Chapter 132 - Bringing Down The Hammer

Note : Chapters 135 and 136 have been written and added to the queue ! Bringing the backlog to 23 chapters !

Chapter 132

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth

Outskirts of the City of Rebirth

Alexandra had, over the last few weeks and months, accumulated a lot of mana. As much as she thought spending it immediately was a good idea, she'd also become certain that she would need a rainy day fund in case things went sideways. So she'd set aside ten percent of her entire mana income. And when the UDC warned her of the Republic's impending arrival, she had taken a minuscule portion of that war chest and used it to build the steel steps, and began funnelling even more mana into it.

She'd spent almost a third of it on high tech systems. Railguns, wards, and her upgraded praetorian guards, to finally hammer Seraph into submission.

The last two thirds she dumped all into artillery rockets.

Thirty thousand cylinders of steel and death, neatly arranged into compartimentalized and widely separated racks, glimmered in the sunlight as the dungeon core absorbed the mesa's 'ceiling' above them, revealing the massive space she had originally intended as a fortress should things go dire and the town be overrun, and now turned into a gigantic launch pad.

Alexandra took a few seconds triple check her calculations again, get confirmation from Sarah that the enemy was indeed within the kill zone…and gave the launch order.

The entire damned mesa began to shake as rocket after rocket took off.

Some went wildly off course. Some detonated on the pad, obliterating the rest of their rack.

Most of them didn't.

Tens of thousands of rockets rose into the sky…and came back down.

The Republic however, wasn't stupid. They had encountered Tarkian rocket artillery before, and planned accordingly. It didn't mean that their contingencies were good, per se, but they had done their best.

Unfortunately for them, Alexandra was smart, dedicated, spiteful and had a small mountain of mana to work with.

The wards of protection, who were supposed to intercept the high velocity shrapnel rained down by artillery rockets, flared to maximum power as the rockets arrived.

And every single first rocket in every damned rack, a full twentieth of the entire volley, carried no explosives. Instead they bore the infinitely complex and frustratingly unreliable rune work of a magic distruption warhead.

Thirty percent of these rockets didn't make it. Either exploded on launch, wandered off course or simply had their thrusters die and cause them to fall short. A few even overshot their target and landed into the backlines.

Of those that made it, three quarters failed. Those runes were simply not hardened against the forces a rocket had to sustain, and most of them came apart because of that. A few failed simply because the design wasn't reliable. But there were fifteen hundred anti-magic rockets in that volley.

Over two hundred and fifty of them made it. And the wards came down in a flash of energy.

A few, however, stayed up. They protected the more elite units, those with newer wards, or sheltered units that were simply lucky, too far from the functional anti-magic rockets to be completely taken down, although close enough to be seriously weakened. Unfortunately for them, the rockets that followed weren't the Tarkian models that exploded high in the air and showered the area with relatively easy to deflect shrapnel. They were massive monsters packed to the brim with explosives.

The remaining wards absorbed the first rocket.

The second.

The third.

And the fourth made the entire thing collapse.

There were twenty eight thousand five hundred high explosive rockets in that volley. Over half of them didn't make it, either because of similar failure to their higher tech brethren, or because their rack had been taken out by a previous malfunctioning rocket.

Of those that did, over ninety percent detonated. Although no one, not even those observing from high orbit, could have said for sure as over twelve thousand artillery rockets detonated in an apocalyptic series of explosions that rent the Earth apart and swallowed an entire Republic division like a monster born from the depths of hell.

*****

Allya looked in horror and absolute terror as the Republic's army vanished. What had Crystal done! What the actual fuck had she allied herself wi-

It was a well known fact in most of the world that essence had a psychological effect when absorbed. Outside of a handful of more backwater polities like the Asarian Kingdom that tried to suppress the information, it was mostly considered common knowledge, especially to those who traded in war and combat.

What far fewer people did know however was that when a lot of essence was released at once…stranger things started to happen.

There were legends of strange lights hanging above great battlefields, or sparks of energy that remained even centuries after the death of powerful individuals, resting over the site of their slaying.

But when such absurd quantites were released so suddenly, so violently?

The essence gathered in a massive bubble of emerald green energy. It visibly grew above the mass of murdered soldiers as their spirit partially dissolved and their core released a part of their essence.

And then it popped.

A gigantic wall of energy, travelling at a speed just low enough for people to actually see it arrive slammed into the remaining Republic backline and the town alike.

Even the most veteran soldiers were thrown to their knees. Most fainted. Several died from the shock as their core and level of power went crazy.

Only Allya and Éclair, both trained by a power who had made and deployed weapons of mass destruction and encountered devastation on such a scale, remained standing, and even the notoriously merciless training of a Knight-Valiant was not enough to save the baroness from most of the effects, as she stumbled back and caught herself on the crenallations before she could fall, her body and core screaming in protest by what had been inflicted upon them.

And they gazed, in the total and stunned silence, at the army that had been slain in a matter of seconds. The result of what historians would call the first battle of Rebirth in the Elkis-Asarian war. A victory so total the enemy's infantry had not even managed to attack the walls of the city.

