Chapter 468: Nothing can stop me
It wasn’t just the greater demon with magic. Navi flickered with effort at Blake’s side, calling out spells as half a dozen kinds of spells flared between the approaching armies.
Blake really wished he’d had the time to appreciate how cool it all was. But the bugs were definitely trying to kill him. Like specifically him. Like a lot of the time.
It was a bit rude.
“They don’t like you, wizard!” shouted the orc lord from beside Blake’s train, his shamans’ magic seemingly protecting the army with ease.
“Infernal magic, master. A series of projectiles. And a cone.”
Navi had taken to flying directly in front of Blake to absorb some magic personally. She whipped back and forth taking hits like a champ, somehow ignoring it without a problem. And maybe even some benefit. Because Blake’s mana wasn’t going down as fast as it should have been.
He channeled yet another burst to disperse another spell or two, shaking his head as he looked at his bar.
“Are you giving me mana back somehow, Navi? I should be lower.”
“Yes, Master.” Navi took another hit and zipped off. “I can absorb most simple spells if they hit me directly. But it’s dangerous. If I take too much, I might…well. It wouldn’t be good.”
The little familiar was endlessly useful. But Blake was getting rather annoyed at getting smacked without smacking back. He levitated a few javelins out of his train and waited for another few bugs to take their shots. Then he skewered the little bastards.
It wouldn’t matter much, no doubt. But it was extremely satisfying.
The orcs at last closed the gap, the brown tower’s heavy infantry all lifting throwing spears with frightening unison. They roared and threw, the missiles launched like a flock of long birds before striking the demon’s line with a chorus of breaking carapace and slopping ichor.
Orc ‘skirmishers’ fell back or got the hell out of the way, still shooting arrows or launching rocks from slings. Then the infantry charged.
The ground shook as a few hundred giant orc warriors in metal armor thumped across the barren field. Demons shrieked and skittered to meet them, a horrific mix of impossible creatures with endless limbs and eyes.
Blake supposed the orcs hadn’t so much ‘charged’ as ‘marched fast’. They were still in formation—a long line of heavy shields that were now swung or jabbed like weapons as the orcs knocked back their enemies or trampled them under iron boots.
The orcs led by Halvar slowed and waited near Blake. It was clear their job or at least interest was to get at that greater demon, which seemed a suitable if unpleasant task for the specialist orcs. Blake decided he’d best help clear them a path.
He sent all his constructs straight at a single piece of the demonic line to break through, floating javelins up beside them to start skewering.
“Go with them,” he called to Annie. “But be careful. And fall back if you…”
She’d already leapt out of the train from her spot near the front, and charged. Blake sighed and tried to take comfort in the knowledge that Ilya could probably heal her back at the tower if she got badly wounded.
The orc snake and lizard ‘cavalry’ came out from behind the infantry and charged somewhere on the other side of the fight, but Blake couldn’t see much. But Halvar saw the constructs smashing their way forward and seemed to get the idea.
He called to his warriors, then lifted his mace and moved to a jog behind the constructs. Blake was tempted to send his train forward and join them, but he knew it was just a matter of time before that greater demon decided he should…
“Mind Blast, master! A wide cone. Vast power.”
Blake held up a hand and relaxed his eyes to see the magic. He could use his own mana to counter most spells, pulling apart their components in real time. But the more mana used on the spell the more it cost him to stop it. Mental/psionic magic was far easier, but still…how much mana exactly did greater demons have?
He had no time to consider. He decided to just knock out a chunk as a test, spending a relatively small amount of mana to block about a quarter of the cone from his area of the fight. He was hoping those shamans could handle the rest.
The demon’s black and blue bruise of a spell washed over the army, crackling as it touched the green mist surrounding the orcs. Blake’s efforts were successful, the cone shrinking as his mana touched it, but the rest still struck home.
Magic mixed and swirled, and the chanting of the shamans rose as the orcs seemed to cower. Then the cone was gone, and the orcs remained. Blake couldn’t help but smile.
He suspected his greenskin allies had been able to send more force because they’d been attacked. But they were demonstrating real power here. Maybe Mason could single-handedly slaughter a lot of them with enough time. But most players couldn’t. Not even close.
