Felix had lost the Hierei.

The bastard had put up a smokescreen almost instantly as the command tower fell, vanishing into a burst of light and phosphorescent clouds. Hundreds of godslaves and mortal minions had fallen onto Felix. Killing them all had been simple, but it had given the Hierei time to vanish into the streets.

Felix tracked him now, hunting him by the traces of light magic across the city as he blurred across the rooftops. Those traces, however, were getting harder and harder to track as the cannons had begun firing rampantly all across the city. Bursts of golden radiance inundated the streets, aimed at his people. This frustrated Felix. The Hierei needed to die—they were a threat too big for his people to face alone.

At the top of his next leap, he scanned the rooftops. The traces suggested that Kodal was headed further into the city, which was a blessing. Felix had to head there anyways. Had the man gone anywhere else, he would have been forced to give up.

He didn't have much time left.

As he dropped from the apex of his leap, Felix grimaced. The afternoon sun was muted as heavy clouds rolled through the skies, and crimson lightning skittered across the distance, but it wasn’t weather that concerned him. Screams of rage, fear, and pain filled the air, and Felix was unhappy to say they weren't just from the Hierocracy.

His empire's Manaships had been whittled down to twenty by the enemy, and though they were releasing their own attacks of fire and force on the godslaves and soldiers the enemy fleet was firing right back. Those radiant explosions he’d been seeing were melting the thoroughfares into molten rivers. Hundreds of buildings were already ablaze as if they didn't give a single thought to whether they killed their own in their desperate desire to murder his Legion.

Wait. He flared his Perception. I can't sense anything but monsters and my own people down there. Where was everyone? His Perception found nothing but enemies.

There!

A redcloak flew low through the maze of blue-roofed buildings. Shadows wrapped tightly around them in an effort at stealth. It was enough to miss them at first, but Felix had his sights set now. He ran after, kicking off rooftops with increasing speed. Kodal hunched low on the back of a shadowbeast—some sort of angular bird horror—and the thing was annoyingly fast. It blurred between buildings, moving in a serpentine fashion down alleys and side streets, forcing Felix to reorient constantly to catch it.

Screw this! Adamant Discord!

Lightning burst from his hands as he seized onto the familiar Bond of Enmity. The thickest of it extended into the center of the city—toward the gods—but smaller lines were scattered in every direction. Toward the godslaves. A connection solidified in his hands, the ephemeral blue line turning into a steel-hard bolt of lightning more real than the buildings around him. The angular monstrosity sped up, but the Bond of Enmity couldn't be outrun. He hauled back, launching himself forward in the same motion that shredded its shadowflesh to pulp.

Felix hated hard enough to kill.

You Have Killed A Shadowbeast!

XP Earned!

Kodal fell with a startled yelp, tumbling from the sky as Felix rushed behind him, kicking at panels of hardened air to thrust himself forward—only to see the Hierei caught by another shadowbeast that swooped low to grasp him in its talons.

Felix snarled and flared Adamant Discord once more, hurling himself ahead, but a blaze of light burst against him. His vision was engulfed, but his connection couldn’t be fooled so easily.

“You won’t lose me like that!” Felix howled as Kodal shot off. Yet before he could catch up, two figures swooped at him, Skills flashing.

Felix was tackled to the side, tumbling through the walls of a tenement. A dark shadowbeast that resembled a bat clung to him, stabbing at his side with some sort of barbed tail. Felix kicked at it as he tumbled, hurling it through a window before smashing through a lath and plaster wall.

What the hell?

He reoriented in the air, catching himself with a bolt of lightning in his off-hand, as two figures rose to confront him.

Both were commanders—folks he recalled standing at the Hierei’s side. The one riding the scorpion-tailed bat was clad in slick black armor and held a spear in his hands. The other was mounted on a lumpy Sporefly and was clad in bronze platemail that roiled with a sickening aura. Unseen Beholder identified them as Commander Fink and Sar, respectively.

“Death to the Fiend!” Sar shouted, his voice booming hard enough to shake stone from the buildings around them.

