Chapter 825 – Splitting Skies.

Neneria found the sector in which monsters where spilling through and released her Dead Legion. Unleashed it across the underground cave and further beyond although she still did not understand it. No matter how many fell, more just kept coming. As if they were being dragged through this chokepoint.

Arascus floated into the air as the shimmer blue oval of a portal finally began to settle. Its edges swaying like the gentle waves of an ocean and instead settled into concrete. So Paradeisius had come. The Raptors squawked overhead, they had to be called here. The pair of jets, both with swinging wings, shrunk as they ascended into the sky, high above the portal. Like proper birds, they would be diving from above.

Of Pride raised one hand to his side. A golden sphere materialized under his arm, close behind his chest. Then another. A third, to make the pair into a chain. A fourth turned it into a pattern, the fifth made a line and the line grew longer. By the time it reached one hundred spheres long, weaponry was already sliding out of the first dozen. The gleaming tips of spears and swords and the maws of maces and axes. The number of golden sphere doubled, as each one created another below it. And it doubled again, and again, until the God of Pride created an impenetrable golden wall, marked with glinting silver and steel.

The first angel descended out of the portal. A second followed. The third dived down as the local garrison opened fire from their hidden locations. Arascus held his cool, held his breath, held his arm outstretched as he waited for more of their kind to come through. The first attack should wipe them out. Aerial dogfights was just a method to just steal attention and make him focus too much on one measly foe when he should be watching the entire battle instead.

A squawk from an eagle, a flyby by non-Divine jets through the middle of the angelic choir as they organised themselves. In armour of silver and steel and gold, armed with swords that hummed when they were swung. Each one terrible blow resulted in yet another explosion on the ground. Grass and dirt thrown away. An explosion hit a jet that swerved too close to aim with its autocannon. Human engineering was swallowed by a sphere of fire.

Raptor One dove past the portal, turning at a speech that should have ripped the man inside and the vehicle behind, as if it had suddenly affixed itself to a point in reality. The cannon mounted in its beak sounded more like the shriek of a predatory bird as the engine behind it smacked one of the flying foes out of the air. Arascus was sure he heard the crack of bone, and if not, then he definitely heard the shrieking as the bird suddenly accelerated upwards, its engines spewing massive columns from behind it.

Arascus saw another figure come out. Not four wings, not six, eight. Armed with a blade, the target he had been waiting for. An archangel of some type, no doubt with a name. No doubt high-ranking back on Paradeisius. And no doubt not expecting that the opponent it would be up against would be Arascus himself.

Every golden portal, stretching down a hundred metres and a hundred metres long, swelled for a moment. The swirling coil within it tightened and tensed like a muscle as Arascus’ eyes bounced around the battle. A few would aim direct, the rest would fill the air. Above and below, to the sides, to the point that even Fer would not be able to dodge the flurry of steel. Infantry on the ground paused their firing when Arascus dropped his arm and the rush of wind sounded like an explosion which echoed off the cliff wall behind him.

Ancient medieval weaponry ripped through the air like a buckshot.

Bloody red feathers and bloodier bodies fell to the ground.

Goddess Anassa, of Sorcery, joins the battle over Ordeaux.

Elassa twisted her arm as if the limb was a snake, the palm faced upwards and the atmosphere in front of her grew to be as hard as stone. A cliff of converged oxygen, an invisible shield that creaked and cracked when another dozen blows came at her. Below her, shimmering Arcadia sat clothed in a blue bubble of magical energies that pulsed and slowly resonated whenever one of the angelic invaders swung their blade at the school or the floating islands which had been close to it.

“Not fit.” Elassa said, bring her over arm up straight above her head as the invisible barrier before her resonated and expanded. No longer to be a wall but to be a cage. The rings in her hands grew brighter, the catalysts growing hot as they channelled energies that such small crystals had never been made for. “For this world.” The cage grew up and down until it became a sphere. Elassa finally released her breath.