A proper orc army, especially with some goblin support, would be a huge asset in a war against the eastern players. Seeing them in battle was just reinforcing Blake’s belief that he was doing the right thing. As long as he could keep them as allies…
“More spells, master. Arcane. Abyssal. Infernal. Psionic. I’m detecting auras, projectiles…sorry I’m losing track...”
Blake winced and saw the demons had reacted to Halvar and his warriors. There were larger demons in the back moving to intercept them, dark magic spewing out from their cluster in a growing miasma.
He wasn’t totally sure how to help them more than he already was. He could summon more constructs, but he was a bit scared to sit there channeling with that greater demon watching…
He looked towards the orcs, thinking he’d maybe ask Malik to send reinforcements, when he noticed a) the orc leader was in battle and not useful. And b) one of the lizard cavalry was coming running, far behind the the rest of the orcs and entirely on its own.
It twisted and bounced like the rider was fighting it, and Blake blinked when he realized it was his goblin engineer, Pliny.
The goblin waved, and nearly fell off his lizard. He was carrying some kind of…device, that looked like…well, like a gun.
Pliny eventually reached the train and jumped off his mount, which made an angry hiss before bolting off.
“Terrible creatures,” Pliny grumbled, fiddling with his device as he stood and smiled with all those horrible teeth. He arranged himself and strapped the thing to his side, and now that it was up close it looked like he was carrying a God damn mini-gun.
“Does that thing…work?” Blake asked, trying not to be concerned.
“Of course, master.” The goblin smiled. “Pliny is world’s greatest inventor.”
Blake smiled with considerably less enthusiasm.
“OK, Pliny. Don’t aim it anywhere near any orcs, please. But you can shoot at things fighting my constructs. Over that way.” He gestured, and the goblin nodded and waddled forward as if struggling with the weight.
Blake waited for a few seconds, then decided to use his Partition to summon another construct, his conscious mind staring at the horrible demon in the back. Literally the second he started channeling, the giant bug twisted and cast.
Sometimes it was annoying always being right.
“Mind Rend, master. Aimed straight at you.”
Blake sighed and tried not to complain that his own version of Mind Rend had very limited range. But he suspected the spell was basically the same—which was to say physically targeted. It was a lot easier to move than counter it.
He mentally commanded his train forward for a short sprint, and the construct practically spun its wheels as it charged.
A few things happened at once. First, Blake nearly fell off the back of his train. Second, his channel got interrupted and he lost it entirely. Third, the demon’s Mind Rend ripped a little hole in the world right where Blake had been sitting. And, finally, Blake realized, his bull-train plowed on, with absolutely no intention of stopping.
I’m the juggernaut, it muttered in his mind. Nothing can stop me.
Blake bounced and held on for dear life as the thing charged towards the demons. Seul-ki was shouting something about stopping it, but it didn’t seem very helpful to explain he couldn’t. In what felt like seconds they had raced forward and rammed some hapless bug, bouncing over it and aiming for a larger cluster.
Halvar and his warriors were at least holding their own, moving forward in a tightly packed half circle as they hacked and crushed their way towards the greater demon. It seemed whatever magic the enemy was using didn’t bother them, and Blake would have liked another moment to appreciate the ambition of his alliance.
But his train rolled right past them. Navi was zipping out now to try and turn it, except there were so many targets it didn’t seem that interested in the light. About the same moment Blake was considering lifting/stopping the thing with Telekinesis, he heard a distinctive sound he had only really heard in a movie.
It was a metallic whirl—a spinning chamber of steel that belonged in Terminator, the weapon hanging off Arnold Schwarzenegger as he took out police cars. Instead, it was held by a four and a half foot tall goblin.
Blake decided it would be better to look like an idiot than be full of holes. He grabbed Seul-ki and pulled her to the floor of his construct train, ready to direct a lot of mana into his physical shield.
For a moment he was ready to relax, get back up and maybe jump off his raging bull to get to safety. Then the air filled with bullets. Or God knew what. And Blake decided to stay right where he was.