(I) Battle

-: Aviary Training Manual79 (I)

Battle

Uva's favorite enemy was another mage. After all, other magi usually didn't develop Magical Resistance and had to rely on their armor. And, as Confriga's magi were busy exchanging spells with the vampiric hordes, a lot of armor was being shattered, and a lot of minds were being made available for the taking.

She used her mana strands to bind herself to a vulnerable fire dimensional first. She took in the battlefield from some distance away. At the Abyssal Gateway, a clash between order and chaos was taking place. Even diminished, sabotaged, mauled, and compromised by everything Uva's team had done over the past several days, Confriga's forces still formed orderly lines to hold back the Blood Horror menace.

The general composition of Confriga's army took on a semicircular configuration at the front, and they hovered just over the customs and processing building that Shiv barely left standing during his diversionary rampage. The vanguard of Confriga’s army was composed entirely of flight-capable lancers, warriors, or mounted chevaliers. They held back the surging Blood Horror tide from reaching the back line, pressing against creatures of claw, bone, blood, flesh, and wing.

Behind the vanguard were small pockets of elite Pathbearers—specialized teams meant to plug any gaps or eliminate any powerful adversaries. Behind them still were concentrated and heavily armored contingents of all-Vulteg troopers. These were likely Confriga's Corps: the Gate Lord's most dedicated hard-hitters sent out to bring down dangerous foes that shattered the frontliners.

And finally, at the very back were the Gate Lord's most powerful assets: the magi formations. No army was complete without magic, for magic gave you options, reshaped the battlefield, and, for some, even allowed you to compromise your enemy's very minds.

But Uva could see a critical flaw in Confriga's magi formations. There were missing multiple members in critical spots. A good amount of the missing were Adept-Tier, she suspected. A number probably died while Shiv was rampaging, and some more were still affected by the dysentery that had been spreading through the gate over the past few days.

Even so, Confriga managed to compose fourteen columns numbering approximately 100 mages each. Some of them clearly didn't fit in and were probably recently drafted from a mercenary company or some other position within the gate.

The most potent of all the magi formations were probably the automata purifiers—all of them highly powerful Pyromancers. They were also beyond the reach of Uva’s Heroic-Tier Psychomancy, due to being automata. However, that didn't mean she was helpless against them. After all, Psychomancy allowed you to seize another's mind, and even if she couldn't take the mind of an automaton, she could still take one of their allies and strike the bots down that way.

Hovering high above the group, with his long, black sword drifting just beside him, Gate Lord Confriga glared down at the adversaries. His massive, petal-like wings flared bright and practically engulfed the entire sky when viewed from below. The petals unleashed waves of coruscating fire at the charging hordes of the First Blood, and juxtaposed to the intense heat, the mana core cast down avalanches of frost from the sky above. It hammered the invaders with spontaneous blizzards, and summoned more dimensionals to aid the gate’s defending Pathbearers.

Meanwhile, despite being a horde composed primarily of inhuman monsters, the First Blood’s army did not simply throw their lives blindly at the opposition.

The vampire had their own magi, though they did not come in organized corps. Rather, most of their Blood Horrors possessed their own magic, just more primal, more instinctive. Their spells usually did terrible things to a body or let the creatures themselves shape-shift in certain ways. Shielded by the dense flesh and the constantly regenerating forms of the Blood Horrors were the actual high vampires, who then were flanked by a personal guard of lesser vampires meant to further soak up damage on their behalf.

Unlike Confriga's army, the First Blood fought as a tide of flesh. Most of their army could be described as little more than chaff, just something to serve as meat shields and bury proper Pathbearers under the sheer weight of numbers. Yet within that ocean of flesh were true dangers, high vampires who had powerful skills of their own.

As the Blood Horrors practically poured free from the compromised gateway, they moved as a swarm, spreading out, their bodies bursting upon death, releasing thick, vaporous clouds of blood to further obscure the ones behind them. And it was through these vapors that the vampires of the first blood unleashed their spells.

They did not fight using the same tactics or strategies as the Gate Lord's magi. Rather, they focused on breaking the Gate Lord's front line using their formidable Biomancy most of all. And that was something the great lord was critically lacking: .

