Cataclysm War | Chapter 93: Psychological Warfare (First Draft)

Friday, August 12, 4 S.E.

Xarina slowed to a halt as she stared at the scene before her.

The Prosperity Gate was open, and almost half of the Shield-Host had charged out of the gates in the green fields and madness beyond, while the Royal Army was already marshaling forces in the thoroughfare, bellowing orders as the Haelfenn formed ranks and prepared to reinforce the charging citizens. The remainder of the Shield-Host was also dividing, with groups jogging toward the wall’s access points to take the place of the Army as it made its way down, waiting patiently for the Haelfenn to move past them.

“That doesn’t look good,” John said, standing next to her with Sonya beside him. “Why are the gates open?”

“The Archon-King probably led a counter-assault,” Xarina said with frustration edging her tone, her hands curling into fists. “We arrived too late. He’s probably already in the thick of the fighting.”

“That sounds like Ace,” Sonya said in quiet affirmation. “Even in the short time we’ve known him, he’s always been kinda hotheaded.”

John glanced at her and grunted.

“He’s just decisive, Sonny,” he said with remarkable certainty. “S’how a King should be.”

“You don’t know anything about Kings, Johnathan Mattherson!”

Xarina tuned out her Terran charges as they started arguing, and rapidly tried to figure out what she was going to do. Reaching the Archon-King in the melee with her charges was a terrible idea; he’d probably be furious that she’d brought them into the fight. She couldn’t just abandon the Terrans and join the fray, because that would only lead her right back to square one.

Her options for ending the debacle facing her people were rapidly shrinking second by second. If, Nocturne forbid, the man actually died in that mad charge, then everything would be for naught. She needed a way to reach him—something that would give her legitimacy and relevance in the chaos of the battlefield. It was an almost impossible task; there were few people that the Cataclysm would listen to, and she had no doubt that all of them were probably already engaged in battle.

Xarina chewed her lip in frustration, her eye twitching out of control, until something from the Terrans caught her ear.

“What did you say?” she asked, turning toward John sharply.

“H-huh?” the boy asked, looking at her in surprise, before pointing ahead. “Oh, I said that Sinalthria is still here. You can see her horns—”

“Stay here,” she instructed both of them sharply, overriding John’s immediate complaints with a withering look. “I can’t protect you if you do something foolish. Mingle with the Shield-Host and do not leave the City!”

Sonya reached out to take John firmly by the arm and nodded.

“We’ll make sure Ace knows what you did for us, Xarina,” Sonya assured her, and won a rare, sincere smile from the Night Sister.

That girl has a good head on her shoulders. Perhaps these Terrans have some hope, after all.

Xarina nodded to the pair and strode away a moment later, accelerating into a jog and then a sprint as she wove between Terrans, racing toward where she could now easily spot the towering frame of Sinalthria among a group of Adventurers, clearly readying herself to join the fray. Xarina’s Contender speed drew her rapidly toward the towering woman, and she ignored the shouts that followed her, slowing only when she reached the outskirts of the group.

“...send the Mithril ranks out to handle those Archers, while the Adamantines come with me and aid the Archon-King,” Sinalthria was saying, while the members of the Guild Council nodded along to her words.

“Guild Mistress!” Xarina shouted, drawing eyes to her as she pushed through the Adventurers.

“Ah, Xarina,” Sinalthria said as she leveled her imposing golden eyes on her. “Come to join the fun?”

Good-natured laughter rattled around them, but Xarina kept her gaze on the Half-Dragon determinedly.

“No, I have intelligence the Archon-King needs to hear,” Xarina said, quieting the laughter. “Intelligence that has to reach him, Guild Mistress, and from me directly. I cannot explain more than that.”

Sinalthria’s tail cracked through the air idly when Xarina spoke, and she narrowed her golden eyes in a way that seemed disturbingly predatory.

“Is that so?” the Guild Mistress asked. “And how, exactly, did you come by this critical intelligence?”

