The Years of Apocalypse - A Time Loop Progression Fantasy-Chapter 186 - 185 - A One Prophet Army

By the 28th, Alkazaria had long since fallen to Ibrahim, despite reinforcements from Fort Aegrimere. The army in Palendurio, of course, was holding its position under the direction of the traitor General Corrmier. The rest of Baracuel's armies were deployed in Persama or Zhighua. There was no word from Zhighua due to the distance, but the armies in Persama were pinned in place by some combination of rebellions and treachery in the ranks; Ibrahim was continuing to innovate, and somehow his influence could now simultaneously continue the siege to the north and influence the politics of Urubandar.

When the last zephyr falcon reached Mirian, she finished transcribing the notes she wanted to keep for the next cycle, then gave out her last orders for the defense of Torrviol. If all went to plan, a single day's work would give her two extra days of time, but she was prepared for failure as well.

The militia continued their preparations of the defensive line. They would no longer have even General Hanaran's small force, only a small militia with more arcanists than rifles. Cassius had done his best to prepare them, but she knew that poorly trained students and underarmed artisans would break quickly if put under any real pressure.

It was her job to ensure that never happened.

Mirian set out west in the early morning so that she could intercept the army when it was still traveling through the North Forest in column. There was a small village on the coast that the army blew to pieces with artillery prior to the landing craft assembling—she knew that now thanks to Akanan newspapers—but after that they faced no resistance. The North Forest, after all, was empty except for myrvites. They would be on low alert, and the dense woods would make maneuvering difficult.

The Akanan army was about five kilometers back from its usual position at this hour. Mirian simply knew the timetable of the invasion too well to not see that someone else had interfered with the invasion. Perhaps this other time traveler won't be an enemy. Still, she didn't dare to hope.

The change in position ultimately wouldn't affect her plans.

As soon as she saw the Might of Liberty and Republic's Justice looming large in the sky, she tacked north and flew up. Both airships were hovering above the army columns, the foredecks crammed full of arcanists using lensing spells to make sure nothing surprised them. Likely, they could just make out the defensive trenches around Torrviol. Meanwhile, sapper crews removed enough trees that the spell engines had a path through the thicker parts of the forest.

It had been some time since she had anything to do with the airship dreadnoughts, but she still remembered their layouts and crews well. She had worked hard to commit the details to memory, and they had stayed wedged in there like shrapnel.

As she neared the Might of Liberty, Marshal Cearsia's ship, Mirain cast total camouflage and descended towards the bridge, using her accelerated levitation spell to quickly close the distance.

She landed and opened the door, then cast a greater chain lightning.

Mirian had to give Cearsia credit. She was fast. When she'd felt the first arcane tingle of a spell, she'd cast a force shield that, while not as effective as a grounding spell, had saved her life. However, Mirian had both mastered quickened spells and was using her dervish form for reaction time. The Marshal was simply outclassed. While Cearsia was still reeling from the attack, Mirian followed up with a spell-piercing disintegration beam, cutting a hole through Cearsia's torso.

She seized the communicator and said, "Might of Liberty bridge to Republic's Justice, move to the forward position. Be advised we are dropping back one kilometer to the middle of the column to assist with a myrvite incursion to the north."

"Republic's Justice copies. Assuming forward observer position."

Mirian moved to the navigator's station and cut the forward speed and plunged the ship into its maximum descent. It would impact the middle of the column, not hard enough to explode, but hard enough to crush itself and a section of the 11th and 18th Spell Engine Brigades. Then she engaged the bridge override so that the auxiliary bridge wouldn't be able to change course and used several magnetic detonations to prevent anyone from using the glyph controls of the primary bridge. It would take a few minutes for the ship to crash. She would be back for the engine room.

As the ship began to drop, Mirian levitated away, accelerating quickly to catch the Republic's Justice. Behind her, she heard the panicked shouts of the crew.

By then, the other dreadnought had taken its position at the head of the column. Mirian wanted the auxiliary bridge on navigation, because they would be maintaining position until they could get more information. She flew into the primary bridge and repeated her attack, electrocuting the crew and destroying the controls. Then, she set a few fires so the emergency response team would be heading topside. She dropped to the deck, cast silent zone and headed below decks. Several crew members tried to run past her, but she killed each with a quick disintegration beam before they even knew she was stalking through the corridors.

Ripping the Labyrinth artifact from the primary spell engine would send the ship plummeting to the ground immediately, and she wouldn't have time to exit. Therefore, Mirian had come up with a strategy: bore a hole through the ship. Once on the lower deck, she began using both shape wood and shape metal, ripping up a hole in the floor. Two more crew members responded to the noise. She decapitated them both with force blades.

Shouting began to echo through the corridors. Mirian finished her first bore-hole and sent a cascading fireball through the opening. The soldiers below died too fast to scream. With her detect life spell, she could see crew moving about. One was making a comms call two rooms over. She telekinetically slammed him against the wall hard enough to kill him and detonated the device, then returned to her work.

