Spires

The main building, which housed both the command center and his family’s suite along with other living quarters, was lit up by outgoing and incoming fire.

Harpies dived, firing a myriad of spells against barriers, shields and armor plating when they breached the former.

Automatic guns and flak cannons cast a bloody rain across the combatants on the rooftops and parking lots.

The wing-armed women flew faster and made impossibly tight turns with the aid of their wind magic in sometimes successful maneuvers to dodge homing micromissiles.

Hayden created a tangled web of electricity over the rooftop with flying drones and wires as a handful of wizards from Ms. Teacher’s school blasted spells with glowing spellbooks in hand.

They would level a lot, if they made it to the other side of the battle.

A group of harpies dived in formation.

The leading edge died to clear a path for a much larger harpy, three to four times their size.

She screeched, scattering men and women.

Face holes bled as bodies hit the rooftop, unmoving.

Hayden faltered, as she went so did her field.

The harpy formation swept across the rooftop, grabbing people in their taloned feet, ripping them apart to paint the sky with their blood.

Threnosh in interceptor-type armor zipped above the harpy formation, forearm mounted lasers sliced through wing arms, casting keening women down.

The massive harpy responded with screeching blades of wind.

Interceptor armor was thin as paper.

Even then, the Threnium held up against the initial swarm.

Unfortunately, there were plenty of gaps only protected by the Threnium mesh weave of the standard undersuit.

The interceptors bought the defenders on the rooftop time at the final cost one could pay.

They joined the red rain in pieces.

Seconds of time.

An eternity for those blessed with levels.

“.50 Caliber Burial Coffin.”

He could almost hear Marloes’ words.

An echo on the wind through the cacophony.

The harpy vanished in a burst of light.

The twinkling of a hundred distant stars suddenly brought almost within reach of mere human hands.

It still wasn’t enough.

She emerged from the thick smoke with a mighty flap of her huge wing arms.

Gale force winds threatened to sweep the rooftop clear.

A rising comet— Master Rising Comet to be exact— launched herself through cutting winds to land a knife hand strike to the harpy’s throat.

Giant-sized meant giant target.

Zhao Bei, had solidified her Dao as she had entered her 20’s.

She took the title of full master from the bruised and battered bodies of cultivation masters across the entirety of Phoenix Dynasty lands. The hidebound traditionalists couldn’t deny her after the tenth arrogant master she had stomped into the dirt. After all how could they consign her to the ranks of the rising talents, the young masters when true master’s twice her age had crumpled at her crackling fists and blazing feet.

The harpy choked, her spell silenced.

Bei flew true, unlike the vast majority of cultivators that could only cloudstep. She punched and kicked the much larger birdwoman higher and higher into a sky with a blend of fire and lightning aspected Qi in her four deadly weapons.

“All yours, my wingman.”

“You ain’t even a true flier, but thanks.”

Colin, the Emerald Raptor when atop the flying wing and clad in purple and green Threnium, launched a glowing orb at the burning harpy as he dived past.

A bright blinding flash filled the sky for an instant.

When it cleared nothing remained but a complete skeleton of spotless ivory bones that hung in the air a moment before clattering to the ground.

They were using their most dangerous weapons.

Alin didn’t like what that suggested.

Bei took a moment to gaze across the battlefield as she stood on air.

Then, she fell like her namesake, blazing a path down to the ground.

Alin’s heart stopped when he traced her trajectory and found her target.

The smiling, bearded face of a lavender-skinned eidolon.

“That backstabbing— we’ve got to get over there!”

“Calculating optimal path,” the fireteam leader said. “Completed.”

“Lead the way.”

They rushed forward.

A small group had the chance to be lost in the chaos.

An ancient M2 Bradley, a little alive according to her crew, spat 25mm HE rounds from her autocannon at both old American soldiers and a cluster of monsters.

The flesh-skinned insect-like monsters had brought warrior types to go along with the usual human-sized variety. Pincers and snapping claws took a heavy toll from the enormous pack of mutated coyotes that had made the mistake of attacking.

The Americans split their fire.

Half focused on clearing the monsters before they decided to go for softer prey, while half focused on the Bradley.

