Temujin

Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics.

Rarely did such a short and simple statement sum up all of warfare so succinctly.

And in this current situation, their logistical situation was not exactly good, with them being deep inside enemy territory, while the enemy had supply lines so short that most deliveries happened in a matter of hours.

But there was a rather major exception to the "logistics are more important than tactics" idea, something that invalidated the entire concept … and that was winning.

It really was that simple.

Strike hard, strike fast, crush the enemy before your supplies run out, and grind them into the ground so thoroughly that it doesn't matter how good their logistics are, they won't be able to use their gear if they're all dead … now, how to do that?

How to beat an army of hundreds of thousands of magical giants, who could be older than most nations back on Earth, to say nothing of a civilian population that could likely be armed in short order, with barely twenty thousand horsemen, plus a handful of reinforcements via Vogt's portals?

Short answer: you didn't.

Slightly longer answer … you didn't even try, you instead waited until you'd found a way to cheat. Though "cheat" was such a pejorative word. After all, wasn't all fair in love and war?

What he was really going to do here was the same thing he'd done when he'd started out: find the weaknesses of a society and blast them wide open, making sure he'd wind up on top in the end. Or, in this case, simply remained alive.

Except this time, it would be done through magic, using certain Skills for the very first time, as using them at any point prior to right now would have been entirely self-defeating. After all, any human nation he destabilized could have otherwise served as a bulwark between Mongolia and the monsters the System had been chucking onto Earth.

Therefore …

[Break the Chains] to erase whatever bindings, magical or otherwise, were holding the slaves in bondage, metaphorically or literally.

[Shatter the Citadels] to shatter whatever barriers separated the "owners" from their "property," whatever places they may retreat to, suddenly finding themselves wide open to the righteous fury of the oppressed.

And, to top it all off … [Empower the Opressed], [Call to Arms], and [Emergency Draft] to turn the suddenly free slaves into organized, armed, and magically buffed warriors who'd have the ability to join his army and receive even more benefits.

In not even a single second, thousands accepted his offer, thereby allowing them to do one simple thing.

Switch places with them.

Where before, he'd been waiting outside the walls of the city with his allies, staring down an army tehy could not have possibly been, he now found himself face to face with a very fat, very naked, very dumbfounded Fomorian who would have likely required the rest of the year to puzzle out why his bedslave had disappeared, only to be immediately replaced by an armored Mongolian warrior.

You know, if the giant hadn't been turned into paste a split second after Temujin had appeared.

A quick check with his rather big picture focussed army management Skills later, and he had new target locations, and the world began to blur, his surroundings suddenly replaced by new rooms, new Fomorian faces appearing for a mere instant before they were replaced by (turned into) red smears painting the walls, floors, and occasionally, ceilings.

And he was not the only one tearing his way through this place.

Of course, using his Transcendant Capstone to get in here involved throwing a whole lot of people out, that being the nature of the equivalent exchange the Skill mandated, but that left the former slaves out in the cold, both literally and figuratively, staring down the Fomorian army outside the gates.

So he triggered [Emergency Retreat] to hurl them all clear of any place combat was likely to occur. It would doubtlessly be disorientating, but if they hadn't cooperated with his plan, they would not be in this position, and repaying helpfulness with betrayal was a terrible foundation for future relationships.

With that taken care of, he continued his rampage, until he was near-certain that the main tower had been cleared out as thoroughly as was possible when going of the fragmentary information he could gather in this place.

There was every chance that there was normally someone with the power to stop this attack present in the tower, but there wasn't one now, and that was all that mattered.

So he barked some orders and made his way upwards, towards the roof, to see the city beneath him spread out while it burned.

And then, standing atop the highest tower of the capital of the Fomorian empire, Temujin began to laugh, watching the chaos.

Slave uprisings were bad. Slave uprisings when the "masters" were outnumbered two to one were worse. Slave uprisings with a hostile army in the city meant the Fomorians had functionally already lost.