That had been tougher than she had thought. Paradeisius had advanced, that was obvious. These were not the measly angels of the Great War that had to be dragged with a fist to every battle. They swung those humming blades fast, they swung them hard, and they swung to kill. Every blow that Elassa’s invisible barriers had intercepted would have caught her in the chest and ripped her apart. She was sure of it from the strain on her shield.

Above the Goddess of Magic, the air channelled into fire. A small controlled ball of terrible heat that shimmered the air above it and left everything below her untouched. “Return.” Elassa said as she pushed all the heat she could muster towards the wall and the grew another barrier behind it. A moment later, the original disappeared and Elassa released the heat.

Uncontained, it would have ripped apart an inferno that would have swallowed a fortress, melted through steel and stone and ignited anything that could feasibly be set alight. Contained, it devoured through the locked in an instant. The inside of her invisible prison flashed with light as if it was the heartbeat of a star as flames burst out from the second spell. Where creatures had once stood and waved their wings and beat with their swords, only dust and char remained. It slowly floated like snowflakes.

Lesson over.

Elassa caught her breath and wiped the sweat off her face.

And another winged invader flew through the portal.

Goddess Irinika, of Darkness, is sent to protect the IBI headquarters from the various tightly packed portals appearing in Ghelgen.

Olonia hurled herself away from the explosion, holding her sniper close to her as the castle crenulations of Vavel Keep were ripped by an invisible force. The city had gone into a silent terrible panic where soldiers, the local garrison and anyone with a gun was rushing through the streets to seek cover or aiming with a shot from the window. Shattered brick fell from the sky as Olonia held her breath, twisted onto her back, kept the long cannon of a gun low and pushed herself backwards along the wall with her boots.

In the courtyard, a pair of garrison soldiers scattered as a heavy, automated cannon spun around scarring the sky with the faint cuts of lead being shot in an attempt to track one of the devilishly fast flying angels. Olonia kept her eyes off it and onto the sky above her. Someone shot a quick burst from behind a smaller wall, then fled. Too late, Olonia knew when she caught the faint ripple and the buzzing hum of another blast from that blade.

Her dark blue eyes caught the sight of a feather behind the ruined crenulation. The creature was coming to inspect its kill. The man had probably been shooting at that. Of Lubska’s entire body stilled in an adrenaline filled tremor as she stopped herself from lifting the gun into the air. The feather became a white a wing. The shoulder. The rounded edge of a circular shield.

Olonia lifted the cannon, aimed in the general direction and trusted that she would hit would without aiming through the scope. Dark-blue eyes locked with golden eyes and for a moment, the two stared at each other. A shoulder began to twist, an arm started to raise a vibrating blade. A finger squeezing a trigger was faster. Olonia felt the impact drive a bruise into her stomach as she squeezed and pulled the cannon into position.

And she said a quiet, victory curse when an anti-tank shell ripped through a shield and scaled armour and body and bone and left a hole wide enough to stick an arm through on the angel’s heart. There was no heroic death, a blade stopped humming and fell out of delicate hands and the remnant of the shield clattered onto the stone as the defenders in Vavel raised another cheer.

Olonia closed her eyes, released a breath, then immediately rolled to the side to fall into the courtyard. She landed with a thud, pulled back the bolt in her gun and shook her head. At this point, there had been too many close calls. The Empire had given her this gun but she needed a new one. As much as she liked the gun she had received in Arika, it was not suited for these fast and flying targets that needed to be overwhelmed with rapid gunfire.

She rolled again, then kicked off the ground, her body twisting like a snake as she got to her feet and switched locations. A few seconds later, the exact location that she had been hiding was blown up by an invisible explosion, another shockwave. A pair of jetfighters soared overhead, pulling away as they released their missile loads and not getting close to the battle. Two blocks of the city were already alight when the airforce lost jets.

Olonia stalked from one side of the courtyard to the other, dropped the barrel of her gun onto a low wall, further cracking the red brick and aimed at the white dots which buzzed about like hornets in the sky. Behind them, the portal to Paradeisius shimmered. A nest in the form of a blue oval.

Goddess Allasaria, of Light, reinforces Ilan, in northern Rilia.

