As promised by the end of the previous chapter, these two kick things off. This book will still end with some action, because I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel with this series, but as I've said this is the logistics book, so the final sequence won't be a single pitched battle. Hope people will be on board, but better not to spoil what's to come, so that's all I have to say now.
-
Chapter 40
It was the beginning of the 14th phase of the United Norron Tournament when it happened. Soulcrafters were taking the field, the audience was settling in, and factions were making their plans. After so long without an attack, many had begun to believe that the war would never touch them.
Then the Demonweaver arrived and it all ended.
Even though nothing happened at first, anyone with sense knew that the period of peaceful competition was over. The Demonweaver hung in the sky as an undeniable symbol of both Tymetron's aggression and its overwhelming power, for anyone with spiritual senses could tell that the Demonweaver was an aeon-class threat. Even those who didn't know the term, or believed soulcrafting stopped at Dominion, instantly knew that this was like nothing they had seen before.
Theo was inside when the attack came, so he only felt the first impacts. The surge of cantae was powerful, but he had seen enough aeon-class soulcrafters that he could evaluate it as Ophaon-tier. He felt the tournament grounds retaliate, because the alliance wasn't so foolish as to ignore this possibility: a massive cantae shield rose over the arena, and hidden armaments unleashed great jets of cantae.
By the time he was outside, the counter-attack had already been snuffed out. Their opponent couldn't breach the barrier, but the attack had accomplished nothing at all.
As he rose into the air, Theo got a better look at the Demonweaver. She appeared to be an elderly Fithan woman, with skin that had originally been blue but was distorted across one half of her body. That was because of her most shocking trait: a grotesquely over-sized arm of demonic bone and sinew, half again as long as her body, ending in a twisted claw. It emerged from her robes like a growth and hung as if dead.
"Tymetron is finished with your insolence." The Demonweaver spoke in a withered voice, then raised her over-sized limb, which began to pulse with unnatural life.
This was finally it: Tymetron had sent out one of its top soulcrafters at a time when the alliance was completely unprepared. None of their aeon-class allies were present, and since Guchiro was on the front lines, they didn't even have any Dominions. Theo had already raised his hands in front of him, generating the most potent singularity he could while considering their limited options.
"This is it! Darkblade Sect, attack!"
When the shout rang out over the cantae blasts, Theo realized that he'd been wrong: there was one Dominion present. They were soon going to find out whether or not Raythe's presence was actually in their favor.
Raythe Darkblade stood atop one of the nearby buildings, and he swung his sword in a broad arc that launched a line of dark fire. It was joined by multiple followers, surprisingly including a depths Fithan at Stronghold tier. They all rushed up together toward the Demonweaver, who stood alone in the sky.
The line of fire arrived first, but the Demonweaver's bulging arm rose in front of her body and weathered the blast. A withered hand emerged from the flames, much smaller than the distorted limb, and a bone arrowhead sprang from it.
That arrowhead punched through the Stronghold's armor and tore into their heart. Everyone across the battlefield felt them die instantly, and those who had harbored hope that a threat like this could be overcome by numbers immediately lost it. Those of Raythe's followers who didn't panic were those who still didn't understand what had happened, flying upward as the battle rushed past them.
When the bulging arm swung, it seemed to hurl fragments of itself across the battlefield. They moved far slower than the arrowhead, or even some of the cantae attacks being launched at the Demonweaver, so some foolishly ignored them. Theo watched as the masses of demonic flesh rained down like hail, some burning up against the cantae shield but more striking the ground.
Where they began to crawl.
"Don't mess with the Darkblade Sect!" Raythe roared as he lifted into the sky, swinging his sword in a circle that summoned a great serpent of fire around himself. He acted decisively and without hesitation, but he should have been paying more attention, because demons were emerging all around and cutting into his sect.
While all of this was happening, Theo had built up enough cantae for a minimalistic singularity, but he knew that wouldn't be enough, not here. So far, he had gone unnoticed, so he still had time to build up power, the only question was how long that would last.
It seemed as though the demonic masses had risen as animalistic demons at the second stage: normally those would require Rulers to put down, but these had strange golden ridges and claws, so that assumption might not hold. Worse than that, Theo noticed that there were other Tymetronese soulcrafters dropping to the ground: nowhere near as strong as the Demonweaver, but they wore similar robes and Theo didn't like the feel of them.