It took several minutes longer, but the construction inside the ship was designed to be lightweight. The only place that was armored was the main engine room itself. Mirian tore a hole in the deck above her, then began to carve away at the armor of the engine room. She used magnetic detonation to weaken it, then shape metal to tear it apart.

"—assault team, someone's tearing apart the ceiling!" one of the engineers was saying. Mirian sent greater chain lightning down at him as she levitated down into the engine room. This time, there were some screams. She began to deconstruct the protections around the colossal engine. Through the walls, she could see the assault team moving her way.

Once she'd torn open its glyph-encrusted steel casket, the Elder artifact gleamed. It was like the Labyrinth devices. It seemed more real than anything around it. Mirian pulled it toward her.

As soon as it left the central arcane field, the entire airship began to drop like a stone. Mirian's levitation meant she didn't fall with it, and instead rocketed out the top. A slight tilt in the ship's descent threw off her trajectory. A jagged edge of steel ripped a strip of flesh off her back, and she screamed. Her will faltered and her spells failed. For a moment, she was falling with the airship. She rapidly pushed soul energy through the wound, swapping her dervish form to Lone Pine. Her spellbook had tumbled from her fingers. She commanded it to return to her soul, then re-manifested it and then recast her levitation spell. As she rapidly ascended, she cast a force shield.

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Then, breathing hard, she watched.

There was this moment, just before impact, that she could see the Akanan army laid out before her. The Might of Liberty was already sitting in the forest, belching fire. The column had stopped. She was higher than the top of the Aurum's Tower, so they looked like little ants, scurrying, pointing, looking around—probably shouting. Mirian could feel the sharp, icy claws of the wind on her, especially on the bloody patches on her back where she'd been lacerated.

Then the Republic's Justice hit the ground. The entire forest shook with the impact, sending trees toppling. The ship was too big to annihilate itself, but she could see shrapnel exploding out as the decks crushed and the hull shattered. Several nearby artillery pieces were sent flying, and the shockwave bowled over soldiers. Huge blooms of fire erupted from the ship as thousands upon thousands of glyphs shattered and released their energy. The ship crushed an entire brigade at the front of the column and devastated the entire vanguard.

Mirian descended and cast amplify voice, enhanced for maximum intensity. She cast suppress sound by her ears so she wouldn't blow her own ear drums. She replaced her protection spells with prismatic shield, then used a light spell to illuminate herself in the overcast sky so they could see her.

"Akanans!" she shouted in Eskinar. "I am a new Prophet, and I have placed Torrviol under my protection. It was your own people who assassinated your prime minister and your own spell engines that have caused the eruptions. You have no quarrel with us. In the name of the Ominian, I command you to leave these lands. I have torn your airships from the sky as punishment. Flee, and your lives will be spared. Continue your aggression, and my army of magi will annihilate you. Make your choice now."

Her voice rumbled as it echoed across the forest. She had no doubt that even the back of the army had heard her. Hells, they might have heard her in Torrviol. She hovered there, waiting. Some soldiers began to flee in terror. Predictably, several others thought they could get a shot off, as if spellpiercer ammunition would be enough. She saw the flashes of muzzles. A bullet shattered against her shield. A few fire bolts and force bolts flew up at her, but she'd chosen a distance that most arcanists couldn't even reach.

With a wave of her hand, she shouted, "Arcanists, to me!" As she dismissed her amplify voice, she cast greater illusionary army, one of the fantastic spells she'd taken from Luspire's book. Apparently, it was a legacy spell from the Unification War. A dozen humanoid illusions appeared in the air around her, each appearing to glow with shields and wands. A close inspection might reveal them, but Mirian didn't plan on letting anyone look closely. She swooped over the army and began casting volleys of cascading inferno, targeting anyone stupid enough to be pointing a rifle or a wand at her. The illusions mimicked her motion, sending out bursts of light that looked like lightning and force blades so that the defenders would raise ineffective shields. They looked like a full Praetorian attack squad.

Whatever screams below were drowned out by the roar of fragmenting fireballs blasting apart the forest and the men in it. She focused on the column that was trapped between the two downed airships. The forest below was damp from all the rain, but intense enough fire did the trick. Several trees had caught fire near the airships, and as she attacked more burned, billowing dark smoke that spread through the forest.

When most of the soldiers appeared either disoriented or were fleeing, she dismissed the illusions and went back to total camouflage, flying into the heart of the Might of Liberty. She tore apart the door to the engine room, then retrieved the second Elder artifact.

By then, her mana was finally low. She downed a mana elixir and dismissed everything except her levitation spell and the prismatic shield. Then she began her flight back to Torrviol. Behind her, the forest burned. If the Akanan army was stupid enough to continue its assault, she'd make sure they regretted it.

Mirian landed in the plaza next to Torrian Tower. There was a moment of shocked silence as the gathered townsfolk and students gaped at her. In the distance, black smoke still billowed.

"Gods above, Mirian, we felt that quake from here. That was you?" Nicolus asked.

She nodded. Briefly, she met eyes with Archmage Luspire, who seemed shaken. She had only recently matched him in the raw power of her spells, but her mana capacity and ability to sustain multiple spells had surpassed him.

"My student," Jei said proudly.

The silence was broken. A cheer went up.

Mirian let it wash over her, then said, "The Akanans are retreating, but they may regroup. Keep watch. The Archmage's group will blunt any assault next while I rest." She hefted the two Elder artifacts. "Respected Jei, let's go figure out what we can do with these."

***

Mirian stood before the Divine Monument, holding one of what she had begun to call the leyline repulsors. The repulsor was a complicated thing, in that it could interact with energy and matter in a way that had Professor Endresen pulling out her hair.

She'd had to repel one more attack by the Akanans, and then they'd fled back west. By the time they regrouped, the cycle would be over.

For nine days, they'd been studying the Elder artifact. Mirian already knew at least some of how the Akanan airship engine had worked, so figuring out how to suspend it in an arcane energy field was relatively easy. The difficult thing the Akanans had done was get the device to project a broad field of physical force that only interacted with specific materials. The uplift the leyline repulsor generated was therefore spread across the entire hull evenly, which also prevented the artifact from punching a hole in the ship and zooming off into the sky by itself. The wings of the airship had to be made of special materials that the field wouldn't interact with.

Mirian wasn't particularly interested in re-solving that particular engineering challenge. As far as she could tell, the Akanans had figured out the maximum weight the thing could hold and designed the airship around that. That meant there was a limit to how much energy the device could drain from a leyline, and another limit to how much 'pressure' it could exert on that line. Neither would be sufficient to do more than nudge a leyline. Jei's calculations seemed to suggest sustained pressure on a single point in the leyline over the course of a week could destabilize it, but that was the opposite of what they wanted.

What she had hoped was that an object that could interact directly with the leylines could interact with the Divine Monument. By now, they had tried a great deal of energy combinations. Nothing had worked.

Now Mirian was seeing if physical contact at a specific point would do anything. Put simply, she had resorted to poking the repulsor into the Monument again, and again, and again.

She poked it. There was no effect.

She sighed, moved to a different point, and poked it again.

Archmage Luspire sat in the corner, watching her work, drinking from a very nice bottle of Persaman rum. "So," he said, only slurring his words a little. "The Prophets were all just like us. Morons."

"Something like that," Mirian said absentmindedly as she poked another part of the device. "They looked brilliant because they'd had so many tries to get it right. It looks great when I smash an Akanan airship, but what you don't see is all the cycles I got cut apart, burned to death, electrocuted, tossed in the brig, or thrown off the ship. Now we're at the part where I have no idea what I'm doing, so it's obvious I'm not as smart or as powerful as I pretend."

Luspire took another swig of rum. Then Mirian heard a krissh! of glass breaking. Presumably he'd thrown the bottle at something. He gave a chortle. "Thrown off an airship, eh?"

"That was Marshal Cearsia." She turned to look at Luspire. His cheeks were flush from the alcohol. "What's the deal with you two anyways? You're always tight-lipped about it."

"We had an affair," he said. "Then, she was going to help me get a professorship at Vadriach. But she reneged. Thought I knew why, but now I know—hic—it probably had… probably had something to do with that traitorous whore pretending to be a Praetorian."

"Probably. I think Cearsia was told the Divine Monument was responsible for a disaster in Ferrabridge that killed a lot of people. That would mean she thought you did it."

"Fuck," Luspire said drunkenly. He started telekinetically gathering up all the broken glass from the rum bottle and fusing it back together. When it didn't fit right, he let the pieces drop back to the ground and swept them away. "I thought, with enough power, I could stop being a little pawn on the board. How do… ugh. How do we escape the hands of the puppet-masters?" He clutched his head in his hands and mumbled, "Mixing my metaphors again. She wouldn't like that."

"That's the question, isn't it?" Mirian said. "The timeloop makes it easy. I can spend as much time understanding an event as I need to. Without it?" She was silent. This time, she tried suspending the Elder artifact in an arcane field as she jabbed it into the structure. "I don't know. Learn as much as you can. Question everything. Watch for the players in the shadows. Beware the tempests of emotion that can sweep you away."

Luspire grunted. He watched as Mirian continued to examine the device, then finally said the thing he really wanted to know. "Why didn't the Ominian choose me?"

"I wish I knew," Mirian said. "I love Them, but I do wonder…" She thought of Troytin, who had thought it a game of conquest. She thought of Ibrahim, who was still trying to fight his way through all of Baracuel. She thought of Celen, who had simply given up. "I have to believe there was a reason, and it will be made clear. All I can do is—keep going. Even when it seems hopeless. Especially when it seems hopeless."

"Mmm," Luspire said, glancing over at his broken bottle. "Maybe that's why."

The world ended shortly thereafter.