System Change

Alanah crashed into the ground, creating a small crater around her. Luckily, her assessment was correct. Other than some slight jarring to her organs, the impact was nothing. Her endurance was more than enough to keep her safe, even at high velocity falls reinforced by her vibrational propulsion.

She was also lucky that she was able to get her command off, as just when she hit the ground, the sound barrier fell back over her as Ryven descended. But the elven commander was too late. Every soldier of his without an abundance of wisdom or some experience that strengthened their willpower had fallen under her kill command.

The already chaotic battle had been ticked up a notch, and she hadn’t left any leeway in what she wanted them to do. It was an indiscriminate kill order, and when the enemy outnumbered them hundreds to one, the most likely target of that kind of kill order was the person standing beside you.

But she wasn’t finished yet. Her deathsworn had been waiting all along, and her order was their trigger. From behind the enemy army, five of her strongest began their attack. However, she wasn’t able to focus too much on them entering the battle. She dodged to the side, narrowly escaping Ryven as he crashed into the ground where she had been only moments before.

The look on the man’s face said it all. He was pissed. He was bloody and battered, but mostly, he was angry. Alanah finally let her face slip into a smile. She just couldn’t hold it back anymore. Now that her sudden change of plans had succeeded, she decided it would be best to carry on down that path.

Instead of charging ahead at the seething man, she began her assault on the army. In the chaos and destruction around her, especially when she didn’t have to worry about friendly fire, she was death. The only person who could possibly stop her current assault was Ryven, and he was still slowed from Marcus’s ambush earlier.

She wouldn’t pass this chance up. She moved through the army like a knife through hot butter, not bothering for any non-fatal hits. Alanah aimed only for the vitals, either piercing the enemies’ hearts or brains, or slicing at their necks. With her vibration fully activated, she made quick work of any ‘elite’ that hadn’t passed their second threshold in endurance.

This meant that she focused mostly on the magic users and those dressed like ranged fighters and assassins. She also wasn’t discriminate toward the combined army of mostly humans and elves, she cut each person down equally. Man, woman… human, elf… there were even a few halflings and dwarves mixed into the army. She had to adjust her strikes to treat them equally, but she managed.

All the while, Ryven was trailing behind her, dodging the corpses and heads that fell before him. Two minutes and dozens of kills later, it seemed that most of Marcus’s effects had worn off of the commander, as he was finally closing the distance between them.

He’d tried multiple ways to stop her slaughter, but with her resonance activated, and barrier or shield he cast was easily dodged. But now that he was back and building to full power, that would change. This was all proven seconds later as Alanah felt three barriers form around her before they collapsed in on her.

Instantly, she took back to the air to avoid being trapped. In that moment, she realized that she had a new annoyance that she didn’t know she had… fighting against someone wrapped in a sound barrier. And that annoyance didn’t come from not being able to use her power on him, either.

As she floated in the air and slapped away a couple stray blasts of magic from the battling army, she looked down at the raging commander. And he was raging. He was yelling, and it was surely directed at her, but she couldn’t hear it. She also couldn’t quip back, at least not in any meaningful way. She expected the man’s counter to her skills to be annoying, just not in that way.

Alanah rolled her eyes as she shifted away from another barrier, trying to trap her. At this point, she wished she had a more physical way of attacking at a distance. More than once she thought about throwing some knives from her storage, but all she had were masterworks, and she didn’t really want to chance losing them. What if one of the soldiers made it back through the remaining Portal with one of her knives in his ass?

Ryven took flight and went all in. Wave after wave of barrier appeared in all directions around Alanah, and she dodged each by a hair’s width. There wasn’t any room for error. Also, more than once did she see the giant barrier around most of Savannah flicker. Having his Portal mages taken out and half his army fighting itself really made him lose his cool.

So much that he hadn’t yet realized her deathsworn were plowing through the backside of the army. Who would be able to pick out a few people killing people in the middle of a group of people killing people, anyway? They blended in quite nicely, actually, and Alanah made sure not to let her eyes linger on them.

More than once did she think about commanding one or more of her deathsworn to make their way through the Portal and take out the remaining Portal mage, but these were her elite deathsworn, and sending them through was a guaranteed way to lose them. She would do it if she had to, but she didn’t need to yet.

Unfortunately, while dodging all the attacks from Ryven, she found that the army was very well matched against each other. There were definitely casualties, especially around her deathsworn, but for the most part, those who were able to resist her influence had done a good job of avoiding dying and keeping others from killing one another. Still, the amount she killed herself, combined with those who died by their own allies’ hands, was not small.

So, Alanah fell back into her rhythm of dodging attacks from Ryven and making her own counters. The man was going full offense, so there were many more opening than there were before. However, there was a much higher chance of messing up and getting trapped by one of his barriers. He also no longer tried to hit her with the sharp barriers, everything he threw at her was meant for trapping.

He definitely realized that killing her, or even wounded her enough to take her out of the fight, would be next to impossible, so he changed his strategy as well. Again, she wasn’t fond of fighting smart enemies, especially in silent battles such as this.

