Alanktyda, with its monopoly on underwater titans, would have united the entirety of the oceans into a single land where Uriamel never to have found Nahum’s stone. The immediate area around the place went mad, the creatures are it where disfigured and twisted, the coral and flora in the area grew rapidly out of control. Some feared that the entire ocean would slowly grow to be overtaken.

Past the immediate impact site, the infection starts to be less prominent. Creatures grow larger, crabs harden their shells as they turn black, coral starts to ooze natural oils. Fish slowly grow as large as the beasts of burden that humanity possesses: cows and horses. The exploitation of this unique flora and fauna paved the way for Uriamel to industrialize rapidly.

Yet it was the creature within Nahum’s stone that secured Uriamel’s survival in the face of Alanktyda’s expansion. Some call it a God from above, others say it was a creature expelled from another world, some even say it was an escapee from somewhere else. The creature, easily rivalling a titan, proved to not only be powerful. It was also intelligent.

So intelligent in fact, that it could be bargained with.

– Excerpt from Allasaria’s report on Modern Uriamel.

“I REPEAT FOR THE LAST TIME! ALL UNITS HAVE FIFTEEN TO RETREAT FROM THE RED-ZONE! ALL UNITS HAVE FIFTEEN MINUTES! DO NOT AWAIT RESCUE! ALL UNITS ARE TO RETREAT THEMSELVES!” Wiktor screamed into the radio as Damian Sokolowski flung his rifle over his shoulder, it clattered and bounced against his back as the man stuffed papers into a suitcase. They should have packed up earlier, but then who would have thought that Uriamel would have so quickly adapted to land warfare?

Certainly, Sokolowski would have assumed this section of Nanbasa had at least another month in it before it had to be evacuated. He fixed the bandage over his shoulder, that was there to cover up a shrapnel wound. It had happened recently and with the frontlines in this much chaos, there had been no time to go to the Clerics for healing. Wiktor unplugged the radio from the power and waved for Pawel to help with the clean-up. “Leave it!” Damian shouted. “Don’t bother, we have spares.”

“Understood boss!” Wiktor dropped the thick green straps that were used to hoist the heavy machinery onto his back as Damian pulled out his military radio for communication with the command team.

“Mat, how’s the transport looking?” Damian asked as he pointed for Wiktor and Pawel to pick up the rest of the suitcases stuffed with the battleplans. Most of these had been made in the past week, and most of these had no other copy that what Damian had written down there. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they were lost, but likewise, there were units that only appeared on these maps and none else.

“I’ve hotwired a civilian jeep.” Mateusz replied over the radio. “Tried to find key.” He spoke in-between quick, hurried and rapid breathes. “No.”

“Good job.” Damian replied. “Get it to the front door now. We have…” He checked the clock hanging on the wall. “Fourteen minutes.”

“Aye Aye boss.” Mateusz replied as Damian gave the room one last look over. The plumbing did not work, the toilet was blocked, the kitchen sink was leaking after the building had been hit by one of those cannons on the backs of the giant black crabs that served as Uriamel’s artillery. The fridge had nothing left, and the one bottle of drink left behind under a counter had taken the four men of the command team all of fifteen minutes to finish. They had only been here for two days, but it was a good two days. The beds were large and comfortable and the water was still running, those were the important parts.

And then Damian’s eyes went outside to the window. They were in a tall tower block, not the top floor as those had a tendency to be shelled by Uriamel’s magicians, but high up. Ahead of them lay what remained of the industrial district and the crumbling seawall. Damian had thought that part of the city was destroyed when it was blown.

If it was destroyed back then, then the week of bombing and artillery had utterly devastated it. What remained of the huge factories and warehouses could not even be called ruins. Nowhere across the charred ground stood more than a dozen bricks overlaid on each other. The port’s towering cranes used to move containers had long since collapsed too, two still maintained their shape as they flat on the ground, the rest had been torn apart by Uriamel’s forces to make way, or reduced to mere shards of steel by the continuous bombing and artillery. What remained of the seawall was a mere mound of concrete interlaced with steel, Iniri’s wood had all been burned away already. Of all of it, the smell was the worst part. The charred tarmac was one thing, the toxic plastics only added to it. The bones and corpses though could make men unused to the stench throw up.