Xarina steadied her nerves at feeling the Ascendant’s full attention settle on her and stiffened her spine.

“That is for him alone,” she professed honestly. “But I swear to you, on my Core with the System as my witness, it is imperative I speak to the Archon-King before this madness degenerates further. The future of the City may well rest on it.”

Silence greeted her words, and all eyes turned to the towering figure of Sinalthria as she regarded Xarina in assessment. The Guild Mistress had always been, if not warm, at least welcoming to Xarina—happy to give anyone who wanted a chance, and could earn that chance, the right to prove themselves. There was weight to her gaze when she mused over Xarina’s words, weight and calculation.

“Well, if you are willing to swear by the System…” the Guild Mistress said, and then turned to her Council. “Do as I instructed,” she said finally, before turning to Marthulf. “I will leave you in charge of the Adamantines, Marthulf,” she declared. “Your son is at the Archon-King’s side, so you may as well go make sure the boy is holding his own.”

The Adamantine Adventurer gave a two-fingered salute at Sinalthria’s words.

“The boy has managed to climb high in the world,” the Lycanus said with a wolfish grin. “It will be good to show him how much further he has yet to rise.”

Sinalthria nodded and then turned back to Xarina when the gaggle of Adventurers moved, slapping one another’s shoulders and making bets on kill tallies as they raced to join the rest of their kind massing near the gate.

“As for you, Xarina,” the Ascendant said as her tail flicked back and forth behind her. “I am very eager to see what our young King has to say about your intelligence. I shall escort you into the fray personally.”

Xarina eyed the Guild Mistress, and when the woman smiled, she swallowed.

The look in her eyes was not what Xarina would call reassuring.

*

Leonidas cut down the last human inside his cordon with a distant sense of pity, ignoring the flood of Experience and turning to take stock of the battle around him. His spear drive into the front of the Alliance’s ranks had sent a ripple of shock through them all, and he could see his grandfather rallying his cavalry while his grandmother—another pang of recognition had echoed from that realization—rode among a slightly separate group of Terrans, pointing angrily at the battle and arguing with what Leonidas assumed was their leader.

A small eye of calm had emerged within the chaos where Leonidas now stood, twenty meters deep into the mass of the enemy and surrounded by his Royal Guard and the hollering forces of the Shield-Host. He’d wanted the Royal Army to charge with them, but the impossible logistics of moving them off the wall in a way that didn’t arouse suspicion had won out over his wish to spare the Civitas Milites.

He’d conceded to let the Shield-Host join the initial push, with the concession that the Army would reinforce them as soon as possible, along with the Adventurers’ Guild. The madness that was occurring around him was a result of that decision: screams, the clash of steel, and the upheaval of earth as spells and Skills were used with wild abandon, turning the area surrounding his small golden-shielded island into a charnel house of brutality.

With his [Sovereign Domain] deployed, his Royal Guard was immovable.

It was surreal to watch it all from a momentary island of safety.

“What are you waiting for, idiot?” Kairi asked abruptly as she appeared at his side, her face and body bloody, though thankfully, none of it appeared to be hers. “You going to show Pops who you are sometime soon?”

“Not yet,” Leonidas replied, glancing around at the screaming melee occurring beyond the Royal Guard’s double-layered circular cordon. “I need to make him hesitate first. If he knows it’s me before the right moment, he’ll just assume I’m a puppet or a prisoner. I need to make him realize it’s hopeless, first.”

“You’d think the screaming of ‘Achilles’ would tip him off,” Kairi said idly.

“You didn’t realize it was me at first,” Leonidas pointed out. “Pops probably thinks I’m a prisoner or something. Confirmation bias is a helluva thing, Kai.”

His sister sighed at his point and waved a hand idly to concede it.

“Fine, but I still don’t get why you need to make him hesitate. Explaining it doesn’t make it any less weird.”