Biomancers, because Shiv, Adam, and Uva had dedicated some of their time to eradicating the gate of the most effective Biomancers, just to make sure Shiv's dysentery modification spread easier and couldn't be cured quickly. As such, while the Blood Horror hordes were taking constant losses, theirs seemed to be replenishable. But every death on Confriga's side was another heavy loss weighing down the combat effectiveness of his army. The source of thɪs content is novelhall.com

So far, however, the Gate Lord himself did not join in directly in physical combat. He was simply glaring down, unleashing spells, and directing the mana core to fight on his behalf. Every now and again, he would roar, declaring to his forces that if they took one step back, he would take their skulls from them and use them as effigies. His foul temper and his cruel nature remained even now, in the most dire of circumstances.

But as Uva observed the Gate Lord, she quickly made a correction. He wasn't just being idle. Rather, he was doing something very, very subtle. Crackles of corrosive energy pulsed between his hands, and the three skulls planted upon his chest plate flashed intermittently, leaking out necromantic energy. Far below, as corpses fell from the sky and tumbled off the bridge like a constant downpour of death, she saw the many bodies crackling with that corrosive energy as well.

Necromancy jumped between the corpses, sparking like bolts of electricity. And Uva was more than glad she saw that. If she had simply reached out and burrowed herself into a Pathbearer's body, she might very well have suffered some Necromantic damage. She didn't know exactly if Necromancy could damage her upon contacting her mana strands, but she didn't intend to find out. For now, however, she wanted attrition, and so Gate Lord Confriga needed to be distracted.

First, she would break his Magi corps and force a true battle of bone to bone, blade to blade, and flesh to flesh. She directed the fire dimensional she currently puppeted down toward one of the magi formations. She extended a few of her Psychomancy threads and began scouring the battlefield.

Uva struck at numerous bodies using her strands, briefly tapping them and pulling away before they could figure out what just happened. She gauged the strongest Magical Resistances within a group and proceeded to create a general map she could follow of minds to seize and potential powerful adversaries to avoid.

There were a few Master-Tier Psychomancers present as well, but they were too focused on contending with each other to notice her, and she specifically avoided them, at least for now. She would remove them when she had the chance as the battle progressed, but she had a few magi columns to collapse first.

It was an elven mercenary Pathbearer who became her second victim that day. His armor was already cracked, part of his chest plate shattered by a heavy length of glistening enamel. The jagged tooth had been launched into the mercenary's armor, but it didn't punch all the way through, sparing his life. Unfortunately, it did break the armor, and that meant he had no more Magical Resistance, which in turn meant that it took little effort for Uva to slowly push her threads into his mind and stitch her very ego over his.

He gave a brief jerk before she assumed full control. Within her mind, she heard him yell,

She ignored him. He didn’t matter anymore.

He and the other Cryomancers were hovering in place. Below them, the customs and processing building lingered, but it was badly damaged, and the insides were also festering with Blood Horrors, fighting jump teams of Pathbearers. The mercenary and the other mages with him stayed aloft in the air thanks to a Wind-Walking Enchantment on their boots, and it was that same Enchantment that Uva intended to make their downfall when she made her next move.

"Magi, condense spell!" a cry sounded from the front of the formation. Just then, several spells and projectiles whistled by, and a few less experienced magi flinched out of place. They were quickly stabilized by the veterans as order asserted itself in the form of non-contracted officers.

As one, the magi corps lifted their focus crystals, some bearing staves, others adjusting helmets. They directed their mana into a common point, their fields co-mingling as one as they all supported each other, building spells that were bigger than any one of them could shape individually. But it also made the spell vulnerable.

Uva knew a little bit about Cryomancy, not nearly as much as the mercenary she currently controlled. That wasn’t a problem because she had access to his will and memories now, and she commanded him to reach into the spell and disrupt it as violently as he could.

She ignored him. She forced him to continue. He didn't have a choice in the matter.

It was very common now to hear these voices screaming inside of her. Uva silenced the mercenary. She needed to focus.

