Wandering Knight
Chapter 497: Deeper Still
A low, resonant tremor echoed through the heart of Skyborne City. At its core, four great furnaces poured their energy into the World Anchor, pushing its operational efficiency close to eighty percent. The vast, rotating metal pillar began projecting fragments of the material realm into corresponding loci within the void.
In the distance, the colossal phantom had since raised its arms. A rolling surge of consciousness spilled forth from it. Things unseen in the material realm were, in the void, starkly visible.
Much like the divine domain formed during a god's descent, the tide spread outward from the void, corroding the minds of nearby creatures and twisting their souls until they conformed to its will.
The tide of consciousness surged toward them. Yet Skyborne City made no move to summon a deity or seek divine shelter. The battle raged on. The runic arrays on the chest of a towering Iron Titan unfolded fully, its inscribed gravitational arrays roaring at maximum output.
Arcs of violet lightning enveloped the expanse before it as an immense, unseen force pressed everything within that region straight down into the depths of the earth.
With flawless coordination, one Iron Titan locked a vast swath of foes under an overwhelming gravity field, crushing the weak outright and pinning the strong in place.
The other Titans maintained the advancing line, their massive frames bearing high-output magical shields to deflect enemy assaults.
One Titan peeled off from the formation, diverting its shield power into its arms. Weapon systems housed within the colossal limbs surged to full charge. A violent hum rattled through its arm; then it raised the limb high and brought an earth-shattering iron fist crashing down.
Then came the eighth-tier spell Seismic Corridor. Countless shockwaves rippled outward through the shattered ground, racing toward all within their range. The enemies already crushed beneath extreme gravity could barely move. Evasion was all but impossible.
The earth was torn apart. Topsoil, stone, and dust erupted skyward as jagged earth-spikes speared upward in dense formation, skewering bodies in an instant.
The violent shockwaves conveyed through those channels were transmitted up the spikes, forcing flesh, organs, bone, and blood to convulse.
Blood burst from ruptured vessels. Bones and muscle twisted and gave way. From eye sockets, nostrils, mouth, and ears, trembling streams of blood jetted outward. Bodies collapsed lifelessly, their remaining vitality guttered out within moments.
A handful of knights weathered the gravity, and their defenses held against the spikes. But it made little difference. From afar, knights had far less impact on a battlefield than magicians.
And within the Alliance legions waited over a hundred legendary knights, warriors rarely seen in peacetime but who had gathered here for this very fight.
The combat didn't cease. Massive blades of fighting spirit ripped the ground apart; the shockwaves of clashing energies from the Utopia's knights and the Alliance's knights were in no way inferior to the blasts unleashed by spellcasters.
Yet the Utopia had far fewer legendary knights, nowhere near enough to pressure the Alliance lines.
The reason was simple: a legendary knight's body could not be reproduced by void constructs. At their level, legendary knights had to heal their own wounds; healing magic had negligible effect on them given their constitution.
"The psychic assault is about to reach us. Clerics of the Alliance, get ready to pray for divine—wait... what is that?"
The field commander aboard Skyborne City, monitoring the battlefield, saw the onrushing psychic storm flooding through the void. Its sheer size triggered an instinctive dread.
Even with the World Anchor having been tested repeatedly, it was hard for him to banish his doubts. Fortunately, Skyborne City had prepared contingency plans in advance. But now, new anomalies were appearing across the battlefield.
"Those are... souls? But why haven't they been dispersed by the battle's aftershocks? There's some sort of void signature clinging to them. These must be the souls of those Utopia members we killed earlier."
Indeed, the souls of Utopia operatives who had been cut down in battle were attempting, as they once had against the Church of Nightfall, to slip through minuscule void cracks and return to the void. But they could do so no longer. They were trapped within the material world, unable to escape, and the faint void energy clinging to them was being consumed by the ambient shockwaves until their forms began to crumble.
At that very moment, the psychic assault unleashed by the giant phantom in the distance finally reached them.
Within the void, the tide, originally meant to subdue all minds capable of thought, suddenly collided with something solid. It split around the obstruction, flowing on while leaving a great spherical hollow in its center.