And the reason for Damian’s retreat from this building was coming in from the seaside. A massive horde had amassed from the ocean and was now marching onwards. The ever-present giant crabs were there, although they were low in number. Their shells pitch-black, with tents and platforms strapped onto their tops. Some were used as mobile bunkers, from which Uriamel’s commanders would shout orders, other had artillery mounted on their backs. The cannons were powerful, but they were slow. It was obviously a technology not built to the standards of being used on the surface. Around them swarmed Uriamel’s soldiers with the multitudes of species of beasts.

The sea-wolves that were just as fast out of the water as they were in it. Each one would require the combined fire of an entire squad to take down, especially now that they were being fielded with thick vests of armour for them. Then another type of animal, that Damian did not even bother to try and name. Everyone simply called it the porcupine, a thing as large as a horse, with four stunty legs as if it had once been a tortoise, but where another animal would have a shell, this had long spines, each one as long as Damian’s leg. The only thing that could stop those spines was the heavy of the Lynx tanks, and even then, it wasn’t certain.

But it was the trio of warehoused-sized turtles that were chewing what remained of the seawall with their massive jaws that signalled the retreat. This week, Nanbasa’s defenders had managed to stall out Uriamel’s invading forces. Kassandora’s general lure-them-in strategy had been implemented, and Damian did not know why he ever even had a single question about the Goddess’ thinking. The entire coastal section of the ringed city was devastated, reduced to flat rubble. With no cover, it did not matter if Uriamel sent a dozen, a hundred, a thousand or a hundred thousand invaders. They all fell to the hail of steel that would come from the air. The few standing would be picked off by snipers and infantry on the ground. And Response Forces were here to plug any gaps or suppress the enemy into one location as the artillery re-calibrated.

Until these turtles. Three of them, with magic structures on the backs of their shells. Each one basically carried a tower, tipped off with a crystal and bustling with activity. Binoculars revealed it was Uriamel’s magicians on them. That would have been bad enough, but then Sokolowski had seen those crystals start to glow and fire lightning at incoming artillery.

Where Anassa’s Sorcery had the reality-erasing shields, and where Elassa’s Magic had the brute force of solid elemental barriers, Uriamel’s Technology brought about counter-measures. Sokolowski had already sent a dozen reports to Kassandora on what he witnessed here. He watched another round of shelling. This would be all the batteries firing in unison, as he had told them to. The crystals of those towers started to glow a blinding white, and then they burst out with white strings that split the blue sky.

And the sky set alight in fire and explosions as lightning jumped through the artillery shells. Uriamel’s army below cheered. The cheers lasted even as a few of the shells impacted against the ground. They had been thrown off course by their neighbours’ destruction, one hit a platoon of a dozen troops armed with sword and shield and harpoon gun. Another sent rubble flying onto a giant crab. The creature blocked most of the damage with its massive claw. A few managed to hit the turtles. They didn’t even take a break from demolishing the remains of the seawall.

Damian let himself take a breath though, that was good enough. It meant that the defences could be overwhelmed. Kassandora had once again been correct. There wasn’t a defence out there that could not be breached with firepower. “Hey boss!” Wiktor called from the door, a suitcase in both of the man’s hands. “We’re going!”

“Right! Right!” Damian shouted back as he chased them down. Explosions from outside shook the building as they raced down stair and stair. Damian with one suitcase, Wiktor and Pawel both with two, they bounced against the walls and kicked off to maintain speed. Then jumped the final set of ten stairs, dropping down into a roll as they picked themselves up.

Mateusz already had a luxury pickup truck prepared. Black, with tinted windows, he must have gone for the best of the best that the local car-parks had. The doors were already swung open, the man was revving the engine and waving for them get in. One end of the street led to the ruined industrial district, a platoon of Uriamel’s soldiers, supported by their sea-wolves, were closing the gap quickly as Damian jumped and dived into the rear of the cabin. Pawel slammed into him, then cursed as Wiktor slammed the door on them. “GO GO GO!”

