WIEDERGEBURT Act VII: Chapter 3

Raul was with Aliya when the alarms went off. Still perched on the roof, he had front row seats to the organized chaos that took place down below as everyone prepared for the enemy force. Spiritualists were helping those who could not fight enter the palace. There were numerous underground passages that could be used bastions against invasion.

“Looks like things are about to get busy,” Raul murmured.

“I’ll say. Come on! We had better go and get our orders. I’m certain we’ll be at the front lines,” Aliya said.

Raul didn’t argue with Aliya and instead leapt down from the palace. When he was about one meter above the ground, he slowed his distant using the wind element to land lightly on his face. Aliya appeared from within his shadow the moment he was grounded.

The two moved off toward the barracks located on the edge of the city, which was shaped somewhat like a conch shell. This city was built in a spiral pattern with the palace at its center. Buildings became larger and more spaced further out, making it easier for Spiritualists to launch Spiritual Techniques at the enemy.

“It looks like this is it, everyone! The enemy has found us! We knew this would happen and have been preparing for it! Now it’s time to show these delusional beasts who’s boss!”

Upon reaching the barracks, Raul found Alexis and Fay. The shorter of the two was barking out motivational speeches like it was going out of style. Alexis Mutig had always been charismatic despite her youthful appearance.

Despite being even older than his mom, Alexis did not look a day over 15 years-old. She looked about the same age as Raul himself. Her silver hair was long, traveling all the way down to her butt, and her eyes were the color of blood. She had skin so pale it looked translucent. Decked out in fully-body armor, she did not strike an imposing figure, but no one present looked ready to dispute the woman’s words.

In contrast, his mom said absolutely nothing. She remained silent and steady. Her vibrant locks of red hair had been tied into a leather band at her back. The outfit she wore now was vastly different from the one she used to wear. Black pants wrapped covered her legs. Wrapped tightly around her calves were white bandages that traveled into a pair of black boots. Her red and black shirt was sleeveless, but underneath the shirt was chain mesh armor, something Sterk had created for her early in the war. Vambraces covered her arms and shinguards sat firmly on her boots. She carried no weapon. But she didn’t need one.

While everyone listened to Alexis’ words, his mom had such a powerful presence that she needed no words to rally the troops.

“Mom!” Raul shouted as he rushed over to them.

His mother smiled. “Raul, were you up on the roof again?”

He flushed at the knowledge that his mother realized where he’d been.

“This is gonna be your first big battle, kid,” Alexis said, hands on her hips. “Think you’re ready for it?”

“Of course. I’ve fought the Sekbeist before. I’m ready,” Raul said, getting over his embarrassment.

“You don’t need to worry about his safety,” Aliya added, thumping her chest. “I’ll stick by his side and protect him with my life.”

“I’ll be counting on you,” Fay told her.

“Just leave it to me.”

Raul wanted to tell all three of them that he didn’t need a babysitter, but he was not so immature that he’d make such a comment out loud. Perhaps if he hadn’t already experienced the violence of combat, he would have been resentful, but now he was grateful. Their concern warmed his heart.

He joined the stream of people leaving the barracks, following his mom and Alexis as they made their way to the front of the city. The sandstorm was still going strong. Even if the Sekbeists had discovered where their city was, it would still be difficult for them to find its exact location.

“Send several squads from the Earth Division into the sandstorm!” Alexis ordered. “Have them harrass the enemy by creating traps and using hit and run tactics!”

Earth Division was a team of earth-affinity Spiritualists. All of them had reached the Third State of Spiritualism, making them nearly invincible in a desert battlefield like this. They specialized in reconnaissance, but they could be used for gorilla warfare just as easily. Within this desert environment, they could mask their presence within the sandstorm, sneak up on their enemies, and launch any number of surprise attacks.

Several Lamia slithered forward and rushed into the raging sands, disappearing from view.

“And now we wait,” Raul muttered with a sigh.

He didn’t remember where he’d heard it, whether he’d read it in a book or listened to someone speak it, but waiting truly was the hardest part of war. The tension built as you stood there and waited for the enemy to reveal themselves. You asked yourselves all kinds of questions during this time. How large was the enemy force? What sort of power did they have? Could your own forces match them? What if a stray technique got lucky and killed you? You could die without ever realizing it! These sort of thoughts were the kinds Raul was having right now as he waited for the enemy to appear.

