Chapter 93: The Fall Part 5

Chapter 93: The Fall Part 5

As I cast my gaze to the destroyed wall, I saw the flying magma setting both houses and people alight. The red crackling balls of ether charged stone and magma hit the houses and streets. They exploded and popped like firecrackers spewing their lethal contents in all directions. I could see the magma eating into the surrounding stone houses. Any human that got hit by some of it didn’t last very long, death came in seconds as the magma ate into their bodies.

Ether charged materials tend to be destructive to other non ether charged materials when they are this unstable. All that latent energy has to go somewhere and if you get flooded with that energy bad things happen.

God that felt good, it’s been such a long time since I cut loose like this. I’ve been far too civil for far too long. Nothing like a little death and destruction to unwind all that pent up aggression...

Speaking of aggression...

I can see my vision going a little red...

And I’m starting to feel really excited and I just want to...

Kill something...

I know this feeling, it was the same feeling I had back in that bandit camp. The joy of battle...

I guess at the end of the day I am still a monster, still Firstborn. My race defined natural selection and enshrined the law of the jungle in the logic of this world.

I sensed a group of mages on an untouched section of the wall. Channeling a spell at me. I could see other soldiers and archers getting into defensive positions. I could also see a mithril team of adventurers there. Funny... I thought there weren’t any mithril teams here... also... they don’t look Volerian... something was off...

Well I really want to kill someone. It must be my monstrous side coming out...

Those guys are alive...

I saw the spell fly free from the ritual so I raised my hand and blocked the spell with a simple barrier spell.

Yeah they are alive... they’ll do...

I flapped my wings and dove right at the group of soldiers on the wall. I activated my ability [Solarite Strike]. It's simply my variant of the Phoenix’s ether explosion ability. Azatherine used it in our first fight to get me off her after the initial ambush. It was also a rather creative way to turn myself into a missile.

I saw their faces go pale as I dived down. I slammed down into the center of the group and detonated my ability. My vision went white for a moment as the blast triggered then when I looked around I saw the section of the wall I was on had the top layer blasted apart. I found myself sitting in a shallow pool of ether charged magma.

Annoying filth...

I held my hand out and drained the ether out of the surrounding magma. The magma cooled and hardened as I drained all the energy out. With a simple shake of my body the dried magma fell off. As I resurveyed my surroundings I saw that some of the humans survived. Some soldiers were caught on the edge of the blast and I could see them writhing on the ground. Their armor was either smoking or warped from the heat. Many were clutching their faces as they screamed and moaned, I could see that their eyes were ruined from the heat. The heat from the blast had completely dried out their eyes. But these were not my main concern.

Those mithril ranked adventures had made a clean escape and as far as I could tell they were completely unharmed. There were two of them that had an interesting appearance. If I couldn’t see their physiology and I didn’t have some “borrowed” memories I would assume that they are not human.

“Go on then, run... see how far you get...” I said with a smile as I lowered my body as if raring to pounce.

“I love a good chase...” I said with a chuckle.

Then the canister flew and it exploded in a cloud of smoke. I couldn't help but smile at that little device. It was pretty clever honestly, it wasn’t just a smoke cloud. It also had an ether interference effect, if that smoke bomb was thrown into a group of mages they would have some trouble channeling their spells. It was obviously designed to interfere with ether detection methods, if this was done in front of scryer mages they wouldn’t be able to see anything. But I could see everything just fine. I saw them jump off the wall right into the outer city. Looks like they are trying to use the city as a shield, I can’t go all out in the city, I’ll just wreck everything.

Still let’s see how fast they can run, their retreat options are limited. The warrior and the casters will struggle to keep up with the archer. Then to my surprise I saw the mage and priest flourish their spells mid air, a magic board appeared under each of their feet and they picked up speed. Ah so they had an escape plan like this. I was wondering why foreign spies didn’t run at the first opportunity. They must have wanted to observe me and test my abilities in combat before making a getaway.

They were moving quickly, they would lose even a pursuing wyvern, even a weaker phoenix. But something like Azatherine will be easily able to keep up and even catch them. They probably didn’t know this, it’s not like information on White Fire Phoenixes were just lying around. Still at this rate they will be out of the city soon and I didn’t feel like doing a long chase.

I casted this spell Mahiala taught me [Batian Jam], an old spell that specialized in frying spells. Particularly useful if you wanted to capture targets alive.

I released the spell and from my hand shot out a narrow wave of blue energy. The mage and priest spun their staffs and put up a barrier. They must think this is some kind of offensive spell, jamming spells were rare in this day and age.

But jamming spells jammed barriers the same way they do magic hoverboards. They ended up being blasted off their hoverboards as their barrier spells shorted out violently. They hit roofs hard and their bodies ended up rolling off and landing in the street. The warrior and the archer found their hoverboards disappearing from under their feet, the archer managed to stick the landing but the warrior stumbled and ended up denting the roof as well as destroying a few dozen roof tiles.

Seize the casters

I commanded the hive mind and I sensed Legiana send back an affirmative. Oh hang on, this is interesting, both Legiana and Cecilia are on the move...

I hovered over the archer and the warrior as they warily looked up at me with weapons raised.

“End of the line...” I said with a fanged smile. Honestly this assault is quite interesting, I found that cool elf specimen and now these guys. I thought this whole event would be dry and boring. Good thing humans are interesting are fun, if not life is going to be really boring.

“Now then I’m going to give you two a choice, you can either surrender or you can be captured. You see we may eventually have to negotiate with the Divonia Empire so a few extra bargaining chips never hurt.” I said as I extended my hand like a killer salesman.

I could see two invisible figures float up from behind the two adventurers, it was a high level concealment spell so the two adventurers were none the wiser.

I saw the warrior turn and give the archer a look and the archer nodded.

“For the Empire.” the archer said as she turned around, I could sense sorrow in her. She thought she was going to leave the warrior behind.

She turned and was about to run when Cecilia reappeared and shocked her with a lightning spell. The warrior whirled around to see a smiling Cecilia reappear with Legiana calmly standing next to her. The archer was now gasping and groaning on the ground, her body smoking and her hair singed from the lightning.

“For MY empire...” Cecilia said as her hands crackled with arcane power.

No casters to protect you now little warrior...