Mateusz did not have to be told twice. He spun the truck around with the handbrake as a harpoon slammed into the rear of the truck. A step on the gas pulled the vehicles’ rear wall off as Damian held onto the front passenger seat. Pawel and Wiktor both smashed the rear window, and started shooting back at the animals chasing them. “That’s the birds.” Mateusz said as he pointed forwards.

Above them, six black silhouettes in the sky. Like dark arrows against that blue ocean, KAF bombers. Nothing standardized, no single model, each one was slightly different taken from the refurbished civilian aircraft. “Keep going.” Damian said as Mateusz raced down the street. “Turn to the zoo.”

The zoo was Nanbasa’s animal reserve that the city was ringed around. It was merely a colloquial name, the joke had come about because most of the vehicles were named after animals. “Got you boss.” Mateusz said as he swerved into a bend so hard that the three men all almost crushed each other.

Damian turned to watch the bombing run. Another round of artillery shells had come in, once again enough of them were stopped. And then the black spots in the sky started dropping their cargo. Six lines of barrels and crates and anything and everything that could be filled with liquid.

Just as Kassandora had taught Damian to plan, the tactic was simple. Shells could be shot down, but could fire? The man grabbed onto the seat tighter as Mateusz turned the car onto a dirt bath. One of the ones that had been freshly constructed to facilitate traffic in and out of the zoo. They drove through the areas were lions had once prowled and rhinos were once kept. Now, it was the wheel Lemur artillery, supported by groups of Lynx tanks to serve as a shield. Skysweeper AA guns were strewn about, although they did not have much use yet. “Where should I park?” Mateusz asked as he slowed the car down. Platoons of infantry were here too, all replenishing their ammo by handloading their magazines as a team of Clerics was stalking through them and finding men to heal.

“Up there.” Damian said as he pointed to a hill that had a cave in it. He should have gone to see what animals lived here before the siege of Nanbasa had started. Mateusz pushed the truck forwards, and it started to groan over the heavy terrain. Somehow though, with no rear window, with fuel leaking and tires burst and the truck bed’s door torn off, they made it up that hill. Just in time to see the view.

Damian groaned as he got out. A team of Clerics was already coming to assist them, but he didn’t really about the wound on the arm apart from the immediate strain it burned with when he opened the door. It was the firestorm in the distance he gawked at. The six planes were swerving around, still saying in formation after dropping their ago.

A hurricane of flame had formed, it tarred the skies and pulled Uriamel’s ground forces in. Even those giant crabs started to slide on the ground as the winds picked up. The turtles in the rear roared and placed themselves down on the ground, but the towers they had built onto the backs of their shells collapsed immediately. Man and beast and stone and rubble, it all set alight, and it was all pulled into the flames.

A beam of light suddenly knocked one of the planes out of the air. Then another. A third. The fourth beam swept across the last three and downed all three at once. Damian pulled up his binoculars and pushed a Cleric away as he tried to confirm his suspicions. He had seen attacks like that before and…

Allasaria was floating the air, in a dress of white and gold. She looked exactly how a Goddess should look, serene and peaceful, the only tell it was her beams of light that had downed those six bombers was the fact one hand, palm outstretched, was pointing to where those planes had just been before they became burning wreckages hurling themselves back onto the land. “Turn on the AA guns.” Damian started giving orders out immediately. “Wiktor!”

“Yes boss!”

“Radio to the men! Turn on the AA guns, organise perimeters and zones, if Allasaria gets close, then flak the entire area. I don’t care what or…” His voice trailed off. Allasaria was there, but Allasaria was not the only one.

Underneath her was a huge humanoid figure, easily surpassing the skyscraper that the general had his vantage point from. An enormous bald head slowly peered over the horizon, it had a beak where the mouth should, covered by a monstrous layer of octopus tentacles. It took a step and revealed the huge, muscled chest underneath it. Its were too long, its fingers looked as if they had an extra joint in them. And it waded through the water as if the ocean itself was a mere puddle.

They were supposed to stop that?

Arascus sighed as he looked out at the monster. Olephia was busy responding to Alkom’s raids in the north. Neneria could do little against a beast like that. Kassandora and Fer and Anassa had gone off.

He supposed it would be up to him alone then.

It’d be easier if Allasaria wasn’t on the scene.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep