The last wisp of dark cloud dissipated from the sky. Moisture and dust gathered amid the tremors of space, only to be dispersed by the weather-controlling Druid. Behind the clouds, the morning sun rose high; the sun of this day hung as usual in the sky of Eryan, having merely been obscured by the dark clouds.
The sunlight, held aloft in the sky, finally descended, casting the shadows of the aerial battlefield onto the land of Pine Ridge. The first rays of the day fell upon the dragon riders, cloaking them in golden armor.
Groups of five dragon riders charged toward the gathering of the Deathbringer Birds and the gargoyles. Each squad formed a single-file defensive line, wide enough to cover the front yet flexible and mobile enough to adapt to the terrain. Dozens of squadrons of Dragon Knights began their charge. Their dragons spread their wings and glided downward, each squadron lunging toward the enemy, every Dragon Knight gripping a lance tightly in hand.
The drones, having completed their diversionary mission, withdrew successfully. The suicide drones carried out their final wave of attacks; amid a series of thunderous explosions, several more gargoyles had their wings blown off and crashed to the ground. Some of the electric drones withdrew, clearing space for the dragon cavalry to charge; those that had already constructed electric cages moved toward one another, carrying the deathbirds struggling incessantly within their cages as they crashed into the nearest cage.
Electric cage collided with electric cage; the stored electricity within the drones erupted simultaneously. The steady voltage surged at the moment of impact, and a burst of high-voltage electricity swept through the small area. Bright flashes of lightning lit up the sky, resembling stars exploding in the distance, instantly reducing the Deathbirds inside the cages to charred husks. The scene bore a striking resemblance to when the Griffin Corps had ensnared the little demons, and many Deathbringer Birds that were too close to the explosion's epicenter met the same fate. For a moment, the air crackled with lightning, piercing screams filled the air, and the scent of charred flesh mingled with feathers flying through the sky.
However, most of the flying monsters remained unscathed. They paid no heed to their fallen comrades; their crimson eyes were fixed solely on the prey right before them.
The gargoyles charged headlong at the approaching squad, with no technique and no defense—as if they didn't need to defend themselves. Their stone bodies were so hard; their two-meter-tall frames looked muscular and sinewy, filled not with carbohydrates but with solid rock, their weight truly staggering. If these meteorites were to fall to the ground, they would surely smash through houses and leave a deep crater in the earth. The dragon knights' rows of lances looked like slender twigs compared to the gargoyles; when the two collided, it was undoubtedly like an egg striking a stone.
The Deathbringer's claws spread wide as they accelerated toward the dragon knights, their bodies rising as they closed in. These monsters always hunted from above, and those claws were powerful enough to crush a fragile skull. Helmets were utterly useless against this. In countless past demonic plagues, the Deathbringer had torn off countless helmeted heads—helmet and all—grabbing the knights, now encased like tin cans, lifting them into the air before letting go. Crack! The bodies inside the heavy armor were still flesh and blood; they didn't need to open the can—they simply had to smash it to pieces.
The gargoyle's stiff face was expressionless, while the Deathbringer's expression was chilling—its mimicry of a Main Material Plane creature was still imperfect in this regard. Its eerie, humanoid face seemed to be both crying and laughing, a twisted, bestial expression. Only a thirst for slaughter flickered in those eyes; all monsters were cut from the same cloth, equally primal and ravenous.
The demons charged, the dragon riders charged; the two sides, moving at breakneck speed, hurtled toward one another, the distance between them closing rapidly. The dragoons' formation wove a precise net; from a distance, it looked like a series of nets snatching flying insects. But their opponents were so ferocious, and those few lances seemed so feeble in comparison. The reporters watching held their breath, and many civilians covered their mouths, fearing the net would shatter the moment they clashed.
And this was merely the situation on the ground; from such a distance, onlookers could perceive less than one-thousandth of the true danger. High above, the gale howled; were it not for the protection of their helmets, the icy, razor-sharp wind would have sliced off the dragon riders' ears. Had those on the ground been able to see the lances in the riders' hands, they would likely have screamed in horror.