“Stay calm, Raul.” A reassuring weight rested on his shoulder. It was Aliya’s hand. “You’re getting worked up. Relax. Remember, we have your mother here to fight with us. There’s not a person alive who is stronger than her.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Raul took several deep breaths, calmed his racing heart, and sent Aliya a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“But of course. This is what I am here for,” Aliya said, returning his smile.

“I see the enemy!” Alexis suddenly shouted, alerting everyone and causing Raul’s attention to focus up front.

There, emerging from the sandstorm like heat waves distorting the air, were the Sekbeists. They came in staggered formations of one and two at first, but more appeared as time passed. Within less than maybe five seconds, there were at least five or six thousand Sekbeists to their forces one thousand, meaning they were already outnumbered five to one.

“You’re up, Fay,” Alexis said.

His mom said nothing as she walked forward with slow, easy steps. Her ponytail whipped about in a frenzy as she stood before the Sekbeist army. She looked so valiant and heroic, like a maiden of war from a famous ballad. Her very presence seemed to embolden their forces. The men and women all looked at her like she was their goddess given human flesh.

She took one look at the Sekbeist army and snorted. Then she stomped on the ground.

In that instant, the entire desert came alive. The sand writhed and bulged like a surging tide, swallowing the entire Sekbeist army that had appeared whole. Raul could not hear the screams of the dying. However, his vision was very good, and he watched as one of the Sekbeist opened his mouth in a terrified shriek before he was consumed by the sands.

And then it was all over.

The sands calmed again.

However, the Sekbeist that had appeared from beyond the sandstorm were gone.

“By the nine realms,” one of the men standing beside Raul muttered. He was a big guy with a scar over his right eye. “I never get tired of seeing that.”

“Fay Valstine isn’t called the strongest Spiritualist in the world for nothing,” another exclaimed.

“Big Sister is so cool!” a young woman squealed.

“I wish I could be like her,” another agreed.

Raul knew it was stupid to feel pride, but that was exactly what he felt as he listened to these people praise his mom.

“How are you feeling? Tired?” asked Alexis.

His mom turned to look at the woman. “Are you really asking me that?”

Alexis paused a moment, then shook her head. “Right. Guess that was a stupid question.”

Several more battalions appeared, but each one was wiped out the same way. Fay single-handedly buried them all underneath the desert.

“Heh. Think we can all leave this to our Big Sister?” asked one of the men.

“Probably,” a woman agreed. “It’s not like the Sekbeist can get past her.”

Raul would have agreed with them, but he knew his mom was not omnipotent. She was strong. Their claim that she was the strongest might not be unfounded, but she was still just one person, and the Sekbeist army was legion. He had seen them. He was there when they burst from the Warp Gates and destroyed everything in their path. If even half of their forces was here, then there was no way his mom could defeat them all.

Just as this thought occurred, a scout came up to them.

“Two more large forces are coming from the north and south! It looks like they are trying to flank us!”

“Guess that means we’ll finally get to see some action,” Alexis mumbled before barking commands in a much louder voice. “All right, people! Half of you will travel north! The other half will travel south! We’re leaving the west to Fay here.” She looked at Fay. “You got this, right?”

His mom nodded. “Leave the west to me.”

With their orders received, the army divided into two groups. Raul and Aliya traveled with the group heading toward the west. As two of the stronger Spiritualists, they fell in line at the front with another person Raul recognized.

“Zane,” Raul said in surprise. “I didn’t realize you were fighting in this battle.”

Zane was someone who knew his parents. According to what his mother said, they had helped Zane and his wife when Raul was just a baby. He was an older man. His dark skin was like obsidian, he had dark eyes that reminded Raul of the night sky, and his nose was somewhat flat. Zane had reached the Third State of Spiritualism later in life, which explained why he actually looked his thirties years.

“I wasn’t going to… but my wife and her family are among those hiding down below,” Zane said, lips twitching into a wry smile. “Didn’t feel right sitting back there instead of protecting them… you know?”

“I understand,” Raul said softly.

“We all have people we want to protect,” Aliya agreed.

“Yes. We do,” Zane said.

