Undine Grace is at level 99!

Evie twisted away from the strike of the Shadow Leech, its circular row of razor-sharp teeth snapping a fingerspan away from her outstretched leg. She kicked at it, the mass of her chain fed into her heel, and it’s blind head split wide open.

You Have Killed A Shadow Leech!

XP Earned!

The monster’s flesh evaporated into a gale of acrid smoke, revealing ichor-slicked cobbles…and the horde of its kin. Innumerable shadowbeasts crowded the giants and Nagafolk alike, harrying them with natural weapons twisted into cruel mockeries. Worst of all, the Leeches clung to her dead comrades, mouths working as their bodies pulsed. Feeding.

"Bonds of Dominion!"

Rage spilled through her Spirit, a cold gale that roared through her Skill. Evie spun her chain around herself, flinging it into complicated patterns across her arms and shoulder, before snapping it off her armored knee. The chain launched forward, its momentum multiplied by the thrum of her stats and Skill.

"Tooth and Claw!" Blades sprung from their edges, tearing through the Shadow Leeches one after the other, splitting their slick flesh into rapidly evaporating smoke.

You Have Killed A Shadow Leech (x6)!

XP Earned!

She reached out, helping a giant to their feet as the others gathered up around her, nursing their wounds and weapons in equal measure.

"Elixirs!" Captain Loquis said, and the injured slung back brilliantly glowing vials. Their Health replenished, regenerating many of their wounds, but their Stamina wasn’t so easy to keep topped off. “Rest a moment. Those that still hold a few Stamina Potions, save them for the retreat.”

"Blighted Night," Evie whispered to herself. More than a few of the Risi around them hadn’t stood back up at all. They were unmoving lumps of blue skin and black iron, their massive frames stark against the dark scales of the Nagafolk. They had suffered even more.

“What do we do?” Loquis said, low enough only her Adept ears could pick it up. “The godslaves are hemming us in, and those ships are getting closer.”

Evie wasn’t entirely sure. They’d lost the advancing edge of their army when they’d chased down the Champion, and the attack by the Manaships had split her forces up into a dozen bands. Now, no matter how many streets full of monsters they obliterated, she felt no closer to their goal than when they’d started. “Don’t you have a tracking spell or something? Can’t you find the Chanters?”

“That’s not my specialty.”

“Well it’s not mine neither,” she snapped back. “Where’s that tenku when he’s useful! Ari! We need the Hounds!”

Whatever the Battlelord said was lost in a familiar keening wail. Evie moved before she could think.

“Get back!” She tackled a Naga Warrior into an alcove as a golden beam thundered into the streets where they stood.

How’d that ship sneak up on us?

Its cannon tore into the cobbles, ripping them up and drowning the rest in golden radiance. Her people ran for cover, narrowly avoiding the cannon fire.

But not all. Hundreds perished, their screams boiled in their lungs before they could utter them.

“Chains of the Protector!”

A twenty-span wide shield made of ice-blue chains manifested before her and her people. They immediately turned white hot as the Manacannon brushed against it. Evie screamed, her hands searing until her core space marshaled.

“Rimefang’s Wrath! Bindings of the White Waste!”

Blessedly cool ice coated her fists, though it fought hard to remain a solid beneath the incredible heat. The shield pushed back. New white chains joined the gauntlets though, wrapping tight around her up to the elbow, and locking her into place.

Chains of the Protector is level 58!

Rimefangs Wrath is level 92!

Bindings of the White Waste is level 97!

Cannonfire rolled over them—but she stopped it. Barely.

Chains of the Protector is level 59!

Rimefangs Wrath is level 93!

Bindings of the White Waste is level 98!

Rock and jagged metal were hurled upward, clashing against the ship’s hull with the Strength of frenzied Berserkers. The ship pulled back, rising beyond the reach of their attacks, and the cannon tapered off.The beam vanished all at once, leaving spots across Evie’s vision, but that didn’t prevent her from witnessing the devastation. The road and several buildings were melted into slag, the edges rapidly cooling white the rest flowed into a riven of molten stone.

