Chapter 276: Coward’s Retreat, Catching More Heralds
Iron-Scale stood up to his full height and glared at the six Earthlings. Gulag stepped out from the shadows of the nearby colonnade. She rested a bone club on her shoulder. Torix crawled down the palace walls to surround the perimeter.
"Burn them all!" Julian commanded. He quickly tossed the crimson crystal back to Zach.
Zach slammed his hands into the dirt to establish the magical connection. Red mana tethers erupted from the artifact and snapped directly into Sarah’s back.
Her eyes immediately ignited with white light. She aimed both hands at Iron-Scale and unleashed a concentrated beam of thermal annihilation.
Gulag reacted instantly. She slammed her club into the courtyard floor and activated her mana core. A slab of foundational bedrock erupted from the ground directly in front of Iron-Scale. The thermal beam struck the rock.
The intense temperature liquefied the stone into molten slag. Fortunately, the barrier absorbed the attack.
While Sarah focused her magic on the melting stone, Torix advanced. He aimed his wrist mounts and fired his monomolecular webbing directly at Zach. The invisible tripwires cleanly sheared through Zach’s robes and sliced deep into his forearms.
Zach screamed in agony and dropped the crystal as the mana tethers snapped violently.
Sarah lost her infinite power source in an instant. She collapsed onto the ground and coughed up blood as her physical mana nodes began burning out.
Derek charged forward to protect her. He threw a metallic punch directly at Gulag. She easily caught his armored fist in her bare hand. She squeezed her fingers together. Derek yelled in pain as his metallic plating buckled under her immense physical strength.
Iron-Scale drew his polearm and advanced on Julian.
"You rely entirely on a stolen artifact," Iron-Scale mocked. He swung his weapon and completely shattered the hard-light barrier. "My soldiers conquer through absolute discipline."
Julia shrieked and took several steps backward to avoid the falling shards of light. The Heralds found themselves trapped in a brutal brawl they possessed no experience to win.
Julian stared at the scattered fragments of his golden barrier fading into the dirt. Derek remained trapped in Gulag’s grip, screaming as the Troglodyte crushed his metallic plating.
Zach writhed on the ground, bleeding profusely from the invisible webbing slicing into his forearms. Sarah hacked up blood near the melted bedrock as her physical mana nodes completely burned out.
They possessed divine magic, but they lacked the instinct to survive a true battlefield.
"Get them away from us!" Brittany yelled.
She stepped in front of the collapsed Sarah and pressed both hands to her temples. Brittany channeled her entire mana reserve into her sensory deprivation magic. She projected a massive psychic wave directly into the minds of the Vanguard commanders.
The spell sought to sever their optic nerves and rupture their eardrums to plunge Iron-Scale and Gulag into a void of absolute nothingness.
Instead, the psychic attack shattered against an impenetrable mental wall.
Their faith in Rubedo made it impossible for anyone else to use mental attacks on them.
Iron-Scale simply blinked, shook his scaled head, and continued his advance. Gulag possessed the primal focus of a hunter. The sensory deprivation barely registered as a minor annoyance to her.
The magical backlash rebounded directly into Brittany.
She collapsed to her knees. Blood poured from her nose and eyes as her own spell ruptured her mental defenses. She clutched her head and shrieked in agony.
’We are all going to die here,’ Julian realized. He backed away from the advancing Vanguard commanders.
He looked at the four agonizing Heralds bleeding out in the courtyard. He then looked at his twin sister. Julia stood near the edge of the melted gates, completely untouched by the carnage. She stared back at him with wide, terrified eyes.
Julian made his choice immediately.
"Julian, help me!" Derek screamed. He desperately punched Gulag’s arm with his free hand, but the Troglodyte completely ignored the blows.
Julian ignored his childhood friend. He turned his back on the battlefield and sprinted toward his sister. He grabbed Julia’s arm tightly and channeled his remaining mana into his spatial magic.
"What are you doing?" Zach rasped from the ground, his eyes widening in sheer terror as the spatial light began to envelop the twins. "You cannot leave us!"
"I am surviving," Julian answered plainly.
A blinding flash of spatial energy illuminated the courtyard. When the light faded, Julian and Julia were completely gone. They teleported away and abandoned the remaining four Earthlings to the absolute mercy of the Vanguard.
Iron-Scale rested his polearm against the stone tiles and scoffed. He looked down at Brittany, Sarah, Zach, and Derek.
"Your leaders send you to die, and your friends abandon you to save themselves," Iron-Scale said. He raised his weapon over Derek. "This is the reality of your stolen power."
Derek desperately tried to pull his crushed arm out of Gulag’s grip, but she simply smirked and slammed her knee directly into his chest. He heard his ribs crack before collapsing onto the tiles, gasping for air as his metallic armor shattered completely.
Zach tried to crawl away from the severed mana tethers. Torix scrambled down the colonnade and shot another strand of monomolecular webbing to wrap around Zach’s ankle.
Torix yanked the web forcefully, dragging a screaming Zach back into the center of the courtyard as the sharp silk sliced through his skin.
Sarah and Brittany were already incapacitated from the magical backlash.
Iron-Scale stepped over the melted bedrock and kicked Sarah in the stomach to ensure she stayed down, then quickly disarmed Zach by tossing the crimson crystal across the courtyard.
The four Earthlings lay broken and bleeding on the stone tiles, possessing absolutely no strength left to fight or flee.
"Secure them," Iron-Scale ordered.
Gulag grabbed Derek and Zach by their collars to drag them toward the center of the courtyard while Torix used his webbing to bind Sarah and Brittany’s hands together. They systematically stripped the Heralds of their magical artifacts and weapons.
Iron-Scale tapped the communication crystal embedded in his armor.
"Lord," Iron-Scale reported over the secure link. "The ambush succeeded. We neutralized four of the Earthlings, but two managed to escape using spatial magic."
