One of High-Archon Vommik’s subordinate Archons flew in the sky towards the frontlines. He wore glowing armor, while magic circles filled the air around him. A shield of mana formed in the air in front of him.

And…as before, something slammed right into his shield. A roaring sound like thunder followed afterwards. The Archon grit their teeth as his mana drained out of his body. Cracks rippled all across their shield, and it shattered in mere moments.

But those moments were enough.

The moment the Archon perceived the threat, he cast an Air Dash spell. And since he had gone all out on his defense from the moment he entered the area, his barrier lasted just long enough for him to finish the cast. A gust of wind pulled the Archon out of the way as a metal projectile smashed through the shield and carried on its way.

A horde of flying monsters then flew past him, taking up positions ahead. They bought him time to reset his barriers. When the next attack came, the Archon could perceive monsters dying ahead of him, and shifted out of the way.

All across the front, scenes like this occurred. Now that the Archons were aware of what to look for, evading or defending from the railgun attacks were within their capabilities. The Archons and the monsters then flew high-up into the sky, above the clouds. They didn’t bother with their mana-senses or Presence Detection, instead using what spells they had to enhance their naturally sharp vision.

And soon, they found their targets.

Airships and drone-golems of various sizes flew through the skies, at ranges normally considered impractical for combat. They had proven hard to detect because they gave off very little mana for their size. But once the Archons were told where and how to look, they were not so invisible after all.

The drone-golems launched a wave of fiery projectiles, but the Archon created a huge barrier in front of the horde. Explosions lit up the sky as the projectiles collided with the barrier. One of the bigger ships fired its deadly attack once more. It shattered the wide barrier, but the Archon was on the lookout now, and moved out of the attack’s trajectory.

And since the monsters and warriors of Aelea lacked the ability to fight beyond range, they had instead focused on moving quickly from place to place. As such, their flight speed was quite fast. Soon…they were in range.

The Archon let loose a mighty spell. A huge cyclone engulfed the formation of airships. They all formed Mana Barriers to respond, but the drone-golems had limits to their mana capacity, and devoted most of their focus towards the offense. Their barriers quickly broke under an Archon’s attack. Once left exposed, their light construction quickly crumpled and they were tossed around in the air, colliding with one another and with the larger airships.

The larger airship’s barrier held, but the craft had to cease fire. It could not devote the mana necessary to power its main gun while maintaining its defense, and it had no mages onboard who could respond on their own.

And while it quietly endured the cyclone, the Archon prepared another spell. The cyclone condensed down, forming into a lance of twisting air and dense mana. The Archon launched this at the airship. A screeching noise filled the sky as the spell collided with the defensive barrier and attempted to bore through.

The airship’s mana cores were powerful…but ultimately this was a mass-produced design aimed at efficiency, and not optimized for defense. The spell won out in the end.

All across the frontlines, burning drones fell from the sky…and even some of the railgun airships. Spread out to cover the wide front, the railgun ships found it difficult to concentrate their fire, and so proved vulnerable if the target Archon was prepared to defend.

The dungeon ships were another story, but even they could not hold back the tides alone. Archons joined with monster hordes and defended them with powerful barriers. The dungeon ships could concentrate their power to defeat the barriers or spread their fire to stop the hordes…but couldn’t do both at the same time. The monsters streamed past and assaulted the more vulnerable drones around them. The dungeon ships were protected by the same Spatial Angling that regular dungeons used and so hard to bring down…but they were ultimately few in number. So, more often than not, the Sun Elves’ assault simply bypassed the battlefields where they were present.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Seero’s air assault ground to a halt, and her forces began pulling back.

But that was fine, for the attack had achieved its aim. The Empire of the Sun had taken too long to adjust their response, and the Legion of the Eastern Empire had finished resetting itself. A new defensive line had been established. Seero’s fleet now fell back to this line, and reorganized to support the defense, so the new line would not be broken easily. High-Archon Vommik’s forces had stopped the counterattack, but they could not yet resume the assault. High-Archons Kurzal and Ilnune still held their own forces back, not willing to commit until Vommik created another breakthrough.

And so, the frontline stabilized, with both sides currently unable to push forward, much to the High-Archon’s frustration. But the most frustrating aspect of the situation was not the frontline itself. The most frustrating aspect was that the Queen of the Dobhar had not appeared. The High-Archon might be able to break the airship-supported defense in person, but doing so while the Queen of the Dobhar was unaccounted for would leave him vulnerable to ambush, so she needed to be found first. In every other battle she had engaged in, she had led from the front, personally assaulting her enemies and breaking their formations single-handedly. Yet now, in the largest war she had ever participated in…she was nowhere to be seen. So the question High-Archon Vommik needed to answer most desperately was…where was the Queen of the Dobhar?

In past battles Seero had assaulted the frontlines directly, due to her role as a tactically-focused enforcer, the limited scale of those conflicts, and her overwhelming might. But at this stage, Seero was developing protocols for operational and strategic planning, and aiming for efficiency at a broader scale. She also had many allies experienced in large-scale command that she could coordinate with, including Magister Canus, and Maior Generalis Maximia. And this war was a much larger one than what she had dealt with in Aelea so far, and so required a more complex approach than the previous conflicts.

As such, Seero only committed her autonomous forces to the frontline, with the limited aim of blunting the Empire of the Sun’s advance. The expendable, mass-produced units designed for efficiency. Even the dungeon airships, which required Seero to personally construct, were replaceable in the long-run.

Meanwhile, Seero was aiming for the most efficient target to reduce the Empire of the Sun’s war capabilities. She was currently in an underground tunnel. 00EW ground down the rock and sand ahead of them, utilizing purely physical and technological methods. Beside her walked Amulius and Nolnyth. Behind them were their companions, subordinates, and retainers. Seero’s robotic eye was glowing and displaying a map of the continent, with a glowing red dot to show their current location.

Nolnyth was watching the giant worm and rubbing her chin.

“Not as efficient as an Earth attribute movement spell, but close. Acceptable for the low mana signatures involved. Where exactly did you acquire the armor?”

“Apologetic Refusal: This unit regrets to inform you that details of CELIU unit construction are classified for non-aligned units.”

Nolnyth shrugged.

“Keep your secrets, then. In any case, we are about to arrive.”

Just as she said so, 00EW came to a halt. Seero could detect powerful mana signatures and Spatial distortions up and above them...and a very familiar gap in her perception. Nolnyth nodded.

“Prepare yourself, then. I have heard much of your power, I can only hope you have a fraction of what is claimed. Since I am risking my own life invading my own former country, I expect you to display a better showing than the so-called elite Imperials over there. Do not disappoint me as they did.”

Cominia scowled and was about to say something when Aulus covered her mouth.

“Save it for the monsters.”

But Seero did not respond to any of them. Instead, she was focused on the corrupted dungeon up on the ground above their tunnel.

Yes, Amulius and Nolnyth had led Seero into the Empire of the Sun, to the location of the closest corrupted dungeon they were aware of. If they could bring down the corrupted dungeons, High-Archon Vommik’s monster horde would dry up, leaving his invasion even weaker than the Empire of the Sun's previous attempts, given only two other High-Archons had joined in this time. Of course, previously, destroying the dungeons was little more than a dream. The Eastern Empire had required all hands on deck just to hold the line, and so couldn’t commit the forces necessary for a corrupted dungeon assault behind enemy lines. Even Amulius and Nolnyth’s group were not confident they could pull it off under the circumstances, given that Nolnyth was now a traitor and their Celestial Elf friend had long returned to his homeland. And even if they had their full complement, their previous dungeon assaults took weeks, sometimes months or even longer, for every single dungeon they took down. The Eastern Empire could not wait that long.

Fortunately, they were now in the company of someone who was extremely efficient at terminating dungeons, corrupted or otherwise. A certain someone who was trialing methods to terminate dungeons without an assault at all, in fact. A certain someone whose mana now stretched towards the dungeon above even as Amulius’s party was preparing themselves for the assault…