“Hello, Aulus, Cominia.”

The battlemage, Cominia, and recovery mage, Aulus, spun around for yet another surprise. Amulius was being carried through the sky by a half-wolfkin boy who could fly apparently, while an otterkin carried a Mélusine woman. A full century’s worth of metallic golems, also flying, followed them. Cominia stomped right up to them as they landed, grabbed Amulius by the front of his armor, and began shaking him.

“Why didn’t you tell us your daughter is some super hero or something?! That would’ve have really come in handy, you know!”

Amulius raised his hands.

“In my defense…she couldn’t do that when she was younger.”

Cominia cursed and muttered as she let go of him. Aulus shook his head then stepped forward and extended his hand.

“I’m glad to see you again, Amulius. Can I take this to mean everything went well back home?”

Amulius made a sad smile.

“Well, not entirely, but for the most part. But I believe we’ll have to catch up later?”

Aulus nodded, while the half-wolfkin boy pointed to the ground.

“Not to interrupt, but we’re about to have company. A lot of it.”

The group had just gotten into position when a huge hole opened up in the ground. Amulius frowned as an armored Sun Elf walked out of it.

“I was hoping to avoid this. Hello Nolnyth.”

The Archon scoffed as she stepped out of the hole, her retinue following behind her.

“Finally! It’s about time you showed up.”

Amulius tensed as Nolnyth walked forward. She reached into a pouch at her side…and pulled out a scroll, tossing it to Amulius. He blinked as he caught it.

“Hurry up and take that to someone important enough to matter! I do not intend to surrender only to find myself in an Imperial prison. I expect to have my rank and authority acknowledged, and to receive equivalent standing in exchange for my defection.”

Cominia gaped.

“You, you’re betraying the Empire of the Sun?!”

Nolnyth rolled her eyes.

“Not by choice. High-Archon Vommik has gone mad. He is playing with corrupted fire and it will burn our empire down. I do not intend to burn with it.”

Amulius nodded and opened the scroll, holding it towards the boy by his side.

“Taog, can you transmit that? Have someone pass it along to either Corvanus or Proclus’s Bastion and let us know the response?”

Taog nodded as his robotic eye flickered.

“Got it.”

Nolnyth turned away from them, preparing to cast her magic as her subordinates left the tunnel. But she paused. The inferno had spread across the Overgrowth forest…and the plants affected had stopped growing entirely. She dropped her arms, and the spell she was preparing.

“I see someone in your little ‘empire’ is finally showing some skill. Come then, let us depart before more arrive. I also do not intend to die holding the line.”

Amulius made a big smirk at that.

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

In the skies far from the front, a group of Seero’s airships hovered in the skies. Suddenly, the barrels at their centers began to light up, Lightning crackling and a Gravity field painting the interior purple.The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

And then the sky split as the ship’s railgun opened fire.

Miles away at the front, an Archon was preparing to cast a spell towards the Legion forces attempting to fall back. But then, without warning, a massive projectile came hurtling straight towards her. She had but a moment between perceiving the projectile and it striking home, not enough time for her to change from attack to defense. The Archon kept barriers up just in case, but that was an emergency defense intended to prevent small ambushes. It shattered immediately under the immense force it was subjected to.

She didn’t even have time to scream as the round obliterated her body.

A group of Legion troops had been caught on their retreat. The fast moving monsters of a Verminflood dungeon had overtaken them before they reached the next set of fortifications. They were forced to stop and fight back…but the tide of fur and fang never stopped coming. Once they paused to fight, they lost their opportunity to flee at all.

That is, until beams of rapidly shifting attributes rained down from the sky, cutting off the monsters from the legionaries. Seero’s magical strike drones flew just overhead, using their Prismatic Strike circles to rain sustained, ammo-free fire down on the monsters below. A moment later, Ateia’s blessing filled the beleaguered troops, healing their wounds and granting them the speed to escape.