Leonidas frowned beneath his helmet, then tried a different tactic.

“It’s psychological. If he sees what I do to his army before knowing it’s me, then when I reveal myself, I’m not just his grandson anymore—I’m someone worth being wary of. Pops will never take me seriously unless he respects my capability before he knows who I am. It’s just who he is.”

“That’s a big gamble, big brother,” Kairi said, pulling a severed finger from her armor and tossing it away with a look of disgust. “Pops isn’t exactly known for his love of reason.”

“Sinalthria will be joining the fight, soon,” Leonidas said calmly, glancing back toward the gates. “Even he can’t deny the force of an Ascendant Cultivator.”

“What about the Sunrise and Moonrise Quarters?” Kairi asked instead of replying to his words.

“Aylar already reported that both Ceruviel and Uriel are engaged with Svartfenn Ascendants. I wanted to send Sinalthria there to help, but I need to break the Alliance first. If we do that, we can flank one of the sally gates and break the Svartfenn assault there, which will free up our forces there to help the other side.”

Kairi blew out a sigh and shook her head.

“Elatra really did make a General out of you, huh?”

Leonidas smiled mirthlessly under his helmet.

“Not really. It’s a basic knowledge of strategy, but nothing that grand. I’m just doing what I think is right. Aylar’s got the Legion-Masters with her as a reserve force in case Uriel or Ceruviel need emergency reinforcement. Two Ascendants will tip the tide nicely when it’s needed.”

“So why not just send them out now? Tip the scales?”

Their conversation paused when a charge impacted the Royal Guard’s lines, and promptly fell into chaos when the guards threw them back, with two of the golden warriors stepping back to consume healing potions while clutching wounds, and their companions set to butchering the offending Alliance forces. Leonidas grimaced at the scene, then turned back to Kairi.

“Because we don’t know what else the Svartfenn are hiding,” Leonidas explained thereafter, trying to convey what his own experiences were telling him. “Uriel and Ceruviel are Venerates. They’ll be okay for a little while, and they’re only fighting five to one odds. Ceruviel once told me she could handle that without much trouble, if she was prepared—and I spent some Royal Reserve [Aetherium] to make sure she and Uriel were very well-provisioned. I have to trust them to hold until the right moment.”

Kairi grunted in response and wiped her blades idly on a cloth, while a horn sounded nearby, and a roar of thousands of voices coincided with another deafening clash, followed by panicked shouts from the Humanity Alliance. Leonidas saw an officer riding through the ranks and lifted his hand, generating a [Psikinetic Blade] and hurling it with precision, taking the man in the throat and throwing him from the saddle.

“So what’s the plan now?” Kairi asked instead of arguing after he was done.

“Now we break the core of the Alliance, and hopefully dissuade their irregulars,” Leonidas said as the experience from the kill flowed into him and he turned back to her. “There are probably a few thousand over there with Nana, and she seems to be trying to get them into the fight. That’s another reason I haven’t deployed the Legion-Masters. Two Ascendants could be very useful against that group.”

Kairi eyed the distant group and pursed her lips, turning back to Leonidas after she did.

“There are Nomads in that group,” she said, her voice a little annoyed and resigned at the same time. “I doubt they’ll be much challenge, but those Ascendants might come in handy to make them scamper off faster.”

Leonidas nodded at her words, knowing better than to discount his sister’s knowledge of the various factions, and turned to the Army Signaling Officer who had accompanied him.

“{Valian,}” he said, addressing the Haelfar, who snapped to attention. “{On my authority: Deploy Legion-Master Endymion to our location. Tell him I want him ready for an overwhelming show of force; he will understand.}”

Valian saluted fist-to-heart and lifted the silver rod in his possession while Leonidas turned back to Kairi, who looked somewhat surprised.

“What?” he asked her wryly from under his helmet. “I’m not dumb enough to ignore my sister’s advice.”