He understood their role in the attack a while later when spawning demons fused together into a titan that towered over the outer buildings. Normally a third tier demon could be killed by an Authority, and indeed they had plenty in the tournament, so one was already flying out to intercept. Yet before they arrived, one of the robed figures landed on the titan's back. It reached back, trying to claw at the intrusion, before the figure thrust bone-like spikes deep into the titan's back.
Abruptly it shifted, swinging its arm with new strength and speed. That blow might have been able to take out an Authority, but fortunately this one was sharp enough to realize the difference and evade. The other robed figures, who must have been the Demonweaver's subordinates, were all controlling their own demons, and each one of those was a serious threat capable of killing most soulcrafters on the battlefield.
While the battle spiraled into chaos, all Theo had been able to do was build up toward a stronger singularity. That was at least something compared to Raythe, who was screaming himself ragged. Whatever sort of power his sword possessed, it clearly wasn't enough to take down the Demonweaver, who was untouched and seemed to be more focused on sowing demonic flesh than fighting Raythe.
How long could Theo maintain this? The power was trembling between his hands now, but it wasn't enough, not yet.
One of the Tymetronese riding a titan suddenly went down, a cantae blade piercing her chest, and Fiyu flickered for a moment before disappearing into the battlefield chaos. Across the arena, however, most were not faring nearly so well. Authorities who had intended to be guards or contestants fled or got in one another's way, and there were demons breaking through the sides of the cantae shield.
So far there hadn't been mass casualties, but considering that most of the audience was low tier soulcrafters, it was only a matter of time. Fortunately, only some of the contestants were injured, and they all rushed into battle to stop the demonic tide from overrunning the arena.
He spotted Chlira, Lalye, and the other Deuxans grouping together, doing a remarkable job of carving through the demons. They weren't trying to flee, either, they were forming a silver line that defended one of the entrances. As they attempted to attack one of the demon riders, however, their attacks failed to slow the titan, which loomed over them and raised a great club...
Just as Theo was about to stop generating power and enter the battle, Nauda collided with the titan from the side. It crashed across the battlefield, nearly crushing some combatants, and Nauda leapt after it. Her fist hit not the titan but its rider - when they flew in different directions, the demon began to attack indiscriminately again. That was useful information.
Finally Theo saw his chance: another Fithan Stronghold had arrived, a woman he didn't know wearing Wavefront armor. Despite a look of terror on her face, she was hurling javelins at the strongest demons while simultaneously trying to reinforce the cantae shield. Her efforts got the attention of the Demonweaver, who raised her off-hand and formed another bone arrowhead.
Before it darted out, Theo closed his hands and tunneled his singularity directly into its path. When the aeon-class cantae hit, he felt a violent backlash through his soulhome and pain racked his body... but the singularity absorbed the arrowhead.
Instantly it blossomed over the battlefield, an enormous void that dimmed the sun. Theo's mind was reeling, but he managed to maintain control. He had the Demonweaver's full attention now, and he wasn't sure how much he could absorb.
Yet the longer she delayed, the more powerful his singularity became: it was drawing up cantae from all across the battlefield and growing by the second. Theo was more concerned about an attack on himself, since the Demonweaver could presumably identify him as the source.
To his surprise, he felt a shockwave hit the side of his singularity, something that it couldn't absorb. Theo tracked the source and, to his surprise, saw Jazin across the battlefield. The Tymetronese soulcrafter smiled and hurled another geode that detonated just before it was absorbed, resulting in another wave of anti-cantae. Even though Theo's singularity was too powerful to be easily neutralized, he actually felt that.
And if it wasn't enough, Jazin was turning on him now, unleashing sparks that became deadly beams from below. Theo focused on maintaining the singularity while dodging between them, barely staying ahead... and too late, he saw that the next geode was coming toward him instead.
Nauda leapt from the side, catching the geode in her gauntlet. Jazin frowned and started to move his hand, but she crushed it in her fist.
"You have control of that thing?" Nauda asked over her shoulder.
"So far," he answered. "Run interference if you can, but if the Demonweaver attacks..."
"Yeah, I know."
For whatever reason, the Demonweaver had turned away from the singularity, instead hurling more demonic mass over the tournament grounds. But Jazin didn't let up, sending geodes both toward the singularity and Theo at the same time. A Fithan Authority noticed what was happening and tried to intervene, but an imploding geode caught her and sent her trailing to earth.