Smoke clouded the skies as fires raged through the battlefield. Inferno Imps and Hot Devils rushed forward en masse, the flames of Inferno burning through barriers and armor alike. No spell or enchanted weapon could stop them, and with the Legion forces in retreat there were no formations of steel and blade to hold them back.

Until buzzing noises filled the air, and the Hot Devils dropped to the ground, full of holes.

Hundreds of Seero’s humanoid drone-golems landed from the skies, firing their arm-mounted machine guns. The weaker Inferno monsters fell back. Inferno Ursanus, Inferno Elementals, Inferno Giants, Inferno Knights, and other such monsters now appeared, and charged towards the golems.

Only for a massive beam of Holy mana to sweep across the battlefield.

A close-quarters airship designed for magical combat flew overhead, featuring Seero and Melion’s latest achievement. Seero’s study of dungeon mana and dungeon architecture had now paid off in full…she had developed a basic understanding of how her own implants were integrated into her core. And with that…she had determined how to create new dungeon cores and integrate them into airships.

The result was airships powered by the mana of a dungeon core…and that could draw on that mana to power their enchantments. A full Prismatic Bombardment circle was built into each surface of this particular airship, allowing it to rain down countless small beams or powerful superbeams of whatever attribute the situation required.

The fires of Inferno could burn regular magic…but endless Holy mana was not so easily swept aside.

Legion troops stumbled around in complete darkness. They couldn’t see, they couldn’t hear, they couldn’t even feel the ground beneath them. And they couldn’t defend themselves from the unseen monsters spreading the Eternal Night’s shroud.

That is, until light began to fill each of their visions. The Eternal Night could not stop Ateia’s blessing here in the Material Plane. And she gave each of them a very unique protocol.

A wave of Holy mana extended from each of the soldiers and formed a sphere around them. And suddenly, even though their eyes and ears and other senses still didn’t work, the soldiers could perceive the world around them. They could feel which way led up the mountain…and they could sense when a monster approached them.

Seero had not only summoned slimes, but experimented with them. She found she could apply new attributes to slimes by having a basic variant absorb mana of that type. So, of course, she promptly created a Holy Slime. And slimes view the world with a special mana sense that was especially attuned to their specific attribute. As a result…these new slimes had the ability to use their mana sense through Holy mana. Which was, in essence, a short-ranged Divination focused on their present environment.

A technique which was recorded by the CELIU network and easily replicated by a cyborg Aesdes.

The soldiers thus made their way out of the shroud safely. The monsters of Eternal Night relied entirely on concealment, and were no threat when spotted.

And then once the soldiers were clear…one of Seero’s dungeon airships obliterated the entire area with a Holy-Light Superbeam. Anything containing Eternal Night mana was designated as a high-priority target, after all.

When the first set of fortifications had broken, the Eastern Empire had been in serious trouble. The lack of reserves from the dungeon crisis meant they couldn’t prepare the next set of defenses while their front-line forces retreated…which meant they had no means of stopping the enemy’s pursuit, and no safe zones where their fleeing forces could regroup. The Empire’s many layered defenses would be rendered irrelevant, the fleeing legions hunted down and destroyed, leaving no free forces remaining in the Empire of the Sun’s path. The Eastern Empire would collapse.

But now…all across the front-lines, Seero’s autonomous forces joined the fight, and pushed the monster hordes back with combinations of Holy mana, AI-assisted mystical might, and modern firepower. They were still few in number compared to the size of the front, but their long-range and high-mobility allowed them to cover a wide area. And the Archons, ambushed by long-range railguns they were not prepared for, quickly fell back to avoid termination, leaving the monster hordes unsupported and vulnerable.

As a result of Seero’s intervention, the Eastern Empire’s soldiers were allowed to retreat to the next line of fortifications, regroup and reorganize back into formation, and recover their cohesion. The next set of defenses could be prepared and manned, and a new frontline established. Which meant once again…the Empire of the Sun had failed to exploit a break in the Eastern Empire’s lines and collapse their defenses once and for all.

And so the Eastern Empire lived on to fight another day.