The lances had no tips.
Each lance was designed for optimal grip; its contours perfectly matched the dragon cavalry's gauntlets, its weight kept as light as possible to prevent slipping, and its handling was agile and precise. These lances were highly sophisticated; like the griffin regiment's large shields, they were all handcrafted by artisans, the culmination of researchers' wisdom and hard work—yet the tips were flat. Anyone staring at the tip would doubt its lethality.
They are significantly shorter than traditional lances, as if a full meter had been severed from them; the spearhead is nowhere to be seen. Standing directly in front of a dragoon, one can even see the smooth, hollow cross-section. By any measure, they do not look like effective weapons, yet the knights wielding them show no fear.
The enemy draws near, ever closer.
Four meters—effective range.
The group attacking the Deathbirds raised their lances, while the dragon knights facing the gargoyles continued to hold their lances horizontally. The squad under attack from both types of hybrid monsters crisscrossed their lances, managing to turn offense into defense without wounding their comrades. The lances in their hands were less than 1.5 meters long, yet four meters was the effective range.
Buzz!
It's hard to describe this sound; I can't find an accurate onomatopoeia for it just yet. Perhaps because most onomatopoeic words mimic human voices or long-established natural sounds, there's no precedent for this peculiar, newly created sound. It's somewhat like the vibration of a bee's wings—a convergence of high-frequency vibrations that coalesces into a long, drawn-out "buzz—".
Countless lances—sheathed.
They didn't have "sheaths" in the traditional sense, but no phrase described the action more precisely than "drawn." A translucent glow burst from the hollow cross-sections; the spears, over a meter long, ejected nearly three-meter-long blades. These blades emitted a cold light, were as thick as the spears themselves, and as blunt as the truncated spearheads. At first glance, they looked as cute as glow sticks.
Soon, the demons charging into them proved that these spears were far from as harmless as glow sticks.
The demons kept their eyes fixed on the riders atop the dragon's back, still believing the clash and collision would occur several meters ahead. The Death-Heralds' claws were poised to strike, and they threw their bulky bellies defenselessly against the protruding spear tips. The sharp, glowing blades pierced their bodies, their thickness disproportionate to their length, like bamboo skewers piercing roasted birds.
The wounds were small; the impaled Death-Heralds barely had time to react, much like the tail of a severed eel that still wriggles. It didn't matter; the dragon knights' hands were steady. All they needed to do was give the lances a gentle swing.
It didn't require much effort.
Only a quarter of the lance was solid; the dragon knights bore only a quarter of its weight. The remaining portion was remarkably light—and remarkably sharp. A terrifying heat was condensed within the cold light; the dense runes covering the spear's shaft confined the intense heat within a beam less than ten centimeters in diameter. Outside the beam, there was only a faint warmth, but the scorching heat within was enough to instantly melt flesh and blood. As the dragon knight swung his arcane spear, the beam of light split the Deathbird's body in two, as if a butter knife were cutting through butter.
It happened so quickly that it looked as though the Deathbringer had sought its own demise, crashing into the spear and perishing. The beam of light whirled through the air, emitting a buzzing sound like that of a fluorescent lamp, while the Deathbringer's shattered remains fell to the ground. The blood from its wounds had been vaporized by the intense heat, leaving a clean, complete death.
The beam struck the stone form as well. The first hit created a crack; the second widened it; the third shattered it, like a knife piercing through hard candy. A conventional lance would have bent and snapped under such force, but the tip of the magic lance was a pure beam of energy. Even if it failed to destroy the flying stone in a single strike, the wielder would not be knocked off his horse by the recoil.
These exorbitantly priced magical lances were worth every penny. The craftsmen's ingenious design allowed the lances to charge while the dragon riders were in motion, converting kinetic energy into stored magical energy. As long as they fought while moving at high speed, these magical devices had no need to worry about energy depletion.
The Deathbirds were formidable in close combat. In their natural habitat, they hunted in flocks, preying on lone wyverns and griffins; Gargoyle crashes are a headache, having worn down countless weapons in the past. Before these two monsters could close in, they were reduced to shards.
It was those shards, however, that caused some trouble.
The shattered gargoyle exploded, sending debris flying; large fragments retained their momentum and could still knock a dragon knight off balance. The dragon riders swung their lances with all their might, trying to slice the fragments into as many pieces as possible before the gargoyles could collide with them. The shards clattered against the riders' armor like a downpour pounding on a canopy.
Blood spurted suddenly; a dragon rider clutched his wound and fell straight down. At close range, the high-speed stone fragments were as sharp as shrapnel. The dragon knight had been torn open in a vital spot; within minutes, he would bleed to death.
Atlant, the mage archer who had been looking up to target the will-o'-the-wisps, spotted the falling soldier at once. She drew her bow, and a magical arrow radiating cold energy gathered on the string, its tip aimed at the wounded man.
The arrows used to target the ghost flames were basic offensive magic arrows; the one aimed at the falling dragon knight was of a different kind.
The Frost Arrow flew from the bowstring, piercing the dragon knight's shoulder with precision. The wound it created was no larger than a grain of rice, but the icy power attached to it instantly swept over the entire dragon knight, freezing him solid in an instant. The wound, gushing with blood, was sealed in ice; his rapid breathing and heartbeat were frozen; all of the wounded man's physiological functions slowed to a crawl, and Death's footsteps were temporarily held at bay.
A thick layer of magical ice spread outward from the wound, rapidly encasing the entire falling body. The dragoon finally hit the ground; the impact caused the entire ice cocoon to bounce, yet it did not harm the person inside in the slightest. The medical team on the ground was rushing toward the spot where the ice cocoon had landed; before the ice melted away, they would carry the dragoon to a place where he could receive proper treatment.
"Mages, prepare!" Tasa commanded.
Her keen eyes had already spotted something new in that fissure.
Flames lit up the passage between the Abyss and the Material Plane—this time, it wasn't the faint glow of will-o'-the-wisps. A massive horde of four-legged creatures was scrambling to squeeze out, their skin resembling molten lava.
Another old acquaintance from the Ancient Mage's Tower: the Fire Salamanders.
They appeared larger than the guardians in the Mage's Tower, their massive, fiery jaws gaping wide, their scorching mouths blindingly bright. The meat-shield monsters that had fallen earlier had already destroyed most of the thorn forest. The warriors were locked in a chaotic melee on the ground not far from the crash site, and the fighting had reached a fever pitch. The searing flames spewed by the fire salamanders were nothing like the ghostly flames—even with talismans, their breath could have a devastating effect on the warriors in the thick of battle.
This could not be allowed to happen. The fire-extinguishing team was ready. The mages kept their eyes fixed on the landing points of the fire salamanders, spell materials in hand and incantations on the tip of their tongues, prepared to deal with this rain of salamanders. Hordes of fiery red monsters crashed down, as if heavenly fire were falling to earth.
Splat!
A salamander with its gaping maw slams into the ground, flattened into a bloody pancake.
Tasha: "..."
Is this some kind of diabolical strategy?
"New monsters have landed! By visual estimate, dozens of fire salamanders have landed on Eryan. They haven't made a move yet, but we can't let our guard down!" the battlefield reporter announced nervously. "They're twitching slightly… Ah! One has vanished! Do fire salamanders have the ability to turn invisible? Wait, it looks like…?"
The mages stared at the flattened salamander patties as if facing a major threat, clearly clueless as to what was going on. The flame salamanders, squashed flat in various positions, twitched slightly on the ground. A few seconds later, they stopped moving, and their bodies vanished.
It was that kind of vanishing trick demons use when they die.
"Um," the host paused for a moment, "it looks like… they died from the fall?"
