The Power of Ten, Book Five: Versatile Wizardry

The Undead Netherlord was relying on Its superior tanking ability and ability to do physical damage to me to endure this fight, while Ilah bombarded and hampered me from afar. With the Lord of Light handling the magic end of things, the Undead Lord thought It didn’t have to expend Mana on anything but defense, and It would be able to tank what I was sending on It.

I rather rudely surprised both of them, I supposed.

My Mastery of Force Magic didn’t care for their size. Realm-tier spells could smash aside mountains, who cared about them being a thousand feet tall? The Undead Lord was getting beaten around as I unloaded on it, Fusing Spellflares to Greater Shards and blowing up its defenses as I pummeled It and sent It flying about.

Illah and His mighty Book weren’t doing any better, eating Spellflare after Spellflare Himself and getting blasted tumbling as He did so, His spells blowing up in His face to His great dismay while repeated Blasting Spell fallout sent Him flying.

Despite being two hundred times larger than me, they couldn’t move any faster than I could, and being so much smaller made me a whole lot harder to target. That didn’t mean they weren’t moving incredibly fast, as they were, but when they had so much ground to cover with their blows it just gave me lots and lots of time to avoid them.

The Titan Fighting Feat taking my base +5 Dodge bonuses and multiplying them by x5 for the size differential didn’t help their chances of hitting me, either.

A Paired Crown of Stars came blazing up around me, actually making a Holo of me as tall as them, a hundred blindingly brilliant Stars blazing about it, although they didn’t match the deadly seriousness of the Greater Shards that had been manifesting like razored comets come to hunt them down and demanded all their attention and Mana to endure.

The Crowns collapsed down into two stacked dazzling Orbs of unbelievable power, and promptly flowed out into shining Rays of transcendent power... which immediately struck a force prism, split, and became two identical Rays each. Four such Rays zeroed right in on their target, and the two abruptly realized we were at the boundary of the Isolation Barrier, and atop a Node!

The Crownrays tore apart the Node with dreadfully focused annihilating Force energy, the attached Dispel shredding the whole spell and Blooding making sure it couldn’t regenerate itself at all.

The Holoform reflected my smirk at them, the burning Silver eyes of my Mask making sure they knew I knew they couldn’t take the time to fix any of the damage they’d done to the Isolation Barrier.

And they finally recognized me.

“THE HEALER FAE!” the Lord of the Undead blurted out in astonishment. “YOU ARE A REALM LORD?!”

“No,” was all I replied, and It screamed as Shards exploded over It again... but this time It grit Its jagged teeth and shot out countless sprays of bone to intercept the second volley of Shards, coming in behind them with a hundred extra arms to flail at me and fill the air about me with massive claws, any of which would cut me in two.

Or so It thought.

My Wings were out, and I flitted about It with ease, Its space-filling attack full of holes and the many limbs constrained by one another in how they could move, making them easy to predict.

Ilah promptly wove a binding spell about the two of us while I was zipping around dodging the Undead Lord’s attacks, which was clever of Him. A circle in one dimension, two, and three...

The Binding Circle energized, and my link to the Projected Image was severed, leaving the Undead Lord alone in the sphere crackling with energy, with nothing to attack.

It could not help turning on the Lord of Light immediately, and there was a significant pause in the fighting as the Lord of Light now had to make the choice of securing such an absolute advantage over His Netherlord rival, or continuing with their earlier agreement.

Oh, what a choice to make. Double rings of a Paired Crown of Stars exploded into existence around my head again, and I shot off in a new direction.

Ilah cursed something truly terrible, and wrenched at His own magic, breaking the Binding and eating the feedback as He did so.

Then the Delayed Spellflare hit the magic anyways. This time both of them screamed in unison as the powerful spell fully detonated around the two of them, and Ilah ended up being damaged by His own spell twice.

I was thoughtful that way.

Staggering from the shock and impacts, the two nevertheless roared into pursuit of me, my target clear and obvious.

I imagined they had bad feelings about their ability to actually stop me. Which was good. Every second they weren’t fighting me I was recovering my strength, and when I didn’t have to crash their Nodes, I could apply more attention directly to them.

They weren’t going to like that when I did so.

The Beastlord and Lord of Demons were battling away out there in the Aether, multi-Element spell effects crashing into one another as enhanced physical attacks beat at one another, claws and fangs against hooves and horn. The Beastlord wasn’t coming up short at all, much to the surprise of the Demon Lord.

