Of Myths and Legends (Emerilia Book 9)
Page 4
The wilderness was once again no longer safe to venture out into. Cities were quickly improving their defenses and being largely overpopulated. People were put to work, being trained or taught some kind of skill by the major Emerilian guilds, like the mages, traders and adventurers.
The mages and adventurers weren’t teaching them all the mysteries of their arts but instead making them capable of defending themselves and being of use to the city guard and armies. The trader’s guild was no longer focused on pushing goods; instead, they were turning toward becoming efficient quartermasters. All three of these groups had become part of the Terra Alliance and saw that they couldn’t be at every city in order to help them, but they could do everything in their power so that those within the city could defend their homes.
The Mirrors of Communication that were connected to the colleges proved their worth as people from the most remote communities were able to learn from true masters of different arts.
The people of Emerilia lived in a world of danger. Now that the threat of more violence had arrived, they were desperate to learn anything or do anything in order to protect their lives and survive this latest tragedy.
Player groups were still moving around Emerilia. They called the guilds and the people who were holed up in cities weaklings and made fun of them across the forums, until they started to run into more and more of the creatures from the event or the portals.
The portals had opened, unleashing thousands of creatures upon Emerilia. Not all of them were contained and even if they held all of the castles, the Terra Alliance and other militaries weren’t always able to stop the different creatures from leaking through their lines.
As for the creatures that were part of the event, they were so scattered that finding them had been hard at first, now they were emerging from where they had spawned and setting out to attack Emerilia once again.
As they swarmed, the towns became islands of peace in a world at war.
Even they were not without conflict. Having so many people in the cities and with resources already starting to get scarce, people were panicking and crime was rising. Even some of the cities were being attacked in such numbers that they had to call in reinforcements from the Alliance or their governments.
Josh looked to Lucy, Cassie, and Florence; Kim, Dwayne, Esa, and Jules were all out in Emerilia, commanding the forces of the Alliance and trying to fight the unending tide that seemed to be coming from the portals.
“It’s already clear that the thing that’s going to mess up this alliance is the people panicking,” Cassie said.
“Well, we need more resources and we need them soon,” Florence said.
“We don’t have anywhere else to go to get the necessary resources.” Josh hadn’t slept since this event started and he felt like hell.
“That isn’t necessarily true,” Lucy said.
The others looked to her.
“That Blood Kin family—they’ve nearly completed the third section of Terra already, so we can help take some of the pressure off the various towns and cities that way. However, I feel that the person we should be talking to the most is Suzy. She’s running an errand for Dave then coming here. I just sent her a message and she should be here in a few seconds,” Lucy said.
“Excellent,” Josh said, sitting up in his chair. Since Party Zero had told him what was going on with the Earth simulation, Emerilia, and the real history of the human race, he had started to see them all in a different light. He knew that they were up to something—what else would explain the long absences by Dave, Malsour, Steve, and the man they called Bob, the creator of Emerilia and its original inhabitants? He had never asked what they were doing, trusting in them as they had trusted him with the truth.
Lucy sent a message again, telling her what room they were in. A moment later, Suzy walked into the room. She looked to them all with a somber expression on her face. She shut the door behind her, making sure that it was secured and the runes that stopped anyone from listening in or trying to spy were active.
Then she threw out necklaces to everyone and invited them to a party chat. She indicated for them to put on the necklaces. They were nothing more than a simple chain with a five-centimeter wide, ten-centimeter long piece of metal that had runic lines carved into its surface.
“Those necklaces you’re wearing are called Band-Aids. They’re meant to detect the kill signal from the Jukal and stop it. They decrease the effectiveness of Jukal signals as well as magical attacks. We’re running these things off like crazy as an aid for everyone on Emerilia. We already have a batch to start passing around. I’ll have them to you within the day. I’m going to make this short as the rest of Party Zero is deep in their work or their fighting. Austin Zane has been putting away a bit of his funds over the last year or two while Emerilia has been going on. It’s been rather hard to divert the money to make sure that there’s no paper trail. It’s legal and it just seems that Austin is trying to keep more money to fill his hobbies. Now he’s built up a rather considerable wealth. A wealth that he can use to buy items within Emerilia without it seeming too much. Actually, this event will be perfect to funnel a great amount of money from Austin into Emerilia. Being from so many different accounts, it will be hard to trace. And even if the AI pick it up, they will see it as a gamer wanting to boost his guild.” Suzy looked to them all.
“So he’s going to use his assets within the Earth simulation to buy items for the game?” Josh said.
“I was wondering why he didn’t do it earlier.” Cassie looked to Suzy.
