Chapter 198: Preparing for Battle (1/2)

I said, ”What does that even mean?”

”I don't know. The sheer volume of energy is astounding, however. It's like a continent is collected into two energy blips. I can't understand it fully, but what I do know is this - we need all the help we can muster if we are to fend it off.”

My eyes widened, ”Are you serious?”

”Most certainly. Find some of your previous combatants. Perhaps they may help us.”

”Hmm,” I cupped my chin, ”Maybe. I'll have to check it out. I could get Chrona on my side. Maybe even Krog. They'd be the only ones worth gathering.”

”Then we must hurry. I'll warp over and get Althea here. Perhaps Kessiah's healing magic has come along enough to help us.”

I tsked, ”I think she'd get gibbed if I'm honest.”

”I would as well if I took a direct blow from this kind of foe. This is a risky venture, and I'd rather not leave a stone unturned.”

”I'll take your advice on it. Do you think we should contact Tohtella and get some of her guards?”

Torix sighed, ”I...I'd rather not. I've been suspicious of her activities for a while now. Despite her use of your video, she's done far too little to uphold her reputation as a world reformer.”

”Yeah, I had a suspicion in the back of my mind too,” I shook my head, ”I can't understand why the hell she'd do it though. It makes no sense whatsoever.”

”Neither do I. Perhaps this final Skyburner base will offer some elaboration and verification of our suspicions. Needless to say, we must prepare. Find allies. I'll gather resources of my own.”

”I have a favor I can call in with Helios. Do you think this is that big a problem?”

Torix crossed his arms, ”Hmmm...No, I don't. We've yet to even access the threat. We'll call upon him if it's beyond our grasp. Time is still of the essence, however. I imagine if the draining signature finishes its siphoning process, we'll face a far stronger foe in the end.”

”We'll finish this fast then. Do you think you can return later tonight?”

”Perhaps in two days. I'll give you the coordinates then, and we'll go towards the epicenter. Good luck.”

I gave him a curt nod as he walked into a portal, warping somewhere. I sprinted over towards Chrona, tearing chunks from the ground as I did. As I flew up over the skyline, I shot across Rivaria. After reaching the upper line of the city, I flopped into Chrona's home. The beautiful ice sculptures still reflected light in their icy shells.

As I paced through the room, several of the statues had air bubbles spread throughout them. They crafted them into words, shapes, and pattern. Each of these additions added extra depth to the already impressive sculptures. It looked like it requires several techniques to make it work right. Otherwise, the bubbles would get lost in the freezing process. They must have designed the air pockets and sculpture beforehand then flash-froze the water with the bubbles. Carving the statue must have been the easy part.

With my mind thinking about that, two different gialgathens echoed through the cavern. Though they didn't talk much, their breath was more than enough considering their hulking size. Within the room of emerald fire, Chrona chatted with another gialgathen. Turns out it was Krog Borom, the illusionist general of Emagrotha's army. It made sense these two were talking considering their history.

As I stepped up, Chrona tilted her head at me,

”Our next session wasn't until a few days after your bout?”

I shook my head, ”I didn't need the rest. The guy quit.”

Krog grumbled, his voice proud, ”The filthy coward. If I fight him again, I'll leave him broken as he deserves.”

I raised a hand, ”There's something I wanted to speak with both of you about.”

Chrona pointed near the fire, ”We were in the middle of discussing a few recent political events. They may wait until after you've had your say, however.”

Krog puffed out his chest, his black and red skin oozing menace, ”Those politics revolve around you in fact. You've done much for us. I was going to thank you for it.”

Huh. Didn't see that one coming.

”I actually have a way you can help me then. We found where Emagrotha and Lehesion fought. At the epicenter of their battle, a mage I know found something big.”

The two generals stared at one another. After a moment of silence, Chrona turned to me, ”There lies an ocean of sludge there now to my knowledge. If that's the 'big' thing you're referencing, then there's little else to know of the subject.”

”Not quite. It's two life forms of unbelievable size. They sounded like something you'd get from Lehesion or Emagrotha.”

The gialgathens straightened up, Chrona murmuring, ”But Emagrotha...there's little that remains of her after Lehesion's final blast. We never found her remains. The ocean rose from the ground faster than we could recover her.”

”We're better off not knowing what that freak did to her,” Krog growled.

I pointed at them both, ”I'm wondering if either of you would come with me in case I needed help fighting this thing.”

