The latest batch of demons were really starting to piss Mason off. Infernals were leading a mixture of other planars, and at some point the objective seemed to mostly move from ‘destroy the world’ to ‘keep Mason busy’.
He knew that. And as the messages kept pouring in from the east, he knew why. But he just couldn’t kill them any God damn faster.
All of his animal companions were busy with their own portals. All across the western continent portals were opening up at great trees and old settlement locations. They seemed to be attacking every conceivable soft target as simultaneously as possible.
He couldn’t easily communicate with the nymphs and had no idea how they were doing. But at least (so far) none of the great trees were screaming for help. The centaurs he basically just had to rely on. Nothing was attacking Nassau, so that was something. He imagined they didn’t bother because they knew they’d just be slaughtered by the defences.
He tried to think that everything they killed now was a thing they didn’t have to kill later. That his defence of the west was his job and he had to rely on his people for the east. And he warped between portals like a madman, crashing through the fey so fast the denizens shrieked and scattered everywhere he went.
But this last fucking portal was taking forever.
And they were attacking the ground where ‘Sanctuary’ used to be—Carl and Sylvie’s original home. Which the players had defended from a horde of orcs before taking to add on to Nassau. So it was kind of personal. Which he was confident wasn’t an accident, either.
He chased down the closest pack and started ripping it apart. Smoke and darkness launched out of the demons like octopus spraying ink. They scattered and didn’t bother trying to hurt him, just spreading some kind of ‘seeds’ that were wrecking the soil and maybe spreading abyssal environment.
The last and most important demon in the pack was a sword-stroke away when it warped. Again. It was tiny and seemed harmless, but it was some kind of nature-magic squashing demon that screwed with Mason’s spells and arrows, bending them harmlessly away. The others carried it around and protected it like a battle standard. And its only other ability seemed to be teleporting a good five hundred feet in a blink. The little asshole.
Mason spun and raced towards the next pack before turning back to the portal. They were all desperately trying to get out of the range so that when he killed them it didn’t help close it. He had to drag them back most of the time.
As he glanced back, the energy spiked in a now familiar way that meant something more powerful was coming. He was almost relieved. If he could just kill their boss maybe the whole thing would get sucked back up.
He took a moment to check his messages, still not seeing a panicked red. Basically, unless they directly called for his help, he’d leave them to handle things on their own.
The horned prince. A dark voice whispered as red eyes opened from inside the rift. They told me it would be you.
“Yeah, it’s me. Come on out, I don’t have all day.”
He gestured it forward, then banished his claws to stand there and loose a hail of arrows at anything stupid enough not to hide behind trees. His planar/elemental/reverberating missiles blew demons and elementals apart like shotgun blasts unless they were near their little defensive friend.
The demonic voice laughed.
Why in such a hurry? Do you have some other place to be?
Mason squinted and scanned his messages again. Still nothing red. He was about to look away before he suddenly noticed the time stamp hadn’t changed at the bottom. He looked closer and saw that he hadn’t gotten anything new in a good minute. But before some kind of new message was coming in almost every ten seconds.
He tried to stay calm. Could the demons screw with his communication somehow? He immediately assumed yes. Closing this portal was important, but they wouldn’t have put in all this effort unless they were keeping him from something more important. Without another second of hesitation, he turned and bolted for the nearest tree to fey step.
And he ran straight into it, cracking the trunk. An error message popped up about planar travel being impossible in a ‘chaos rift zone’.
The demon laughed in his mind.
No, champion, stay with me. I’ve been so looking forward to this.
Well, that wasn’t good. Not at all. He felt the demon’s power as it stepped from the portal, felt its life-destroying aura sweeping over the rocky ground and sucking the moisture out of nearby plants.
Fine. If that’s how it wanted it. No more screwing around. Mason spun and started channeling, reaching for his Solar rune. He didn’t know what these creatures were doing or planning, but it was time to hold nothing back.
The little anti-nature magic asshole was rushing over as if compelled, probably trying to interfere with his channel. The emerging demon lord was wrapping itself in shadow, spinning a kind of circular shield over its own head in anticipation.
It was all very cute.
Mason stamped his runes on the world fully formed. He sucked away his mana at top speed, activating his belt and giving the spell everything it could want. It was midday and there was only a sliver of moon, which weakened the reflected power of the sun god to its many followers.
But not for Mason. He wasn’t going for reflection. He was drawing straight from the source.
Light poured through the clouds and growing shadow of the demon’s magic. A few internals squinted as they looked up in confusion, the little warping prick still coming, the lord still forming his shield. With his fully formed runes, and his complete disregard for his own safety or mana, Mason didn’t need more than a second. The star god gave anyone stupid enough to look at him full access.
He cast Solar Wrath, and braced for the pain.
Blinding sunlight smashed into the clearing like a physical thing, so much force and heat it made a pillar of flame as the air burned. Demons screeched in terror and agony as their flesh cooked, as the power of the ancient star god loosed unburdened.
It was only a moment. A blink of the lidded god’s eye. Nothing, really.
Mason was in the radius, too. The power of it half buckled his knees and lit his skin on fire. But such was life. He was used to it.