*****

A new invitation came from Amelia. The WMC and adventurers guild offered the same garantees, but this time they met under the guns of the dungeon core, halfway between both armies, ranks of exhausted, shattered Republic soldiers facing off against the impeccable, seemingly unending ranks of golems who had sortied from the town, shaking the very Earth with their metronome like steps, eyeing each other from across the vast sandy wasteland that separated them. And all the while, the sun glittered on the menacing racks of rockets and the barrel of howitzers behind the golem army.

During the first meeting the Republic's soldiers had been grim, focused, and a bit nervous.

This time, not even they could hide the terror that filled their gaze whenever they looked at the unassuming dungeon boss that served as Crystal's avatar.

Amelia had still brought her tent. It lacked the banquet that had furnished it the first time, but it did have the same soundproofing and anti-divination enchantments as her war tent, and she had a feeling it would come in very handy.

They sat down on the same sofas as last time. They'd dispensed with the formalities, Amelia was too shattered to care, and the others had barely even spoken.

"So, general." Said Crystal, with a tone so cold it would give deep space a run for its money. "Why have you called us here? Negotiations were, as I understood it, over."

Amelia swallowed heavily.

"Yes. Yes they were. Until you…shattered my forces that is."

"Oh. So now you are interested in negotiating with us in good faith. I'm sorry general, but when I say something, I actually mean it, unlike your dear Republic. And I gave you a chance to withdraw. And warned you quite clearly that if you didn't, I would kill every.single.one.of.you. So I repeat myself, why are we here? Chose your words carefully."

Amelia flinched at the dungeon core's words, but regained her composure.

"I am…aware of that. And I am aware of the unprovoked attacks my superiors have inflicted upon you. Which is why I had prepared a…contingency."

"What kind of contingency?" Said the dungeon, almost curiously, as Allya tensed up, and Amelia sighed. The baroness was clearly assuming it had to be a threat or weapon or some kind.

"A bribe. For you." She simply said. "To…allow me and my men to prove that we were not the scumbags that came before us."

"And now?"

"Tribute. To allow me and what remains of my troops to leave, alive." Amelia's voice almost broke at the last word. She'd never see or hear Malcom again. There were simply too many people to resurrect, and even if they weren't…they couldn't even separate his body from that of the rest of the signal party, when a rocket had fallen straight on top of them.

The 'please, I beg you' was unspoken, but given Allya's reaction, it had been heard.

The dungeon, however, was unmoved.

"Show me this…'tribute' of yours."

Amelia nodded, and snapped her fingers.

A couple of soldiers, drawn from her most trustworthy, stepped into the tent, carrying between them a large chest. They carefully set it down on the table, the deceptively strong wood taking the weight with ease, and stepped back.

Amelia nodded in thanks at her men, and then leaned over, pressing her hand over the crystal embedded into the lock. The magical artifact went green as it recognized her mana signature, and the chest audibly clicked as the locking mechanism disengaged.

The general swung the chest open…and practically collapsed in relief as she saw the dungeon core's eyes go wide.

"Holy shit." Said the baroness. "Is that…that's mythril isn't it? And electrum. And silvarium!"

"Yes. Plus other magically conductive or physically resilient materials I was able to acquire. This…this is my bribe, lady Crystal. My last contingency."

The dungeon core looked up at her, and wherehas her cold hatred had been clear to see previously, her expression was completely unreadable now. But then she turned towards her ally.

"I would not have abandoned you in your time of need, and neither will I abandon you in your time of triumph. Would you accept this offer? I promise I will find a way to enrich the town through it."

Allya looked at the dungeon core, then Amelia.

The general saw anger, frutration…and the bone deep weariness of someone who was simply tired of all the killing.

And for the first time since she'd seen the rockets rise from above that hellish mesa, Amelia felt a spark of hope.

"Yes. Provided that the general never, ever shows her face here again."

"Of course." The dungeon core looked back at Amelia. "You will hand over the chest immediately. Your troops will have seventy two hours to withdraw. I will, as a courtesy and out of the understanding that none of the soldiers present here today will ever raise their swords against me or my allies every again, allow the bodies of your troops to be brought into my dungeon so that I may resurrect them. If any of them, and I mean any, ever come back to fight me or my own, I will personally drive a spike through them and leave their twitching bodies to die in agony for all to see at the entrance of my dungeon. You will leave all of your heavy equipment behind, will not salvage any of the equipment lost by your troops on the battlefield, and hand over the most intact of your light cruisers over to the town as repayment for their pain and suffering. Are those terms acceptable?"

Amelia's heart almost stopped. The dungeon core was offering to resurrect her forces?

Then she realized what the ploy was. Yes, her men would be alive, but given the horrific damage they'd taken, not to mention the time elapsed, it would be months before they were ready to fight again. Months the Republic would have to care for them, and nurture them. Which would drain many, many resources from the full scale invasion that would be coming after this disaster.

It would also be a burden on her. Crossing the wasteland with that many infirm would be hell. But she still had two thousand soldiers left, more or less. And the alternative was far worse.

"Yes, lady Crystal. Those terms are acceptable."

She met the dungeon core's eyes…and Crystal nodded, and walked out of the tent without another word.