There was no more talking between them as they reached the western side of the city. They were soon joined by Qawuin, another person his parents knew from their time when he was just a baby. Raul could already see the Sekbeists rushing out of the desert. There were thousands of them. A literal sea of chalk white skin, red eyes, and disgusting faces. Grunts. They were the canon fodder of the enemy. The Sekbeists liked to use them to soften the enemy before the Elites and Warlords came in.

“Fire and wind Spiritualists, to the front! Glass them!” Qawuin shouted.

Raul stepped forward with the other fire-affinity Spiritualists. He clapped his hands together and created a sphere of smoldering hot fire between his palms, widening the distance between his hands as the fireball grew bigger. Licking the inside of his gum, he compressed the fire further and added a trickle of the wind element to fuel the fire with oxygen, increasing its power.

Then he waited.

The other Spiritualists soon let off their attacks. Streams of fire combined with waves of wind to create an intense blaze that swept over the Sekbeists’ front line. Screams mixed with the crackling sound of burning flesh. An incredible putrid scent filled Raul’s nose, but he tried to ignore it as he waited a second longer, then released his fireball.

Unlike everyone else, Raul launched his attack in a compressed sphere that traveled right into the heart of the enemy forces. The detonation that went off was massive. A gigantic geyser of flames erupted into the sky as waves of heat and displaced wind washed over their forces. Several people eyed Raul with shock, and he felt a burst of pride at his own Spiritual Powers, which would have been considered remarkable even for someone twice his age.

“Look alive, everyone! There are more coming!”

It was true. More Sekbeists were rushing out of the sandstorm, thousands of them, and so their teams formed up again. This time it was the earth-affinity Spiritualists. They used manipulated the earth like his mom had done to swallow the enemy whole, though it took an entire team of Spiritualists to do what his mom had done on her own.

“There are still more coming!” Qawuin continued to shout.

“Damn it! How many of these monsters are there?!”

“It’s like they’re never ending!”

Raul had to agree with whoever was shouting. No matter how many Sekbeists they killed, more appeared to take their place, running against their techniques with little care for their own lives. It was recklessness personified. Did these monsters not fear death? Raul shivered as he realized not for the first time what kind of creatures they were up against.

The battlefield became even more chaotic as more Sekbeists arrived, and it wasn’t long before there were simply too many rushing forward for their Spiritualists to use their combination techniques.

Being at the front meant Raul was also one of the people who received the first horde of enemies in hand-to-hand combat. He summoned a pair of twin swords from his storage ring and swung them in a cross pattern to quickly remove the head of a charging Sekbeist. Sensing movement on his left, he deftly darted away, spun, and swung the sword in his left hand. Blood spurted from the furrow he carved into his enemy.

Then his enemy caught fire.

Raul was not sure how long he fought, but once he worked out a steady rhythm, he discovered that killing Grunts was easy. They were weak. They had no Spiritual Power to speak of, so even though there was a horde of them, he mowed them down like a farmer threshing wheat.

Leaping into the air, Raul summoned fire to his blades and flew into the very heart of the enemy formation. He slammed into the earth on both feet and swung his swords, summoning a wave of fire that flew out in wide arcs. Hundreds of Sekbeists died instantly as the compressed flames sliced them in half. More Sekbeists were coming, but Raul continued swinging his sword to release crescent blades of bright red flame.

He was so certain of his victory that he never saw the attack coming from behind him until it was too late.

“Ack!”

Raul bit back a cry of pain as something stabbed into his arm. He spun around to find a Sekbeist Shaman had emerged from his shadow. Unlike the Grunts, this one was tall and powerfully built. His skin was the color of puke, and his dark red eyes were surrounded by black. He’d not been there before, so Raul could only assume this enemy had snuck up by emerging from his shadow.

“Child, I am going to enjoy killing you,” the Shaman said with a sneer.

Raul bit back a grimace and was about to attack, but then the shadows under his feet formed into hands that latched onto his legs. He panicked and tripped. The Shaman used that moment to surge forward. Raul tried to defend himself with his blades, but he already knew his defenses would be easy to knock aside.

And yet, just before the Shaman could impale him with the dagger in his hand, a dark purple whip sliced straight through his neck. The Shaman stood there blinking for all of one second. Then his head slid off his body, rolled across the desert, and the body soon followed.