Their fight in the sky went on for at least five more minutes before many of the enemies below began breaking out of her influence. This was the second time she commanded the army. Even if she could slip Ryven again, which was unlikely since he’d already gotten himself back to full power with potions, another command wouldn’t work as well. The time it took to prepare for the command wouldn’t be worth the gains from it.

Regrettably, she wouldn’t get her chance at that, as something had gone unnoticed by her just as her deathsworn had gone unnoticed by Ryven. She didn’t notice it until it happened. She charged in with another thrust, and just caught the elven commander in his side, missing any vital organs and only leaving a small cut in his armor and flesh.

Just as before, three barriers, which seemed to be the max Ryven could use with full control in the current situation, came in from her sides and back, and she moved to pull her rapier back and dodge upwards. But as soon as the barriers came, she felt another disturbance in her domain.

Both above and below her, the air rapidly froze at a rate she wouldn’t think possible, and a dark, almost black ice formed. Fuck! She inwardly cursed and sent as much of her aura and vibrations into her sword as possible before fully retracting her sword and stabbing upwards at the ice barrier.

Her sword easily penetrated the ice, and almost instantly cause it to crack and shatter, but the delay was just enough to allow two of Ryven’s barriers to close in. She felt the pressure as the two barriers just slammed together around her knees and all her upward momentum was stopped.

However, that didn’t completely stop her. She channeled everything into her legs and began to slip through the barriers. But, at the same time, more barriers reinforced the others, and everything stabilized. Barrier after barrier formed around her and pressed in. Soon, she was covered up to the neck in barriers and immobilized.

She didn’t give up, but for every barrier she destroyed or slipped with her vibrations, another two appeared and locked her down even more. Alanah cursed herself for not thinking about Astrus Crown Prince and his ice. She shot a glance down and saw the man standing at the side of the army, out of the range of the sound barrier, with a sly grin on his face.

Then, she looked back up and saw Ryven with a smile on his face, as well. He floated forward and pulled out a red communication crystal from his storage ring, then put it away. In silence, he pointed at the single remaining Portal.

In front of her eyes, the Portal blinked out, then a few seconds later, another sprung up… then another, and another. Before long, there were twenty barriers up, even more than originally, and the army was pouring out just as before. They had backup Portal mages, and he kept them in reserve instead of creating as many as possible to send his entire army through. This old bastard!

Quickly, she sent her deathsworn away as stealthily as possible so they didn’t get caught up in the fully reformed army. She’d have to wait for another opening, but that crown prince really ticked her off. She would make sure he got his later.

But now, Alanah was trapped, and it was Natalie against an army. Ryven wouldn’t be able to play any more parts in this battle if he wanted to keep Alanah in place, though. She didn’t panic, her safety wasn’t in question. She doubted the duke had any real means to harm her with her vibrations and endurance.

The real question was, what else did Natalie have up her sleeve, and would it work? Surely, she would pull something out before Savannah was lost, right? Alanah wouldn’t have to do all the work, would she? There was that skill she really didn’t want to use if she didn’t have to; the skill she hadn’t used since before she came to Cydaria. And hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

***

“Blitz!” Edgar yelled while gripping the escape scroll in his hand. The wyvern was next to him almost instantly. “It’s time to go!”

“Stop!” Derek shouted, causing the prince to look over and frown. “I don’t think you’re thinking this through.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is, who is going to command the raid if you leave? I doubt they will listen to me or Avery. Plus, I really would rather not have to lead a raid. Besides, you heard it yourself. Your brother may have lost a hand, but he is still alive and well.”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Edgar questioned.

“Don’t get what?” Derek asked.

“That they are about to attack somewhere in full force, and if I don’t leave this instant, with the time difference in the raid dungeon, the attack will be over by the time I get there,” Edgar explained.

“What? Why would they do that?”

“Because you are in here,” Edgar said, causing Derek to frown. “Think about it. Silvi was strong enough to kill a prince and two of his elites while chasing off an entire ambush team.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, but somehow, I don’t think Silvi only has 75% of your stats. I think she has more. But, there’s no way a regular Horned Rabbit could have had that many stats, even if you bonded when she was level 250, which we all know you didn’t. Most Horned Rabbits die before level 25.”

Derek raised his eyebrows at that. “So?”

“So… they should also believe that, but not the 75% of your stats part. They will think that Silvi was able to do all of that with just a fraction of your stats, which will make you a monster in their eyes. They will be out to kill her so they can cripple you before you return from the raid. If she dies, you will have soul-sickness.

“I’m not sure what skill Silvi used to circumvent the Great System’s regulations on dungeons, but they most definitely do not know about it. So, at best, they think she’s still in Clayton, at worst…”

“She’s in Savannah…” Derek finished.

“Exactly, so I’ve already wasted enough time. I have to go. You do what you can to get everyone to follow you. Beat them down for all I care. I’m done with this.”

“Wait! I’ll go…” Derek yelled, but before he could, Edgar had already torn the scroll in half and was surrounded by a bright white light. Within seconds, the prince and his wyvern were gone. “Fuck!”

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