AO 4 Ch 23

Emlyn ripped her sword out of the charred corrupted, only to backhand another. Her hand never connected, as lightning poured out and struck the corrupted for her, causing him to convulse.

Lightning seared black marks across its chest, only for them to heal as quickly as they were being made.

"At least they aren’t making it too easy," she chuckled, feeling like she was the eye of a storm.

That giant push on metal that Ard had just done had opened his wolf-spheres fully. This meant the same amount of magic he had used to push all of that metal was also produced in lightning magic, which had then been shoved straight into Emlyn. She was sparking as little curious jags of lightning branched off of her, looking for some way to ground.

The corrupted she had just shocked was inching forward, jittering as it struggled to move, despite its muscles being locked up with lightning. The thing was resilient.

Emlyn swung her sword and removed its head.

She was going through so much magic, every part of her anchor training was telling her to stop, but she also knew she didn't need to stop yet.

Ard's wolf-sphere was wide open and continued to pour lightning magic into her. He was dumping magic faster than she could use it up.

Her bond with Ard went beyond any of the training she had received when becoming an anchor. She could be frivolous with her magic use, which ended up being very helpful as an arrow hit her in her shoulder, only to leave a small scratch going through her cheap armor. But there was enough magic running through her body that it simply didn't matter to keep herself fortified at all times. 

The corrupted were busy fighting all of the rebel anchors.

Meanwhile, Maribelle was off leading the military anchors on a merry chase. She managed to kill one of the mages and enrage them. The two more mages that had hoods covering their face were sending chills down Emlyn's spine, especially with the way they controlled the corrupted. 

Bandits were leaving their fight alone in the center, pouring around the side of the estate, trying to find their way into the building from another angle and clashing with what remained of the soldiers.

Emlyn didn't blame them. A fight including this many anchors was not something they could join in easily. 

Maribelle jumped off a roof, landing and rolling to Emlyn's side. She knelt down next to a body, her hand on its forehead for a moment. 

"What are you doing?" Emlyn said. 

Maribelle took her hand off. Emlyn now realized the body was Boss.

“Ard would do this if he were present.” Maribelle stated.

Emlyn rolled her eyes, but had to agree. Ard would likely appreciate saving Boss. It wasn't that he had any particular fondness for the man, but Ard did not like to let go of anybody if he could help it. He’d met Boss, and that was enough.

Shortly after Maribelle landed next to her, a whole host of the enemy anchors came pouring down from above.

Emlyn whipped her sword to the side, keeping them busy with a jag of lightning. “We need to get the mages.” Emlyn knew this fight ended the second the other side didn’t have mages to back up their anchors.

The battle resumed explosively as one of the mages tore through several of the bandit anchors with a flick of their wrist and a dozen beams of light. However, those beams of light didn't just dissipate into the night. Instead, they swarmed back like a furious group of hornets, coming back towards Emlyn and Maribelle, spinning erratically. 

Emlyn stabbed her sword into the ground and pulled on what little earth magic the Ard would give her. An earthen wall erupted in front of her. It was crude, but she felt a touch of Ard's will in the structure.

The lights slammed into the stone slab, stopping dead where they should have otherwise pierced through. 

"Thanks, Ard," Emlyn murmured, just before the wall exploded into earthen shards, raining down on the two mages. Emlyn was a step behind the spikes of stone, her blade switching back to lightning as it crackled off the edge. She slashed at one of the anchors who had been caught up in the hail of stone. 

Another leapt over, wielding a massive axe, and descending on Maribelle.

Stepping aside from the attacking anchor, Maribelle matched the axe-wielding anchor with her twin daggers, dropping to a knee with the force of his blow. 

Emlyn threw her own attack towards the mages and turned, lightning coming off of her blade, making it longer than it otherwise normally would have been. The extended lightning scorched into the back of the anchor that had Maribelle pinned.

He tensed up, and Maribelle slipped out from under him, pushing his axe to the side and spinning it to his side. The other dagger found its way into his neck before she finished spinning, ripping it out of his throat. 

Tendrils of sticky, dark death magic clung between her dagger and his throat, mixing up with the spray of crimson as she finished her spin. Landing down into a crouch, Maribelle exploded forward into another anchor. The twin daggers punched into him as small streams of death magic sprayed out of the wound and past Maribelle. 

She was fucking crazy. Emlyn couldn't fight with so much reckless abandon for her own safety, even if she knew Ard could push life magic into her and stuff her soul back into place. She just wasn't masochistic enough to welcome the pain like Maribelle seemed capable of doing.

It was a good thing they had their deal. Emlyn never wanted to make an enemy of the crazy blonde. 

She had her own fights to deal with, though, turning back around and drawing on her lightning magic to get out of the way as a fireball slammed into the space she had just been.

The two hooded mages began to throw spells out, completely ignoring the fact that their own anchors, mage-forged and even these corrupted, were amid the blasts as fire streamed out. 

A quick succession of fireballs exploded. Emlyn was forced back, clearing the field, only to see the corrupted with burned flesh closing back together and healing in the wake of the fire. Meanwhile, the bandit anchors were far worse for wear. Most of them were scorched, their clothes ruined, and were suffering from minor burns. 

Emlyn could see a few of them wincing and looking skywards for help. Emlyn then remembered that they had been dropped off by some mage that was still up in their sky.

Their attention in that direction drew the attention of the hooded mages, the one who had sent the swarm of lights pointed his fingers up. 

Another swarm of lights shot into the sky, searching for the bandits’ mage. It was quickly evident where she was as the light found a platform of ice up in the sky. It had been hidden in the darkness, but was quick to shine from the hooded mage's light spell.

Though the longer the light spell flew in the air, so did the bandit mage's platform. It seemed they had spent their entire time summoning more and more ice over the estate. their platform, at this point, was nearly as large as the main building itself.

The hooded mage's light spell searched for the ice mage, only for the platform to crack and crumble, cascading down on the fortified estate below before they could get the mage.

One of the hooded mages knelt on the ground, a curved wall of stone coming up to shield them. 

Emlyn saw her moment of opportunity and raced forward, lightning crackling down her sword as she wove between the corrupted and stunned anchors. She could feel the chill of the descending ice, but this was her chance to end this.

They were all still too busy staring at the ice hurtling towards them.

Her sword pierced the mage that seemed to be controlling the corrupted as the shouting exploded behind her.

Anchors were throwing themselves anywhere they thought they could shelter the oncoming bombardment of ice. 

Crumbling stone and the cracking of ice filled the air as shards of the platform smashed the towers of the estate, caving in the roof and collapsing the walls. All the while, the ice chunks themselves cracked and shattered, breaking into smaller jagged shards that cascaded down and pinned more than a few unlucky anchors to the ground. 

Emlyn whipped her sword out of the mage who hadn't even so much as flinched when she stabbed him. She spun, trying to take his head, only for the hooded mage to move at an unnatural angle, bending his body sideways before slipping back against the stone shelter. Emlyn's honed sense of danger warned her, and she followed the mage, even rushing past him. She threw her back against the stone wall that the other had just made as she slashed her sword in the space she had just been. 

Three corrupted were bumping into each other. They tried to grab at her leather armor. Their hands, no longer human, sported long claws, slashing in the air, trying to grasp her.

Her sword cut one of their arms off, and lightning jumped off of it to shock another. She was forced to kick out at the end of her sword stroke, to keep the third at bay. 

The mage reached over through the earthen wall, it parted like water for him. As it touched her temple, pain exploded in every inch of Emlyn's body. It felt like something was trying to dig into her mind.

The attack left her stunned, and the corrupted pounced on her, only for the earth to swallow her up. 

A barrier slammed into place, stopping the pain on what she assumed was her soul. Up above where she must have been just moments ago, the ground rocked as an explosion shook the entire estate. A moment later she was thrown from the hole she’d been dropped in a dozen paces away, though it took her a moment to realize that the space she and the two mages had just been in was now a smoldering crater. 

A furious Ard was puffing out of her soul, still over by the palisade with his arm outstretched

***

I panted with rage, my hand still feeling warm from the ball of fire I had summoned a moment earlier.

I had sensed what was happening the second the mage touched Emlyn and tried to ravage her soul. I had almost ripped hers out and thrown her behind the walls of Soulgard.

However, I knew Emlyn would have been all testy about me playing with her soul. So instead, I got her away and let my anger out on the mages. 

Emlyn glanced over at me. "Thanks, Ard," she mouthed, rolling to her feet. Noting Aurelia and Zuri next to me, Eva had her eyes darkened as she whipped shadows around her in the fight, doing her best to aid the bandit anchors where she could as the fighting resumed.

"Get back in there, Emlyn. It's not over," I said. 

From the crater I made, the two hooded mages reappeared, rising on a pillar. More of those twisted, corrupted creatures crawled out of the ground. There was nothing human about how they moved. Instead, they reminded me of cockroaches.

With the field cleared from my massive explosion, the corrupted rushed towards me.

 Zuri didn't hesitate to leap out in front, joined by Emlyn and Aurelia, to stop them.

