PftA Book 5 - Chapter 1 - The Onset of War

Attention! You are now at war!
‘The Collective’ has officially declared open war on ‘the Alliance.’
A war exception is in effect for violations of Article 2 of the Accords.
Note: Children will be protected. Article 5 still applies.

The note at the bottom of the bright red notification soothed my heart. I’d wondered how the system would handle children since the Accords specifically had an article dedicated to their protection and well-being.

Would it be like in the dungeon, where the system itself shielded them from harm? That wasn’t a protection that normally applied, so it had to be something special for instances like this.

Open war.

I knew that the Alliance and the Collective were in a constant state of war, but it had always been confined to specific worlds devoid of native sapients. They were worlds capable of sustaining life, which made them perfect for expansion – or war.

I’d peeked at the battlefield worlds during my scan of the surrounding galaxy a few times out of sheer curiosity. Two out of the three worlds existed in an almost constant battle.

The third, a Tier Eight world, had been so utterly devastated that the Alliance had withdrawn from the planet. Whatever benefits could be derived weren’t worth the cost when the Alliance already struggled to find combatants willing to clear rifts at that level.

But now it seemed the battlefield was moving to the Alliance worlds. The Collective was forcing the Alliance’s high and peak-tier combatants to fight, whether we wanted to or not.

“I’d hoped to have more time to prepare,” Zavira said with a frown.

Zavira had asked to take advantage of the time dilation in my personal pocket dimension to complete a few projects before the war officially started.

She was one of the few people who knew the truth about the space. It was my reward for completing the Tier Nine Assassin’s Challenge Rift even though I’d been forced inside at low-Tier Eight.

The challenge had been nearly impossible, but I’d managed it with a bit of creativity and luck. Having my particular combination of affinities also helped, especially when coupled with a strong background in Enchanting.

The upgrade had soulbound my inventory and expanded it into a genuine pocket dimension. It worked like a pseudo-realm, and I was able to control it far more completely than I would ever have thought possible.

“Well, Anya warned us we’d only get about two standard days,” I said as I set the project I was working on aside. There wouldn’t be enough time to finish it now.

“And it’s only been a little over one!” Zavira complained. “They’re early!”

Early or late, it didn’t matter much to me. We both had our assignments, so there was little to do aside from getting to them.

“I guess you might as well drop me off at the sect branch on Astra. That’s where I’m supposed to be,” said Zavira as she tucked the half-finished weapon into her storage ring.

“Celestial Falls?”

“Yep. Same place you picked me up from.”

“That makes things easy,” I said. I silently manipulated the external micro portal to the new target location. “Be safe out there. Just because you have an E3 talisman doesn’t make you invincible.”

As much as I wished it did, there were ways to overwhelm the artifact.

Also, no matter how well I crafted it, the [Enhanced Emergency Escape] talisman wouldn’t work if it got destroyed during the fight.

Zavira and I weren’t the only ones wearing the life-saving artifacts I’d designed while we were in the dungeon, though she was one of the very few whose recall location was within my demesne.

Most of my friends and family wore one as well, though all but Zavira, Kai, and Bell would be teleported to the arrival platform of the Epikairos Sect’s Hadier Branch if their talismans triggered.

I’d already warned the Branch Leader of the possibility. He’d agreed in exchange for a handful of E3 talismans for the most promising disciples at his branch. I’d given him all of my spares since it was better to use them than have them wasted in my storage.

I wasn’t overly concerned about interference from any [Spatial Locks] since I’d specifically designed them to bypass such restrictions.

Really, the fact that it was something I’d figured out at Tier Four made me worried about how effective the city-spanning formations would be at preventing the invaders from arriving in the middle of our cities.

“You be safe, too,” Zavira said softly.

Not wanting to draw out our goodbyes, I shifted my best friend to the location from which I’d retrieved her.

“Well, I might as well get to it,” I muttered to myself after glancing around my now-empty home.

With a flex of will, I appeared in my barely used apartment on Aegeas. It was located at the Epikairos Sect Headquarters in Garnet City, which was where I’d been assigned as a defender.

The Council was smart in assigning people to their ‘hometowns’ if they were the same tier as the world on which they lived. Those who were weaker (like Zavira) or stronger (like Kai) were assigned somewhere else.

All of the unawakened youths and heavily pregnant women had been evacuated to bunkers under the various city centers, which were built to protect the vulnerable members of the population from beast waves.

Since most worlds did a good job at keeping their rifts maintained, beast waves were quite rare. Even so, the requirement for such protections remained.

The rest of the awakened citizens had been forcibly conscripted and sent through portals to cities matching their tier.

The only real exceptions were for those who were below Tier Three. Since the Alliance had no worlds below Tier Three aside from those taking part in the mana study, youths at Tier One or Two were given the option of sheltering with the unawakened or heading to one of the two Tier Three worlds.

As one of those two worlds, Earth was experiencing a huge population influx.

I stepped out of my apartment and headed down the long hallway leading to the exit. As I entered the stairwell, I could feel spatial fluctuations in the weave.

My heart immediately started pounding. Anya had warned us that the [Spatial Locks] preventing teleportation within cities would be countered somehow, but I hadn’t realized she meant that the [Spatial Locks] themselves would be compromised.

“Shit,” I muttered before taking advantage of the breach to teleport just outside of Patriarch Fora’s office. “The [Spatial Lock] for the city just failed,” I informed him.

“Damn. That’s not good. It looks like Garnet City is one of the unlucky targets,” he replied.

Before I could reply, a notification appeared. I wasn’t given the option of rejecting it since the system could tell the distraction wouldn’t be detrimental.

Quest: Defend the city from invaders!

“Whoa. System quest. That’s rare,” I commented.

The only time I’d really seen such quests was during beast waves in the dungeon. I vaguely recalled seeing one outside of the dungeon, but that was during a different life.

“Well, we are being invaded,” the Sect Patriarch said deadpan as he stood up. “Care to give me a lift?”

= = =

With the [Spatial Lock] inactive, I took a few moments to move the sect’s Tier Nine combatants to the center of the city, where I sensed most of the fighting.

About half of the sect’s Tier Nine Elders were pure Healers – or as close to one as possible for someone who’d reached that level. I dropped them off at the nearby clinic before heading back to the fight.

There were more than a hundred Tier Nine enemy combatants, some of whom would have been difficult to identify had they not been actively fighting on the side of the invaders.

The orcs, goblins, trolls, and other monstrous races were easy to pinpoint. It was all of the demi races mixed in that made things complicated.

I knew that the Collective included demis, but I hadn’t realized how problematic that would be when they brought war to our doorstep.

Appallingly, the enemy combatants collected their fallen foes into spatial storage devices. I wasn’t sure why they were doing so. Maybe they were using the bodies as proof of their kills?

My attention was drawn when one of the local defenders screamed in agony and surprise nearby. A stone spear had punched through her gut, having passed through the air unnoticed due to its intricate stealth enchantments.

I immediately teleported next to the woman and put up a strong Barrier.

“I’m going to pull out the spear and then heal you,” I told the woman. I didn’t wait for her to nod; I just moved.

The warrior screamed as I wrenched the spear out. I wasn’t overly worried about causing more damage since it would just be erased, but I didn’t want to cause any more pain than necessary.

I cast Restore while another spear crashed against my Barrier, shattering on impact. It was a strong attack, and it took a lot of mana to prevent my Barrier spell from breaking.

The combined drain was pulling a lot from my reserves, but I felt confident in my mana regeneration capabilities.

The woman gasped in relief as her body was restored.

“I’m going to keep the spear,” I told her as I sent it into storage. “I want to study the enchantments. Here, take this talisman in exchange. It’ll keep you from getting skewered by another surprise attack.”

I didn’t mention that she should have had her own Barrier up if she didn’t have an equivalent talisman. It wasn’t my place to lecture another fighter.

I tossed her a Tier Nine [Multi-Element Barrier] talisman. It was powered by my unique combination of affinities, which made it particularly strong against most attacks.

An angry satyr took offense at my interference and was stomping toward us with murder in his eyes. He’d given up trying to break my Barrier from a distance, and was now moving the fight into melee.

I rolled my eyes and opened a small portal over the angry satyr’s head. The satyr immediately recoiled, avoiding the deadly trap.

I tsked in disappointment. I didn’t know why I expected it to be easy when the enemy was clearly prepared for some kind of counter-attack.

After sliding the talisman over her neck and activating it, the woman I’d saved sent a spray of molten Lava toward the spear-wielding satyr.

I stepped to the side since it appeared she wanted to handle the fight herself.

Before I found another enemy to target, my next opponent brought the fight to me. The attack took the form of an arrow coated in Poison. I intercepted the projectile with a carefully placed portal, storing the arrow in my storage alongside the spear.

Feeling confident in my defenses, I grabbed a pair of scepters and sent a multi-element volley in the archer’s direction.

Though I’d sold many of the weapons I’d crafted in the rift to help the war effort, I’d kept all of the multi-element weapons for myself.

Well, all of the Tier Nine versions, at least.

I sold the Tier Eight and pseudo-Tier Nine versions at a steep discount for members of the Epikairos and Hephaistos Sects.

Mostly, it was just the Epikairos Sect members since Hephaistos disciples and Elders preferred melee weapons or items of their own design.

Zavira was an exception, but that was mostly due to our time together in the dungeon. She’d gotten quite used to using manatech after being partnered with me for a few decades.

While the archer focused on dodging the attacks, I targeted him with Pause. The spell seemed to slide off of the smirking archer, instantly alerting me to the fact that he’d equipped some sort of anti-Time magic artifact.

I narrowed my eyes and tried again. The item didn’t feel like a Tier Ten artifact, so I felt confident I’d be able to overpower it if I put enough intent and mana behind my spell.

Normally, such endeavors would be pointless. But exceptional affinities were respected for a reason.

My enhanced spell instantly locked the enemy archer in place, freezing the smirk on his grotesque goblin face. I quickly followed it up with a small portal right over his head.

A second later, the goblin’s head appeared in the stasis storage section of my pocket dimension. His body followed a moment later.

I still wasn’t sure why the invaders were collecting bodies, but I planned to loot these guys for everything they had.

I also wanted to see what kinds of enchantments they were using, not just to counter Time magic, but in general.

The fact that the invaders had shown up with talismans specifically designed to counter the primary magic of one of the major sects in the city couldn’t have been a coincidence, either.

I wondered if other locations were dealing with the same kind of targeted counters.