Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 570: Interlude - The Shot Heard Around The World

Eight heavy spheres screamed down to Pallos, each one targeted at a different city in Urwa. Shahrazad. Serendib. Wak-Wak. Miraj Mahal. Azraq. Jamila. Sharaf. Fajr.

Each city had shields and protections, from enchanted walls to powerful Classers with protective skills. The most powerful defenses, however, required active concentration and activation. It was like a turtle in their shell - the withdrawal had to be deliberate. Nobody used [Persistent Casting] on the most powerful city-wide defense skills, because that involved shutting the city down entirely. The gates would be closed, entirely stopping the movement of trade.

The spheres came down so quickly there was no time to react. Only the best of reflexes had a spark’s chance in Modu of doing anything, and that was if they were looking at the right place at the right time, their fingers on the metaphorical trigger.

Alas, there were none.

The spheres were all well-aimed, the movement practically instantaneous. They each hit at the city center, where all of their kinetic energy was promptly and energetically converted to every other type of energy, the spheres turning into a massive shockwave along with a thousand pieces of shrapnel, which took out every building in a three-block radius, which promptly turned into several billion bricks, glass shards, and pieces of heavy, broken clay going in every single direction. The destruction scythed through hundreds of thousands of people, shredding them in a moment.

There were survivors, of course. Classers with their own personal defensive skills, paranoid elves who gleefully crowed that they were right, and ‘lucky’ children holding a pair of bloody hands, as the people to either side of them got obliterated, and the random rolling of the dice simply spared them any physical harm.

The cities themselves were flattened beyond recognition. Quite a few basements survived - a rare structure in the culture - and the walls survived.

The walls had been reinforced, but the threat was internal, not external. All they did was contain and ‘echo’ the blast inside a second time, the strongest protections turning the city into a destructive kettle. Ironically, the Classers responsible tended to be in secured locations with protective skills themselves, or protected by people who had specialized skills. If they had died in the initial blast, the walls would’ve fallen and the impact wouldn’t have been as great.

The impact and the cities being flattened were visible from space, where Lossamiel had a moment to bitterly laugh at the destruction she’d wrought, literal millions of kill notifications scrolling in front of her while her level jumped up to the next classup. All it would take was a moment to classup, and she’d reach divinity and become a god.

The revenge was both satisfying and hollow, the culmination of years of planning still not bringing her beloved child back from the grave. The [Slaver’s] grasp over Urwa should be broken and shattered though, no more would people wake up in chains, with manacles around their wrists and a collar around their neck.

That was her last thought before a fishtail the size of a galleon obliterated her, turning her body into a fine bloody mist.

Shera gazed down upon the world, the rest of the Guardians assembling a moment later. The ripples across the globe bounced back and forth, rapidly intensifying as the great chain of hatred, the self-fulfilling prophecy of the Immortal War came to realization.

Each event was one that was worth all eight Guardians intervening, and yet there were dozens upon dozens of them. It was impossible to tend to them all, impossible to extinguish every fire that flared bright.

Each Guardian picked one they felt was most suitable for them, and they split, knowing that many of them would fall in the coming days, weeks, or years, and yet still tirelessly working to preserve life.

Emir Eabd was out of the city when the attacks hit, a solid portion of his court having taken over a nearby oasis for a week of debauchery and indulgence away from the palace. A little bit of distant scenery. His mind whirled as the shockwaves racked the city, a thousand and one contingency plans coming to the forefront.

The damn vampire! He shattered the wineglass he was holding, dismissively flicking the remains towards a nubile slave who screamed as the shards bit into her flesh. How had she figured it out so quickly!?

His mind moved from plot to contingency, an aspect he hadn’t properly considered bubbling up to the top.

There had been low-level rumors that one of Exterreri’s Sentinels was literally the founder of medicine. The rumor was absurd, of course, and it was only mentioned on the low levels, not crowed from the rooftops. It felt like a rumor designed to mess with intelligence networks, a classic move from The Spider, and his [Spymaster] had spent quite a lot of time digging for the hidden meaning in the rumor, or the information being hidden by the tale.

But… if it was true, perhaps they had decoded and worked out the origin of the plague. The retaliation was far outside of expectations. A Legion or three, yes. Perhaps a few of their laughable Shadow Sentinels. The ‘largest risk’ they had judged as possible was inciting Tympestshard to declare war on Urwa, playing on the elf’s curse to whisper in the leader’s ear Who’s really the best elven nation?

Exterreri played a delicate game, balancing Immortal lives with the ant-like mortals, thinking their tiny, fleeting lives were worth as much or more than an Immortal’s contributions. Bah, sheer idiocy. By the time a mortal was half-trained, they were dead, taken by White Dove. The Spider and the current leaders of Exterreri were too soft, too delicate, to break out weapons like this. They were too focused on survival, and not enough on Glory Eternal.

