Golems ambled out of the ground in renewed force, changing the golem balance on the battlefield.
Spells spotted the forward camps’ Echo and Sierra’s barriers. Dust and dirt filled the air, creating a screen around the camps. Lightning storms were summoned. The skies lit up with elemental energies; spells of Ice and Wind cut down at the Willful Institute. Burning boulders that resembled meteors smashed upon the ground, a scene of sudden and epic destruction.
The early morning sun was eclipsed by the sudden attacks. Reynir showed its true strength.
“Prepare the spell scrolls! I want mages attacking with all they have. Those siege weapons are not to fall silent! Keep their attention on us!” Storgaard barked.
Her eyes turned to the east and west. Mages stepped forward from the Adventurer’s Guild. They stood on top of enhancing spell formations, each of them holding spell scrolls.
Tremendous streams of mana were pulled into the spell scrolls and rebounded through the spell formation. The mages chanted; the scrolls in their hands lit up with power that had been buried deep inside. The scrolls were not made from normal materials, but rare metals and skins.
One group of mages finished. Their spell scrolls were consumed, and their formations released a rush of power.
Storgaard felt a disturbance in the air. She couldn’t see through the low-lying clouds of lightning storms and frost rains attacking the Willful Institute.
She felt fear, down through her mana system.
The drums, the weapon fire—it seemed to dim as she looked at the origin of where she felt a monumental amount of mana being channeled. Then there was a second location and a third.
A pillar of air shot through the clouds, dispersing them. Silently, a massive shard of ice as pure as the finest diamond hurtled toward the ground, gaining speed.
There was no sound, not even a whistle, as the tip of the ice crystal touched the leading edge of Camp Delta.
She could no longer see what happened as light filled the plateau, making her cover her eyes. A rumbling explosion rolled across the plateaus, chased by clouds of smoke, dust, and powdered stone that shot up into the sky.
The mana barrier of Reynir shuddered at the impact from the waves of dust and fallout. Wind howled through the mountain region as the two other mage groups finished their casting.
The smoke was shoved to the side as two new pillars appeared in the battlefield. Like the gods’ own, two ice spears shone in the early-morning sun.
Their impacts were no less grand than the first.
Two brilliant lights illuminated the battlefield.
Storgaard grimaced. She had seen many sights in her life, but this was the largest display of attack magic she had ever seen.
She pulled out a telescope and glanced over to the east, focusing on a strange line moving across the ground. “They’re charging into it still?”
The spell scrolls had activated great winds, forming a wall in front of the Adventure’s Guild’s mounted forces, creating a clear area around them.
Many pulled out strange crossbow-looking weapons and attached them to the backs of their mounts.
Spells appeared ahead of the force. Rain fell, pushing the dust down.
“Fuck me.” Storgaard’s telescope settled on what had been Camps Delta, Bravo, and Echo. The camps were nothing more than smoking craters.
“Keep up fire on Sierra! Prepare our people to retake the outer walls!” Gudriksson barked behind her. His orders broke her out of her thoughts as she swallowed and looked at the mounted charge rushing toward the Institute on both sides.
Elder Mendes stared at the smoking craters that was all that remained of their forward camp and two rear camps. He’d felt the power of the attack as it raged against his own mana barrier.
Elder Xiao, all the elites, other than the ones here and at Reynir—they’re gone! He stumbled slightly, his body numb and weak with shock.
His hearing had dulled with the explosion, but he thought he heard noises nearby. People were walking around, opening their mouths, but he couldn’t hear anything they said. His soldiers from Meokar were shaking. Some had dropped their weapons or just stood there, watching, as if they couldn’t understand what was happening.
He felt someone smack him on the shoulder, returning him to reality. They turned him around and passed him a health potion.
Seeing his guard captain there, Mendes came back to himself and drank the potion.
In a moment, the world came back. It was filled with noise, and people yelling at one another, unable to hear. Rocks under massive heat exploded while Reynir’s attacks continued and rain started to pour down.
“Grand Elder, you’re in command now!” his guard captain yelled. “What are your orders?”
Mendes took a step backward, shuddering. “Elder Xiao?”
“The camp is gone, Elder!” The captain of his personal guard ground out.
“Pull them back! We’ll regroup!” Mendes said, starting to come to himself.
“What is that?” an elder in Mendes’s partly pointed through the smoke and dust that pervaded most of the battlefield.
Shapes appeared through the smoke.
“What are those?” someone asked.
“Flags?” Mendes said, squinting
“There’s a force in the smoke!” the captain said.
“We can’t hold. We lost our elites. We have a quarter of the army left, and they’re all infantry.” The elder who had first spotted the movement began backing up.
“Those aren’t the legions of the Grey Peak sect,” Mendes said, trying to bolster their spirits.
“No, that’s the Adventurer’s Guild.” Elder Tsi pointed from the group they were watching and toward the wall.