Withering fire stripped the battered armor of the ribbons and children’s drawings that always adorned her armor.

The crew had told him once that ‘she’ like feeling loved. It was motivating to know that ‘her’ efforts to protect the children were appreciated.

Alin would’ve said they were crazy had his dad not vouched for the truth in their words.

Classes got extra weird sometimes…

Steel Cupcake, that was ‘her’ name, retreated from the onslaught.

He could’ve sworn he felt her pain through the gray.

The American’s took the opening and charged, led by a hulking supersoldier, one of the last of a dying breed.

The alchemical potion that created them was simply inferior in most aspects to the Eidolon of Sut’s animal hybridization process, even the weaker version that the old government still had access to.

Longevity was the hulking mass of muscles’ biggest downfall.

Alchemy transformed the human body, allowing it to go well beyond what it could sustain naturally… for a time.

The supersoldier was an outlier, judging by the whiteness of his beard and the lines on his face visible through the helmet. He carried a door-sized shield that looked as if it had been cut out of the side of an armored warship.

25mm projectiles exploded against the metal.

He slowed, but bulled through each impact.

Soldiers followed in his wake.

They reached the gray.

Alin robbed them of their vitality.

They were close to Level 40 and the supersoldier was old, tough and filled with the will to die on his feet for his country.

The Americans almost reached Steel Cupcake when they simply ran out of juice.

“That you, Boy!” Tank Commander Lark said. Her voice sounded pinched.

“Yeah, Commander Lark. Watch out for sleepers.”

“We know. Hold up. Give us a sec and maybe you can help out with the rest of those bastards. We’re running low on ammo. Gonna have to start using Skill-made ones soon.”

Steel Cupcake rumbled forward, rolling her tracks over the unconscious old American soldiers.

Alin’s stomach twisted at the war crimes he was helping commit.

The M2’s back door lowered and one of the mages, Veracruz, stepped out to bathe the remains in white hot flames.

He told himself that it was the only way to make sure the sleeper device didn’t have anything left to activate.

Instead of focusing on that, he took his solace in the gray.

The remaining American soldiers in this group and the remaining monsters struggled against his wispy touch.

He spent energy to get energy, but ended up with more than he stared with at the end.

Steel Cupcake’s crew took care of the rest.

“Need a ride?”

“No. I think you should fall back to the Danger Complex. Re-arm.”

“Copy that.”

Alin and his Threnosh escort moved on.

They rushed from cover to cover, making use of destroyed vehicles and golems.

Through it all, Alin continued to expand the gray, stealing his enemy’s vitality.

Still not enough to bring the ghosts of his relatives out, but enough to give his side the edge.

“I don’t see any hybrids or elite spec ops. Did you see them?”

“Negative. Standard soldiers and heavy soldiers only. Ingress inside our defenses through gold-colored portals,” the fireteam leader said.

“Inside the buildings!” Worry for his mom spiked.

“Negative. External ingress.”

He glanced to the sky.

The Rayn of Fire had moved further away and continued to descend.

He caught of glimpse of Marian’s tiny skyfury fighter zipping through the harpies and flying monsters more like a spacecraft in a vacuum than an atmospheric aircraft.

The prototype used a float stone to make a joke out of the constraints of gravity and aerodynamics.

“Do we proceed?”

The fireteam leader mistook his silence for indecision.

There was a large amount of open ground to cover until the next burning mound of wreckage.

“Ammunition at 30%. Shield energy expended. Armor integrity within acceptable standard.”

He reached into his bag of holding and came up empty on ammo for his reccoilless rifle.

Still had everything in his armor, saving it up for the bigger dangers.

Like the eidolon.

He caught glimpse of the duel through the haze and smoke and flashing explosions.

Bei buzzed around Alcaestus like a sole bee trying to stop a bear from tearing apart her hive.

Which was to say, ineffectively.

She was riding the blade’s edge of danger, barely avoiding his strikes and grapples with her cultivator’s speed and reflexes while her strikes only smudged his armor and exposed parts.

He couldn’t risk taking a shot, not with Bei’s unpredictable movements.

Had to get closer.

Use the gray to tip the odds and at least distract the eidolon.