Finks didn’t speak, he merely vanished—only to reappear inches away from Felix, the bat’s scorpion tail stabbing at him once again. He threw up his hand to swat it away, but the shadowbeast screeched, and the sound pierced his senses hard enough to send Felix reeling. His Affinity shook, ringing in his ears hard enough that his sense of direction went haywire.

You Have Been Inflicted With A Status Condition!

Status Condition: Disorientation (Severe)!

Duration: 1 Minute

Felix's head buzzed just as Sar buzzed by, burping up a cloud of noxious fumes that dropped on him like a fog cloud.

You Have Been Inflicted With A Status Condition!

Status Condition: Flesh Rot (Severe)!

Flesh Rot Has Been Resisted!

Sovereign Of Flesh Makes You Immune!

Felix’s senses spun, that horrible sound still ringing through his ears, throwing off his coordination. Doesn’t matter. All he had to do was kill the bastard.

“You will fall before you touch the Hierei!” Finks cried. The commander's mount attacked, latching onto Felix as its scorpion stinger jutted towards his belly, and Finks thrust out his spear.

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Felix kicked back, dropping Adamant Discord and putting a barrier between him and the bat before bouncing off the building behind him. He shot forward, vaulting over the shadowbeast and snatching the spear from the hands of the commander and snapping it in the same motion.

“Heathen!” Darkness exploded from Fink’s mouth like foul breath, hiding him in a sphere of perfect shadow.

You Have Been Inflicted With A Status Condition!

Status Condition: Blindness (Severe)!

Disoriented and blind, the commander no doubt thought that Felix was a prime target. The man attacked, striking out with a pair of daggers that glowed with crimson lightning.

Stride of the King is level 139!

Felix parried, slapping the blades aside. He didn't need to see to fight. He thrust his scaled fist in a sharp jab and Commander Fink blew backward, a grapefruit sized hole in his chest. He fell back, off the shadowbeast and into the sky.

You Have Killed Commander Fink, Blessed By Noctis!

XP Earned!

The shadow of darkness faded, and the bat beneath him died as Felix drove a heel through its skull.

"You monster!"

Sar dropped down atop the Sporefly, his mount spitting streams of noxious acid. Felix redirected the acid itself, shaping it around himself to drop onto the city below before seizing bolts of lightning in his hands.

Adamant Discord!

Hate flowed through Felix’s veins, singing bright and red in his Mind as he grasped the bonds before him…and ripped the Sporefly out from under Sar. The man fell screaming, and Felix shaped fire into the mount, flooding its fetid body until every bit of the spores inside its rotted flesh were turned to ash.

“You will not kill me so easily!"

Commander Sar had arrested his fall, his forearm having exploded into rotten roots that clung to the buildings around him, holding him in place like putrid net. They flexed as Felix watched before launching the commander back up, a heavy falchion in his hand.

"You want to fight with swords?" Felix unsheathed Inheritor's Will. "Fine!"

He slashed down as the commander rose. The man's scream became a wet gurgle as his Body was bisected, his armor screeching as Crescian Bronze turned its paltry metal into scrap.

You Have Killed Commander Sar, Blessed By Yyero!

XP Earned!

Felix turned, Status Conditions fading, and hunted for the Hierei, but the commanders’ distraction had worked. Kodal had gotten away.

“Shit.” A thousand feet away, the slimy Hierei was slipping into a line of Manaships that had been assembling around the center of the city. Felix watched the angular shadowbeast land at the deck of the largest galleon, heavy with gilded scrollwork and several massive Manacannons on its deck. Hundreds of the ships were lined up beside it, with more arriving by the second.

Beyond them were open parks, sprawling mansions, and a tall hill crowned by the Shining Palace itself—with En’Cridhe at the very center.

Felix let himself down onto a rooftop and cursed. The enemy ships had gathered around the center of the city from the rooftops to hundreds of feet into the sky. They were creating a net of corsairs and galleons, all laden with cannons. From the way they dropped their explosive ordnance, it was clear that they were intent on blocking everyone from getting closer. He scanned the skies. His own dwindling fleet was staying away, harried by the galleons that had yet to join the blockade.