As for their "glorious army," the one force that might have been able to bring this to a swift end, well, that was presently locked out, stuck on the wrong side of the evidently functionally indestructible walls of their own city. Now, just to properly seal the doors … and then all that was left to do was drive the boot in. Preferably, straight through the skull of whoever was in charge of this place.

***

Tristan

You know, I had a tendency to kick myself for missing things that seemed obvious in hindsight, but a whole lot of those things were, well, obvious in hindsight. It would have taken a degree of intelligence bordering on genius to actually see even half those things coming, a degree of intelligence I did not possess … but this was different.

Very. Different.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" wasn't just the inscription at the feet of the Statue of Liberty; it was the idea at the foundation of his entire goddamn empire.

After all, the promise of being able to grow in station purely through merit was an incredible offer in a heavily stratified society like the Mongolian society of the pre- … well, pre-him era.

Then, Genghis Khan had "broken protocol" when it came to inter tribal warfare, leaving the lower classes as alone as he could manage while executing the nobility and reorganizing things based on who was the most competent, rather than best connected.

He'd treated the new subjects as though there'd never even been a fight mere hours after victory, adopted orphans as his brothers and given them to his mother to raise … and when the conquered tribe proved too large to integrate without his existing people becoming a minority, made every man walk past a wagon and executed everyone taller than the wheel's linchpin as an indiscriminate but structured form of "population control."

So not exactly wholesome in the grand scheme of things, but that did not invalidate the point that, of course, he'd have one, or even several Skills related to that sort of thing.

Skills which he hadn't used previously because, well, he'd been handed leadership of Mongolia practically the instant he'd returned, in an almost impossibly smooth transfer of power, and he hadn't fought against any opponent vulnerable to them until now. After all, any neighbors that "might" have had issues with his return were more concerned with the monsters than him, and he hadn't wanted to disrupt nations he might need as meatshields later.

And now, the empire built on slavery had taken the full power of his ability to annihilate social structure straight to the heart. It might not directly affect the forces arrayed on the field against us, but the city behind them was almost certainly mere minutes from going to hell in a handbasket.

Well, it was certainly already in the middle of utter chaos, but I was pretty certain it was about to get even worse.

Suddenly, I found myself moved against my will, again, yanked elsewhere.

Though it was far easier to figure out where I'd wound up this time around, after all, it was hard to mistake the highest point in the city for anything else.

But I wasn't alone.

"Flood the city," Genghis Khan ordered. "Summon a storm and fill in at least up to a man's waist."

I raised an eyebrow even as I began to cast. "Why not higher?"

"We'll still need to be able to move through the city," he grinned back at me. "But the weight of the water will keep the gates shut.

Oh. Oh. Holy shit. That was devious. Absolutely diabolical.

I loved it.

Granted, a city like this was damn near guaranteed to have some capacity to let the water drain, but the "century" part of [Century Storm] wasn't there for flavor text. It was literally referring to the kind of storm that was only seen once every century, the kind you might not even see once in your lifetime … and that was before I used [Spell Fusion] to cram in as much water generation as possible.

So when I unleashed the newly-created [Millenial Flood] upon the Fomorian capital, it took all of thirty seconds before the sewage began to pour out of the pipes, bubbling up from the storm drains and Fomorian manhole equivalents.

A resounding "boom" rang out as something, or someone, slammed into a gate from the outside, making it shake and the water around it ripple … but the gate wasn't budging. Not more than a couple of centimeters, at least, before the mass of the water slammed it back shut again.

Water was freaking heavy. Especially after I'd slipped up and practically drowned the city, resulting in a water level of nearly four meters.

"Uh …" I was about to apologize when Genghis Khan laughed. "I can work with that … but we're going to have to abuse that portal Skill of yours to get around."

Suddenly, the world around me flickered and blurred, dozens of rooms appearing and disappearing before I could even begin to describe any of them.

I couldn't possibly tell you how many places I saw, how long I spent in each place, and how long the mess lasted, but suddenly, the world rightened again, as I was once more standing atop the building, staggering slightly, my legs feeling like jelly for some reason, even though I, quite literally, hadn't done anything.

"Will you be able to open a portal to those places?" Genghis Khan asked, and I nodded mutely, not trusting myself to open my mouth without throwing up. Or snapping at him.