Several mages slowly opened their mouths, watching the fire salamanders rain down, each one crashing to the ground like raindrops.
"Fire salamanders can walk through lava, are skilled climbers, and can spew flames hot enough to melt steel. They're often mistaken for a subspecies of fire dragons. But their bodies themselves… aren't exactly built to withstand blows." Victor's tone was slightly nuanced—perhaps a touch of amusement, yet also a desire to defend his old countrymen who'd met a violent end the moment they appeared. "Not every demon is built for durability, after all."
"So why bother with an airborne unit if they can't take a hit?" Tasha watched this cross-dimensional suicide mission with a peculiar expression, as if she were witnessing a grand spectacle of lemmings leaping to their deaths after a long, arduous journey over mountains and valleys—across two planes, no less.
"It's the Abyss Army. How organized and disciplined do you expect them to be? Their only strategy is 'if you can squeeze through, squeeze through now.'" " Victor shrugged. "I remember one year, the portal somehow opened in the Far North. All the will-o'-the-wisps froze to death the moment they stepped out. Now that was a sight to behold."
Tasha felt she understood a little better why the Abyss, with all its cheating abilities, had never managed to conquer the Material Plane.
The teleportation portal was suspended mid-air—how delightful, how absolutely delightful.
This off-topic interlude bought Eryan's garrison a few hours of peace. Several hours later, a new, indestructible species crawled out.
Large swaths of fabric floated in midair. They resembled the cloaks once favored by adventurers—capable of shielding against wind and rain, with hoods that concealed the face, now tattered and ragged from the elements. The newly emerged demons resembled cloaked figures, their hoods so dark that the faces beneath remained hidden.
They appeared mid-air, and as the wind billowed their cloaks, people could clearly see the emptiness beneath—nothing but a swirling black mist. Two skeletal hands emerged from the sleeves; if you got close enough, you'd notice those hands had far more joints than human ones.
—Once you were that close, you could also see that the cloaks were not made of cloth at all, but of tattered, shriveled skin.
That was their bodies themselves.
A rustling whisper came from beneath the hoods, and the multi-jointed hands twisted into gestures impossible for humans to make, as the glow of magic began to brew within them. The lowest-ranking and most numerous spellcasters among the Abyssal Demons began to appear one after another.
These are fiends.
Some have called them Abyssal Mages, a misunderstanding that greatly irritates true mages. A fiend's spellcasting ability lies somewhere between innate spells and active casting; throughout their entire evolutionary stage, they typically know only a single spell. Calling them "Abyssal Mage Apprentices" would be more accurate. At the end of their evolution, depending on their spellcasting tendencies, they may become succubi, mind flayers, reapers, or archdemons. But that is all a matter for the future.
In the Abyss, just as in the Prime Material Plane, spellcasters are quite rare compared to other types of demons. Only one in ten thousand fiends can evolve into an archdemon; for the most part, their spellcasting abilities serve a support role, indistinguishable from the innate magic used by other demons.
At this stage, however, the number of spirit demons far exceeds that of mage apprentices.
Even the simplest spells, when cast in sufficient numbers, can cause immense trouble.
The cloaks drifted downward, appearing weightless, like jellyfish floating in midair. Their casting postures were strikingly similar: their gaunt hands raised high, as if lifting something above their heads.
Fireballs grew from the size of a bowl to that of a casserole dish; lightning arced between their withered hands; ice crystals coalesced in the air; and black spears began to grow from their tails. The four elements—Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Ice Spike, and Dark Spear—were the only spells the spirit demons could cast. When their numbers were sufficient to encompass all four types, the scene became quite spectacular.
Without a command to fire in unison, every prepared spell was cast immediately, raining down in a torrent.
A warrior rolled to dodge a cluster of black spears landing at his feet, while the large imp he was fighting stomped down, only to have half his foot sliced off, causing him to roar in confusion. A bowman, busy taking aim, failed to dodge the blazing fire; his shield absorbed some of the impact, and he hurriedly repositioned himself. A lightning bolt caused a short circuit inside a reconnaissance drone, sending it plummeting to the ground. A shaman who had already activated his protective runes was wounded; he immediately charged at the spirit that had fired the ice spikes.