With a grin Jazin unleashed an entire stream of geodes... and Theo struck back. It took all his willpower, but he managed to shove even the overinflated singularity directly into the projectiles. Before the geodes could implode and become anti-cantae fields, they were just sublime materials, and they were sucked into the singularity in an instant. It trembled and grew a little larger, beginning to send rubble circling around it.
After a moment of consideration, Jazin glanced at Theo, tipped an imaginary hat, and then disappeared into a weirkey.
That should have been a victory, but they still had the much larger problem of the Demonweaver. Because Nauda was effectively shielding him from the demons, Theo focused fully on his singularity, considering how best to use the only weapon they had that stood a chance. Could he tunnel it directly into the Demonweaver, taking her out before she prepared defenses? He thought it was worth a chance, and if she managed to evade there was nothing lost, but...
"Enough!" Raythe rose into the heavens overhead, lifting a sword surrounded by dark fire. "Face my ultimate-"
Whatever attack he meant to shout, it was drowned out as the Demonweaver's body began to grow with a twisting and cracking sound. Raythe swung his sword in a panic and the line of fire splashed against the mass of flesh like so much water.
There was no more time. Theo clapped his hands together and tunneled his singularity directly into the Demonweaver.
Instead of absorbing power, it felt as though the singularity had impacted something. Theo tumbled through the air from the backlash and realized that he had lost his grip on it, resulting in the destabilizing singularity falling apart. There was no trace whatsoever of the Demonweaver, no matter how Theo tried to look over the battlefield.
"We got her!" Raythe lifted his sword again and let out a roar of triumph.
Theo refused to believe that he had taken out an aeon-class opponent. Even if his singularity had been capable of it, which he thought was theoretically possible, it wouldn't have felt like that: he would have been overwhelmed by the surge of new power if a soulcrafter that strong had been consumed. It seemed more likely that the Demonweaver had escaped death and retreated instead of continuing the battle.
And it was quite a battle: even a brief period of the Demonweaver being on the field had caused a huge number of demons to be spawned across the tournament grounds. Her apprentices were still controlling some of the demons, while even the mindless hordes were proving a threat by their sheer numbers.
"Do you think she is hiding?" Fiyu appeared beside Theo and Nauda, her head twitching as she pushed her senses in all directions. "Her ability may not require her to be present, so she could generate enough demons to overrun the entire complex."
"That would be logical, but..." Theo trailed off as he saw a new figure appear via weirkey over the nearby Blacksilver complex.
It proved to be Janne, who took in the chaos with surprise, then saw them and immediately shot down. But when Theo opened his mouth to explain what had happened, Janne spoke first.
"This is a distraction," she told them grimly. "Tymetron knew that we'd expect an attack here and build defenses. But at the same time it started, they attacked our main military forces. Multiple Dominions, all at once, like they mean to crush us."
"Is the Demonweaver going there?" Nauda wondered. Janne shook her head sharply.
"I don't know about that, but they have Crintak pinned down. Unless he gets reinforcements, we're losing one of our Dominions."
-
Chapter 41
Experience in many battles, in particular the large scale conflicts of the recent war, had trained Fiyu not to be overwhelmed by raw numbers of combatants within her sensory range. Even so, she found herself slightly overwhelmed by the scale of this conflict. So many soulcrafters from so many worlds, and so many demons with so many body types... it was all she could do to remain focused and cut down the enemies she could.
At any given moment, there were a dozen places that she could have been, battles turning against her allies that could have used her help. Fiyu made herself move, so that she helped at least one instead of helping none, but it was insufficient. Even as she unleashed a lightstorm over a field of demons, she felt an Archcrafter beside the arena go down under a different swarm.
She envied Friend Theo, who remained purely focused on the action that would save the largest number in the end. Equally she envied Friend Nauda, who worked twice as hard, throwing herself into the path of demons to save whoever she could. But Fiyu was neither of them, so she forced herself to continue and do what she could. All across the tournament grounds, there were hundreds of small heroes defending the others, and she would be one of them.
The disappearance of the Demonweaver helped, and when Associate Janne appeared, Fiyu rushed to join the others just so she could focus on something. Yes, there were still others in great danger, but this meeting could be more important for the overall war.
"Unless he gets reinforcements, we're losing one of our Dominions."