I actually knew exactly what he'd just done, why he'd done it, it had been the perfect solution, and it really shouldn't have made me this sick … but I still felt like shit.

Although …

After taking a few seconds to try and steady myself, I asked, "Now that that's solved, can I flood the city? Properly, I mean? Or would that …"

I'd been about to ask whether or not that would screw things up, but he burst out laughing and nodded, then vanished only to be replaced by a scantily clad elf clutching a blood-drenched kitchen knife.

So, elves … I'd suspected they were the inhabitants of the previous world, but we hadn't properly seen any outside of glimpses in the distance, but this was my first proper look at one.

I took a second to use [Inspect], seeing a whole lot of Classes that spoke to a life that had been, to put it mildly, rough, and took a couple of steps away from her.

Because while I wasn't going to do anything, and nothing I was about to do should be interpretable as threatening in any way, shape, or form, I really did not like the look in her eyes. That level of stress, that level of sheer and utter terror … people made irrational and stupid things while in far less extreme mental states.

Despite the lack of a reason for an attack and the nearly sixty Level gulf between us, I felt like I needed some distance.

And then, I cast a second iteration of [Biblical Flood], following it up with individually targeted casts of [Firehose], the powerful streams blowing open flowerbeds and the basis of trees fling a whole lot of mud into the watershed streets, further clogging up the sewers.

[Rivers of Mana] further ramped up at that, leaving me feeling more than free to cast yet another storm, [Smiting Thunderhead] forming into a crackling cloud of lightning that struck down any Fomorian who was looking even remotely threatening.

My regeneration shot up yet again.

So I dropped a [Firestorm] on the army outside. Someone dispelled it a moment later, but nowhere near fast enough.

And while I felt like that was enough storm magic, especially since I was finding myself having to fight enemy casters to maintain the cohesion of my currently channeled spells, there was nothing preventing me from hurling around magical attacks that worked more along the lines of "fire and forget."

[Fireball] fused with [Lightning Bolt] and [Force Punch] to create a nasty little trick called [Plasma Lance] that could not only vaporize a fully armored Fomorian but also take huge chunks out of the city itself once they were finished, going straight through my targets.

Localized fields of death formed from [Noxious Miasma], [Rapid Growth], and [Spore Creation], which fused to create the ably named [Chestburster Cloud], which made fungi grow inside anyone who didn't have the durability to resist.

That one, I made sure to target carefully.

Oh, and the simple combination of [Fireball], [Rock Throw], and [Mass Boost] to start throwing around meteors was also quite fun.

Beneath me, the Fomorian army melted. Or at least anyone I could see from here did.

And [Escape Plan] was constantly returning my spent portal charges. I was already back up to sixty, and it was nowhere near stopping.

***

Dietrich

[Transcendent Capstone: I. Kill. Monsters.]

A simple statement, describing a simple power.

It told him where monsters, whether literal or metaphorical, were, what they'd done, what they were capable of doing, and if so wished, it could even force a confrontation in the near future, the Skill's description claiming to bend fate itself to make it happen if it was even remotely possible.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

And from that, he derived two vital pieces of information:

Firstly, these Fomorians were awful. Comically so. To the point where he might have called someone who told him what they'd done directly a liar out of hand.

And secondly … their former slaves were furious. Understandably furious, considering what he now knew about their former masters, but he had seriously underestimated their rage.

Granted, he couldn't see how many the Fomorians were taking down with them, and he didn't doubt that that was happening … but unless they had a significant population elsewhere, this fight was looking like the final battle, and a surprisingly winnable one at that.

And if the Fomorian people wound up shattered by the end of it, their victory might even be a lasting one.

Dietrich hefted Mimung and marched towards the door of the room he'd found himself in, mentally grasping the "strings of fate" offered by his Capstone, finding the Fomorians who would be the biggest issue for the others, and yanked.

For a long moment, nothing happened, and he simply continued as he'd been, a powerful kick blowing open the door with enough force to send it crashing against the far wall.

Then … then things got weird.