A barrage of spells… completely off-target and wildly scattered.
Lightning struck the ground, creating a scorched patch less than a meter in diameter. Fireballs crashed into ordinary trees hundreds of meters from the battlefield, their flames slowly licking at the non-fire-resistant vegetation. An ice spike chipped off a corner of a distant building; a war correspondent scrambled to dodge the falling roof. A Dark Spear struck an unfortunate squirrel, which squealed in agony and met its end.
These spells were scattered everywhere; on the one hand, they didn't constitute particularly massive disruptive attacks, and on the other, they were difficult to defend against as a unified threat. The spirits fluttered about like plastic bags in a strong wind, too scattered to be contained. It would clearly be inappropriate to have the professionals shift the battlefield to deal with them.
The rear guard is there precisely to prevent such a scenario.
The core of the battlefield is essentially the domain of the professionals. They fight fiercely once more, pinning down the majority of the monsters within this ring of combat. On the outskirts of the core, an army composed mostly of ordinary people stands ready. They fill in the gaps for the professionals, their sheer numbers forming a massive encirclement that seals off the battlefield completely, protecting the civilian-inhabited area of Eryan on the outside.
There aren't enough magical communication devices to provide one for every soldier, but at least the commander of each unit can use them to communicate with one another. A network of watchtowers and drones monitors the entire battlefield, from the sky to the ground, with the footage converging on floating screens displayed in the command center within the dungeon. In situations that aren't life-or-death, Tashan delegates responsibility to staff officers and commanders at all levels. They can observe every second of the battlefield's evolution, make decisions, issue orders, and witness the results of their deployments in real time.
Tashan's avatar here continues to handle the computational tasks, managing the most complex mechanical records and calculations.
The spells of the demon spirits require no casting materials or complex incantations; they have no teachers or textbooks, and their knowledge is passed down through instinct—the relative trade-off being a limited variety of spells and lengthy preparation times. These low-level demonic spellcasters are not particularly intelligent; they simply cast whatever spell they have prepared, allowing Tasa to record the preparation time for each demon spirit's spell, down to the second. She marked these times at each point of descent; troops approaching those locations could use this data to calculate the absolute safe time for approaching the spirit.
The individual mage devices once discovered in the ruins beneath the capital have not yet been widely distributed throughout all armies, but they have substitutes.
In the past, professionals paid high prices for blessed silverware; a single bottle of holy water could consecrate only one blade. That is no longer the case. Holy water blessed by Priestess Sarro is now incorporated into the weapon-making process, much like the mass production of fire-resistant talismans; the holy water can be maximized on the assembly line. The best steel is reserved for the blade—the striking edge of the weapon receives only a faint touch of this meager yet practical divine attribute. This industrially sanctified steel is used for swords, spears, and battle axes, but it proves most practical for crossbow bolts.
The crossbow itself is blessed with divine power, and every arrow fired from it possesses a faint exorcistic force—not lethal, but capable of temporarily incapacitating low-level demons. Crossbow bolts target enemies at maximum range; once a target is brought down, surrounding soldiers immediately swarm in to deliver the finishing blow.
Flames, lightning, ice, and darkness—these spells flickered across the battlefield like fleeting flowers, often fading away before they could unleash a second wave. Hordes of demon spirits are unstoppable, but they cannot form hordes; scattered demon spirits caused all manner of chaos during past demonic plagues, but when the entire battlefield is under a single commander's control, such chaos is swiftly extinguished in its infancy before it can even take shape.
The Abyss's passageways had limited capacity, forcing the Abyss Legion—skilled in the tactics of the Sea of Demons—to employ a strategy of attrition. To serve as pawns in such a strategy, demons of this caliber were simply not substantial enough.
This was, after all, the home turf of the creatures of Eryan.