I could feel Maribelle elsewhere, and the battle was moving quickly in this direction, but I wasn't able to focus on that for long. I summoned several manticore claws into my hand and hurled them out into the swarm of corrupted. I could have sworn there were even more of them now than there had been when the fight started. 

My claws bit into the corrupted, and I pushed, throwing them back towards the hooded mages and away from my anchors.

Who were blinding furies of magic, as light, fire, and lightning lit up the corrupted, casting enough light for me to see under the hoods of one of the mages. To my absolute surprise, they had managed to keep their hoods on, despite all of the explosions and magical effects that had littered the battle thus far. 

Under the bright light, however, I wished their hoods would hide their faces even longer. They had gaunt, hollow faces that reminded me of the powerful mage I had fought in Chillwind Past, and I suddenly realized why they felt so incredibly strong. They must have been like that mage before. Missy had said that the King of Garish had put a shard of his soul in each of them, connecting them and using them to consolidate power. 

So it came as no surprise when the two mages raised their hands in unison, and metal ripped itself out of the ground and away from soldiers' hands, flying through the air.

Metal rattled into the air as armor and swords ripped themselves away from corpses and active fights. They flew into the air, becoming a maelstrom of spinning steel. Emlyn paused and turned back at me as she flooded her sword with magic to keep hold of it. 

"That's not me," I said quickly, understanding what she was asking with a glance. 

Emlyn turned to the other two anchors. "Just run." She followed her own advice, turning and rushing back towards me. 

"Now Emlyn, it's only a few swords. I thought you anchors were trained to fight with them." I teased her.

"Wall," she said, her tone demanding as I waved my hand back and forth. The gathering storm of steel was certainly concerning.

However, even amidst battle, there was always time to tease Emlyn. Zuri's glare, however, had a slightly different effect on me. The woman was a little bitter that I had held her back from the battle. 

I bent down, touching the ground, pushing earth magic through my soul and slamming up a wall of stone that was suddenly encompassed in three more layers of stone as I made a thick wall to defend ourselves.

The storm of steel was spinning like a tornado but swung from the side as if the mage wielding it was using it like a bat. More stone came up to protect us, including Eva and my three anchors. 

I felt more than saw the storm slam against my walls, the metal producing a horrendous grinding noise as it spun against my wall and chipped away at the stone. I reinforced my walls, actively holding them with my magic, only for another attack that came from the other direction.

Darkness slammed into the swarm of lights, twisting and imploding as tendrils of darkness latched onto the light and slammed them together. Each time one of the balls of light hit another, they popped in a small explosion. Eva was doing her best.

Zuri picked up what she was doing and drew back her bow to fire an arrow of light to pop several more. 

"Emlyn, make another wall," Zuri said, and Emlyn groaned as she stabbed her sword into the ground. I could feel her trying to pull on my earth magic and use it in the spell, however, all that happened was a small spray of dirt flying towards the enemy's spell. 

"What? It's harder than it looks," Emlyn said to everyone's stares. 

I waved my other hand. I had gotten good enough to handle multiple spells at once and deployed the earth wall for Emlyn since she was having so much trouble. I couldn't help but chuckle. 

"Uh-uh, not now," Emlyn said. She stabbed her sword at the base of the wall, and I could feel her reinforcing it with her own will. I focused mine on the walls that were currently being ground by a spinning storm of metal. While I was able to hold it, metal on stone continued to chip away at the exterior. All in, we were pinned in this position, unable to help the rest of the fight. 

And while we were pinned, those strange corrupted were still active on the battlefield. They would now be able to mow through the enemy bandits and anchors, possibly even getting the bandit's mage.

I needed to find a way out of this situation.

Throwing more of my magic into the stone walls and taking hold of Emlyn's, I wrapped it all around us in a single spell before sinking us into the ground. 

I used the structure of the wall as something I could use to hold back the dirt as I shoved us through the foundation and dirt around the estate.

Eva released her spell when she realized she no longer had to stop the swarms of light from detonating on the other side of the wall. She let out a sigh of relief, the Zenovian princess looked a little worse from where.

“Give Zuri your extra magic.” I could tell she’d been using quite a bit.

"She doesn't like me," Eva said quickly.

"Well, I don't give a shit about that right now. Dump it into one of my anchors." I instructed

I felt another large quake of earth magic. something was happening above.

I resurfaced us fifty yards from where we had gone under, only to see a horrifying giant stomp upon the field of battle. I blinked for a moment, not even realizing what I was seeing. Even with my senses as a mage, both able to sense magic and soul, I was having trouble making sense of the absolute monstrosity that now stood towering over the battlefield.