Chrona gave chuckled. ”Of course I'll help. I'm certain it couldn't stop the both of us.”

Krog snapped her side with his tail, the gemstones encrusted on his armor shining, ”The three of us. It will be a battle worth remembering, and I may offer a measure of compensation for how you've treated us as a people. You deserve it.”

”Acting decent doesn't deserve compensation,” I said while raising a palm to Krog.

”On Giess, it does. Especially given the hard times.” Krog stated.

I crossed my arms, ”What do you mean?”

Chrona looked away while Krog took a deep breath. The proud beast murmured,

”I...I lost my grandfather in an attack as of late.”

I fumbled for my words, ”My god...Uhm...I'm sorry.”

Krog snorted, crushing his emotions. He said, ”It was in a terrorist attack led by those revolutionaries. To think they'd sacrifice themselves to cull us. It's difficult not to squash one of the espens each time I see them.”

Chrona laid a wing across Krog's back, ”We would be no better than them. Emagrotha would look down with disappointment.”

Krog smashed a thickened hand onto the ground, cracks ebbing across the ice around us, ”I know...but it's difficult.”

Tears rimmed around his massive eyes, his emotion real. Minutes passed before Krog collected himself. The general stood tall once more,

”A harrowing battle is just what I need to clear my mucked mind. It will do me good.”

Chrona pulled back her wing, and I stayed quiet while Krog took deep breaths. I ended up intruding on a profoundly personal meeting. If my suspicions were right, Krog came here to talk with Chrona about the death in his family. Like the jackass that I was, I ended up interrupting them. Even though I was aware of that, we didn't have time for personal grieving.

This thing could kill off a lot more people if we didn't organize quickly. I raised a fist, staring at Krog,

”Then we'll meet later tonight to go kill whatever this damn thing is.”

Chrona glanced between Krog and me, concern spread over her face. Krog let out a low growl, ”It shall be done.”

”Good. I'll see you both in the arena then.”

”Of course,” Chrona said. ”We'll fight with valor.”

I left them, giving Krog the chance to grieve over his loss. He looked close to his grandfather, so the loss hit hard, and I didn't want to interject anymore than I already had. I needed to push him some though. Otherwise, we'd have to postpone fighting this damn thing for a while. Considering how strong Torix seemed to think it was, that didn't sound like that good an idea.

With that in mind, I returned to our base. I raced down the steps and knocked on Kessiah's room. Kessiah called me in. She stood beside a rabbit with glowing antlers pinned to a table. Beside it, several empty syringes were stacked up, one of them half full. As I raised an eyebrow, Kessiah picked up one of the legs of the rabbit.

With a quick jerk, she pulled the limb off the poor creature. I winced more than the rabbit did. It stayed still, not even aware of its missing leg. I leaned back,

”Ahhhh. Is that some kind of painkiller or sedative?”

”Bingo. I asked Torix for some. This lets me practice my magic without having to listen to the squeals of the damn rabbit...and maybe I don't like torturing the thing either.”

”Yeah, maybe. How's it coming along?”

Kessiah turned her wrists, showing cut marks down them. A few droplets of her blood lifted up spiraling into a central point. A few of Kessiah tattoos glowed as her hands shook. She grunted before molding the blood next to the rabbit's amputated leg. With delicate precision, she reconstructed the sinews and tissues that connected it.

Over the next few minutes, she connected the bone again and joined the ruptured skin. After a bit more detail work, she reconnected the veins of the creature, and she even donated a tiny bit of health to restore the creature's health. All in all, it was a success in my books. Kessiah seemed to think the same as she let out a sharp sigh while leaning back,

”Thank Schema I did it right this time. Here I thought I'd fuck it up again.”

I inspected her handiwork, finding scars and other markings on the creature, ”Looks like you've been grinding it out, haven't you?”

She rolled her eyes, ”No, not really. I've been taking tons of breaks because this is so demanding. Still, I'm a hell of a lot better than I thought I'd be after a few weeks. Kind of scared though,” Kessiah winced.

I turned a wrist to her, ”Torix and I found the last Skyburner base. I was hesitating to ask, but would-”

”No,” Kessiah sliced her hands across the air. ”I'll get in the way. It's five times my level. I'll get slaughtered or end up getting someone else killed while they protect me. Sorry.”

”No need to apologize. I think this kind of work suits you better too, and we even need it as a team. Keep it up.”