He could not tell just what was happening, not exactly, nor even what was cluing him in on the fact that something was, indeed, occurring… but somehow, some way, he was still certain that it was working.

Though when he ran into a Fomorian literally dripping blood and guts, none of them his, about five steps after entering the corridor, that did seem to prove the idea true.

Their blades clashed once, twice, thrice, then Dietrich had managed to maneuver his opponent around so that, behind him, there were three more Fomorians that screamed "major threat" to his senses.

Of course, those other targets were on the far side of several walls, and one was even in a whole other building … and [Titan Strike] tore through them all, reducing stone to powder and hostile giants to goo, leaving Dietrich staring out into a newly-formed storm, and across the gap between buildings, the next tower with a massive hole in its side.

[Dimensional Divide] carved a gash into the intervening space, creating a bridge for him to cross the gap with, the tear in reality uncharacteristically visible beneath the pouring rain … and even more slippery than normal.

So he just jumped on it and slid across it, the combination of his momentum and the extent of the phenomenon being exactly enough to carry him across the gap and place him in his target building.

And yet another series of opponents awaited his blade within. To a one, they fell, cleaved in twain by Mimung.

One by one, the Fomorians came.

One by one, the Fomorians died.

One by one … well, you get the picture.

It was inevitable that they'd meet him, and while they could run at that point, they oh so rarely got the chance.

***

Sundiata

Unfortunately, summoning Zerzura across dimensional divides just wouldn't fly, no matter what he tried.

Fortunately, he didn't need to. Not anymore. Not with his newest ability.

[Transcendent Capstone: Force of Will] let him literally reshape reality. Granted, it could only do so to limited degree, and took a whole lot out of him … yet for all that the Skill's description seemed to believe that this made it almost useless, Sundiata knew better.

A Skill this flexible was a Skill that was abusable.

The ground before the charging armored titan suddenly bulged up, a small bar rising up, not even knee high for a human, let alone a Fomorian, easily avoidable as long as one made sure to raise one's feet sufficently to not trip over it … but the real "trap" had been the divot behind it, where the material had been pulled from, where the Fomorian's foot wound up landing, making the giant stumble, having expected his foot to land atop a solid surface that lay far higher, and the forward lurch that was meant to compensate for the lack of balance left the foot in question stuck in the hole and Sundiata's opponent falling flat on his face.

Well, he was doing that, but on the way down, he met Sundiata's staff, and when he hit the ground, well, he didn't have a face anymore. Or a head, for that matter.

Taking a moment to flick the blood and brains off his quarterstaff, he checked his surroundings, then hurried over to where a skybridge was rather fortuitously located right above where a small group of armored Fomorians was trying to get the stormdrains unclogged in a desperate attempt to relieve the pressure on the gates so they could get reinforcements.

Well, unfortunately placed, as far as the people down there were concerned, seeing as it was about to fall on their heads.

***

Fionn

Hitting Level 100 had been a revelation, in more ways than one.

He'd been able to confirm what Genghis Khan had told them about how things worked beyond that point, but the most important thing to note was the fact that the Skill he got for reaching that point expanded his knowledge of "all earthly things" to encompass parts of the System and the other worlds they'd recently made their way through.

[Splinter of Omniscience] indeed.

Though considering the current situation, his current surroundings, "knowing" was hardly a pleasant experience.

He barely even had to aim anymore, just continued to hurl spells and spears and everything else he could lay his hands on, every Fomorian who fell replaced almost the instant they hit the ground.

And yet, no matter how many there were … they all fell. Their leaders, their champions, those were all locked outside the gates that were meant to have kept the back of their lines safe but were now instead held shut by the weight of the water that had flooded this city.

Even so, even with how sizeable a chunk of the enemy's forces had unwittingly removed themselves from the field of battle, even with the slave uprising that had torn up the local garrison … there so, so, so many left in this place, Fomorians seemingly without end.

It had to be what the fields of Maige Tuired had to have been like when the enemy had been beaten originally, at a time ancient even to him, further back in the mists of history relative to his first lifetime than his first lifetime was to the present … except this time, they had no gods to beat them back.