"Phase one!" the commander of their column cried, but they weren't going to get to stage two, let alone stage three. As the mercenary Uva controlled poured his mana field into the group spell, he suddenly pushed it outward, driving his mana against everyone else's at an awkward, brutal angle.

Several mages lost control of their spells, interrupted and stunned by Uva's puppet slamming his field into theirs. They cried out, and then Uva's puppet completed his disruption. He pulled back his hands, making a gesture that resembled someone trying to rip something apart. He detonated his own spell inside the larger formation. The disruption caused a catastrophic chain reaction, and the entire group spell inward.

Puppeteer of the Formless Strings > 103

A colossal slab of ice infused with the collective coldness of a blizzard promptly exploded outwards. A good portion of the entire group froze and then ceased to be as they shattered apart. Uva felt the mercenary she controlled take a shard of ice through the slight rent in his armor left by the enamel spike. It ripped through his body, and blood began to flood into his lungs.

As he gargled and gasped, he tumbled from the sky, losing balance and failing to activate the Enchantment on his boots. Other magi fell with him, most of them missing parts of their body, some of them only stunned. The mercenary wailed within Uva. She directed her strands outwards, searching for her next sleeve.

She saw some of Confriga's Master-Slayer contingents turn in surprise, looking at the falling mages. She considered them, but guessed that they would have rather impressive Magical Resistances, as dedicated warriors, and elite ones at that.

Then, a flood of blood-red magic sailed through the air, detonating all around her section of the airspace. At once, festering spores twisted through the air. Some of the Gate Lord's men began to choke, and others convulsed as foul, festering fogs swept over them, melting their flesh and driving the blood from their pores.

Her active sabotage worked. The vampires had spotted the moment of weakness in Confriga's defenders, and they targeted the collapsing section with brutality. Horde or not, there was an instinctive animal cunning to the First Blood's forces. They knew weakness when they saw it. Blood Horrors began to surge towards the space in the sky that the Cryomancers used to occupy.

The vanguard protecting the Cryomancers pushed back. The semicircle that composed Confriga's front line began to fold. His second layer of elite response teams surged forward. Skills shook the air. Hundreds of Blood Horrors began to die, coating the air in the thick mist of blood and bile. But they did their job, for a few hundred of the Gate Lord’s soldiers simply disintegrated into sprays of gore as Biomancy spells swept through them.

The first of the high vampires smashed through Confriga's outer line and was briefly locked in a melee against the Gate Lord's elite forces. And then one of Confriga's petal-like wings blurred. The high vampire didn't even get to scream. She simply dissolved, both sections of her body tumbling through the air and splashing apart like ash.

More importantly, Uva didn't even see what Confriga did. That's how superior his Reflexes were.

Uva thought, examining the Gate Lord. And she also felt a strange sense of foreboding about his long, thin sword. It was so black that it sucked in the surrounding light, but there was also something else about the weapon. She sensed there was a presence of a inside that sword.

Was the sword like her shield? She turned away from that thought as she noticed the Blood Horrors now pushing through the gaps left by Confriga's vanguard. And that was her next opportunity.

She cast her strands forward and immediately seized the mind of a Blood Horror. The benefit to these monsters was how easy they were to create. The First Blood used them in all situations, unleashing them in mass, using them to support their lesser brethren. However, there was a limitation to low quality soldiers. When it came to a Heroic-Tier Pathbearer like Uva, they were just opportunities for her to move across the battlefield. Moreover, since they were so simple of thought, she could direct the Horrors with a few meager strands.

She shifted her mind from Horror to Horror, hunting for a high vampire to use as her next body. But she also moved with caution. She moved with care. She moved constantly and stayed away from any of the dying Blood Horrors. Confriga was still charging up his Necromancy spell, and she didn't want to discover what it was like to be inside a Horror when the corrosion consumed them.

As she moved through the many bodies, she also took the opportunity to stab at Confriga's defenders using her mana strands. Most of them had at least Adept-Tier Magical Resistance. They broke quickly. She shattered them, but before she usually had a chance to assume their bodies, the Blood Horrors would take advantage of their stunned states and tear them apart. A growing collapse began to extend along that section of Confriga's army.

She heard the Gate Lord cry out,