A larger battle waged past them just outside the main entrance where the road curved like a half moon around a small island of greenery.

Glimpses of the magus and her flashing eyes. Spells of death lancing. Spells of protection shielding.

A white glow, perhaps more powerful than everything else there, danced through it all.

Time… time wasn’t on his side.

He spotted a group of his dad’s guards crouched in the shadow of a half-broken guard golem.

The machine’s wavering magic shield held back the fire, while the guards dared to peek around to give back what little they could.

“Suppression on them.” He highlighted the soldiers pinning down the guards.

The Threnosh complied with coordinated bursts, maintaining ammo efficiency along with a steady stream of fire to force the American’s heads back behind cover.

Alin sprinted across the large gap.

A distant bang, two, but so close together it was hard to tell the difference.

.50 BMG struck the outside of his right knee, then another plinked off the inside of his left.

Armor held, impact absorption and dispersion system made the hits feel like tiny plastic pellets.

Not enough to break his stride.

Enemy sniper on the distant wall.

Too far for him to hit back.

Probably, used double shot.

Another echoing bang, barely perceptible through the closer ones.

Followed by silence.

He had snipers on his side too.

They fought atop the walls just as fiercely.

Men and women that should’ve been working together against the monsters and invaders, blowing each other away, cutting, stabbing, casting each other down to be ripped apart by hungry teeth and claws.

A watchtower teetered dangerously. Its fall only prevented by the thick cables strung behind them for that purpose.

With the Bountiful Decade there was no end to the monsters.

If the battle with the Americans lasted till the reset…

Not a pleasant thought.

Alin reached the guards.

Dave, Shauna and five others.

Bloodied and battered.

“Shoot them!” Dave urged the golem.

“It’s cannon arm’s all fucked up!” Shauna snapped.

They jumped when he cleared his throat.

“Shit, Boy!” Dave laughed.

It almost got away from the middle-aged man.

His eyes showed a lot of white through the rapid blinks.

Guarding posts and shooting at monsters from the wall wasn’t anything like getting stuck in a firefight with professional soldiers and magic-wielding birdwomen from other worlds.

The red rain unnerved even the toughest fighters.

He would admit to it without hesitation.

“Guys. I’ll draw their fire. Run to the Danger Complex.”

Shauna looked over his shoulder.

“That’s a long way.”

“I know, but there’s cover.”

“Ah, shit… y’all go ahead. Me and old iron ass here,” Dave patted the golem’s backside and hefted his spellrifle, “will do what we can to help out.”

Alin only noticed it then.

Dave’s right leg was gone at the knee.

“Don’t know how it happened,” Dave gave him a strained smile and shrugged. “I was shooting then there was a blur, then I was flipping and when I landed on my ass, no more leg.”.

“Shut it, Dave. We’re carrying your fat ass!” Shauna snapped.

“Yeah, dude, you’re like 20 pounds lighter now,” a guard with a full-faced helmet said.

The ident tag in Alin’s HUD marked the young man as William Gonzalez.

A recent addition he hadn’t had the opportunity to meet beforehand.

Dave looked to him.

“Start thinking about whether you want a magitech prosthetic or a full regrow.”

“But… I’ll just slow them down.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’ll be too busy shooting at me.”

His HUD suddenly blared a warning.

High speed movement.

Man-sized.

The Threnosh picked it up as well.

Empty air.

Swirling smoke.

Movement from their six.

The squad split fire.

3 turned and sprayed projectiles for maximum coverage.

The heavy’s shoulder-mounted cannon swiveled around to join in while they kept suppression fire on the Americans with the heavy version of the reccoilless rifle.

“Be wary, Designation: Boy. V.I. marks 83% probability of enemy Designation: De—” Fireteam Leader Candwyll Gorge 3569 started to say.

The Threnosh scattered as though a bomb landed in their midst.

A big man in black tactical body armor held one of the Threnosh aloft on a solid steel short spear, undoubtedly enchanted to pierce through the Threnium plate covering their chest.

The dust cloud shrouded them for a long moment.

For the unaware it would’ve looked as if a grown man had just impaled a 10 year old.