That, and wounds from natural weapons Burning vivic just kept Burning on the Demon Lord unless He took the time to beat them out.

The other Realm Lords were still pressing at the Veil, their Presences behind their troops keeping the Realm Gates open in spite of the resistance, trying to press forward themselves and finding that deucedly hard to do.

Good, just buying time...

------

I wasn’t the only Eternal Heartsinger on the planet, I was just the one everybody knew about.

Today, they learned there was another one, as the Trembling Song raged out around the world, carried on the Thunder Element and screaming out of every speaker system and rolling storm, every breath of Wind and crack of Lightning on the whole planet.

It wasn’t a glorious harmony of Elements rising and falling in magical resonance, gifting every mage with increased magical power and surety. Sama Rantha was not a spellcaster, and so the power of the Sublime Chord was not open to her.

But the foundation Heartsong, that was totally hers, and what she was using it for was war!

The pure uncompromising fury and determination in her voice wasn’t there to raise awe and wonder. It was there to spit in the face of annihilation and fight!

Fight with every single damn thing you had, and screw these bastards trying to make you afraid!

The trembling in the Manafield at the colossal amounts of magic being unleashed there at the bottom of the world could be felt by every mage alive. Magitech was glitching and faltering at the disruptions in the flow of power, meaning lights were blinking, cars stopping and starting, and the technology of the human world was basically fritzing badly.

But her voice was totally capable of seizing the hearts of everything listening, and there were a great many beings listening to her, indeed.

She even gave them a refrain to sing along with.

“Tremble!

Tremble! We come!

You came for our souls, thinking we are prey,

Now quaver and learn you are here to pray

For Mercy, the Mother gives you none!

For Hope, you can Burn in Aru’s sun!

For Glory, eat Mithar’s Sword!

For Conquest, meet Thunder’s Lord!

Tremble! The World Rises!

Tremble! Mortal Hearts and Mortal Wills!

Tremble! We come FOR YOU!

Tremble, WE COME!”

The world couldn’t sing to the Sublime Chord, but they could damn well sing to the Trembling Song!

And they did!

And every single voice rising to join in the defiance of that voice, dripping such raw determination that the greatest of Beasts could not help but bow to its valor and fervor, was doing one thing more.

They were praying, for Aru’s and Mithar’s names were in that Song, and Amana the Mother and Valus the Thunder Knight were both attached!

The Faith of free-willed mortals could move mountains, and even in this godless realm, could be used to increase the power and abilities of mages and Great Beasts alike. As the voices rose, the Thunder Element thrummed across the world and brought their words and beliefs where it was needed.

The Trembling Song rang across the crazy battlefield, now overwhelmed by such chaotic Elemental and otherworldly power, and despite everything going on, the battle changed.

The Dark and Light forces were, generally speaking, arrayed there against one another and not the mortals, and there the fighting was the craziest, space tearing and healing as the hordes of the Netherworld tore into the shining legions of Nirvana, unceasing rage and hatred of life against perfect discipline and precise power.

Still, their baselines were engaging the living, even as the living were helping drive the two forces together. There where the three-fold slaughter was hardest, the outworlders were learning some terrible lessons about mortal magic.

The Ice Emperor’s full force was on this battlefield, and the cold was enough to freeze breath into ice the moment it left the mouth. Even the undead and creatures of Light couldn’t ignore the chill, but it hampered the mortal beings there not at all. Instead, it reinvigorated them, as if they all stood in the ideal Element they needed to thrive.

And beneath every stanza and refrain of that Song, was something else.

A Beat, a tireless pounding, of metal on metal, as relentless and inexorable as time, carrying and uniting that Song, and more.

It carried the will of a Warlord on wings both Psychic and Sound, and it encompassed this entire force in a whirlwind and deadly dance of magic and metal, claw and fang, bestial rage and coldly disciplined Casting, one the invaders were taking the worst of.

It was a secondary Song, one wrought of the clamor of crashing bodies and screams of battle, a display of synchronized magic falling upon where it was needed most, of shifting lines and charges executed with speed and belief, of wounded shuttled behind to where The Moon and The Stars were Coming Down in a dance of revitalization and Healing, of lines that became collapsing traps, of charges that overran and evaporated with equal speed, and defenses that stacked up with murderous speed and effectiveness.

The symphony of war had its own conductor today, and was being played by a master!