To break out the city-killing weapons as the first strike? Eabd’s mind came up with a thousand answers, but one seemed more likely that the rest.

The unkillable bastard Night had taken the field, and was running the show. Eabd felt a shiver go down his spine at the thought, no matter the burning sands under his feet and the oven-like conditions of Urwa.

If Night was actively involved, his best move would be to distract, then run, hide, and pray there were more, better targets for the ancient vampire to go after.

Nobody survived Night’s ire.

Nobody.

All the thoughts, plans, and schemes went through the Emir’s mind in a moment, the brass towers of Wak-Wak still falling as he came to his conclusions.

“Activate the Majestic Glacial Bloom Spectacle.” He ordered. “We go to the submerged home.”

A thousand miles of ocean and ten thousand fathoms of depth was one way to hide out the war.

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The war had been quietly simmering for decades, the preparations ironically ensuring the war would come to pass. The Majestic Glacial Bloom Spectacle was one such project, a snake designed to lash out and strike indiscriminately at everyone. A great vine slowly growing from the edge of the elven forests, snaking through Tympestshard, making its way to the Golden Courts and Exterreri.

The project was large, spanning decades, but the sizes and defenses involved were considerable, and it was something of a boondoggle. The [Emir] had near-infinite money, and the Classers involved shrugged and continued working on it, news leaking to other nations who mostly laughed and let it be. Hundreds of millions of arcs on a poorly functioning weapon? Sure. If they interfered, the funds could be allocated to something actually dangerous.

The vine’s ‘danger’ was simple and understood. Thousands upon hundreds of thousands of frozen, preserved Vorler eggs, each one on the cusp of hatching. In typical supervillain fashion, tiny mistakes and accidents had caused outbreaks, the deadly creatures stinging to death people prepared for them. The bodies were swept out and replaced the next day, the project continuing.

Cities and other major population centers quietly diverted the creeping underground vine away from them. When the project was activated, the vine provided a conduit to unfreeze all the Vorlers and let them hatch. The Vorlers were unleashed upon primarily forested and other rural areas. A few farming communities and villages suddenly found themselves overwhelmed by an invasion of the lethal scorpions, most vanishing in hours under a hundred tiny stingers, but the impact was barely worth the cost.

But the people who died had relatives.

Galdir was woken by a scream, the ancient elf’s dream vanishing like morning dew under the noon sun. He turned into light courtesy of [I Am Light], instantly repositioning himself to the scream’s source. From his enhanced perspective, nothing was moving. The [Maid] was still locked in her scream. Her broom was still swatting at three tiny Vorlers.

And little Yridhrenith was blue and still, her body swollen up by the poisons, a tiny nick near her neck showing what had happened.

In the eternity of his skill, Galdir raged and grieved.

Yridhrenith had been his light, his life. His great-great-great-great-granddaughter, the only living remnant of himself, but more importantly, his beloved Deliriel. She hadn’t survived the last - no, the one before that - Immortal war, leaving only a son behind. Through fate, bad luck, and the thrice-damned elven curse, Galdir’s descendants hadn’t prospered, and Yridhrenith had been his last. A granddaughter he’d doted on and loved, who he’d tried to give everything. Books, tutors, friends, engagement. Time to play together and learn together. Through her, he’d once again experienced the refreshment of seeing life through young and innocent eyes. She was his spark, his bright spot. He’d taken her on this trip, out of the safety of Ithil, because she had wanted to see the glittery butterflies that made the grove their home.

He reasoned he couldn’t lock her up forever, couldn’t make her live and grow up in a bunker. What sort of life was that? It wasn’t life. It wasn’t living.

And now she was gone. Forever.

No - not forever. She must’ve just died, and it took time for a spirit to properly enter Samsara. There was a period of time where a god could claim a soul for themselves, turn them into an angel and offer them eternity.

Galdir had lost enough. He was not losing his last relative, and would do anything for love.

Even if his hands had to be stained with blood.

He was past the final barrier already. He simply needed 427 more levels before being offered a spot in the pantheon. Perhaps he’d become the god of city lights, all his years in Ithil granting them lighting through his aura.

It didn’t matter what he became a god of - anything would work, so long as he could keep his beloved Yridhrenith safe.

He looked around the room, briefly considering using her stuffed bear with a little heart sewn on it as ammunition. But no - she’d be upset later on that he’d burned it. Instead, he tucked it into his belt, and grabbed a large double handful of pebbles, then took off into the sky.

A quirk of his skill let him turn the things on his body and what he was carrying into Light as well. It would be a little silly otherwise, going naked every time he used the skill, and he wasn’t at the start of his journey, he was at the end.

The community of people who obtained Light, Brilliance, or Radiance Spirit, then obtained a skill to transform into the element, was quite limited. Each one got a stern talking to, a description of the massive power they’d accidentally gotten, along with a dire warning not to let other people know what they were capable of.