Threnosh blood dripped down the shaft, staining the red, white and blue of the soldier’s skull-faced helm.

They locked eyes.

Bright blue against dark brown, not that Alin’s were visible through the darkened faceplate of his helmet.

Another backstabber.

He should’ve let the necromancer slasher lady get them back during the Slashers’ Spree.

Death’s Dancer aimed the grenade launcher and squeezed the trigger.

Mt. Rushmore, Spring 2053

Aehrone’s golden beams lanced out from her hands with enough speed to catch up to a supersonic fighter jet given a head start.

Cal hugged the ground, flying just fast enough to keep out of its reach.

Shades of green dominated the landscape, only broken up by the occasional mound of gray or winding lines of blue.

Jagged peaks loomed far in the distance.

He could see the curtain of darkness rapidly swallowing the sunlight across the entire horizon.

Divine gold burned the demigod’s anger into the earth.

She flew fast.

Mach 1.4 according to the sensors.

She flew like a fighter jet, discharging energy from her feet. Moving them gave her added maneuverability, just like the thrust vectoring capability of the last generation of fighter jets.

The other demigod, Elebykiades, flew on feathered wings. Like a bird, yet much faster than any normal bird. Straight flight at nearly three times the top speed a diving peregrine hit. He had fallen behind. A dark speck hidden in the glare of Aehrone’s golden aura.

Cal flew like a shuttle in space. Physics still applied, but he could overpower it. He could stop in an instant and go in another direction. Momentum’s hold on him was as easy to break as a baby’s tiny hand around his finger.

The treetops burned.

Fortunately, winter’s moisture had yet to be dried out by summer’s heat, so the risk of a conflagration spreading out of control was minimal.

A great gout of steam erupted as the demigod’s beam cut across a river.

Nearly 20 km southwest of Mt. Rushmore’s remains.

The closest town was Custer a few kilometers to the south.

It was abandoned anyways, so it didn’t matter to him if the thunderbirds’ storms or the upcoming fight damaged it.

A jagged mountain loomed in the distance.

Cal sped up his perceptions to calculate an equation from the numbers in his helmet’s HUD.

Speed.

Distance.

It reminded him of word problems back in school. Of two trains leaving at different times from different stations with different speeds, yet arriving at the same station, at the same time. How fast were they traveling to accomplish that?

Having a subjective eternity to figure it out would’ve been nice back then.

He dived beneath the green, weaving through branches without ruffling a single leaf.

The forest floor was devoid of animal life.

None had rejected the call of Elebykiades’ horn.

Not even the insects.

Countless had been vaporized by Aehrone or squashed by his telekinesis as they passed overhead.

Barely noticed collateral damage.

He hugged the ground, rising up the rocky mountain slope close enough to reach out and touch.

The sun shined down on his back.

Its brightness and heat surpassed by the demigod’s attacks.

If he looked back he’d see the winding scar the two of them had left across the wilderness. A two lane highway laid down without regard for terrain and elevation burned into the rock beneath the top layer of soil.

He had eyes on the entirety of his surroundings.

On the thunderbirds approaching from the other side of the mountain.

On the demigods closing behind him.

On the satellite preparing to eject a tungsten rod similar in size to an electricity pole. The old government thought they had managed to get it into orbit unnoticed.

While he had gone low, the demigod had gone high, planning to take the shorter route to the top of the mountain.

He saw her plan.

Use the ground to limit his maneuver options.

Work with the impending thunderbird attacks.

Go for a kill shot while he was occupied.

Simple plans beat complicated ones.

Fewer variables meant less could go wrong.

A beam strike hit his invisible shield.

Needles gingerly prodded his brain.

The next created a geyser of hot debris in his path.

He gathered it up and shot it back at her, missing intentionally.

The peak loomed.

Day turned to night, as a blinding deluge of stinging rain engulfed him.

Bright flashes against the mountain.

Debris swirled in the violent winds.

Proximity alerts silenced with a thought.

None of it was enough to trouble him.

Thunderbirds screeched their challenge.

Three of them.

The size of small planes.

Dark orbs flashed with hidden storms unleashed.

One dived, opening her beak.

A bolt of lightning struck.

Armor systems flickered.

It was proof against natural lightning, but the thunderbird’s contained powerful magic.

The next strike fizzled on a telekinetic shield.

A golden beam followed.

Needles again.

Aehrone struggled against winds that surpassed all planetary records.

Dozens of tornados spawned.

The storm could wipe a city empty, leaving flat land strewn with the detritus of life.

There were two ways for him to get out of it.

Neither was necessary from a personal safety standpoint, but both had tactical applications.

It was just a matter of what he wanted to accomplish first and with as little expenditure of effort as possible.

To provoke the thunderbirds he slapped all three upside their feathered heads with giant, invisible hands.

They squawked displeasure and dived.

He did the same.

Right into the mountainside.

Earth and stone parted before his hands like water.

He sealed the opening behind. Seamless, as if it had been just a figment of the imagination.

The ground rumbled overhead like his childhood friend’s home that was right next to an airport.

“Where is the primitive?” Elebykiades finally caught up.

The demigod had to shout to be heard over the howling gale with his words further garbled by the condition of his nose.

“He is in the mountain,” Aehrone said eyes flashing like the frequent lightning strikes battering the landscape. “Command the stormbirds to smite the mountain. If he wishes to hide beneath the ground then we shall bury him.”

“I do not command as a general does his soldiers. The horn calls and focuses their ire on a target I mark, but they will complete the task as they see fit.”

“Useless!” she snapped.

“Watch your tone, cousin.” Elebykiades stared with the unblinking eyes of a predator.

The thunderbirds circled the mountain like vultures around a dying deer oblivious to the intensity of the divine energy pushing against each other in an almost unconscious contest.

Violence appeared to be imminent, but Cal knew better.

Both demigods knew where they stacked up against each other.

Age didn’t always mean strength.

Other factors played their part.

The amount divine power a so-called god imparted on the would be child at the moment of conception. How much they might add before adulthood. Their deeds and how closely they hewed to the demesne of their parent. The effort they placed in improvement.

As trite as it sounded, things as simple as exercise, practice and, ultimately, mastery played the greatest role in how strong they became.

While the two demigods bickered silently, Cal made quick work of the spawn zone.

Deep, dark tunnels and chambers filled with monsters of stone and earth no longer.

He didn’t stop as he crushed all in his path to the boss chamber. Scattered treasures held no allure. He could always come back for them later.

Quests went ignored as he silenced the spires’ words and dismissed the texts.

The boss monster, a massive shambling mound of stone and earth, exploded in an instant to reveal the red slick core of raw nerves surrounding a man-sized organ akin to a pulsating stomach with a maw of grinding stone on top and a leaky sphincter on the bottom.

As always, the spires didn’t fail to disgust.

It died with a squelch.

“Yes, yes. Give me the true secret boss, bla, bla, bla.”

Cal readied his next move.

Reality tore in the middle of the chamber.

A mirror image emerged.

He scoffed.

If he had a dollar for every time a true boss came out with his face, he’d have at least 20 of the useless things.

He sped up his perceptions to scan the monster.

A perfect facsimile in appearance made out of what looked just like the granite that was prevalent in these mountains.

It even copied the tiny imperfections in his power armor he had picked up from the demigods.

Magic suffused the dark stone shell, which hid a predictable surprise.

The monster attacked with a leaping punch.

Stone fist met invisible shield and the chamber paid the price.

The shockwave cratered the floor and collapsed part of the high, domed ceiling.

So… very fast and very strong.

Well above his unboosted baseline.

However, it lacked his true powers.

Its stone shell split in a dozen places. Thin as slivers. Normal human eyes would’ve struggled to notice even with the faint glow emanating from inside. Less detectable where the gossamer threads that emerged from the openings to snag falling debris.

Cal cut the threads with a thought before the monster could whip the rocks at him.

“This is good.”

He opened the mountain to the storm.

Hundreds of meters thick.

Thousands of tons of stone and earth.

Rain lashed into the gaping hole with the eagerness of an animal in rutting season.

Lightning crashed down in a concerted barrage as soon as they saw him.

The storm of thunderbirds had grown to an even 8.

They circled overhead like planes waiting to land.

The demigods turned from their silent struggle.

A single bolt snapped free of Elebykiades’ ethereal crossbow.

The man had no scope, yet was on target despite being over thrice the maximum distance of any variation of the Barrett sniper rifle.

At 200 meters to Cal, the bolt glowed and vanished.

Rain drops suddenly turned into exact copies.

His stone doppelganger helpfully leapt for another punch.

He grabbed it with a thought and thanked it for volunteering to be a shield.

Bolts fell all around him, but not in him.

A golden beam followed, but he was already flying back out into the storm behind his pin-cushioned stone shield.

“What’re you complaining about? I know you feel pain as pleasure.”

Slits opened in the back of the boss monster’s helmet.

Threads pressed futilely against the telekinetic shield.

“Open up for the big birdies.”

He pulled its entire front open.

Stone plates spread out connected to thin tendrils slick with gooey red.

Its inside was like the first boss, except multiplied by a… a lot.

A multitude of hungry stomachs hung in a webbed mass of tangled red strands.

Stone-toothed maws ground in anticipation.

It spread out to cover a large enough area to snag two thunderbirds by their wings.

They screeched, spraying lightning in their panic as the maws went to work.

Cal held the gut-churning display aloft.

He turned a baleful glare at the distant demigods.

“You’re in line for this. You can still back out of it. Just go to the nearest spire and go to one of your paradises. Do you really want to die like this?” He pushed the soft words to their ears past the howling winds and booming thunder.

A thunderbird dived, opening his beak.

Lightning charged.

Cal snapped it shut with a thought.

Feathered neck bulged as the monster choked all the way down to the mountain side.

Huge wings snapped as Cal shoved it into the gaping hole he had created.

One wing was as good as no wings.

The remains of two thunderbirds plummeted as the boss monster finished its meal.

Tornadoes spun them violently, coloring the dark rain crimson.

Another thunderbird swept in with lightning in its beak and ice around its outstretched talons.

The demigod’s horn did her no favors by forcing her to fixate on Cal and ignoring the webbed mass of undulating stomachs floating above her.

Thus, Cal dropped it and let it do its thing.

Ice-covered talons gave him an idea.

He seized the charging demigods in a telekinetic bubble, he let the torrential downpour fill it up.

Aehrone’s golden aura flared, boiling the water regardless of Elebykiades complaints.

He took hold of the water molecules and forced them to stop moving.

Steam condensed.

In the next instant the demigods stood trapped in an icy globe.

The remaining thunderbirds bombarded him with lightning and wind powerful enough to strip exposed flesh.

He held firm in the heart of perhaps the most powerful tornado in the history of Earthiankind.

A multi-ton ball of ice looked like a good projectile weapon.

He snapped a wing, crushed a skull and broke a neck.

The storm weakened in an instant without the magic to sustain it.

The ice suddenly shattered.

Sodden demigods returned that baleful glare.

Aehrone’s armored chest heaved. Her golden aura diminished.

Elebykiades looked like… well… a bird that had gotten caught in a sudden rain storm. His feathers were sodden, yet somehow they held him aloft, although their flapping looked rather labored.

“No more!” Aehrone snapped. “I will not stay my hand another moment!”

“I thought you were going all out.” Cal reached into her body to do something he rarely did due to its brutal, unpleasant nature. To mild surprise, he found that her blood resisted his hold. Slippery, like slathering vaseline on his hands before trying to grab an eel. He abandoned the effort, thankful in a way. There were still other ways to end things.

“Occupy him,” Aehrone said.

Elebykiades’ eyes had returned to that flat stare.

The demigod blurred with a single flap of his wings.

Cal sped himself up.

A glowing axe coalesced in the orange and black-haired demigod’s hand in motion.

The magic cleaved through Cal’s shield.

An involuntary wince crossed his face, but didn’t stop him from instantly placing ten layers between him and the demigod.

The last layer finally stopped the enchanted adamantite axe an arm’s length from his face.

Meanwhile, Aehrone gathered gold light in her hands.

Divine energy became a titanic spell the likes of which he had only experienced a handful of times.

Rain turned into liquid fire.