His sibling turned a little red at his words and then looked away, muttering something about stupid brothers and spinning one of her shortswords in her hand idly.

Leonidas opened his mouth to tease her a little and then froze when a palpable ripple went through the battle, followed by a heart-stopping draconic roar from nearby. Screams followed its appearance, and Leonidas turned to see Sinalthria smash into the earth nearby with an explosion of dragonfire and someone clinging desperately to her back, the towering Guild Mistress’ greatsword immolated by the same as she swept it across a rank of Alliance regulars and obliterated them with the sheer force of the strike, filling the area with red mist before she charged toward Leonidas’ position.

Explosions radiated out from the Ascendant as she moved, throwing men and women into the air with fiery conflagrations of power. Her blade claimed more lives as she did, slashing and hacking with a terrifying speed and force that defied the laws of physics as they existed prior to the Integration. She was death incarnate as she worked, slaying with neither mercy nor hesitation as she closed the distance with Leonidas, who momentarily felt his heart skip a beat at the carnage.

“Ace,” Kairi said softly, “do not hurt Synthra,” she declared in a voice of terrified awe. “That woman is fucking crazy.”

Leonidas could only nod in agreement as Sinalthria’s rampage continued.

The Guild Mistress did not halt, carving a passage of death and destruction through the Alliance’s ranks, marked by explosions and destroyed corpses, while unleashing another heart-stopping draconic roar. Humans fled from her presence as the half-dragon’s fearful aura made itself known, and Leonidas remembered to breathe as his future mother-in-law slowed to a casual stride after reaching them and walked through the Royal Guard’s lines, her immense greatsword resting on her armored shoulder.

Behind her came a familiar figure, a Svartfar that looked momentarily stunned by what Sinalthria had done.

The Half-Dragon’s initial assault had killed dozens in an eyeblink.

“Lady Sinalthria,” Leonidas greeted her, tilting his helmet to look up at the seven-foot Guild Mistress.

“Archon-King,” Sinalthria replied, smiling at him warmly as her golden eyes gleamed. “I come bearing a gift,” she continued, nodding down to the Svartfar. “She says she has information for you that can tip the scales of this debacle.”

Leonidas turned to the Svartfar in question, and his eyebrows rose in recognition when he did.

“Xarina,” he said in recognition. “You’re an Adventurer?”

“Yes,” the Svartfar said as she stepped forward, her hands lifted away from her blades, “and more besides. I have information that can stop this madness on two fronts, Archon-King, but it will require you to trust me. I will swear a System Oath that everything I tell you is true.”

Leonidas frowned under his helmet, but didn’t take his eyes off of her.

“What could possibly be that important?” he asked as the battle continued to rage around them.

“The Svartfenn forces attacking Dawnhaven are my own people,” Xarina said without preamble, her lambent red gaze locked on him, while Kairi narrowed her eyes at the revelation—blades hefted. “And I know how they think,” Xarina continued, focusing entirely on Leonidas. “More than that, I know how to stop them—how you can stop them, with words and will alone.”

Leonidas frowned under his helmet at her statement, but his [Psionic Focus] was no help in telling if she was lying.

“That’s a bold claim,” he said to her, folding his arms over his chest. “A very bold claim. What makes you so sure you’re right?”

Xarina glanced around and then lowered her voice, stepping closer as Kairi snapped up her shortswords to Xarina’s throat. The Svartfar hesitated at the blades, but Leonidas stepped closer in turn, a [Psionic Force] shield already prepared in case he needed it. He didn’t tell Kairi to back off, but some instinct made him believe that hearing out Xarina was worth it.

“There is only one thing that my people worship and fear more than our own Gods, Archon-King,” Xarina continued softly, her voice edged with tension and a hint of self-recrimination. That, more than anything else, made him believe she was sincere.

“That being?” Leonidas asked, curiosity overriding immediate caution.

Xarina breathed the last word barely above a whisper.

“Cataclysm.”