Felix gritted his teeth. Things weren't going as well as he'd hoped. Too many were dying. They'd known that would happen going in, but the reality of it weighed on his conscience. A mountain that threatened to crush him.

Lightning flared around his hand, but he did not rise upon it. Felix’s eyes burned as he considered his options. He could charge through, but it wouldn't solve the issue for his army. The fleet was in danger, and the troops below were going to die unless he did more. But what?

He had options. Shaping magic was versatile in that way, not to mention his Empyrean Embrace and physical Strength. He could take on the blockade. Clearly they were trying to prevent them from penetrating further into the city, and his job was to get there while removing the big threats his people couldn't handle.

Could they handle the Hierocratic fleet alone, though?

More importantly, if Felix took on the whole fleet, how fit would he be to fight on the other side? The Vessels still hadn't shown up, and that unnerved him more than anything.

What are they planning?

A deep cry in his Spirit alerted him to company. Felix looked up, releasing his hold on Adamant Discord as Pit descended from the sky, followed by a slew of Guardian Beasts and their Dragoon allies. Thalgrym, Scylla, and a few other Chimera he'd met before landed on the rooftops around him. Armored Sylphaens and Korvaa were mounted on the Chimeras’ backs, but the vast majority were Dragoons. Knight Defenders of Pax’Vrell and sworn to Felix. They saluted as they landed.

"Felix," Pit said, "the Champion of Noctis is dead, and I saw Evie chasing down the big wolf of the Twins. All we got left are those ships and all these flying bugs."

"The shadow proliferates in the light," Scylla agreed. "They are weak, however."

Thalgrym nodded his feathered head. His lizard snout creased with a grimace as he stared into the sky. Vess' father, Roland, was on his back, and the man was grim, his armor covered in multi-hued ichor.

"Weak or not, the skies are still contested," Chancellor Roland said. "Guardians and the Dragoons are exhausting themselves, but the godslaves keep repopulating. Where are their makers?"

"They’ve refused to show up," Felix said before pointing, "but they'll have to once I cross that."

They all looked to the blockade where the fleet congregated.

"Then we must take it down," Thalgrym rumbled. A roar of ascent rattled through the Chimeras around the rooftops and those still circling in the skies.

"What do you need us to do, Your Highness?" Roland asked.

"I need you to take down those ships. I need to get to En’Cridhe." He looked to Thalgrym, Pit, and Roland. “Can you all take on the fleet?"

"Are you kidding?" Pit huffed a laugh. "I'll get that half," he said, gesturing with a paw to the right. "You guys get the rest."

Felix patted his friend on the shoulder. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"Pit is a mighty fighter," Scylla said with a growl. "He can handle them. And if I am at his side, he will."

Felix raised his eyebrows before nodding. "All right, then."

"The princess is beyond that blockade?" Thalgrym asked, his deep voice rattling the tiles.

Felix glanced at the wyvern. "She is. That's where I'm headed."

"Then we shall lead the way, then. Guardian Beasts!" The Chimera circling in the sky drew closer, and many of them found a perch on the crumbling buildings. Wyverns, tenku, Sylphaen, Korvaa, and armored Dragoons all leaned into Thalgrym's words.

"The gods stole away our princess, just as they stole away our lives in ancient Ages past. Just as they'll do again, unless we stop them here."

Felix stared at the assembled warriors, and despite the chaos of battle around them, their Spirits were as clear to him as if he stood inside their heads. Fear and pain were there, but it was smothered out by anger and pride, and most surprisingly of all, love.

"I know some of you do not fight for our Princess Ondine. I know some of you do not know the wonder of her mercy, what she has done for us. How she saved us. But we are all of us here, standing for our homes. Euphonia, Pax'Vrell, and Elderthrone alike."

A cheer went up, rivaling the din of exploding cannons.

"Through blood and storm, we fly now into the waiting ranks of our enemies! What shall we give them?"

"Death!"

The sound was a roar, and for a moment it was all Felix could hear.