Chapter 93: The Companions Unleashed

The sky disappeared beneath a storm of arrows.

Thousands of shafts streaked across the Scarred Waste, their sharpened tips glinting in the sunlight.

Flames crawled along some, frost crystallized around others, and streaks of magical energy trailed the rest.

Each carried a different skill, but every one shared the same target.

Thunder Roc.

The enormous golden eagle circled above Ironclad’s formation with Kael standing steady on its back, a living bolt of lightning that flashed gold whenever it crossed the sun.

Individually, the arrows posed little threat. Thunder Roc’s attributes were far beyond anything these players could challenge, and most hits would inflict a handful of damage at best.

But there were thousands of them. Even the strongest creature could be worn down if enough attacks landed, and Ironclad’s officers knew it. That was why every available Archer had been ordered to fire at once.

Kael watched the storm approach without changing expression. Then he clicked his tongue and flicked one hand outward.

"Out."

The space beside him split open. A tremendous roar shook the air as the Void Colossus unfolded in midair, its immense violet body spreading across the sky like a mountain breaking free of the clouds.

For a moment, its shadow swallowed the sunlight over the battlefield.

Thick plates overlapped across its carapace, and jagged bone jutted from its shoulders and limbs. It slid between Kael and the incoming volley and became a living wall.

The first arrows struck.

A deafening clatter swept the wasteland, thousands of projectiles hammering against armor with the sound of hail on a fortress roof.

Flames burst and frost shattered across its hide. Arrows snapped and dropped uselessly away.

The Colossus didn’t flinch. Its passive, Adamant Hide, doubled its resistance to physical and magical damage, and the Beastlord’s fifty-percent bonus to every attribute made that defense almost absurd.

One point. Three points. Now and then a stronger skill shot reached double digits, and even the best of them struggled to break into the hundreds.

The Archers kept firing, their faces growing strained as they watched their strongest attacks accomplish nothing.

When the last wave landed, the Colossus had lost a little over a thousand health from a pool approaching four hundred thousand. Its health bar barely moved.

Two thousand players had coordinated their best attack, and one companion had swallowed it whole.

Then the Colossus dropped.

It crashed into the middle of Ironclad’s formation, and the ground buckled.

Cracks raced across the dry earth, dust boiled up, and nearby players stumbled in the shockwave. Before anyone could recover, it threw back its head and opened its jaws.

Dread Wail.

A visible distortion rippled outward in a widening ring.

The sound crushed through armor and shook weapons from unsteady hands, and health bars plunged across hundreds of players at once. Some staggered back clutching their heads.

Others dropped to their knees.

The Colossus raised one enormous foot and drove it into the ground.

Something answered beneath the earth. Black bone spikes erupted through the cracked soil in a forest of jagged pillars, impaling some players and hurling others skyward.

Several dissolved into white light before they ever landed.Dozens of Ironclad members were dead in two skills.

"What the hell is that thing?!"

"Its defense is broken! We’re barely scratching it!"

"Shut up!" a furious voice cut across the panic. "Hold the line!"

Ironclad hadn’t gathered two thousand players by recruiting people who folded at the first sign of trouble.

A senior officer shoved his way to the front, took one look at the Colossus’s health bar, and began barking orders in a hard, flat voice.

"Priests, curse it and strip its resistances! Archers, switch to piercing shots! Tanks, wall up the front, and every healer locks onto them! I refuse to believe two thousand players can’t bring down one monster!"

The formation reshaped itself with practiced speed. Shields locked into a line. Healers fell in behind them. Dark sigils took shape in the air as the mages began to cast.

If the Colossus had been alone, it might even have worked.

Kael raised his hand again.

Another portal tore open, and a wave of cold swept the battlefield, snuffing out the heat of nearby spells.

The Wraithlord rode out of the darkness on a skeletal charger whose hooves burned crimson, his armor dark and battle-worn, a long spear in his hand with a blade bright as fresh blood.

He surveyed the chaos below, then raised the spear. The shadows behind him moved.

Legion of the Damned.

Sixteen armored knights tore themselves out of the dark, hollow eyes burning, mist curling from their armor.

They formed up behind their general without waiting for an order. The Wraithlord lowered his spear, and the entire company charged at full gallop into Ironclad’s ranks.

He struck first. His spear flashed, and a Warrior fell before he could raise his shield. The Wraithlord wheeled, drove the blade through a second target, and plunged into another cluster.

The knights followed his path, split the formation, turned, and hit it again from behind like a scythe through tall grass.

Players who had barely survived the Colossus now found themselves trapped between two monsters.

Overhead, silver light began to gather. It started as drifting motes, then thickened into a spiral until the air above the Colossus shimmered with cold, starlike radiance. A slender figure stepped out of it.

Lyra landed on the Colossus’s brow as lightly as if it were a balcony, her silver gown stirring in the wind, her longbow loose in her hand. She looked down at the battlefield and drew.

A silver arrow formed between her fingers, its point glowing. She released it without hesitation.

It climbed into the sky, trailing light, and seemed to hang there for a breath. Then it split.

One became twelve, twelve became fourteen, and the volley scattered like a shower of silver meteors, each shaft curving toward a different cluster of Ironclad members.

The first struck a Warrior at the front. A flash of silver, and his body dissolved into white light. The next took a Mage. Then another.

Then three more. There was no prolonged exchange and no chance to retreat. Fourteen arrows, fourteen empty spaces.

Lyra lowered her bow and reached for the next.

By then, Thunder Roc was already diving with Kael on its back, golden lightning streaming behind it like a banner. At the last moment it spread its wings.

Thunderfall.

The sky erupted. Golden bolts hammered across the formation in rapid succession, arcs of lightning leaping from target to target and engulfing whole groups in flashes.

Shields shattered. Spell formations collapsed. The lines of Warriors and Mages dissolved into chaos, and the ground flashed gold again and again until the field looked like a storm-ravaged plain.

When it finally faded, another vast section of Ironclad’s formation was simply gone.