Standing behind him was a sternly frowning Aliya.

“That was very reckless of you,” she said. “Have your mothers and I not warned you about traveling into the middle of the enemy forces alone? Not only does that leave you without allies, but it’s possible you could even be hit from a stray attack. Of course, this time you got cocky and left yourself open to a sneak attack.”

Raul could feel the heat on his cheeks as he stood up. After annihilating so much of the enemy, he’d grown overconfident and decided he could fight the enemy by himself just like his mom, but he had forgotten that he and his mom were two different people. He not only lacked her raw power. He also lacked her experience.

“You are right. I’m sorry,” he mumbled, contrite.

“S’okay. So long as you learn your lesson,” Aliya said. “Now stay by my side. We shall fight the enemy together.”

“Yes.”

Raul agreed, and together, they turned toward the onrushing wave of enemies.

***

Fay stared at the incoming wave of enemies with a frown. There were a lot more now. She briefly considered using the fire element to burn them all to cinders, but in an environment like this, the earth element was simply worked better. That was too bad since fire was still her primary element.

Stomping on the ground, Fay unleashed a wave of sand that swelled forward and overtook the thousands of Sekbeists rushing toward the city. They were all swallowed whole. Through her connection to the earth, she could feel each Sekbeist as they struggled to claw their way to the surface.

Not that she would allow that.

Fay stomped on the ground once more. A loud crunching sound suddenly echoed around her as the several million tons of sand crushed the Sekbeists into past. Blood seeped out from between grains, but Fay manipulated the earth and buried the bodies deep, where they would eventually be eaten by Demon Beasts.

Because she had reached the Fourth State of Spiritualism for the earth element, Fay was nowhere near to running out of Spiritual Power. Her own reserves were enough that she could launch SS-Rank Spiritual Techniques for days on end. However, with the earth bolstering her own reserves, the power she had at her disposal was nearly unlimited.

More Sekbeists poured in from beyond the sandstorm.

Fay grimaced.

There were so many this time that even she could not kill them all before they reached her.

Having finally been forced into close-combat, Fay did not hesitate to manipulate the earth element around her, encasing her hands in claw-like gauntlets that she further enhanced with the fire element. Bright red flames licked around the gauntlets and hardened the sand, which had turned a molten gold color.

The first Sekbeist unfortunate enough to reach her had his face sliced apart as she swung her claw-like weapons. He didn’t even have time to scream as he spun around and struck the desert floor, and Fay was no longer paying attention to him as she summoned numerous spears to skewer the Sekbeist trying to rush past her. At the same time, she impaled another incoming enemy on her hands, jerked her hand out of his chest, and kicked him so hard that his body was blasted to pieces.

She grimaced. She had meant to kick him into his comrades.

It was no longer just grunts that were incoming. Several Elites and Shamans had appeared on the scene. The Elites rushed in, waving their weapons as they unleashed a battlecry, while the Shamans tried to sneak attack her by traveling through her shadow.

Fay manipulated the shadow at her feet to strangle the Shamans as she waded forward, blocking a sword swing with the back of her gauntlet, and shoving her foe off balance before punching him so hard that he flew into his comrades. As they all went down, she stomped on the ground, and the sand rose like the gaping maw of a Demon Beast to swallow them up.

There was no telling how much time had passed. Nor did Fay worry about the number of enemies arrayed against her. By this point in her life, Fay had learned that it was better not to ask pointless questions and just focus on the task at hand. Take things one step at a time and everything became more manageable.

Loud rumbling made Fay suddenly turn her head to find several large shadows emerging from the sandstorm, which soon revealed themselves to be Warlords. They were much larger and more muscular than the Elites. Each Warlord was at least three meters in height. Their bodies were covered in dented armor with runes etched onto the surface. Grasped in their hands were weapons made from darkness mixed with the Void—that terrifying element all Sekbeist seemed to have an affinity for.

Fay did not hesitate to launch herself at them.

She turned into a streak of fire and flew through the air, slamming head first into the nearest Warlord, blowing a hole clean through his chest. The Warlord flew backward and landed on the ground. He didn’t get back up. There was a gaping hole in his chest, though it had been cauterized so no blood seeped out.