She looked up.

“Frostfather’s beard,” a giant hissed.

The ship, now out of their range, was aiming four more cannons at them.

"Get behind us!"

Evie blinked, surprised to see Tzfell the Dwarven Chanter on the back of a wagon-sized construct that floated on the other side of the broken road. At least thirty that she could see, all of them modified with Beef’s chitin and packed with Chanters, they were like miniature fortresses. The spades!

"Get movin’!" Evie shouted. "Everyone to the spades, now!"

She didn’t question, but leaped across the melted street and landed among several other spades that drew closer, their tall towers of chitin rising above the flattened residential ruins. Her people followed, giants and Nagafolk crossing the gap with relative ease, and none too soon.

Taken from NovelBin, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The keening whine crescendoed.

“Get down!”

Evie lifted her hands to summon her shield Skill again, but Tzfell held her forearm. “Save your strength. Laur has this.”

All at once, a powerful chorus filled the air. It soared over the Manacannon’s fire, blunting it’s threat even as golden light jabbed at Evie’s vision. Seated at the top of the nearest spade, Laur’s agile Elven fingers wove eldritch patterns in the air above him, and the Chanters’ voices turned to bright harmonies.

The Hierocracy fired.

Golden light splashed off of a condensed web of shielding and Laur grunted in pain. The half-dome shape of the wards became fully visible, driving to flash orange and red as golden radiance pushed them to the edge of failure. Yet the cannons couldn’t fire forever. When they faded, the shielding held.

“Right as rain,” Laur said through a wince. He gestured to the Manaship above them. Their cannons were glowing hot. “It won’t be long before they can fire again. We must move. Quickly.”

“One problem with that.” Loquis pointed at the end of the street, the only non-melted pathway they had to escape. The buildings around them had collapsed into smoldering messes under that last barrage of cannon fire, and debris had rolled into the spades' path out.

Battlelord Ari and his people crowded close. “Then we will handle it.”

Garox, the Spirit Naga leading the Naga Warriors slithered to the fore. “As shall we.”

Another Chanter tilted their head curiously before jolting. “Godslaves are on the other side. At least a hundred and more coming fast!”

Evie grinned. “Ari! Garox! Start hurlin’!”

With roars of rage and hisses, her soldiers heaved the massive boulders from their path and sent them flying—right into the godslaved minions that had tried crawling over it. Ichor splattered, and notifications started flying as masonry claimed hundreds of lives at once.

“They’re coming from the east!” Loquis thrust two fingers into the sky. “Fulmination!”

Lightning splattered three bat-winged beasts, but hundreds more were descending from the fires around them. Evie unlimbered her chains, but was uncertain who to target. They were boxed in, and the ship was begining to glow again.

"Cover our flanks, please. We shall handle the godslaves ahead." Tzfell told her. "Fire!"

The flash of light made Evie cover her eyes. Damn Mana weapons!

Ballistas, hidden within the armored towers, loosed on the shadowbeast laden rubble. A pulse of five, blue bolts of force smashed through the monsters and into the debris, obliterating the way ahead. Evie wouldn't have been surprised to hear that the Chanters' strange harmonies were enhancing their effects too. The godslaved minions surged to fill the gap.

“Fire!”

A second volley of force ballistas tore into them as well, and this time it was accompanied by pulsating fire from a secondary street. What looked like twenty more spades cruised across the charred cobbles on cushions of air, their ballistas firing into the shadowbeasts’ flanks.

The calvary had arrived.

"Clear the sides!" Evie commanded. "Stick close to the spades but keep those legs shufflin’ forward!"

Battlelord Ari repeated the command, and his giants set about crushing any godslaves that rushed down side streets. Enemies fell by the hundreds, as entire buildings were blown away by repeated cannon fire that sought them out. Laur’s shield’s held, and were all the stronger when the second fleet of spades joined their advance.

"I don't like hiding behind these creations," Ari said over the din of battle.