That hollow corresponded exactly to the location of the Alliance army. A vast spherical domain enveloped the entire force. The World Anchor's protection diverted the tide of consciousness completely, shielding all within from mental erosion.
"Unusual souls detected—likely those of the Utopia members who died on the battlefield. They're trying to escape into the void but are being trapped by the material domain generated by the World Anchor. Further analysis..."
The observer transmitted this intelligence through Skyborne City's communication network. The conclusion soon revealed the underlying membership structure of the Utopia.
"The anchor is working—that's good news. And if we can prevent these souls from returning to the Utopia, it should be a significant blow to them. Maintain the advance!"
Icarus reviewed the latest report, a measure of satisfaction stirring in his chest. The research notes he uncovered had not been in vain. The data within had genuinely pushed Skyborne City's void research to a new plateau. He raised his voice, rallying the armies pressing deeper into the Ashen Wastes.
The reason those souls could not return to the void was the World Anchor now thrumming at full output. If void rifts and "nodes" represented the void's invasion into the material realm, then the World Anchor was the inverse: the material realm's counter-invasion into the void.
Casting the material realm into the depths of the void was akin to carving out a material domain within that formless expanse. Within such a domain, any power that relied upon the void would no longer function.
Thus the souls that sought to return to the void found themselves trapped. They were forced to linger until the battlefield's raging aftershocks tore them apart, their essence unraveling into nothing.
The colossal phantom upon the horizon faded as the tide of consciousness swept past. The assault that had once posed mortal peril to the Alliance failed to take hold; the army's advance did not slow by so much as a breath.
With the World Anchor's domain suppressing the Utopian spires, most wizardry was crippled outright. In concert with Skyborne City, the Alliance was finally able to reveal its true might in war.
Alchemical cannons, clustered spell arrays, titanic constructs—firepower poured forth from Skyborne City like a storm blotting out the heavens. The front ranks pressed steadily onward, smashing apart the spires the Utopia conjured out of the void.
This vast material domain stripped the Utopia of many of its former advantages. Their previous stratagem of selectively imbuing existences close to those in power among the continent, as had been the case with Emmon and Wang Yu, proved useless before the unified strength of the Alliance.
Right as these spires manifested, a deluge of destructive power crashed upon them. Bound by the material domain, unable to turn immaterial or shield themselves with the void, the spires could not endure. No matter how unyielding their structure, they could not survive even a minute against the Alliance's overwhelming fire.
Before they could enact their intended role, they were annihilated outright. Skyborne City and the Alliance were nothing like the smaller Church of Nightfall. They represented the continent's might, and the conditions of the battlefield had finally aligned to allow them to reveal their true strength.
No matter the foe or the unforeseen, they would advance exactly as planned. And the plan was simple: "Not one step back. Press forward."
The Alliance had never lacked for firepower. With every usable resource across the continent gathered together, they boasted impressive strength. What they had lacked was merely a way to counter Utopia's "new techniques." Yet now, by a certain turn of fate, the Alliance itself had become the new element—the unknown variable—in the Utopia's calculations.
A mighty Iron Titan drove its iron-clad fist straight into the final spire in its sector. The explosive impact snapped the structure like brittle glass. As it toppled and crumbled, all the Utopian forces nearby were cleared away. Their enemy seemed to have finally realized that deploying more spires would simply be a waste of resources.
With their relentless advance, the troops of Skyborne City could now see the colossal subterranean entrance at the heart of the Ashen Wastes.
"Icarus, we're preparing to head underground. Has there been any word from the Church of Nightfall? It's been some time since we received their last report."
A member of the Council of the Arcane hurried to Icarus's side.
"Press on. Verify that all protective devices against the Wastes' combustive energy are functioning properly. As for the Church of Nightfall, there is no need to concern ourselves. We must mind our own duties."
Icarus glanced at a private message sent by Wang Yu, stowed the communicator, and spared no further thought for the Church. His orders were calm and steady.
"Understood!"
The council member saluted and returned to his station.
"The true trial... begins now."
With a heavy whisper meant only for himself, Icarus gazed toward a distant point. Not the yawning underground entrance drawing nearer, but back along the path the Alliance army had taken to reach this battleground...