Using her leg as a fulcrum, Fay spun around and slammed an axe kick into another Sekbeist Warlord. Her attack split him in half. As she landed on the ground, she leapt back as the two halves separated, placed her hands on the ground, and manipulated the earth to skewer every Sekbeist who thought they could get past her. There were over five thousand now. Just how many people did their enemies have to throw at them?

They’re never ending!

Fay shook the thought away and focused once more on attacking. She tapped into the earth surrounding her on all sides to keep her Spiritual Powers at maximum capacity. Like this, she would never run out of power, though her body might get exhausted if this kept going for days without end.

The earth suddenly shook and caused Fay to stumble, which one of the Shamans tried to capitulate on, but she skewered him with her own shadow when he tried to take control of it. The shaking increased in both frequency and intensity. Fay wondered what was going on, but then something massive burst from the sandstorm. It was… a foot! A massive foot, and it was coming right for her!

Fay used the Flash Step to move backward as the foot slammed into the ground where she had been standing. The foot was even bigger up close. It must have been at least two meters long and one meter high. It left a deep imprint in the sand.

While Fay had no idea what this thing was, she was not about to let it come into her city!

Swinging her arms, Fay unleashed several severing blades of wind, four from each hand to make a total of eight. They soared at the foot and… dispersed?! The wind just disappeared! Fay could sense the lightning element covering the foot. Her wind attack had displaced the lightning a little, but it was not powerful enough to completely defeat the lightning armor covering this body.

“In that case… try this!”

Fay stomped on the ground once. Sand rose up and surrounded the foot like bondage, keeping it pinned. The foot tried to rise, but Fay increased the Spiritual Power she was using to hold the foot in place. Then she unleashed her attack. It was another blade, but this one was made from a combination of fire and wind. Bright blue in color, the fire blade was shaped like a crescent of at least three meters in length. It slammed into the foot just above the ankle.

And sliced right through it.

A loud, inhuman cry rang out as the foot separated from the ankle. The stump slammed into the desert sands, tottered forward, and then a shadow appeared above her head.

Fay looked up to find a giant crashing toward the ground. That was the only way she could describe this creature. It was big—at least twenty meters tall. It had a head covered in black hair, its skin was light gray with blue lightning patterns covering it, and it possessed a muscular physique that put any human male to shame.

And this giant was falling toward her and the city.

Thinking fast, Fay entered the Fourth State of Spiritualism for the earth element, merged into the earth, and took direct control of the desert. A pillar of sand flew up. The sand pillar was at least ten meters wide. It slammed into the giant’s chest and pushed him back, causing him to fall backward instead of forward. With a loud cry, he struck the ground, kicking up a massive wave of sand. The giant tried to get back up, but Fay once again held it down with sand. She then began the process of making it sink into the desert. It would take a while, but she couldn’t afford to let this thing make it into the city.

However, before the giant was even fully emerged, ten more gigantic feet emerged from the sandstorm. Sekbeist raced between the feet without regard for their own safety. Some were crushed. However, there were so many Sekbeists that it didn’t even matter.

Fay looked at the giant feet coming toward her, at the Sekbeist attempting to slip by while she was occupied, and took a deep breath. Then she squared her shoulders and released her Spiritual Power. Fire and wind swirled around her body, were sucked back into her skin, and created a pale glow as she entered the Fourth State of Spiritualism for both elements. The Fire-Wind Body was a technique she had created based on Eryk’s Water-Lightning Body. It increased all her physical abilities and granted her an incredible boost to her Spiritual Techniques.

With a fierce expression on her face, Fay blasted off the ground and attacked the incoming horde.

She would not let a single one of these monsters get past her.

***

Raul rasped for breath as two Elites tried to flank him. He ducked underneath a swinging sword, backing away to gain some distance, and then swung his sword and unleashed a blade of fire that cut straight through the arm holding the sword. The Sekbeist screamed and stumbled back. Raul would have taken advantage of this to kill him, but the other Sekbeist closed in and attacked before he could.

Several meters away, Aliya was also dealing with several Sekbeist, swinging the two khopesh in her hands and even using her tail. One Sekbeist stupid enough to attack her tail found his broken body soaring through the air when she smacked him. Another was crushed underneath the tail’s incredible weight as she slammed it down with all her strength.