He leapt as soon as the channel allowed, his now burned and belt-pierced body regenerating as he flew through the air. He cut the half-cooked, little warping demon in two pieces first—for good measure—then angled at the lord.
The creature’s pathetic shield was gone. It had its now skeletal hands raised over its head, half its formerly tar-like skin missing to reveal a partially bleached skull, face drooping with melted flesh.
Mason struck with both claws, honor blades lancing into its neck and shoulder. His size and weight barreled it over. It fought back a little, or at least tried. But they went down as Mason stabbed and hacked its body apart. He stood and tossed away his enemy’s head.
“Nice meeting you.”
The portal sucked back up, the remaining demons wailing and whining at their miserable fate. The ‘chaos’ ground or whatever it was went with it. And whatever was blocking Mason’s communications popped. His messages went wild.
Yellows. Oranges. Red. Another red. A direct message from Carl in all caps telling him to get the fuck to the holy city.
He pushed any emotion down beneath the battle calm, and ran for the nearest tree.
**
Carl was way too fucking old for this shit. But then he supposed Phuong was even older. And probably fighting a giant demon or two. The thought sent a spasm of impatient concern up his spine.
[Nexus Integrity 95%]
Another swirling gust of wind that could shoot magic lightning launched a blast at the shield over the beacons. Carl winced, but finally came to a conclusion: the whole ‘direct Nexus attack’ was distraction.
Every percentage point the Nexus dropped was like a knife in his heart, but this wasn’t nearly enough of a force to bring the innate shields down. He needed to leave a skeleton crew and help at the wall. He grabbed Garet and pulled him close to get his attention.
“This is taking too damn long. We need to go now. Get everyone you can up to Phuong or Chinua. Take Erik. We have like sixty players here doing shit all. Leave a couple ranged heavy teams, that’s it. I’m going now.”
Garet nodded, and Carl ran straight at the closest side of the hall. The others would get there when they could, but he wasn’t limited like them. And for all he knew, every second counted.
He reached the wall and warped straight through.
**
“Would you fuckin’ watch yourselves, I’m burnin’ mana like crazy!”
Becky re-formed her Aegis on Phuong, feeling overwhelmed by the amount of attacks coming from every direction. The giant demon(s) hadn’t even spawned yet and she was down to half her pool.
Planar portals were blooming like weeds. And though Becky could hardly believe she was having the thought, she was kind of missing abyssal and infernal demons. At least with them she knew what to expect.
“Sorry, I’m…trying. There’s just so damn many!”
Seamus loosed a series of flaming bolts before dropping down behind John. The big Scot looked as torn as Becky, not sure if he should charge out and start wrecking things, or stay back and defend the others. So far they’d both chosen to stay back, but the amount of enemies was growing. They had to change the equation somehow.
“Phuong! We need back up, old man!”
Becky knew the veteran soldier was aware of their situation. But he was still pushing them forward, hacking a swath of creatures down towards his target like the growing army didn’t matter.
“We close the rift!” he shouted back. “Use all cooldowns except Cataclysm!”
Seamus looked excited until the last word, then slumped and went on another blasting spree. Becky glanced back at Demi and saw her frown. She was already protecting them from the bulk of the ‘melee’ creatures, laying out spores and giant mushroom things all over the flanks.
She also had maybe the most powerful ability out of everyone—some kind of ridiculous summon that made elementals. But apparently the cooldown took days. Maybe even a week. If she used it now she probably wouldn’t have it for the final assault of the ‘doom’, unless they could somehow recycle it faster.
After a few moments of indecision, it seemed she obeyed the order. Her green eyes glowed with power as she held out her arms. The ground all around them cracked and shifted, like the whole world sucked towards the ‘Avatar of Gaia’ as if trying to touch her, or protect her. The earth started shaking, and though Becky wasn’t sure it was the right call long-term, she took a breath of relief.
Two huge elementals ripped out of the rocky ground with an angry roar. They grew and grew until they stood at least twenty-five feet, their huge, ape-like arms immediately swinging at anything and everything around the players.
Planar creatures fled in terror, or else broke apart like balsa wood.
Becky grinned at John and ran forward to help Phuong, her concern for the weaker, ranged players at the back vanishing. Her Synchronized Shield pulsed over John, making her fellow ‘tank’ even tougher as long as his own mana held.
She attached her newest power—Shieldmaiden—a stat-sharing absorption shield that matched Becky’s stats to her target as long as she was close enough and maintained the energy.
Phuong’s strength and speed coursed through her, making the world seem to slow down. She turned her Familial Shield to its mace form, and started crushing planar skulls.
The momentum shifted fast. In less than a minute, their team bashed, slashed and fire blasted their way through the planar army, leaving a trail of spores and goblin explosions (Lodie had proclaimed ‘he didn’t technically say anything about mines!’ as soon as Phuong got too busy to yell at her).
Becky grinned as they reached the still-forming planar rifts. No giant demon lords yet. Nothing except the same breakable creatures between them and their objective.
“Hold position here!” Phuong shouted. “Kill everything inside the circle! Hit them hard!”
Becky debated running out and building charge for her shield blast, but decided against it. A good chunk of these things weren’t mindless, and they avoided fighting the tougher players as much as possible. She stuck to her mace, and charged.