Associate Janne had dire news to share, yet while the others were fully focused on it, Fiyu could not help but scan the battle. Demons continued to move toward them, even though they had no chance against a group like this. She tracked them with part of her mind while noting the bigger problem: there were other soulcrafters approaching.
"The attack on Crintak is higher priority," Friend Theo was saying, "but can we afford to leave everyone here?"
The first person to arrive was Ally Krikree, slicing through demons with all four limbs. She leapt onto Friend Theo's shoulders, shouting, "Krikree too!"
That only briefly distracted them, but there were others. Some just sought the Strongholds for defense, but Enemy Raythe was flying toward them as well. Fiyu was completely uncertain what to do when he arrived, given that he was technically their ally in the present conflict.
"Just go," Associate Janne told them. "I'll handle things here."
"It's not that simple," Friend Nauda said. "The Demonweaver left apprentices, and there are demonic artifacts under the ground as well."
"I'll try to find those, but you need to go. The battle is changing as we speak."
"You're sure you'll be okay?" Friend Theo asked.
Associate Janne swirled one hand through the air, gathering her cantae, and suddenly a hand of mist exploded from the sky... except her technique was far larger than before. The mist hand reached down and grasped one of the titans around the head, driving it to the ground. As she began redirecting her hand, Associate Janne's body relaxed slightly in pride, and she smiled at them.
"I'm a Stronghold now," she said. "Just go."
That act finally convinced them, and even though Fiyu wanted to affirm the associate she had helped train, she knew there were higher priorities. It wouldn't matter how the attack on the tournament went if Tymetron managed to defeat the continent's strongest soulcrafters in the process. Unfortunately, as Friend Theo followed Associate Janne's coordinates, Enemy Raythe was flying closer to them.
Worlds twisted and Fiyu allowed herself to be transported by Friend Theo, instead stretching out her senses and trying to grasp the space between worlds. She could feel them arcing around Fithe to a location at the Wavefront... and she could feel Enemy Raythe following them. He had gotten too close, and though he was incompetent in many ways, it seemed that he could use weirkeys enough to join them.
For her, the trip through not-space took only moments, but Fiyu knew that time slipped away as it folded around them. In choosing to leave, they had abandoned the battle at the tournament, trusting it to their allies. By the time they arrived at their destination, it was possible that Associate Crintak or others would already be dead, or at least the battle would have advanced. She would need to be alert for when they arrived, because they would be entering the unknown.
When they returned to Fithe, her senses immediately picked up a massive craggy hill. Tiny slivers of a second later, her senses became aware of the landscape, a fortress built into the hill that appeared to be demolished, and the bodies of the fallen soulcrafters. But all of those observations were swept away by the raw power of the combatants.
She recognized two soulhomes immediately: Associate Crintak and Associate Melitta were fighting back-to-back in the air above the hill, desperately struggling against the overwhelming enemy. No fewer than four enemy Dominions were on the field, and they had supporting soulcrafters as well.
Immediately Friend Nauda acted, reaching out her gauntlet to act in the short term, and Friend Theo was just as fast, preparing a technique for the long term. But Fiyu froze at first, trying to absorb every detail. These were veteran Dominions, after all, each one was more than a match for her, so understanding them as much as possible was critical to her survival.
Somehow Fiyu prevented herself from freezing more than that moment, instead taking in a breath and drawing up her cantae. There wasn't time to analyze every detail, or even to fully understand the flow of the battle. Her allies were horribly outnumbered and she needed to find a way to turn the tide.
And so, without having prepared a full strategy, Fiyu shot into the air. The Tymetronese Dominions were forming up in a tight formation, apparently ready to rush their targets together. That was understandable enough: Fiyu spread her arms and fired a full lightstorm on their position.
Her power flooded out, draining her soulhome at a troubling rate, but she pushed on: Fiyu drew in cantae from her new Stronghold chambers and channeled it all as she closed her hands, concentrating the storm into a single beam.
Of course her technique couldn't finish an opponent, not when they outranked and outnumbered her. But she was not so weak that even Dominions could ignore her, and her bolts had battered at defenses and even caused a few minor injuries. All four of them were fully focused on her now, and as they realized that the battle had shifted, Fiyu could see them beginning to consider squashing her.
And so she went invisible. This time, it wasn't fear or uncertainty, it was the best tactic she had to offer.