Just a fraction of humanity's last army, which was a fraction of humanity, which, in turn, was a mere fraction of what humanity had been a mere year ago … just them, far too many only able to stand against this foe through the power of the System alone.

Thunder blotted out all other noise for a brief moment.

Although he did have to admit that the System was quite capable of creating powerful individuals, on occasion. That boy's learning ability, magical potential, and the Skill that let him slap together spells to create new ones … he'd be quite the menace if he didn't have self-control to go along with it.

***

Mia

Yep, Tristan was a drama queen. As always.

Standing atop the tallest tower, back on the tallest tower, meaning he'd deliberately teleported back there, hurling thunder and lightning as though he were Zeus himself.

Though she did have to admit it was looking damn impressive, for all of the five seconds she had before the next Fomorian jumped out of the woodwork to attack her.

And immediately fell down, sliced into two pieces, held together by the entirely intact armor wrapping the corpse.

As she passed, she spat on it.

Oh, the others might hate the Fomorians and their institutions, especially slavery, on general principle. Disliked it in the abstract, felt disgusted by it when faced with it.

Because if the Fomorians had won, they'd all most likely be dead. Even her brother.

But her?

All the shit she'd seen thus far, mostly in the bedrooms … that could have been her fate, if they hadn't been able to fight back.

Hell, they might still lose this. And if they did … well, she had magic, knew [Fireball], and was currently fighting her way through a whole lot of very small rooms that said spell really shouldn't be cast in.

The durable corridors would turn the guide the force of the explosions, and anyone trying to get at her would get blown to pieces until … until the inevitable happened.

***

Tristan

All told, there was really only a single word that could adequately describe this battle.

Messy.

I mean, we seemed to be winning, especially as the enemy was even less coordinated than our rag-tag group that had been "hurled" into city, though at the same time, the fact that we were scattered all over, just as spread out as the revolting slaves, had to be wreaking utter havok on any "locate enemy" spells and abilities the Fomorians likely had.

Jumping from place to place with my swiftly regenerating portals let me easily avoid concentrations of enemies, but also place myself in a position I could rain down hellfire and damnation from, casting and recasting whatever spell would be the most devastating at any given moment.

Direct strikes, lingering nastiness that brought to mind the thought "it ain't a war crime the first time," a "joke" that had seemed a lot funnier when I wasn't standing in a warzone myself, and above it all, the storms.

And in the distance, I could see someone who might have been Merlin doing the same thing. Though I wasn't sure, the heat haze and halo of fire and lightning that surrounded the figure made it almost impossible to get a good look at them.

All told, while there weren't that many of us humans in here, there really didn't need to be either.

After all, the Fomorians were currently suffering from the mother of all rebellions, and as long as they didn't get their shit together and work together to fight back, they'd have the devil's time successfully suppressing it.

Punching out any groups that seemed to be rallying was having a truly outsized impact on the "war effort."

So I just kept going, kept warping from place to place, unleashing my magic upon the giants below.

Then, once I was back on the highest tower, I got my first proper look at the army trying to open the gates.

The army which had grown. By a lot. As I watched, I saw quite a few more Fomorians leap off the walls, only to be caught by spells before they hit the ground, where they were swiftly handed weapons and armor, and then they joined the ranks of the army, whose number was already "beyond counting." Or rather, far too large to easily get a handle on.

But that wasn't the thing that really drew my eyes; rather, I could see a truly titanic Fomorian walk towards the gates, his body the most inhuman one to date, with a massive artifact resting atop one of his shoulders.

What the fuck was that? It was a sphere with a hole through it, appearing slightly wrinkled and dried up, yet also somehow simultaneously inflated? Wet? Re-hydrated?

It was gross, wreathed in flame, and oddly familiar in a way that made my stomach twist into knots.

And then, I had a dark thought, even as he vanished beneath the walls, as the Fomorian closed in on the gates and I found myself at the wrong angle to keep seeing him.

He was bearing aloft a gigantic glowing eyeball …

The city gates didn't so much explode as they did vanish, erased, deleted from existence itself, an explosion of steam concealing the site a moment later as hundreds of tons of water were vaporized in an instant.

Hundreds of tons gone … that just meant there were thousands more left. And all that water poured out, right into the Fomorian forces, hammering into them with the full and unforgiving power of a goddamn tsunami.

Powerful giants straight out of the realm of myth, they may be, but Mother Nature, for all that there was nothing "natural" about this, was more than capable of having the last laugh.

I wasn't sure how many wound up dead as a result, but between those outright crushed beneath the waves, hurled into the weapons of those behind them, or stuck beneath a mountain of corpses to drown … but it had to be a lot.

Even with all the powers at their disposal, all the spells and skills and everything else they'd used to throw up barriers in the path of the artificial tidal wave they'd accidentally unleashed upon themselves … yeah, they'd taken one hell of a whalloping. A deserved one.

But for the most part, I was focusing on the artifact being hefted aloft by the biggest bugger on the field.

That was the Eye of Balor. Or so I assumed, now that I thought about it.

I didn't fully remember its mythos, I'd foolishly disregarded it as a threat as its bearer was oh so definitively dead … but I still remembered enough to be fucking terrified.

It was said to be so huge that even the eyelid that covered it was so heavy it took multiple men to open it, and to prevent the eye's power from erasing everything around, it had to be covered in several massive layers of wet cloth, each restraining its power, releasing it in sequence as they were peeled off.

There were supposed to have been either seven or nine in total, each one that was removed causing the surrounding area to suffer increasingly worse effects, first starting to dry out, then outright catching fire, and the sky turning red until the final layer came free and the world itself was immolated.

The sphere with the hole through it was obviously nowhere near that strong, for starters, well, it had a huge fucking hole in the center, not to mention that it was no longer held by the original Balor, but it was still one hell of an artifact, one that the Fomorians had proven willing to turn on their own capital city, caring more about killing us and their wayward slaves than their own people.

Or their stuff, for that matter, but, well, that was stuff.

And to be honest, I wasn't too broken up about collateral damage to their people, but I was worried about some of us getting caught up in it. Or the rebelling slaves … a rather hypocritical concern, considering I'd flooded the whole damn city, but then again … at least I realized in time not to do that again?

Either way, the eyeball was an issue. So I glared at it and cast [Counterspell].

It … I mean, I honestly couldn't see anything happen, but the reaction from the guy who was wielding the artifact, it'd clearly done something.

Maybe I'd seen the energy within the eye seemed to flicker for a brief moment, but I still hadn't done enough. Nowhere near enough. I needed to try again, this time with focus and concentration.

Breathe in, breathe out, concentra- … oh, fuck!

I threw myself through a portal that led halfway across the city, barely a second ahead of the moment when the eye of Balor had been completely turned on me.

My head snapped around to stare at my previous position, the thunderous sound of an explosion guiding my gaze to where I'd been, overriding any potential disorientation issues.

Fuuuuuuuck.

The building I'd been in had been sheared in half, blown apart right in its middle, exactly where I'd been standing … along with the three floors above and below that place. And the three towers behind it, the energy beam having continued to obliterate even more of the city.

That … well, that had been a lot of power. A downright unnecessary degree of overkill they hadn't used so far … we were getting to them. Or, perhaps, I was getting to them. Maybe, just maybe, this attempt of mine actually had a chance of success.

But also, the sheer havoc it had wreaked upon the city was, well, a lot. And since they could clearly track my attempts …

Yeah … that wasn't great. I teleported again, landing on the city wall, which had minimal things that could become collateral damage on, and nothing behind it.

There was a guard right next to where I wound up, but while we were equally surprised to see each other, simply put, I was faster. Especially after I'd reflexively triggered [Physical Limit Break] to boost my speed to the maximum I could sustain.

So a [Plasma Lance] tore him in half before he even managed to raise his sword all the way.

Yeah … I should have made a spell like that a hell of a lot earlier.

Now, where was that eye?

I looked around, trying to

Then, [Focussed Approach], temporarily erasing everything not combat-relevant, and pouring all that spare proficiency into my ability to destroy enemy magic.

