinforce, but they’re coming in close.”

  “Understood.”

  Neumann changed to the unit’s channel. “All right, listen up, everyone. Target is fire zone breakpoint. I say again, target is fire zone breakpoint!”

  The whites dulled into greys and blacks. It faded faster as Acosta found her feet.

  “How bad is it, Neumann?” she asked.

  He was bent over his map, checking with his range finders and tools—uploading what he was seeing to the other linked Alvan maps. “Some of the bunkers are gone. Smashed right through their barriers before they had time to recover. The barriers are back up now. Teams are going to check on them.” His voice was grim. Anything that made it through the barriers and the bunker wasn’t bound to be nice to those inside.

  Acosta looked at Neumann, seeing his outline. “Shit,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Wazny saw a wave of dazzling light-filled snowballs along the bunker line before they slammed into the ground like dandelions and exploded.

  He saw the light through his arm and his eyelids before the rush of heat and the roar of sheer energy, like a house of glass shattering all at once and rolling through the ground and sky.

  “Keep your heads in the game!” Captain Ishii growled.

  Wazny looked forward. They were perched on the towers that rose out from the inner wall, supporting the city’s massive mana barrier. He teared up as his eyes were already starting to repair his stomach in his chest.

  “One minute to launch! All our stats just got boosted. Make sure you’re used to the power and get ready.”

  Wazny felt the power coursing through his veins as he checked the spell casting formation plate that was part of his cabin. “Everyone good?” Wazny asked his third sparrow wing. There was only Bell, Santos, and Xia. The others were fighting in other places, wounded or dead. There was no way to know.

  “Yeah, ready to rock,” Bell said.

  “Good,” Xia said.

  “Ready here,” Santos said.

  “Okay, stick together and we’ll give them a nasty surprise.” Wazny moved around in his cockpit, patting his mount, who gave him a happy chirrup.

  “Launch!”

  The first teams leapt from the tower. The others followed afterward.

  Wazny saw the opening get bigger and then the drop as his sparrow dove, catching the air and banked, following the stream of the other sparrows.

  They spread out into thei
r incomplete formations as they went northeast.

  The enemy dove, entering Vuzgal’s barrier. The inner-city towers opened on them, thinning their ranks as they poured on the power, heading for the castle district.

  Wazny glanced to the west, where another stream of aerial fighters rushed in. He turned back to his target. The enemy had a nearly four to one advantage, but they couldn’t allow them free entry to the city.

  Four to one, bad ratio for them.

  Wazny heard a noise that wasn’t like the sparrows nearby. He checked on the rest of his people. Santos was on his left behind him, Bell and Xia on his right.

  “What the hell is that noise?” Wazny asked.

  “Erik.”

  A dragon rose into view. The panthers trailing behind it seemed to run on the air itself, white wind gathering right before they pressed into it.

  Wazny’s hair stood on end at the power rolling off the group.

  “Looks like the special team has come up to play,” Bell quipped.

  Wazny looked to the west, seeing a trace of fire in the skies.

  Rugrat and George.

  Wazny focused on his task.

  Spells went off in the enemy aerial forces who were weaving around in the air, broken up into their different groups so they wouldn’t all be caught in one attack. Spells appeared ahead of the sparrow and special teams formation.

  “Break into wings!”

  The groups devolved and spread apart but maintained their heading.

  “Prepare wind spells!”

  Wazny gathered his mana, feeling the power of the formation resonating with him. “Fire!”

  The spotty spells from the aerial forces were washed out by the blue arrows that shot out from the air force.

  It ran through the aerial forces ranks, cutting them down and tearing apart the buildings below.

  Then they were both in range.

  The aerial forces shot their spells back. The exchange was a series of brilliant lights and reactions as blues, reds, whites, greens all ignited the very air, coming faster and faster.

  Blue and brown drowned out the world as Gilly used her breath.

  Erik raised his hand and the city responded. Hundreds of stone spears shot into the sky and exploded among the aerial forces. The elements circled him, creating a cloud as he charged in. Then the forces crossed one another. Wazny was just a pilot now, in knife fighting range and dancing with the devil.