~
The first thing that Theo noted, even as he prepared to release his singularity, was that Tymetron hadn't deployed any anti-weirkey materials. Given that an empire of that size would surely have inexhaustible access to them, that had to be an intentional choice. It seemed almost irrational, given that their goal must be to take down the Dominions who had caused them so much trouble.
As the power built up between his hands, Theo realized that their tactics made sense if they were following a strategy of attrition. Given how mobile most Dominions were, the most effective way to pin them wasn't anti-weirkey stones, it was attacking a position they needed to defend. That didn't seem to be the case here, but Crintak and Melitta were defending one another. Tymetron wanted to force one of them to flee, to break the alliance, because they could then begin targeting Norronese cities with impunity.
None of that changed what he needed to do, but one thing made Theo hesitate: he spotted Jazin kneeling on the ground in the ruins atop the hill. He hadn't fled before, he had let Theo believe that and then came to reinforce this battle.
The Tymetronese man had several rings of geodes whirling around him and yet seemed to be in the middle of soulcrafting. Occasionally he launched a geode into the battle, using an implosion to neutralize an attack or defense by Crintak or Melitta.
Did Jazin need to spend that much time soulcrafting those geodes in order to have an impact on a Dominion-tier battle? It didn't seem like he needed to win, he just needed to push the balance further against the Norronese Dominions. In any case, Theo decided that this didn't change his tactics, so he finished his singularity.
When it tunneled across the battlefield, he came within a hair of killing one of the Dominions instantly. The figure in heavy demonplate armor barely dodged back and should have been consumed, but another of the Dominions extended tendrils of gold, grasping the armor and pulling him back.
Still, Theo's singularity consumed a central portion of the battlefield, throwing off the enemy Dominions. Theo saw Melitta breathe a sigh of relief, and Crintak even took advantage, curving a projectile around the gravity of the singularity to slam into the enemy Dominions from the side.
Fiyu was a threat from the shadows and Nauda was launching herself into the mix, so for the moment it seemed like they had turned the tide. Raythe wasn't accomplishing much, but at least he wasn't attacking their side and managed to serve as a distraction. Theo wasn't remotely satisfied: the enemy still had the overall balance of power on their side, and something about this felt wrong. Jazin was still soulcrafting and he had a lot of geodes prepared - those might be for a plan to reverse things again. Best to target him before he could finish whatever he was doing.
Just in case, Theo tried the simplest solution first: he launched a torsion bolt directly at his opponent. He had expected the rotating geodes to neutralize it, but to his surprise one of the other Dominions jumped into the way: the armored one, who was tough enough to take the cantae bolt with no more than a grunt.
That only reinforced Theo's logic, so he began opening portals and tried harder. His singularity wasn't being threatened in the main battle, it was growing as it occasionally absorbed a cantae attack, so he could dedicate himself to taking down Jazin.
Of course, it wasn't easy to get an opening, because the armored Dominion was no slouch. Whoever he was, the man was extremely tough and reasonably fast, managing to move back to defend even when Theo used portals to get around him. If the Dominion hadn't been trying to defend Jazin's position, Theo wasn't sure how the battle between them would have gone.
Fortunately, he wasn't merely trying direct attacks: aside from the portals, Theo had also cast a reversed gravitational field and was using it to push several stones as high into the atmosphere as possible. With a slight gravitational nudge, he could bring them down wherever he wanted, he just needed to wait for sufficient height to make them hit.
It all seemed to be going well enough: it was a hard-fought battle, but their reinforcement had encouraged the Dominions on their side. Then there was a pulse of cantae, and Theo instinctively triggered his orbital bombardment even before the rest of his mind figured out what was happening.
Jazin rose to his feet, cantae flooding around him as he finished ascending to Dominion. He smiled at Theo, cracked his neck, and his geodes shot outward, swallowing Theo's orbital bombardment in implosions.
~
Even though they were in the middle of a desperate battle where nearly everyone out-tiered her, Nauda found herself smiling. After so long playing catch-up, working to build a soulhome that took time to show its full value, she could finally fight on this stage.
One of the enemy Dominions was a heavy user of gold techniques, capable of unleashing spears or capturing opponents in web-like strands. Nauda threw herself between the man and her allies, thrusting her gauntlet against the projectiles and melting them out of the air. She might not be able to take down a Dominion alone, but she could definitely neutralize one.
Of course the others were smart enough to notice what she was doing and realize that as a Stronghold she was at a disadvantage. But when they launched attacks at her, those projectiles collided with the rows of wards that Nauda was building around herself.
When the enemy gained a new Dominion, Nauda winced, but she kept going. There was something going on above them, a devastating series of explosions that made the sky a no man's land. She didn't need to let that affect her, she just kept herself in a secure position adjacent to Theo's singularity and neutralized the enemy as best she could.
As the explosions began to fade, she saw that one of the Dominions was rising up, gathering an aura of cantae around themselves and targeting her. Nauda set her feet, uncertain whether she should hold her position or dodge. She might be able to fight a Dominion in some contexts, but if this one came in like a meteor, the superior cantae would likely shatter all her wards and still hit her...
Just as the Dominion started to plunge, a blade flickered into their path. Fiyu came within a hair's breadth of cutting through the enemy, who managed to twist out of the way and still took a long cut along their side.
As the Dominion crashed to the side of the battlefield, demolishing a smaller hill, Nauda looked up at Fiyu and they exchanged a smile. Even as the Dominions tried to target the two of them, they worked perfectly in unison. Some things about their relationship could be so awkward, but they fought as if they were one soul.
They weren't winning, not against opponents like this, but they had proved they couldn't be taken out easily, and that bought them a lot of time. The enemy using golden strikes was going more mobile, trying to get around Nauda, so she had to begin moving as well, intercepting strikes at multiple angles. She used the opportunity to examine the entire battlefield and determine their next tactic.
Fiyu was invisible and could be trusted to act as necessary. Theo seemed to be struggling against his opponent, who had just ascended to Dominion and could be a critical problem. But despite all that, they had given Melitta and Crintak a chance to retreat: the two were back on the hill, catching their breath and using techniques to bind their wounds. Nauda spotted Krikree running to them, apparently offering some sort of aid. If they could rally, that would shift the balance further.
"Good!" A voice boomed from above and a man dropped from the sky toward her. Fiyu tried to intercept him, but her blade only took a gouge out of the heavy demonplate armor.
Nauda had no choice but to throw herself back to avoid the Dominion who smashed into the ground where she had been standing. She still flew to intercept more golden attacks, trusting in Navim's work with deadgold to shield her while she kept her eyes on this new threat.
"Not bad!" Something had torn away part of the Dominion's helmet, revealing a face with a thick beard and fierce eyes. "So tough for a Stronghold, how did you do it?"
"You expect..." Nauda grimaced as she blocked another golden lance, "me to answer here?"
"Nah." The man exploded toward her, and his superior speed brought him there in an instant.
She had expected that and her gauntlet hit his chest, but he wasn't using any gold-derived techniques, so his armor absorbed the blow. He hit back a second later, sending her flying across the battlefield.
Even as she tumbled end over end, Nauda marveled that she hadn't been knocked unconscious. She definitely didn't want to keep taking blows from a Dominion, but her soulhome reinforced her well beyond average for her tier. When the armored man attacked her again, Nauda was more prepared this time, managing to take the blow on her forearms.
It still threw her into the air, but she intentionally redirected herself so that she intercepted another one of the golden attacks. The man in demonplate battered her around a couple more times before he figured it out, and his only response was to grin. Her arms were aching, but so long as she could play defense against two Dominions at once, she was more than holding her own.
The next attack looked exactly the same as the previous, but he shifted at the last moment, faster than she could react. Suddenly those trunk-like arms were wrapped around her, pinning her arms and trying to crush the life from her.
"Love to get a good look at your soulhome," the man said, even as he squeezed. "How did y-"
Nauda slammed her forehead into his face where it wasn't protected by the damaged helmet. His head snapped back, but the Dominion only laughed and reversed course, headbutting her back. She could take the pressure, but that impact left her stunned.
Then he made a stupid mistake: he tried to throw her into the singularity. The power throbbing around Nauda should have been deadly, yet it only resonated with the felinesolar in her soulhome. Nauda opened her eyes in total darkness, all the light sucked away and her cantae senses overwhelmed. Yet her Ichili sense of life was still operational, allowing her to track the entire battle from within the void space.
Could she draw on the singularity itself? The resonance didn't seem to allow her to grasp it, so Nauda abandoned that idea. Instead she simply gathered herself, ate some of her own healing honey, and prepared herself to fight a Dominion directly.
When she erupted from the singularity, dark cantae burned around her and she struck the ground like a meteor. Nauda's foot slammed down, unleashing an expanding dome that annihilated all the attacks within it: the demonplated Dominion was sent tumbling away by the impact, while the gold user retreated in alarm.
Nauda stood alone, having carved out a huge area of the battlefield. Again, she had kept her edge... but she saw the armored man skidding backward, only grinning wider.
~
The periphery of Theo's mind was dimly aware that some aspects of the rest of the battle were going well, but the rest of him was focused on the undeniable fact: he was losing. Jazin was the same smart and resourceful soulcrafter he had been before, and now he was a tier higher than Theo.
Whenever they clashed directly, Jazin had speed and cantae intensity on his side, forcing Theo into a desperate defense. He told himself that just maintaining the status quo was a tactical victory, since the singularity shielded his allies and prevented the alliance from breaking apart. It didn't feel true when he was constantly retreating from withering implosions.
For a time he tried to focus on the other battles, creating portals in between the enemy Dominions and his own allies. The tactic he hadn't used against Raythe worked here: Theo opened a portal in front of a golden lance and made it pierce directly into the side of another Dominion. But after he managed it once, Jazin started reacting, sending out geodes to neutralize his portals. He was getting them spread all over the battlefield now, suppressing both Theo's ability to portal as well as potentially disrupting all other fights.
Too late, Theo realized that his opponent wasn't just thinking about the battle overall: Jazin was still targeting Theo. Without warning, a large number of geodes surged together and imploded around the singularity, blasting it on all sides.
Theo tried to maintain control of his singularity, but the anti-cantae from all sides was too much. The recoil into his soulhome made him fly backward as the technique collapsed, singularity and event horizon dissolving and leaving the sky clear again.
Lying on his back, Theo tried to shake his head and recover before Jazin could finish him. At first he felt scorched by the anti-cantae and worried his singularity had been damaged, but it was still fully functional in his soulhome. That didn't erase the sting of having it be overcome in a direct clash.
Jazin wasn't finishing him off. Because he wasn't worth it, or because Jazin was helping out the other Tymetronese soulcrafters? Theo pulled himself back to his feet... and noticed that Raythe was standing not far away, staring at the sky in fury.
Immediately this set off an alarm in Theo's mind, different from all the normal threats. Raythe was far from the strongest one here, and nothing compared to a threat like the Demonweaver, yet... Theo saw the petulant rage in his face and in some way understood it. The young man was furious that he wasn't the center of attention, that this battle had become something more complex than the adventure he had been promised.
"Raythe, don't be stupid," Theo started to say, but it was too late.
"Enough!" Raythe threw a weirkey into the air and then swung his sword, cutting it in half.
The world fractured into a thousand fragments of space, the fabric of the Nine Worlds tearing open and distorting the entire battlefield. Theo was far more powerful than he had been the previous time this happened, but he still couldn't resist when reality shifted underneath him. He had only a moment to see everyone else falling into the breach as well, then he was hurtling into another world.
Theo managed to reorient himself as he flew over a blinding desert and hit the ground feet-first, skidding to a controlled halt in the sand. He knew he was in Arbai even before he saw the sun blazing from overhead, and his hand was already reaching into his coat for a weirkey.
Unlike when he had been thrown into Slest, he had the ability to navigate the Nine Worlds on his own, and so he wouldn't be stranded here. He could go directly back to Fithe and continue the battle, if he wanted... but Theo realized that the optimal strategy had just changed.
Most importantly, the battlefield he had left no longer existed, because most of the Dominions would have been impacted by the broken weirkey. Even if they tried to return to continue the fight, due to the amount of time taken by each weirkey jump, the conflict would have changed completely. Beyond that, his group only had two Fithan weirkeys, and he wasn't even certain whether Fiyu or Nauda had the other one.
No, the only choice was to go back to their older plan: if they were separated, they would reunite in Noven. He'd been assuming that something like this would happen, so he had been planning to do that anyway. All he could do was trust that Nauda and Fiyu were thinking the same thing.
He should have gone immediately, but he hesitated as he realized something else: Krikree didn't possess a Noveni weirkey. Had she been thrown somewhere else in Arbai, now skittering through the burning sands? When he tried to extend his mass senses as far as possible, Theo couldn't detect her or any other moving figures, so they must have been scattered over a large area.
Theo closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he had recollected himself he drew his Noveni weirkey. The war had reached a dangerous new stage, so he had no choice but to fight it.