This fighting had been going on for so long now. Raul no longer knew how much time had passed, but the desert had become piled up with bodies. It wasn’t just the Sekbeist either. Human and Lamia corpses also littered the ground, and while there were less of them than there were Sekbeist, it was a small consolation.

With grim determination, Raul moved toward Aliya, wielding his sword like it was a second arm. He’d been trained extensively in swordplay by numerous instructors, including Grandmother Hilda and her husband, Valence. All that hard work was now being put to good use as he cut his way through yet another enemy and arrived by Aliya’s side.

“How are you… holding up?” asked Raul, breathing heavily through his nose.

“I’ve… been… better,” Aliya admitted with several huffs. “You?”

“Same.”

Several Sekbeist were now surrounding them, but neither Aliya nor Raul panicked. Aliya slammed her tail against the ground, creating skewers that flew from the earth and impaled their foes, while Raul spun one-hundred-eighty degrees and unleashed a wave of fire that sliced dozens of enemies in half. Not that this meant much. More Sekbeists took the place of those who died.

“This is… ridiculous...” Aliya scowled.

Raul nodded. “It seems like… for everyone one dozen we kill… another thousand are ready to take their place.”

This was a truly never ending wave of enemies.

As if to make the bad situation worse, a pair of gigantic feet suddenly appeared from within the sandstorm. Each step they took caused the earth to shake. Raul was nearly knocked off balance. Aliya grabbed his arm to keep him upright, though most of her attention was on the feet.

“What… is that?!” she asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Raul said.

The feet continued moving forward, crushing both corpse and person alike. Raul grimaced when several of their allies were crushed. He looked up to try and see the monster these feet were attached to, but they were so tall that all he could glimpse were their legs, which disappeared into the sandstorm.

Amidst this chaos, Qawuin’s shouting could be heard.

“Do not falter! Earth-affinity Spiritualists! Bind those feet to the ground! Wind and fire Spiritualists! Strike this monster down once its bound! Everyone else! Protect them as they do their jobs!”

“Come on,” Raul said. “Let’s give them a hand!”

Aliya said nothing, but her face was filled with grim determination as she fought alongside Raul, traveling closer to the group of Spiritualists who had gathered together. About twenty Spiritualists were located in the center of the formation. Ten of them were kneeling on the ground. Raul felt a strange thrumming beneath his feet as Spiritual Power seeped into the desert sands. Even as he made his way closer, numerous rope-like threads that were nearly half a meter thick wrapped around the feet to bind them in place.

Unfortunately, whatever this creature was, it was far stronger than they were.

It tore through the sand ropes.

“Keep at it, men!” Qawuin shouted.

As they reached the group, Raul joined the Spiritualists protecting the earth-affinity Spiritualists. Aliya joined the earth-affinity Spiritualists, adding her significant powers to the cause. With her help, they were finally able to bind the creature in place, but that created an unexpected result. The giant fell facefirst into the desert. Its massive body, which must have been over twenty meters tall, crushed several buildings beneath it. Raul flinched at this, but he didn’t stop killing Sekbeists and let the others handle the giant.

The fire and wind Spiritualists gathered in pairs and created crescent blade combination attacks. Each attack slammed into the giant, but none of the attacks seemed to affect it. Raul was surprised when a powerful spark flared along the giant’s skin, deflecting the crescent blades.

“This thing has a powerful lightning affinity!” Raul shouted. A bad premonition suddenly came over him as sparks flew along the giant’s skin, and he turned to everyone. “Get off the ground, people!”

Putting words into action, Raul grabbed Aliya and leapt into the air. Several others heeded his advice like Qawuin and Zane, but there were many who did not, and they suffered when a powerful explosion of lightning erupted from the ground and fried them. Their bodies locked up, smoke wafted off them, and then they pitched forward and began spasming as their muscles convulsed and their hearts stopped.

“What just happened?!” shouted a shocked Aliya.

“That giant used the iron particles in the ground like a conductor to attack us!” Raul explained.

There was a lot of iron in the Endless Desert. They were small particles so fine that it was far too tedious to mine, but it was perfectly possible to conduct electricity through them and use it as a means of attack. Raul didn’t know what these monsters were, but it was clear to him that they had reached the Fourth State of Spiritualism for the lightning element.