Fear gripped Mendes as the guild charged toward their remaining camps. There was the sudden finality of losing half their camps in just one second. Then seeing the enemy pushing out right afterward, pinning in their advanced forces and splitting the camps apart.
Where did they get so many people? They didn’t look weak. They were coordinated with tactics that could work against massive armies.
Mendes pulled his guard captain to him. “Send the order. Pull back to Meokar.”
“Sir?”
“We will ride ahead. I need to communicate with the rest of the Institute to ready reinforcements.”
The guard captain’s face closed up as he nodded. “Yes, Grand Elder. I’ll prepare our mounts right away.”
Thunder filled Domonos’s ears. He felt his mount’s muscles moving underneath him, his people riding beside him.
The Alvan army members kept their people lined up and in order. Mages used weather magic to clear the area ahead of them.
“Mounted unit one heading to the breaches!”
“Unit two moving to Sierra!”
“Looks like we’re heading into hell.” Domonos turned to Niemm, who grinned like a madman. His other special team guard was the same.
Domonos’s lips spread into a grin. “To hell we go!”
Siege weapons continued to bombard the camps.
“Shifting siege weapon fire!” Zukal reported.
The attacks rolled back across the enemy. Spells shot out at the Adventurer’s mounted force. Mana barriers were revealed, rippling with hits.
“Looks like they’ve noticed us.”
“Not soon enough to save their people in the breaches.” Domonos opened his channel to those hitting the support camps.
“Use those spell scrolls, if you have them!”
Light appeared among the riders. Spell formations snapped into existence, spewing fireballs, lava spears, burning meteors, fiery rain.
Blue and red flames ignited the air around the mounted force. Like a rocket barrage, they struck out at the rear camps.
“The rear gates are opening!” a commander reported.
Domonos checked the map, watching markers fleeing the camp.
“Their mounted forces are leaving.”
“Are th
ey turning to fight?” Domonos demanded.
“The smoke makes it hard to see. No—no, they’re not turning. They’re running for the woods!” the commander yelled.
Domonos opened a channel to everyone. “Did you hear that? They’re running! The Willful Institute is running scared! Listen to your leaders’ orders! For the fallen!”
“For the fallen!” people yelled back.
The forces under his command moved to reinforce the walls and cut off the retreat for the Institute members who had breached Reynir. There were designated units to attack the remaining camps and another force to hunt down those retreating.
The Willful Institute didn’t have many mounted members left. I’d bet they’d race back to the safety of Meokar without caring for the allies they leave behind. The smoke cleared enough for him to see farther.
“Get into formation! Speed buffs!”
Adventurer’s tore spell scrolls, the buff’s light wrapping around fighters and their beasts.
Their speed increased. Beasts jumped over craters on the ground; other craters were too big, and people moved into formations while they traversed these miniature valleys.
Units separated into their own formations.
Breaching units gained more buffs. In groups of four, they surged ahead, weaving around golems that were still fighting one another. As units closed with them, spells and arrows shattered their cores and broke their animating spells.
“Unit one has reached the breaches!”
Domonos spared a glance. The mounted forces were a spear through the Institute’s heart. Disorganized and recovering from the blasts, they didn’t stand a chance. The main force charged through the lines. Sub-units split off, heading through the breaches and closing off any chance of retreat.
“Mid-wall forces heading out!”
Bear legions from the Grey Peak sect and mounted forces from the supporting sects charged out from the middle wall gates.
Mana barriers stop magic, but not people.
“Storgaard is asking if we will accept surrender,” Jasper asked on the channel between Mister Yi, Domonos, and Zukal.
“Yes, we will. Zukal, make sure that you broadcast through everyone to take surrenders. Jasper, might do good to come from you and Storgaard.”
“Yes.”
“Understood.”
“We’re closing, sir,” Niemm yelled.
Domonos checked the map of the camp.
Several breacher units made up of the Adventurers were out front. Larger units followed in their wake.
The camp was coming back to itself, firing everything they had at the guild.
The ground exploded ahead of the Adventurer units. Mounted beasts went down in cries of pain, their ankles broken from the sudden change of ground.
Domonos’s mount shifted to the side, and the formation shifted.
Secondary formations with beast tamers, mages, healers, and engineers moved to assist.
“Breaching units are getting in range!”
“Cover them!” Domonos yelled.
They held onto their mounted repeaters and fired at the wall of the camps.
It looked like a tropical storm coming down over a lake. It was impossible to see through the barrier with so many impacts striking it.
The breaching teams used the covering fire to get in close to Camp Bravo. They tossed out formation plates that stuck to the walls and rushed away.
“Into the breaches!”
Frost appeared underneath the formations and spread across the walls, rushing out tens of meters a second. They seemed to reach their limit after ten seconds.
Domonos thought he heard a noise like breaking ice. Cracks appeared under the formation, creating a web that ran across the wall.
The stone walls shattered, collapsing into rubble no larger than a man’s fist.
Alpha and Bravo Company spread out, shooting their repeaters, keeping the defenders blind.