"Would you rather die, big man?”

“It is honorable to die in battle.”

Evie snorted. "Save it for when you're not guardin’ my back, yeah?"

Ari grunted in assent, hefting his blood-red club and shattering the jaw of a Gilled Wolf covered in mushrooms. The enemies didn’t stop, but with the spades to clear the way, their speed increased incredibly. Already they’d outpaced the Manaship’s cannonfire, as it ran into heavy opposition from their allies in the skies, and every turn brought them into contact with more giants and Nagafolk that had gotten separated. Her army swelled, and they slaughtered the Fungal Abominations and Shadow Leeches that dared attack, splattering them against the streets.

Evie couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up. They were finally making headway. She slashed her chains through four enemies—she didn’t bother tracking what kind—and leaped over their smoking corpses. They were coming upon the center of the city, where the real fight was happening. She glanced up. The skies were on fire with discharging Skills and bloody lightning.

"We need to get to the palace,” she shouted at Tzfell in her armored tower. “That's where it's all going down.”

"The battle is happening everywhere," Loquis argued.

"The good stuff is there, and we're missin’ out!”

“These streets are a maze. We've been turned around several times by those cannons," Tzfell said.

"You’ve cleared the way, so I’ll do the leadin’,” Evie said, before leaping straight up onto a blue-tiled roof. Immediately, she spotted the cluster of chaos. “There! Due east!”

With soft, slow steps, Hierei Kellis Faer descended into the lower levels of En'Cridhe. The booming sound of battle was distant here, yet his Grandmaster ears could still pick out the chaos. It was so close—just beyond the palace’s barrier—and while it was calm in the halls, it was a nervous sort of quiet. The Inquisitors and Paladins he passed saluted him, but their eyes betrayed them as much as their Spirits. They knew something was coming.

For his part, Kellis Faer was struggling to keep his composure. His friends and allies were undoubtedly in trouble, hurt in the battle happening outside the walls. It wasn’t the first battle they’d fought while he remained safe behind enemy lines—such was the life of a spy, and his entrenchment in the Hierocracy was far deeper than most. For many long decades, Kellis had spied on the Hierophant, feeding information to the Cantus Sodalus in order to save as many as possible. Preserving life was always his mission.

One task remains.

He approached a door deep in the bowels of En'Cridhe. Kellis had long since mapped out the important places within the Shining Palace, but this was a bit of a blank space in his knowledge. He’d never managed to enter it in the past, though he was aware of what it held. He also knew that the door was reinforced with orichalcum and inscribed with enough sigaldry to burn a village to the ground. A contingent of guards kept the room safe at all times, and, as expected, the contingent had been tripled.

A dozen Inquisitors, ten Paladins, and four members of the High Guard were standing at ease around the reinforced door. Every single one of them still bore the true armor of the Pathless faith, whether that was the white-enamel of the Inquisitors or the crimson plate of the Paladins. They had not shed their allegiances with the Pathless' death, and for that, Kellis Faer could respect them. These were true believers.

Kellis cosidered himself the same. He firmly believed in the light of Order and Strength, if not the drivel about Purity. In another time, perhaps the faith could have done a great good on the Continent…but that was not to be. The Hierophant had crossed a line into madness a long, long time ago.

"Hierei Faer," one of the High Guard said. They stepped forward as Kellis drew closer, and the Inquisitors and Paladins saluted. "You should not be down here. The Hierophant has ordered us to keep everyone away from this place."

“Even the Hierei?”

The man smirked. “Everyone.”

Kellis Faer sighed. “It was to be expected.”

“What?”

“Rising Sun: Order From Chaos.”

The hallway imploded.

Golden radianced filled every span, forcing itself through armor and into the wards with a concussive burst. Fire followed, racing across flesh and floor, devouring the Inquisitors and Paladins in a single flash, leaving only char behind. The High Guards themselves fell back, the wardings in their high Tier armor whining from overstress.

They didn’t ask useless questions. They drew their weapons and attacked.

Kellis Faer met them, light for light.