Novel Full Chapter 1997 Separating Four
Chapter 1997: Chapter 1997 Separating Four
— Hedera —
The army was clearly stalling outside, despite the lack of reinforcements. They hadn’t even forced a second juggernaut to move. At least currently. That was about to change. Cobolt was still holding the line for one area by himself, allowing his supporters to make progress on the barrier but that wasn’t all the Digger’s had up their sleeves. A heavy rumbling sound was coming from one of the other roads.
If Kat or Lily could see it, they’d think of the machine as a tank. It wasn’t a bad descriptor though it lacked the typical barrel for firing alongside treads. Instead of both, it had a giant battering horn at the front and more normal wheels for locomotion. The entire thing was heavily armoured and not quiet in the slightest. It had probably been held back so as to not alert the entire city it was moving.
“Treant or Titan! I need one of you out here! They’ve got some sort of enchanted battering ram!” a small shadow bird cried after it flew into the warehouse. Shadowmancer had correctly identified it was going to be a major problem, and not one that could be dealt with by themselves. Shadowmancer was good at slowing down weak targets, or ones with weak points to go after. A giant metal monstrosity on steel wheels enchanted for durability and designed to ram into things was NOT something the Shadowmancer armour was designed to stop.
Titan, on the inside, glanced at the other two juggernauts. “Storm, you’re in charge I’ll head outside. Treant, you’re needed for capture, containment, and possibly healing inside of the warehouse. Ideally you’ll be the last of us out… but this seems oddly co-ordinated. I wonder if it was designed to bait me into fighting it specifically. Without having seen it, it’s hard to say.”
“Understood,” the other two said with a salute as Titan stood up and stomped out of the building, gathering speed as he flew out of the warehouse and went straight for the massive machine. He leapt easily over the enchantments and line of guards, opening himself up to attacks… potentially anyway.
In truth Titan was too fast, and the slight corona of red around him implied bad things for anything trying to engage him in melee range. The ’tank’ was ready for his appearance and started to rev the engine. How that worked when it was probably all magical enchantments… Kat had no idea. She couldn’t even see it to guess.
Regardless, the thing leapt forward like a monster, growling at its target and cracking the road underneath it somewhat as it slammed into Titan. The giant in armour wasn’t deterred and took the attack almost entirely head on. Dodging the giant spike but nothing else. Titan slammed into the tank’s front armour and held it in place. Well, he was trying to overwhelm the armour before, slamming into it with speed and crumpling the front… but it was not to be.
The wheels tried to push past Titan’s grip, but the ground was unstable now. The drastic jump in speed the tank had used to try and run over Titan had chewed up the stonework of the road, giving it no real stable footing to press the issue. Meanwhile, Titan was far more used to unstable and uneven footing, able to hold his ground somewhat easily and distribute the force of the charge…
But things weren’t perfect. For all that Titan was more capable on the terrain, that didn’t change the fact the tank was a solid beast of metal. It weighed FAR more than Titan did, even with the large bulky armour he had on… which meant that even with the unstable ground, even with the poor grip… now that Titan didn’t have the momentum of his initial charge to help, he was slowly being pushed back. It was in some ways glacial pace. Considering the speeds both combatants could move, this was nothing…
Titan however, realised that he couldn’t move. If he simply left the tank to its own devices it would cleave through the barriers in no time at all, allowing for the army to stream in and attack the guards behind him. At the same time, just remaining here ’in place’ would likely mean a much slower loss. Depending on what other abilities the tank had, it might still be able to cut through the barriers when the battering ram touched them.
Shadowmancer was around looking for some way to help but the tank was sealed up tight. There was no obvious way in, and all of the seems were masterfully melded together. In fact, it was likely a steel mage or two had been used to turn it into almost one solid metal block, with no way in or out without a mage to do it. Perhaps one was even inside. A worrying thought. Depending on how the enchantment was done, Titan might need to be worried about the metal casing attacking him while he held on.
The wheels were similarly out of the picture as an angle of attack. Not only were they still spinning quite fast, they had spiked on them and weren’t on an axle. Magic had been used to keep them ’floating’ on the outside of the vehicle. With them spinning, there was no way to safely grip on and rip them off either. Titan would need to hold on until something changed. Perhaps Storm could help… but the risk of the attacks dissipating on the tank and being redirected into him was a bit too high.
Sadly, that wasn’t the last of it. Apparently now that they’d realised the defence was serious, the Diggers were ready to keep pushing until something broke… though it was unclear to the defenders if they truly felt the need to ensure they weren’t the ones who broke first. The sky was filled with a flock of bird monsters mixed with mechanical contraptions, all ready to divebomb the warehouse.
Another bird of warning from Shadowmancer told Storm it was time for him to step out. They rose from the warehouse and started to channel some lighting through dozens of birds. They weren’t very strong but there was a LOT of them, descending in a massive swarm. The lighting was doing well… until suddenly it wasn’t. The contraptions mixed into the swarm started to glow, and soon any lightning shot even vaguely towards them was sucked inside, increasing the glow.
Cursing, Storm started to throw out water magic as well, all the while gathering storm clouds up in the air to provide for more options. Alas, with Storm in the air defending all sides, Titan held down, and Shadowmancer needing to focus more and more on Cobolt to keep the man contained, as he only seemed to get stronger…
There was still one street that the defenders simply had to manage on their own. Treant was reluctant to leave… and that had always been the enemy’s plan. One of the builders whipped around and threw a cube into the middle of the warehouse, as Lily felt it. The space in the area was locked down. Shoved slightly out of sync of time.
“What!” hissed Treant as she noticed the barrier going up, if not the true strength of it. Immediately moving to separate the traitor from the rest. “How dare you betray us! Cornelius!”
The man chuckled as he was bound by vines and ripped away from the others. “I’m afraid you got the wrong guy… see, I’m not Cornelius, I’m his cousin Harold.”
“Don’t give me that shit, you look nothing like him,” scowled Treant, all the while, Kat was wondering if this was the final attack? Perhaps it was time for her to step in.
“Ah, but a bit of healing here, a bit of makeup there… as long as we’re the same height and sound similar enough we can trade places! Why, we don’t even need to worry about seeing through an illusion that isn’t there! It’s a shame we had to work down to plan D before I got to act… but here we are! Locked away where I can take that fancy armour from you.”
“And how do you expect to get me out of it? I doubt you can even find a date much less get her naked,” countered Treant.
Harold clicked his fingers. Kat readied herself. Lily moved her shadows, Treant got ready… and nothing happened. Kat continued observing the room, Lily retracted her shadows, Treant put a hand on her hips and Harold looked sadly at his fingers. “Um… hmm… I was assured that would work…”
“I’ve heard that it’s a common issue with men your age,” added Treant.
“Look, the sex jokes aren’t that funny. If the easy way isn’t going to work, let’s do this the hard way instead” insisted Harold.
“See, you say it’s not a sex thing and then you go and say that!” growled Treant as she dropped the dividing plants now that the rest of the enchanters and builders had vanished into a safer section of the building. She wanted her full concentration when putting that fool in his place.