Mages at the lead of Charlie and Delta Company used Stone Fuse spell scrolls. The rubble from the breaches turned into a ramp, inviting the mounted forces into the heart of the camp.
Company commanders took over.
Squads acted as support, firing their repeaters into the camp. Others leapt off their mounts. In the camp, there were many obstacles the beasts couldn’t get through.
Squads of shield warriors stepped up, creating an Iron wall for the long-range fighters. Melee units were ready to support either group as needed.
Spell scrolls were deployed in the heart of the camp. The ground lurched up and down, tossing people up into the air, destabilizing the camp, and breaking up the Institute’s units that had pulled themselves together.
Mages cast group magic on formations. Spears of magical power struck out at the camp’s mana barrier. A secondary barrier lit up with the attacks.
The shield units, under the flanking cover of the repeaters, pushed forward. Melee units and ranged followed them.
“Alpha Company, collapse into the camp! I want a casualty collection point on the stone watchtower foundations next to the breach.”
The repeater squads fired out into the camp, using spell scrolls on anything that moved and wasn’t friendly.
Friendly forces pushed through the breaches and pushed out to either side, linking up to the other units, clearing out the siege weapons and soldiers along the walls.
“Collapse all outside units,” Domonos ordered. A line formed, pushing through the camp. Shield warriors were in the lead, followed by lighter armored melee types, archers, and mages.
Members of the Willful Institute couldn’t take the swift changes. With their leaders rushing toward Meokar, the camp was leaking people.
They started breaking, Willful Institute fighters turned and ran from the battlefield, trying to escape. Others dropped their weapons to surrender.
Battle lines were quickly formed and started to advance.
They weren’t a trained military, but they made their living fighting. They’d had some basic formation training. They were crude, but much stronger than if they were to operate in just their parties.
Domonos looked up at the mana barrier. There was not one ripple in it. Reynir’s attacks had stopped, fearing to hit their allies.
“Colonel, the groups that breached Reynir are surrendering, one after another. We have breached all the camps.”
“The Institute leadership?”
“Retreating toward Meokar.”
“Some of the guild members have disobeyed orders and are hunting them down.”
Domonos’s mount shifted uneasily.
“Get them back into formation now!”
“Sir, they’re not listening.”
Domonos looked along the muddy path that led to the plains and forests beyond.
“The gates are opening!” another aide said.
“Which ones?” Domonos demanded.
“Reynir’s sir. Jasper reports that the sects mounted forces are heading out!”
“Idiots. Call back our people if you can. Don’t send any after to try and pull them back. Their deaths are on their own heads.”
Leandra and her group of mounted guildmates had been separated from their unit. They had taken to cutting down the fleeing Willful fighters.
“Again, I order you to regroup on the captured camps!” Jasper’s voice rang out in their ears.
Leandra didn’t pay attention as her groups ran through a group of Willful Institute fighters.
She stabbed out with her spear, her momentum and speed slamming it through her opponent’s armor and into their collarbone, bowling them over.
She let her spear trail behind, tearing free as she reset her spear position again.
“They’re going into the forest. Should we turn back?” one of her guildmates called out.
“We’re adventurers, not part of a sect. Kill the bastards!” Leandra yelled back. The others cheered, not yet satiated as they raised their weapons and continued the charge, cutting down those wounded and
on foot.
“Mounted up ahead!” Leandra yelled. “Group on me!”
Others moved to her and saw the fleeing Institute members. They looked haggard, their horses slow as they were caught up with the foot soldiers.
Easy prey! We’ll make our names with this, and their gear will be ours.
Leandra increased her pace; the other riders sped up with her, the ground disappearing under the thunder of their charge.
She aimed her mount down the left rear of her opponent, their blindside opposite their sword arm.
She braced her spear, ready for the impact; she could anticipate it already.
The fleeing mounted soldiers put their spear over their left shoulders. Their mounts turned underneath them as one to the left, facing right into the Adventurers’ charge.
Leandra shifted her spear to meet the one coming at her left side, but it was too fast for her.
The mounted soldier’s spear stabbed into her neck and stomach, her momentum working against her as she collapsed backwards, her stirrups holding her in place as she covered her neck, feeling the blood welling out.
The world turned upside down and backwards as the mounted Institute soldiers used their training to tear through her band of guild members.
They were waiting for us. It was a trap.
Darkness filled her vision.
43
Turbulence for the Willful Institute
“Well, it looks like none of our people made it into the top ten this year,” Blaze complained to Gu Chen.
“Ah, well, we were up against sects this year. They have plenty of resources and connections we don’t have. Next year, with Vuzgal’s training facilities, I’m sure we’ll do better!”
“That is true. And your Silver Dragons got ten spots in the top one hundred!”
“Not close to your sixteen!”
“With our two guilds together, we took a quarter of the top one hundred spots. That’s not bad!” Blaze laughed.
Sixth Realm Part 2: A litRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 7) Page 52
