MM - Chapter 241 - WARM WELCOME

Understanding well that multiple strategic war assets couldn’t be taken lightly, Raine triggered the Cloak of Amanesh and briefly vanished into a ball of darkness. Disengage banished his weapon, halting the damage ticks from Prominence of the Fool. He had time for little else. The elemental maelstrom loomed, its destructive energies on the verge of sweeping away his people.

Heart pounding, Raine was left with no choice but to unleash a trump card he hoped to save for a worthier foe. His sharp command cut through the rising tempest. “Varak! Use it!”

The Vaaterran battlemaster needed no further prompting. With a fluid motion, he unfurled a scroll of his own, its parchment already crackling with threads of dark crimson energy. Upon channeling his will into the ancient script, the air groaned in protest. The ground split open, not with the clean lines of a blade, but with the jagged, violent rupture of a wound torn in the fabric of the world. From the abyss of another realm, a creature of nightmare clawed its way into existence.

It was a being of decayed flesh and solidified flame, a grotesque parody of a humanoid giant. Magma coursed through the cracks in its obsidian hide, and its single eye flickered with the light of a dying star. A crown of jagged stone sat upon its brow. With a guttural roar that was the sound of grinding continents, it pulled its way up to its full, terrifying height, and the ground sealed behind it. Then, the monstrosity promptly dropped to a misshapen knee, facing the storm.

[Summoning Scroll - Restless Infernal: (Marvelous Gold - LVL variable) Summons a Restless Infernal to fight under your command for 2 hours]

The elites, Raine included, scrambled to crowd beneath the hulking Infernal as a cataclysm broke upon them. With a raised hand, the Infernal’s Coronial Shell snapped into place like a massive sideways-facing dome, a seemingly thin barrier against the rage. The world dissolved into a blinding, deafening chaos of roaring fire, razor-sharp ice, corrosive acid, and crushing stone. The combined assault hammered against the Infernal's shield, threatening to tear it apart.

Despite its formidable defense, protecting them cost it over 10,000 damage per second. Its deep 2.5 million health pool drained rapidly. Raine had to bellow to make himself heard over the cacophony, “Don’t let it die!” Together, he and the six healers poured their Celestial Power into the level fifty summon, a desperate torrent of light and life that fought to mend the creature as quickly as the storm sought to unmake it.

“After the skills pass, take down those summons before they can break through our back lines!” His words were snatched and shredded by the wind, but his listeners had the Acuity to catch them first. “Then, go after the summoners; they should have the best loot. After that, you can go wild.”

His commands were met with vicious grins, the thrill of battle now fully ignited by the raging elements crashing around them. As the last vestiges of the storm passed, they broke, spreading in several disciplined formations. Each went to deal with a group of summoners. The Restless Infernal, its molten body still steaming from the assault, led the charge. 

The clash that followed was titanic. The Infernal met a hulking, four-armed monstrosity of animated ice, their collision shaking the very foundations of the highlands. Knuckles of baked magma met crystalline bones. Each blow released shockwaves of force that killed those who dared observe from too close. Jets of steam escaped, thickening the air enough to form a new cloud.

The icy golem lost, badly. It was level twenty-six compared to the infernal’s fifty. The difference between tiers was only the beginning of the disparities. Varak was in sole command of the Infernal, meaning no mixed signals from multiple casters. Additionally, he was trained in the use of summons, and a vastly superior martial to what Earth currently considered an expert. The other CronGate summons joined the fray, barely balancing the scales.

From the sides, thousands upon thousands of Blasts and ranged attacks peppered the Infernal. Their minimal damage scaled too quickly to ignore. It kicked the golem aside, blasting off an arm and sending it crashing to the ground. What could loosely be described as a massive six-legged velociraptor was bodily lifted into the air and thrown at the thickest patch of casters. It slid along the ground, killing hundreds. The Infernal paid for the maneuver, receiving a bevy of blows from the three remaining summons.

That was the last of their battle that Raine caught. His focus was unwavering as he dove for the last place he’d spotted Torune. The man wasn’t there, having vanished back into Stealth like the coward he was. A Lunge over the heads of CronGate’s regulars allowed the Eyes of Amanesh to quickly spot him.

Raine inhaled deeply, diaphragm enhanced by over a thousand Potency. The air shook with his rage. “Torune!”

The man jerked in shock, losing Stealth. Eyes wide with fear looked back to find Alaric throwing away an empty potion bottle, charging toward him with fingers stretched out as though to choke the life from him. Torune ran at a full tilt, shamelessly throwing his own people in Alaric’s path in a vain and pathetic attempt to buy a few more seconds.

The display was an obvious trap, one Raine was keen on triggering.

Just as his next Lunge closed the distance, and his arm extended to finally bring the bastard to justice, the true danger materialized. The air around Torune shimmered, and ten figures faded into existence. The Phoenix Elites surrounded Raine. Between one breath and the next, their domains converged, and his world ceased to exist.

He was cast into a darkness so absolute it felt physical, a crushing pressure that extinguished all light. The thunder of the raging battle, the screams of the dying, the clash of steel, the scent of blood and sweat—all of it was swallowed by an unmaking silence. The deprivation was not merely external. The sensation of his own body pressing into the ground, the rhythmic beating of his heart, the feedback from his nerves that told him he had taken a step or turned his head—all of it was gone. Balance, proprioception, even the seething anger of his bloodlust—everything that combined to create the human experience was systematically ripped away.

Raine had entered the void.

Celeste Luu Rahn

- Central Silvergate Highlands, ZionLine -

Celeste stowed her drifter mid-flight. She pushed off solidified air, Lunging straight up to gain altitude. Her time grinding in the high-level cave had done wonders. The frustrating hesitation that plagued each skill activation was gone, replaced by fluid certainty. Her completion rates, however, left much to be desired.

Still far above, two hundred elites from Rising Endlessly dove toward her people. They were responsible for her previous death. And just like before, ten broke off from the pack to close on her. She could see the vile, confident grins on their faces. 

Their plan was clearly a carbon copy of their previous success. They would use their own teammates as springboards to chain a relentless barrage of Lunges and Charges. With their superior equipment, levels, and training, they would quickly overwhelm and kill anyone they caught. Then, lacking the knowledge to solidify air, they would jump from target to target until none remained, starting with her.

Crude, but effective. Last time, she was helpless to stop them. She would not make the same mistakes again.

The first wave of attackers shot toward her, drifters aimed low to achieve something far beyond terminal velocity. A memory of a spear tip piercing her chest flashed through her mind, but instead of fear, it stoked a cold, burning rage. Her ideal echoed in her soul: I will become so terrifying that even hearing my name will bring you to your knees!

Emotions thick enough to choke on, and something distinctly ‘other,’ demanded release. Celeste’s focus narrowed to a single point in her throat. She opened her mouth wide and let it all out. The air rippled with invisible waves of power as her Sireech blasted outward. The scream was otherworldly, burrowing into their ears, piercing through the staunchest mentality, and packed with a promise to make good on all her vows.

It was not an attack that dealt physical damage, but one that assaulted the mind, an invasive shriek so loud as to claw away any chance of solidifying focus or intent. The faces, once curved with arrogance, now contorted in agony. Seeing the drastic change was the purest validation of her martial path. Even as Celeste reveled in their torment, she Lunged away, gaining precious distance.

Gravity and momentum brought them closer. Out of time, she desperately channeled Elemental Power. It flowed freely through her arms, down her fingers, and into her staff. It was an exquisite sensation, but she refused to be distracted. She spun the weapon as another Lunge bought distance. She whirled one end in a short, purposeful arc, unleashing the first of many fully-loaded Charged Blasts. Another quickly followed, then four, then thirty spheres of crackling energy filled the shrinking space between her and the ten guilders.

Not one connected. 

With the precision of Phoenix-trained experts, they recovered from her brief mental assault and wove between her attacks. Half stored their drifters and braced against their allies, ready to kill. The next Blast was Celeste’s last chance. She pumped all the Elemental energy she could solely into its speed facet, then swung for all she was worth. It streaked toward the first Warrior, who was already Charging at maximum speed. When it sailed harmlessly past his face, a wide grin for the coming slaughter returned to his cheeks.

The miniature comet, with little destructive force of its own, found its nearest brethren—the actual target. The two Blasts collided and decided that playing nice wasn’t in their vocabulary. The detonation that followed created a chain reaction that ignited every one of her Blasts, all of which had their facets of Intensity and Area maxed. A blistering inferno blossomed, and for every Blast that found a target, over 4,000 damage was dealt.

There were no survivors.

Celeste did not pause to admire her work. With an outstretched hand, she commanded the remnant heat in the air, gathering it to herself before Lunging toward the next target. It turned out that her lesser version of the Soul Flame of Amanesh had little in common with Raine’s. At the first stage of mastery, it had no capacity to create its own fire; it could only control flames that already existed. That wasn't a problem for Celeste.

She tore through the winds, staff and palm alight with vicious fires. Determination to protect her people warred with the desire to bring suffering to her enemies.

Had she been alone in her task, the casualties would have been significant. From a nearby cloud, an entire flock of monstrous Great Eagles emerged in a swirl of vapor. Raine had not been idly picking off spies while passing through the mountains. He’d gone from flock to flock, charming their leaders with Umbra’s Snare, bending their wills to his own.

While only level fifteen, the twenty Great Eagles were fighting in the air, where they were strongest. Together, they were more than sufficient to gang up on isolated pairs of guilders and pick them off. Adding to the chaos, Mel and Fizgore streaked in from opposite sides in a coordinated assault that tore into the guilders.

With arms spread wide, Fizgore crashed into two with an Intercept. A masterfully delivered kick and thrust of his bulwark smashed them headlong into a third. Celeste was quick to unleash her captured flames, enveloping the trio in misery. A Charged Blast finished them off. Fizgore Lunged away, grin a kilometer wide as he flew freely through the skies.

Mel swept deep into the enemy ranks, too deep. Her efforts to weave through them as Rain had done in the mountain pass failed utterly. She was grabbed by rough hands and pulled in three directions as more than ten dogpiled her. The lot of them spun wildly toward the distant ground in a chaotic free-fall. Holding her limbs so she couldn’t fight back, they plunged swords deep and beat her senseless.

Their efforts were even more futile than her attempt to weave through them. Her triple copies of Life Drain were backed by Connection nearly as high as Celeste’s. She tore out gaping chunks of their health, dealing, and recovering, far more than they could inflict in such an awkward fight. It was so one-sided that she didn’t even have to use her second copy of Healing Burst. Long before they reached the ground, the last died, an agonized scream still on his lips.

Yet, of the four, it was Rhino who shone the brightest. He bounced off solidified air at medium distance, following the throng down while never letting any draw too close. His arm blurred forward repeatedly, and each time it did, Warriors Toss made a head explode in a gory mess, leaving a Lustrous or Marvelous piece of gear tumbling from the sky.