”Yeah, I'll do my best,” Kessiah took a deep breath, ”Back to getting this down. I need to work on getting the nerves right. It's leg twitches after I reconnect the tissues...Shit, this is hard,” she mumbled as I walked off.

With two days of respite left before Torix returned, I set out on my own preparations for facing off against something catastrophic. The first priority involved safety for the others. With that mind, I took off my gray power armor before tearing out strips of my skin. It took gravitation enhancements and a series of quick jerks to make it happen for each piece.

I was tough after all.

With a pile of raw material to work with, I used Star Forger to melt the various strips into glowing globes of armor. At the same time, I sent messages to Althea and Torix for a series of measurements from them both. Using my memory, I guesstimated the average size of Krog and Chrona. It wasn't much of a guess though, because I used my Knowledge Maker skill. Photographic memory was a powerful thing.

It wouldn't be perfect, but I planned on fixing that by lining their armors with various furs from Rivaria. By making the gear a bit too big, I could fill in the gaps with the soft lining. It had the added bonus of making them warm and comfortable as well. Two hours later, and I finished their main battle plates with their proportions in mind.

After reviewing my memories for a bit, I recreated a series of jointed limb covers to add to that. By incorporating a set of interlocking chains, I made them easy to take on and off. I notched the joints as well, creating a series of interlocking plates that mimicked thickened scales. For their helmets, I created angled, aerodynamic bodies for them. This had the bonus of deflecting projectiles should they hit their head.

Even with Star Forger, I struggled with the process. I was heavy as hell now, and that meant my skin was denser than lead as well. Of course, my added endurance made the metal incredible flexible and ductile too. This allowed me to keep the structures as thin as possible. I pulsed waves of gravity as well, making the internal arrangements of the metals all flow in the same direction. Otherwise, patches of the blackened ore would criss-cross in random directions. This made the overall structure more brittle.

That was a serious problem considering the flexibility of the metal was its selling point. All in all, it took more than twelve hours of dedicated work, but I finished two sets of gialgathen armors. With the main work completed, I pulled out a variety of gemstones from my dimensional storage. I charged them with mana before setting them into sockets I welded onto the base. By creating lines of Schema's watered down version of the cipher, I created pathways for the mana. They all directed towards a large diamond at the center of their plate mail.

This enabled better mana flow for the gemstones, which were brimming with my own chaotic, volatile mana. I added a series of supporting runic structures around these pathways, stabilizing the mana some. This would prevent them from going insane, or at least make it much easier for them. Considering the volume of mana and the gialgathens natural ability to draw ambient mana, they should be fine. We would be testing regardless.

All the inscriptions created polygons along the surface of the plate mail. To reinforce the structure, I added the circular spell formula to the center of the polygons. After imbuing them with mana, arcane bonds distributed through the structures much like the mana bonds coursing through my flesh.

To top it all off, I added a series of blades and claw reinforcers, adding some extra oomph to their slashes. I even finished a bladed exterior to the tip of their tail, allowing them to sever people with ease. With their added weaponry set, I sharpened each blade, making sure they weren't dull as could be. This required careful application of heat and slowly pulling tiny bits of metal from the edges.

It was worth the effort. After a quick polish, the project looked professional. Well, as professional as my first time making gialgathen armor could look. I analyzed it, seeing what Schema had to say about it.

A Corrupting Sunrise(lvl req: N/A | Race: Gialgathen | Size: Enormous | Type: Light) - Created from the condensed dimensional fabric, this metallic substance holds many properties that are advantageous to battle. When encased in this substance, the wielder's dimensional stability enhances, giving them resistance to attacks on the plane that the wearer stands.

This acts out as dimensional resistance. The sheer toughness of the compound is remarkable as well, giving it far more durability than steel or even orichalcum. This applies nearly all known kinds of damage, from chemical to elemental, it matters little when putting this armor between you and the coming damage type.

The effects are limited to just armor as well. The many ingrained gemstones can act as mana batteries, giving the wielder tremendous enhancements to their effective mana pool. At the same time, large injections of this mana will act as a stimulant, creating unnatural levels of ferocity and fury in subjects using this armor.

It can even extend the life of the wielder, offering enhanced vitality and regenerative effects to those that wield this tool. Though potent, use these features with caution. The long-term effects of using this energy source are unknown. Likely personality loss and long term brain damage can be inflicted with continuous use.

That being said, the protective properties come with nearly no drawbacks. For a gialgathen, this is an incredible tool to have in their arsenal.

TheHarbinger'sGift:

[+100Strength,Constitution,Endurance,andWillpower.