Getting punched and kicked at the speed of light was enough to end most conflicts, and Light Spirit Classers didn’t need to invoke their greater abilities.

‘Devastating’ was putting it mildly, and Galdir had full faith in what he was told to be true. He would test it now and today, attempting to ascend in the course of a minute. Ethics and morality no longer meant anything to him.

It only took a thought and a brief flex of his Spirit to reach into space, the [Maid] still stuck in the same note on the same scream. Galdir then dove back towards Pallos, spotting dozens of cities and casually flicking a single pebble at each one of them, softly tossing them underhand like he had tossed a ball for Yridhrenith right before his nap.

As the pebbles left his hand, they stopped being Light and stopped being under the numerous odd effects that let his skills work without destroying everything.

They did not stop moving at nearly the speed of light.

When the pebble first hit air, it was moving so quickly that aerodynamics simply didn’t apply. Instead of pushing the air molecules out of the way, it merged and fused with them, letting off a tiny burst of energy as everything involved superheated. Tiny little flecks peeled off, but each of those flecks were still moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light, hitting more air, and creating a superheated wave of plasma. The forces involved tried to slow the pebble down, but it was like spitting on a bonfire. There was no stopping it. Collision after collision with air ate away at the pebble, turning the entire mess into an explosive bolt of plasma.

The shockwave traveled at the speed of sound, while the light from all the burning fusion traveled at the speed of light.

The single pebble was roughly the equivalent of a mad dragon having an unfettered week to ravage a city. Enough to flatten and burn all of the buildings, and kill nearly every inhabitant.

Ironically, the projectile that Lossamiel had fired being a hair slower meant the impact hit the city sooner, with less time to prepare. The impact of the pebble was far more devastating.

The Sword Saint was pacing along the walls of Sanguino when a bright flash of light pierced the Ashen clouds over the city. His hand flew to his sword, and a moment later the Ashen cloud was entirely dispersed as the devastating shockwave descended upon the city at the speed of sound. The Sword Saint leapt up into the sky, unsheathing his sword and choosing to speak the name of his skill.

“[Perfect Parry].”

His blade flashed and it felt like the weight of the world was on him. He bared his tusks as he screamed, forcing the entire blast to move, the heat and energy eating away at his body, his arm, his hand, his sword.

The Sword Saint crashed to the ground a smoking wreck, his sword melted, his arm charred, and his hand missing. He coughed as notifications flooded in front of him, detailing all the levels he’d gotten for deflecting the blast into Bloodmoon Bay - and the thousands of kill notifications he was getting on fish, sharks, crabs, sea urchins, and the millions of denizens of the deep.

A satisfied grin split his face as guards rushed over to him.

“Gods, I’m good.”

The blast the Sword Saint deflected into Bloodmoon Bay had to go somewhere. It tore through the water, utterly shattering Arachne’s underwater lair. The shockwave hit Arachne moments before Sword Saint’s body had landed on the ground, catching her entirely unaware of a threat within Sanguino before it was shattering the thick green glass, pouring a hundred billion gallons of water in.

It wasn’t an unexpected avenue, and Arachne practically expected any assault on her to start with a massive strike on her lair. Threads creeping along the glass alerted her to the issue, and she immediately executed her well-drilled evacuation plan, threads pulling her out of the way and deep into her tunnels before the water could crush her, rushing to her lover’s protective embrace.

His adamantium control slipped at seeing her freezing, pale-faced and shivering.

“Who did this?” He demanded, eyes flashing dangerously.

“Unknown.” Arachne barely got out.

“Then, Unknown will pay.” Night spat out.

The shockwave had to go somewhere, and water was incompressible. It traveled through the Sea of Stars silently, barely a ripple, until it arrived at the shores of the nation on the other side.

Just as Nippon-Koku was reeling from twin blasts destroying their two most brightly lit cities - not their most populous, simply the easiest to aim at - a tsunami hit their coast a moment later, a devastating one-two-three punch to the nation.

Deep in the mountains near Kuri, Kanadaj was peacefully sleeping on his mountain of gold, gems, the manifestation of broken dreams and the frozen tears of authors, dreaming of princesses. A tidal wave of water smacked him, rolling him over, then washed out of his cave, taking a significant tribute with it.

The dragon roared in rage.

Those puny mortals! How dare they interrupt him again, and steal his treasure!

They.

Would.

Pay.

Galdir ascended on the screams of a hundred million souls tossed into the inferno, from [Bee Queens] to [Juvenile Dragons]. He rushed his selection, choosing to become the God of Softly Glowing Lights.

The new god ignored the thousands upon millions of things to do and reached out, snagging one soul, reeling it into his tender embrace.

“Grandpa! Is that you?”