As they landed back in the ground, Raul let Aliya go and leapt into the air. He ignored her screams to get back as he flew over to the giant. They had to stop this thing from entering the city at all cost, and the only one who had the power to do that right now was him and maybe Qawuin.

Raul’s body exploded with power as he quickly transformed himself into a raging human fireball. Jets of flame spewed from his feet, turning him into a streak as he flew high into the air. He did not move past the sandstorm. Once he reached what he deemed a suitable height, he turned around, and flew down, his body quickly picking up speed as he plummeted.

He burst through the sandstorm to find the giant picking itself up. This creature looked almost human. It possessed thick brow ridges and more prominent cheekbones than was found on most humans, and its arms were too long for its body, but it still seemed fairly human.

It wasn’t wearing much in the way of clothes, just a loincloth that wrapped around its waist to keep its modesty intact. The only other article of clothing was a collar that coiled around its neck and glowed with strange seals.

Raul had no time to pay attention to anything more than that. The giant had stood up and spotted him, so he put on an incredible burst of speed, blitzed forward, and crashed head first into the creature. He expected to explode through its chest, but that wasn’t what happened. The lightning armor covering the giant’s body fought against his fire. Flames detonated and lightning crackled as the two elements vied for supremacy.

Raul gritted his teeth as he pushed more Spiritual Power through his body, increasing the intensity of his flames. Little by little, the armor surrounding the giant gave way until, with a sizzling hiss, it vanished. Raul’s body suddenly exploded into action. He slammed into the now unprotected chest, burned a hole straight through it, and flew out the other side.

Because he was not expecting it, Raul tumbled through the air before righting himself, then turned around to look at the giant as it tottered back and forth. It looked like it was still alive. Yet even as he watched, the creature fell onto its knees, then fell onto its side. It twitched a few times like it was trying to get up. Then it went still.

Raul sighed as he set back down. Aliya rushed up to him, an angry look on her face.

“I thought I told you not to be reckless!” she scolded.

He flinched, but then shook his head and looked calmly at the woman. “You did, and I’m sorry, but we couldn’t let that thing continue rampaging. We’re having enough trouble with the Sekbeists. I had to do something.”

Even as he was fighting against the giant, the Sekbeists continued appearing from within the sandstorm and swarming over them like a horde of ants. The humans and Lamia were doing their best to defend against them, but there were just too many enemies and not enough allies. So what if they could kill hundreds of Sekbeists at a time? That didn’t matter when there were tens of thousands of them throwing themselves at you.

“Well… I guess… I can’t argue with you,” Aliya said with a sigh. She looked back at the giant corpse. “Still… what is that thing?”

Raul also looked at the corpse. “I think… it might be a member of the Lintilskudd.”

“I’ve never heard of those. What are these…Lintilskudd?” asked Aliya.

“They are also referred to as the Lightning Giants,” Raul said. “Big Sister Kari used to tell me about them. The Lintilskudd come from the realm of Útgarðar. It’s the third realm of this world. They are giants that have incredible power over lightning. I… don’t know anything else about them.”

“Well, whatever they are, they are incredibly powerful,” Aliya said with a sigh. “Let’s hope that’s the only one we have to deal with.”

Raul was about to nod, but then he noticed something shocking. The wind that was constantly blowing to produce the sandstorm… had stopped. No one else seemed to have noticed yet, busy as they were fighting. It did not take long for people to take notice, however, especially when the sand started to disperse, revealing the bright blue sky for the first time in several years.

“What’s going on?!” Aliya asked in shock. “The sandstorm… it’s gone. But that means…?!”

“It means the Sekbeists somehow found the Spiritualists who produce this storm and killed them,” Raul muttered darkly. “It means we’ve been tricked. This was all just a diversion!”

The sandstorm soon dispersed completely, not only surprising the defenders, but leaving them stunned. It was not just the sandstorm’s sudden disappearance that left them shocked, however. It was the massive army of Sekbeists standing just several kilometers out. There were so many they stretched across the desert for kilometers. Mixed in with them were at least a thousand Lightning Giants. There were even Sekbeists flying in the skies above them on powerful looking mounts.

“This… this is…” Aliya was so horrified by the sight that she couldn’t even form a complete sentence.

Raul summed up his thoughts in just three words.

“This is bad.”