“Few reasons. One, because if he did it at a time that his avatar on Earth was doing something else, then alarm bells would be going off; he needs to go back to Earth in order to complete the transaction. Second, if he had just simply taken his money and dumped it into video games, it would have raised red flags. Sure he could have done a few thousand here and there but it wouldn’t have had a real impact.. Now he can do more in one go and has the streams set up to funnel more money into the game in a more continuous manner while making it look like he just has a gaming addiction and the event has pulled him in. The AI will still see it, but it will look like Austin is trying to cover it up. Now this will also relieve some of the pressure on the Grahslagg Corporation. We own the rights to the green towers built in Terra. Devil’s Crater and the Aleph are both interested in this stuff but it was at a high price before. We can give them packages to get them started and growing. Combined with soul gem constructs, and enough power, they will at least double or triple their current outputs of fresh food,” Suzy said.
“Why didn’t you give this out before?” Lucy asked.
“Grahslagg Corporation has a lot of different projects and expenses over a vast area. The costs of running these different ventures are astronomically high,” Suzy said.
Josh could tell that there was more to her words but Suzy had been a senior executive for so long that there was no way even he could read her.
“In about two to three weeks, we will also be increasing our soul gem output, to try to reach necessary numbers required by this war and consumption. Dave also suggests placing two more ley line power plants down,” Suzy said.
“Can we expect any more aid from other areas?” Josh tried to sound as vague as possible.
Suzy tapped her chin in thought before she shook her head. “You might see some hints of it in different projects but this is too early to start pulling out the real guns.”
Josh’s right eyebrow rose. His interest increased several times by this confirmation that there was something being worked on and it was powerful.
“These Band-Aids are impressive,” Florence said.
“We will be selling them to you at one gold, which is at a loss for us. However, everyone needs one, not only to stop the Jukal from using their kill switch but they will decrease attacks against those wearing them,” Suzy said.
Josh looked to the Band-Aid. His own appraisal skill was low but it allowed him to still see the Ban
d-Aid’s abilities. It wasn’t particularly impressive, but in the middle of a fight it would help out.
“I have also been told to inform you that the dragons are moving to help,” Suzy said.
Everyone forgot about the Band-Aids and looked to Suzy. They’d seen the power of Induca and Malsour before, but there were tens of dragons who stayed within the Densaou Ring of Fire, their power unknown.
Already the dragons have come out to assist us, Josh thought. They were quickly running out of trump cards to pull out and use against the forces arrayed against them.
***
Deia and Party Zero were around the Erach portal that was located in the Northeast corner of Gudalo. The worst fighting of the Event had happened at this portal. The ground was a mess of impact craters and dead Erach. The walls were under constant repair by the Dark and Earth mages as the Erach tried to eat and burrow their way through.
Magical spells and artillery fired throughout the day and night, illuminating the wasteland around what had been a large cove reaching out toward the sea. Now the cove had been hit by so many attacks that the ground opened up to reveal the cover underneath that was filled with raging water.
The Erach were a big pain in the ass but they couldn’t swim. Any that went into the water and couldn’t find a wall to pull themselves up with died.
Which only served to funnel them out of the cove and toward the various castles.
Deia wiped her sweat-covered brow as she panted. She had been calling down flame arrow storms for the last couple of days and still, it had only slowed the Erach instead of stopping them.
The Erach had thankfully just attacked the castles around the portal instead of trying to go on and attack the settlements that were farther inside the Gudalo continent.
Deia raised her bow to the sky once again. The runes activated on her bow. She fired upward, altering her aim slightly and then firing upward in another direction. Once again the sky was filled with a heavy rain of Fire arrows.
These tore through the Erach with ease, killing off thousands. But their numbers couldn’t be counted: they writhed and moved over one another, some ten or twenty thick as they all tried to attack the walls.
Deia continued to fire arrow after arrow as the dwarves unleashed grand workings that created lightning storms that hovered in the air, killing anything that lay below, or unleashed ice rain from above or tornadoes.
The ground was chaos, with every manner of large-scale area of effect spell and round being fired and used.
A shadow passed over Deia. She looked toward the shadow. Her eyes widened as she saw three dragons overlooking the battlefield. They wheeled around the portal and the castles, heading out to the ocean. They banked over the ocean, coming so low that the water underneath them deformed and shot outward like a jet flying over a body of water.
The three dragons formed a triangle as the water around them raged with increased ferocity. Their speed increased until three sonic booms made everyone nearby wince from the noise.
A line of water ten meters wide and growing followed them, rising out of the ocean in their wake. The dragons flew toward the cove. The ground shook violently as the trail of water behind them formed a point and started to spin.
It broke through the cove’s different natural rocks and the inlets that it was formed from. The ground exploded outward with the pressure of the massive Water spear that was as large as an aircraft from Earth.
A clear path was drilled through the ground.
A sound of metal hitting metal rang out as the open portal shook with the impact of the dragons’ attack, which was forced through the portal.
Two of the dragons who made the base of the flying formation turned back around toward the castles. One unleashed a green-colored flame; the other unleashed a white breath. Their respective flames left lines in the ground, killing anything in their path. Behind the green dragon, the ground seemed to rise up and attack the Erach.
From the wings of the white dragon, Air blades shot out, cutting apart anything in their path.
The blue dragon came into a hover; magical formations appeared around it before solidifying.
Water from the ocean was swirled up in a tempest, as if it were alive. From it, a water snake seemed to appear. It shot forward through what had been the cove, cutting past the rocks and debris, throwing them outward as the water covered the interior of the cove and washed away any Erach. It hit the portal, going right through.
The Water dragon let out a roar; the Earth dragon replied with a roar as well and dove into the water stream. The Earth dragon collapsed their wings and headed through the portal.
The portal on Emerilia’s side distorted slightly as the Earth dragon reappeared out of the other side of the portal. Water continued to pour through as the Earth dragon rose into the sky, letting out a roar of victory.
The ground around the Emerilia portal seemed to shake before it dropped downward in the center of a large crater. Water filling it to the top. Any Erach that came through now found themselves in a large pond, the ocean filling it up rapidly.
Ragged cheers rose up from the surrounding castles. The Erach couldn’t swim and with the water in the way, it was easy to see that the portal had been effectively cut off from the Erach’s planet.
The Water dragon moved, flapping her wings as she unleashed her attacks with her wind brother.
The Earth dragon moved to one of the castles, digging his claws into the castle walls to hold themselves as a magical formation appeared around them. A pulse of massive magical power shot out from the Earth dragon, covering all of the castles and a few kilometers beyond. The pulse ended and the ground started to rumble. Erach were shot out of the ground, as if the ground refused their entrance. They were tossed out of the ground. The Water and Air dragons moved to kill all of the ones that had made it past the castle and were now being tossed into the air.
“Kill the Erach that are past the castles!” Deia yelled out across the command channel. If the castles fell, that was one thing; if the Erach were able to move past the castles and start to spread across Emerilia, then they would turn the planet into hell as they consumed anything that was living.
The Terra Alliance changed their aim as Deia unleashed more and more Fire arrows that multiplied before hurtling back toward the ground. The dragons systematically moved with the Terra Alliance’s help, killing off the Erach that had made it past the castles and forcing them backward. It was a slow process but it was working.
They finally reached the castles, The Dragons were massive and powerful beasts but they had burned up a lot of Mana. They landed on different castles, adding their support to the defenders.
“Aunty Deia, it is good to see you,” the large Water dragon said. “My name is Liera. My siblings and I live in the mountain range to the south. Ilas is using his Earth magic to make sure that none of the Erach escape into Emerilia. He was able to make a crater around the portal on the Erach side, like the one here. Basically, if any Erach want to come here, they’re going to have to go through two very large ponds in order to do so.”
Deia nodded. It was a smart idea, and it effectively cut off the Erach. “Thank you for your help,” Deia said, relieved.
“It is my honor. My sister Rela and I are both tired from our Mana expenditure so we can help a little but we aren’t as effective as we would have been with all of our power,” Liera said.
“Rest and help out as much as you can. Now that we don’t have to worry about more Erach coming through the portal, we can focus on wiping these bastards out,” Deia said, a grim look on her face.
Anna, Jung Lee, Lox, and Gurren were all fighting down along the main walls.
While the Earth and Dark mages were doing everything that they could to try to deal with the burrowing Erach, in some locations there were simply too many of the creatures and they had been able to enter the castle. The members of Party Zero rushed from breach to breach, helping to push back the Erach and try to contain them.
Induca and Deia were focused on long-range spells and thinning down the Erach in the distance. Now, with no more Erach reinforcements, they could change their tactics.
“I vote for killing off the Erach that are on our castle walls and in the nearby area, now that they can’t escape. We can defeat them in close, repair our walls and hit them at range,” Deia said to the castle commanders.
“I agree. It would be good if we could get some DCA fliers to drops some Mana bombs on these bastards,” one said.
“No harm in asking the higher-ups,” another added.
All across Emerilia, similar battles were happening, not all of them as successful.
***
“Pull back!” Esa yelled, waving her sword at her people as a Xelur Grand Demon Lord that was fifteen meters tall slammed his war axe the size of a small boat into the walls of the defending castle. Rocks exploded outward with the impact of the axe.
It’s skin was purple in color and as tough as a beasts, their bodies were covered in complex Xelur tattoos to channel their soul energy these symbols were marred by battle scars and piercings. Their eyes glowed with a yellow light and twin horns that looked similar to a rams curled around their heads.
Their hands were sharpened into claws while they wore simple shorts around their waist.
Those with less power were smaller their tattoos less profound and their horns shorter.
The demon soldiers made up most of the forces but the Xelur, by using souls, were able to increase their size and their ability to store more souls and more power. The larger they were, the stronger they were. Minor Demon Lords could be up to three meters tall; Demon Lords were up to ten meters tall; Grand Demon Lords were ten to fifteen meters tall. They didn’t get taller than fifteen meters, but they had different capabilities. A young Grand Demon Lord wouldn’t be as close to an ancient Grand Demon Lord that had come to understand their power to a higher degree, creating more power augmentation for its own attacks and reducing the power it needed to draw from its souls.