Mountain of the Immortals

The dragon heads roared and everything seemed to stop for a moment.

It was as if they had made time freeze for a second, only for everything to return to life when they launched a series of devastating attacks against our enemies. Not only were their necks long enough to extend outside of the dome, but they also seemed to be impervious to damage.

When one of the puny defenders was foolish enough to strike them, sparks flew from their golden skin, but otherwise left no scratch. Half of them extended their necks to bite enemies with their humongous fangs or gore them with their shiny horns while the rest breathed down a rush of golden energy on the titanic golems.

I wasn’t sure what kind of element their attacks used but it had devastating effects on anything it touched. At first their breath sat on top its target like a coat of golden paint before melting it away. Rather than turning to liquid, it seemed to completely disintegrate what it touched, without leaving the slightest proof that it had ever existed.

Not only that, but their attacks were intelligent. Within the next few minutes, the dragon heads were able to effectively cut off six of the siege constructs’ arms, leaving two of them completely devoid of any upper limbs. The only bad thing about that was that the limbs landed on us with their whole weight.

Our warriors shouted in celebration at the sight of such immense creatures being torn to pieces right in front of their eyes but only I could see that things were not exactly as bright as they looked. Those six cut limbs hitting the dome had caused us to lose another sixty billion MP, leaving us with less than one hundred and forty.

The enemy warriors still on those arms had either been crushed beneath them or were too injured to continue fighting. But even so, there was no end to the fight in sight, and we were running dangerously low on MP. We needed to somehow switch off each and every colossus.

The deployment of more troops was slowed down by their missing limbs, but they were still able to strike at the barrier with their bodies. As good as the dragon heads were at eliminating anything that came close to us, they hadn’t been able to take down these walking mountains.

But my father's generals were not fools. They knew that a defensive skill this powerful would obliterate them if they stayed there long enough, which was why all four of them pulled back almost simultaneously.

The one hundred dragon heads, unable to cover the ever-increasing distance between them and the gigantic golems, now focused their efforts on the fodder troops that now covered the dome like amorphous clumps of cloud. They were striking our dome with everything they had. Many of them were using C-grade equipment and were organized in parties, while the monsters that joined them were above level forty.

But in the unending wrath of the dragon ghost protectors, they were nothing but a single strike with their horns, one bite with their massive jaws, or a burst of their magical breath weapon away from total annihilation. Within the next couple of minutes, all of our enemies had been destroyed and our MP pool started to grow again at the same rate it had before the attack.

Long golden necks moved sluggishly through the air, provoking the golems to come closer so they’d be able to destroy them. The first one that stepped forward would feel the wrath of the hundred-headed dragon in its entirety. All we needed was for the golems to get closer.

But none of them did.

Our warriors cheered and celebrated what looked like a definitive win against the first wave of attackers. And from the top of the mountain, seeing that the enemy numbers had dwindled significantly, it was natural for them to think that this might be the end of the battle.

"Are they waiting for the dragons to retreat?" Ares asked in the guild chat.

"They are," I said. "And once they do, we won't be able to destroy those giants anymore. Not unless we somehow weed out the generals controlling them."

"Let's deal with that situation if we reach that point," Ares replied. "At the moment, let's focus on pulling them. Or maybe pushing them toward us."

"You got something in mind?" Artemis asked. I could see she was the only one with enough reach to still hit our enemies.

"Since I joined your guild, I’ve seen an uptick in followers as well," he replied. "So naturally, I got an upgrade to my divine skills too."

* * *

Name: Rain of Swords

Level: 3 (Maximum)

Type: Active - Divine

HP Consumed: 0

MP Consumed: 150

DP Consumed: 1+

Power: 52,000

Range: 14,000ft.

Precondition: The skill is only usable in outdoor environments or indoor places where the height is larger than 100ft.

Description: There is nothing more terrifying than staring into the cruel face of war as it swipes away centuries of civilization in mere moments. The terrible divine power of Ares, the god of war, materializes 1,000,000 swords in the air, which fall with great force and impale everything they come crashing down on. Friends and foes alike are damaged by this attack if they are in the area of effect selected by Ares. This divine skill can use more DP to inflict even more damage. Each additional DP doubles the amount of swords used. Upon consuming the whole DP pool, each weapon gains an explosive attribute.

* * *

"How many DP do you have?” I asked.

"Seven is my full pool," he replied. "I can send sixty-four million exploding blades at them. But I get to pick the direction they come from."

"You mean you could push the golem toward us?" I said, a hint of satisfaction in my voice.

"Precisely."

"Can you split the rain of swords?" Aphrodite asked. "Could you make them come from multiple angles so that all four of them are hit?"

"I can't," Ares replied, "but I think I’ve got enough to strike at two of them. It's either hit one with a hundred percent chance of pushing it forward, or risk it with two."

"I think I’ve got something that might help as well,” I said, pushing one my own divine skills for them to inspect.

* * *

Name: Master of Storms

Level: Divine Skill

Type: Active

HP Consumed: 0

MP Consumed: 0

DP Consumed: 1

Power: n/a

Range: 7000 inches

Precondition: None

Description: The divine domain of Zeus, supreme monster slayer and master of Mount Olympus, covers all aspects of thunderstorms. This includes manipulation of electricity, winds, clouds, and rainfall. Zeus is able to control all of these elements with a single thought or command them to act in a certain way for 4 hours without expending any concentration or MP.

* * *

"You could direct the blades with your wind to make sure I hit both of them?" Ares asked.

"Exactly. I might not be able to make your blades travel all the way around our town to hit all four, but I can help make sure they cause maximum damage to the two you're targeting."

"Do you have a preference for which ones I should target?" Ares asked.

"What about the two that still have their arms attached?"

"The one in front of me has had both cut off, but the one to my right still has one left," he replied.

I’d forgotten that he didn’t have access to the siege view and thus couldn’t know what was happening on the battlefield as a whole. I made sure I knew exactly where he was so that I could direct him.

"Move toward the one with the arm," I said, "and then some more. Target your skill between those two and some distance behind them. My winds will carry them exactly where they need to go."

I watched Ares sprint across the wall and in less than a minute he had reached the point I’d given him.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Do it," I said, as I activated my skill.

Our enemies were on top of the golems, watching us with anticipation. Their attack had seemingly had no effect on us at all and that was bound to affect their already low morale. When I checked them through the siege view, my suspicions were confirmed.

* * *

Unit Name: Halberdier Unit C

Fighters: 31/40

Average Level: 41

Morale: Bad

* * *

Looking at a few other units, I saw they were in a similar or worse state in terms of their morale. They hadn’t been able to leave a single scratch on our town, walls, or barrier, which must only have made them feel worse. Especially since this probably wasn’t a war they believed in, but one they’d been forced into by my father and his generals—who, in turn, had been forced to obey him.

The winds from my Master of Storms divine skill now picked up, carrying with them dirt from the golems and the occasional small monster who’d been standing on a ledge or was otherwise unprepared. None of our enemies looked too worried about the winds coming at them, since there was no hurricane that would ever be able to pick the golem apart.

They were alarmed, however, when a series of pitch-black clouds formed behind them. They all knew that they were going up against the god of thunder and had probably been prepared for thunder and lightning. These clouds looked like thunderclouds in shape, but they were much, much darker.

So dark in fact that they resembled large, three-dimensional holes in the sky. And of course that was exactly what they were.

Whatever devices the troops on the golems had taken out to protect themselves against thunder and lightning would be completely useless when the exploding swords fired at them.