Tasaidien circled around a sinking ship as mermen raced into it. Waters ripping through the steel hull and moving away to create pockets of air under the surface whenever they found another Imperial seaman that had been trapped in a coffin when his vessel sank. Normally, Tasaidien would take pride in the fact that he was one of the few Divines who would go to rescue humanity like that.

Not today. The God of Alanktyda surged passed the sinking ship in a wave, looking past the massive cannons of the human vessel and towards the surface of the sea. Under here, they would not catch him. The ocean struck with all the suddenness of a coiled snake lashing out at fresh blood it had smelled. Tasaidien road the wave with it, the trident in his hand, as the sea became a battering ram against the sky.

Six of the Paradeisians were swallowed in one blow, caught wholly, caught half, or caught by nothing more than a wrist or a foot. Water felt, water grabbed, water pulled and creatures that swam in the open sky suddenly found themselves drowning in the cold embrace of the ocean. Tasaidien swirled in the water, guiding the sea with his trident into a descending arc like the arch of a rainbow. Maybe it was the sea, or that the fish were calmer, or that the his land did not know of the wrath of fire, but he had never been fond of the land-dwellers and their constant wars.

Too much death, too much destruction, and for what? It was a waste. But he turned his head to inspect what he was saving and his heart felt heavier than that ship which had sunk. Beyond him, the city of Tull sat in flames. Its massive drydocks half collapsed or on fire as odd barriers still managed to keep its skyscrapers standing. His eyes narrowed at the damage, at the fires, crash of waves against a concrete port. Turrets on bridges and towers, aiming wildly as automated computers tried to keep up and predict the erratic patterns of angels flying through the air. Jets soaring in to assist but never coming so close as to be in danger, shooting off huge missiles that accelerated into dashes of lightning and then exploded into cones of flame, directed forwards by their sheer momentum.

Tasaidien dove back under the surface, explosions harmlessly ripping across the water as the choir turned its song upon him. He had heard it in the Great War, when the world would rumble and cities would be brought down. And he would not let them build up to their crescendo.

He turned under the surface and built up speed again.

And this time, it was a dozen coiling serpents of seawater striking with him.

Goddess Fer, of Beasthood, drops out a plane over the city of Zawitz to assist in the defence.

Helenna narrowed her eyes as she stared at the massive sliver of blue in the sky which was still expanding. “We’re leaving.” Of Love made the call to Saksma as she turned on the spot. “SAKSMA! NOW! WE’RE LEAVING! ISSUE AN EVACUATION ORDER!”

“What?” Saksma said and Helenna shook her head as she saw the faces turn around her. It was just the gut feeling in her chest, the fact that reports were flooding in of almost every major city in the Empire being under attack and nothing happening in Hallin yet. Some were doing better, some were doing worse. Allasaria, Irinika and Anassa had locked down not just their cities but the neighbouring ones too. Maisara and Fer and Fortia were struggling to keep up, the Nationals were barely holding on and the cities without Divinity were left to their own Devices. Some stood.

“Under my authority in the Empire and as the Divine of Love, I order you right now Saksma, give this city an evacuation order.” But here, it was just the silence. Nothing had touched Hallin yet and yet there was a portal above their heads. They would not be delaying for so long unless there was something-

“What is that?” One of the nearby pointed up to the portal. Helenna turned and felt the blood drain out of her face. Saksma’s eyes went wide, her mouth dropped in surprise and awe. A few of the nearby people didn’t need to be given an evacuation order, they just started fleeing immediately. Of Love could not pull her eyes away.

A point of metal, almost silver yet colder and cleaner. A point that expanded as it slowly picked up speed. A thick triangle with flat edges on either side. As thick as a city block though. Like the…

The tip of the sword that the White Pantheon had called upon during the Great War. The one weapon on which the Angels did not budge until the Empire killed the Seraphim at Sandorf.

Skysplitter.

She grabbed Saksma’s hand before the Goddess of Doschia could say anything. “RUN!” The word came out in a scream.