+50Intelligence,Perception,andLuck

+10,000health|+1,000healthregen/min

-10%toCharisma|-10%toManaRegeneration|+10%toHealthRegeneration | 25% Dimensional Resistance]

(Positive bonusesdoubledifmemberofHarbinger'sLegion|DoesnotstackwithotheritemscarryingaHarbinger'senhancement)

2,000,000/2,000,000 Mana Stored

+50,000 Health | +1,000 Health Regen/min

-10% to Charisma | -10% to Mana Regeneration | +60% to damage resistances

Bonuses doubled for a member of Harbinger's Legion. Bonuses don't stack with copies of A Corrupting Sunrise. Excess mana is siphoned to Dimension C-138.

The sheer quality of the materials used helped me a lot here. The flaws in my craftsmanship would become more apparent otherwise. It saved my ass in this scenario though. That's why the armor enhanced the health regeneration of the wearer so much. Since my own health regen was that high, it rubbed off on people wearing what I was made of.

Overall, the armor took a full day of consistent grinding to make it happen, but it increased the gialgathens chances of survival dramatically. With that handled, I glanced through my messages and took note of Torix and Althea's measurements. I stripped more armor, melted it down, and set to work.

For Torix, a thicker set of armor could be used. Of course, I kept the design light, but it wasn't entirely as necessary since Torix often warped across a battlefield. The gialgathens flew, so they needed something light. Armed with that insight, I focused on creating better joint structures for Torix. I figured as a lich, keeping his body together was the most critical task. It was much more difficult to cast without arms for example. It could be done of course, especially by a capable archmage like Torix. At the same time, why let him get crippled like that?

So I spent more time on the joints of the armor than the rest of it combined. I created wire structures that flowed and crisscrossed through the slabs of armor. These wires all culminated at the joints, adding a chainmail kind of reinforcement on those specific parts. This took forever since I had to make tiny balls of molten metal and pull thin strings of armor from them. Otherwise, the wires were flimsy and easily broken.

As the wire passed, I let it cool down by air instead of magic. This enabled it to be as flexible as possible. With the joints finally finished, I created the same supporting runic structures and mana augmentations. I used the absolute limit of my mana pressing abilities here, giving a temporary repulsion to the armor. If a giant fireball came at the wearer, it would sweep around them. In this case, Torix.

I gave additional runic supports for the charged gems as well, helping ease Torix with processing my mana. With the framework finished, I added a few details like a skull mask and a crown of thorns. Considering Torix's penchant for dramatic flair, I felt it was fitting. I admired my work while inspecting the status. It had a few surprises.

The Blighted Web(lvl req: 6,000 | Race: Bipedal | Size: Medium | Type: Heavy) - This protective wear is composed of condensed dimensional fabric plates and wires of the same material. Many of these wires reinforce the joints, creating a web of protective armor.

Heavy yet functional, it ensures that its wearer will stay in one piece even under tremendous kinetic damage. Nearly all known damage types are mitigated as well, a capable mana press going so far as repelling most spells from even reaching the wearer. Many gemstones have been charged with volatile mana on this armor as well.

Runic inscriptions aid the wielder in wielding the energy, but its a calculated risk to use it unless the wearer is very skilled and has excellent willpower.

This nigh absolute protection comes at a cost, however - the armor is very heavy. Weighing in at nearly 3,000 pounds, it requires a high strength stat to walk around in. Think of putting it on a long range artillery mage or technician. Warping abilities prevent the armor from being impossible to wield as well, along with gravitational magics.

All in all, it's an armor designed to protect and synergize with long range combat.

The Harbinger's Blessing:

[+65Strength,Constitution,Endurance,andWillpower,Intelligence,Perception,andLuck

+5,000health|+500healthregen/min

-10%toManaRegeneration|+10%toHealthRegeneration | +25% Dimensional Resistance]

(Positive bonusesdoubledifa memberofHarbinger'sLegion|DoesnotstackwithotheritemscarryingaHarbinger'senhancement)

1,500,000/1,500,000 Mana Stored

+75% to damage resistances | +75,000 health | +500 health regeneration/min

It had a different kind of bonus then the gialgathen's armor did. It suited Torix more, though I'm sure the slight stunting of his mana generation was still a pain. Considering Torix focused on having a massive mana pool rather than regenerating it, I hoped it was worth it. Besides, the extra mana stored in the gemstones would more than make up for the difference.