Chapter 387: Tidewrath

Maren spoke from behind Darian.

"When the enemy is strongest in one place, strike somewhere else. We could bypass Breakwater Isle and press farther into the Black Banner’s interior."

She looked at Cassian.

"Provided you still have a Legendary Spatial Lock Scroll."

"Exactly!" Nessa’s voice sharpened. "Seal their main army here. Then we can march through their homeland, burn their strongholds, and take everything worth carrying!"

It was a tempting proposal. The others turned to Cassian, waiting for his decision.

He shook his head and pointed toward the coast.

"Have you considered that this might be exactly what they want? Their strongest forces are gathered here. If we seal them in and leave, we also keep those forces safe."

He let them look at the enemy position before continuing.

"We might seize plenty of territory. We might even take their capital. But we’re fighting in their homeland. Our new Nation gives us an advantage, and so do the Fenwicks’ veterans. If we don’t use those advantages to destroy their main army now, how much of that territory will we actually keep?"

The others fell thoughtful.

There were two more reasons he kept to himself. The Black Banner wanted him to lose heart and withdraw. Cassian wanted to finish its strongest fighters in one battle, sparing himself the trouble of hunting them across the country later.

And those dozens of War Marshals looked very much like National Fortune waiting to be collected.

Darian frowned.

"Then we’re charging straight into that? That’s a little too direct, even for me."

"The Fenwicks’ two million older-sector Lords will take the vanguard," Seren said at once.

Cassian nodded to her, his expression serious.

"Your family’s contribution will be rewarded according to its merits when this battle is over."

Then he raised a hand.

"But first, let me bring in our reinforcement."

Reinforcement?

The leaders exchanged puzzled looks. Lyra alone brightened with anticipation. As the Five Elements Temple’s second administrator, she knew a little more than the others.

Light erupted over the sea ten kilometers ahead of the fleet.

The sky changed color. Waves dozens of meters high rolled away from the surging energy, rocking the water beneath the ships. At the center of that brilliance, a vast shape slowly appeared.

"The Five Elements Temple!"

"He brought the Temple here?"

"Something that enormous can be moved?"

Amazement gave way to excitement. Maren and a few of the other veterans knew what such a Wonder could do. Most of the Lords had never had reason to learn the details of something so far beyond their reach.

Cassian had paid ten billion Aether to relocate it from Riftward. The journey was only a little over a hundred thousand kilometers, but moving a Wonder was expensive. Its relocation cooldown was extremely long as well.

The shadow solidified.

Ten thousand meters of magnificent stone hung above the sea. Even on the flagship, the Lords felt the weight of its presence and instinctively lowered their voices.

Cassian took out a Legendary Spatial Lock Scroll from the supplies he had bought for the campaign.

"Spatial Lock."

The scroll burned away. He meant to keep the enemy army here until he was finished with it.

"Lyra, you’re up. Don’t worry about the Aether."

"Leave it to me!"

She rose into the air, barely able to contain her excitement.

"With this much Water energy around us, we should start with Tidewrath."

Aether burned within the Temple. At its summit, the energy orb began gathering the power of the sea.

——

On Breakwater Isle, the Black Banner Lords stared at the distant Wonder.

More than seventy percent of their Nation’s strongest War Lords had assembled here. Tens of millions of Domains stood packed together, an arrangement that had nearly exhausted the Black Banner’s supply of Expedition Writs.

With the veterans sent by its allies, the position should have been impregnable.

Abandoning their inland maps would make them a laughingstock across the Homeworld. They had accepted that. As long as they preserved their armies, they could eventually retake whatever Cassian occupied.

No one had expected him to bring the Five Elements Temple.

Its ten-kilometer height made it impossible to miss, even across the broad stretch of sea.

"Sun Mother above. He actually moved it."

"That one Building destroyed the allied armies at Riftward!"

A Black Banner War Marshal rose above the Domains. His voice thundered across the position.

"Steady! The last army fought far from home and was caught unprepared. We are defending. Our Domains stretch for thousands of kilometers. Even the Temple cannot sweep us all away!"

His confidence steadied the frightened Lords. Then people began to recognize him.

"Lord Ronan Vexley!"

"Halric the Spear’s grandson? They say his Aptitude and his Warbound Talent are both Grade A. He has Spear Will as well. His strength can match a Mythic troop of the same Level!"

"If the Jade Court hadn’t stripped Helena Grey of her office, a fighter like him might never have been free to come down here."

A cry interrupted the excited voices.

"Look west! The water!"

Lyra had finished activating Tidewrath.

The shallow sea pulled away from the shore as though something immense were drinking it. Wet ground stretched for kilometers where water had been moments before. Fish and other sea creatures thrashed across the exposed bottom, stranded before they could escape.

A white line appeared on the far horizon.

It grew with terrifying speed. In little more than ten seconds, it had reached the waters ten kilometers from the coast.

"A tsunami!"

The wave rose hundreds of meters into the air. Naga, Hydras, Sea Dragons, and Leviathans took shape in its crest, their bodies formed from the raging water. The vast shapes broke apart and re-formed as the wave advanced.

"Every Domain, maximum shield output!" Ronan shouted. "Prepare for impact! All Defense Towers, attack the wave and weaken it before it reaches us!"

His face had tightened.

"Damn it. This is worse than the reports."

They had learned about the Temple from survivors of the battle at Riftward. Those reports had told them how deadly it was. They had not told them how much of its power had gone unused against enemies who died long before a spell was spent.

Tidewrath could raise a hundred-meter wave even in a desert. Here, with an ocean beneath it, the spell had far more Water energy to draw upon.

The tsunami crossed the exposed shore.

When it was a kilometer from the front line, Ronan thrust his spear.

"Break!"

A lance of light hundreds of meters long shot into the wave. Water burst outward. A kilometer-wide section lost its shape and collapsed, still rushing toward the Domains but carrying far less force.

The Defense Towers opened fire.

Hundreds of thousands of attacks struck the incoming wall of water. Individually, they fell far short of Ronan’s blow. Together, they tore great holes through it.

A second later, the wave hit.

The roar swallowed every other sound.

Even stripped of seventy percent of its power, Tidewrath poured over the first row of Domains like a sea falling from the sky. Their shields flickered wildly beneath the weight. Buildings vanished from sight under churning water.

But every Domain in that front row was a Rank-XVIII fortress. Their shields were built to endure.

Seconds passed. The water began to recede.

The line was still there.

A cheer rose from the Black Banner position. They had held, and it had not seemed nearly as difficult as the sight of that first wave had promised.

Ronan did not join them.

From his height above the Domains, he could see farther out to sea.

A second tsunami was already forming on the horizon.