Again, [Counterspell].

The flames within seemed to dim for a long moment, trembling beneath my power … and then they snapped back to full power, no, beyond, flaring to ever greater heights, and being turned my way …

I teleported away, not even managing to turn around in time to see the wall be torn open, only the aftermath.

Close, but no cigar.

I began to methodically "clear" the area of wall I was on, and by that I meant transforming into a falcon, flying up by around a couple of hundred meters, and raining [Plasma Lances] on anyone I saw, the energy bolts capable of tearing them apart even behind a wall, at least as long as there was only a single barrier between them and me and they weren't standing too far from said barrier.

A couple of minutes later, as secure in the fact that I'd be undisturbed as I could be, I began to try this once again.

[Focussed Approach] to enhance my ability to use the Skill, my experience from my previous attempts, every scrap of information I'd managed to scrape from watching that thing's efforts, [Rivers of Mana] going at levels I'd never actually expected it capable of reaching …

With the entirety of my mana pool behind it, my mystic energy reserves recovering at such speed that they'd completely fill every couple of minutes, endlessly pouring energy into my anti-magic power, I opened a portal, the far side as close to the eye as I could possibly get.

One final time, with every iota of strength I could put behind it, from point-blank range …

[Counterspell]!

And the world vanished beneath a tidal wave of fire as the damn artifact … honestly, I wasn't even sure what to call the reaction to the spell. I'd tried to knock out the flames within, instead … well, it seemed I'd broken the eyeball's ability to keep the curse within contained.

Because, ultimately, that was what it was. A curse that had been fomented and empowered for gods only knew how long by the Fomorians during Balor's childhood, until the cauldron holding it had been spilled and the concentrated malice sealed within his eyeball, to be unleashed repeatedly and at will until Lugh of the Long Arm, Celtic god of a whole lot of stuff I couldn't recall off the top of my head, had put a spear through the giant's cursed eye with such force that it had continued on and blown apart several more Fomorians who'd been standing behind Balor at the time.

And now, the primordial curse had just been unshackled fully, completely, and entirely.

The eye had been vaporized in an instant, the giant holding it reduced to ash so quickly I hadn't really even seen it happen, only noticed the sudden removal of the biggest motherfucker on the field … only for the entire field of battle to turn cherry-red and begin to melt, the only reason why the Fomorians didn't react to sinking into lava being that, if they were standing somehwere that was liquefying, they were already dead.

I wasn't entirely sure how much I actually saw, and what I imagined happening between the brief moments I could see things happen between flashes of fire and light, as pockets of molten stone beneath the surface spontaneously errupted into gass and burst, splattering even more lava across the city … and then the first tower toppled over, its lower floors and the ground beneath it having melted away. Quickly followed by two more. Not to mention that the nearby city wall was also already sagging and mere seconds from collapsing outright.

And in the middle of this vision of hell was the raging inferno that had been unshackled, surrounded by the corpses of Fomorians that had been too distant to be vaporized, yet still far too close … which was pretty much all of them.

Oh God.

The entire area beneath where the Fomorian army used to be began to dip, liquefying and melting down into … whatever was beneath, be it caves or simply rock with enough air bubbles in it that when it melted, the released gases meant it deflated rather than expanded when heated.

Or something.

Either way … that spell, that curse, even though it seemed to be growing weaker … it was going to be a massive problem.

I wasn't too sure how long I'd been staring at the mess by the time the rains resumed, someone clearly having decided the risk of the fire spreading was more dangerous than the threat of the steam carrying the fire's heat and boiling the flesh of the bones of people who might otherwise have been safely clear of the danger.

Then, I recast [Counterspell], targetting the flames directly, without anything else in the line of fire that might have absorbed the magic instead.

The flames dimmed … barely.

So I cast the spell again and again, over and over until eventually, finally, the ground stopped melting, and the existing lava began to cool beneath the endless deluge as rain spells were relentlessly recast.

And there I was, standing on the nearest intact section of wall, staring out across what would have been a field of corpses, had it not all been consumed in the inferno.

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