Chương 90: Chapter 166 - Confronting the Elder Titan

As a scarlet dawn broke on the 28th, Mirian surveyed her arrayed forces one last time. From her vantage on her command ship, Mirian could distinguish Annita even at a distance from her distinctive eyepatch. Her hunters were spread out in an arc in the forest, with stone walls woven through the trees. With them, she could make out the drab robes of the Cult of Zomalator, ready to act as healers. Lecne looked up at her as her airship circled.

The cult wasn't exactly trained in battle, but life had hardened them in other ways. Plus, of all the allies she'd gathered, they knew what was at stake. The five skiffs all had been retrofitted by Torres with enhanced artillery. Commander Hirte would be leading the airships in maneuver and attack patterns. For now, at least, he looked focused, rather than wistful. On another skiff, she saw Respected Jei, back straight, projecting confidence, even though Mirian knew she was terrified.

More myrvite hunters, armed with armor piercing guns and spell mortars, camped out on the hillside that overlooked the emergence spot. Voran, Trinea, and the other Praetorians stood by them, though when the battle came, they'd be using levitation sprints to quickly move around the battlefield. Mirian had warned them about the myrvite titan's anti-magic. Finally, Mirian had her surprise. The workshops in Alkazaria had completed their orders, and the devices had been unloaded and readied.

Torres was overseeing that from a hill to the east, with Nicolus's assistance. The boy had insisted on helping, while Nurea had petitioned for the safest possible role. Back in Alkazaria, there was an investigation into bank transfer fraud, counterfeiting, illegal impersonation, and forbidden magic use. She'd already left, though. They'd be chasing a ghost. In Normag, the last piece of her plan was falling into place; a workshop and materials were being set up for her; the last of her special orders.

Now, she just actually had to defeat a titan. Sleep deprivation and exhaustion clawed at her, but she suppressed them, burning another thimble of soul energy from the repositories at her belt. Every waking hour of the past month had been directed towards preparations. This is it.

"Send in the bait," she ordered. One of the soldiers on the airship sent out a flare, and the men below started driving the oxen forward. Several times now, she'd sent them to Apophagorga who had devoured them eagerly. This had trained it to expect the gift. The beast had never experienced the assault afterward. With any luck, the titan would emerge in the center of the formation, distracted by the animals. If not, she had contingencies. The oxen reached the center, where a prepared pile of oats kept them busy.

While the animals grunted and chewed, the assault force waited. And waited. The chill of the air had long since settled into them, and she could feel the tension in the air. Mirian checked and rechecked her wands, spellbook, soul repositories and devices. The sun slowly crawled above the horizon. There was anticipation in the cloud of every breath. The divination device chimed.

"It's coming," Mirian said, heart pounding.

"Airships, ascend," she called out, echoing the command with a series of flares. The violet dot representing Apophagorga was rapidly tunneling through the earth. The mushroom trees by the oxen pulsed with light, and the ground began to rumble. The oxen looked around, oats forgotten. A violet flare shot out of the airship, followed by a yellow. Beast approaching. Mirian estimated the trajectory. Her heart leapt. Yes! It had taken the bait. A green flare followed. Target area.

With an eruption of soil, Apophagorga emerged, nearly on top of the oxen. It gluttonously seized the now panicked oxen with its tendrils and began stuffing them into its maw, the large beasts blackening as their souls were crushed before their bodies even made into that darkened pit of churning teeth.

"First strike!" she called. A red flare rose high above the battlefield. The artillery spoke with a thunderous roar, and the black shell of the beast exploded. Below, high powered rifles erupted in volley, while Annita's team sent cascades of fire toward it. Apophagorga bellowed. Mirian felt it in her bones. Reflexively, she stabilized her own aura. The titan began to look around wildly.

"Second strike. Be ready for it to phase," Mirian said using a remote speech spell to Voran. Sure enough, it appeared to vanish, and the Praetorians began their assault. Their spells appeared to do little, but Mirian knew they were detonating deep in the fourth spatial dimension. Three red flares went up next. If it couldn't phase, Mirian knew what it would do next. It was a terrifying predator, but it was also a creature of instinct. The cunning beast knew when to hide.

The artillery officers had already loaded the earthburrow shells into their guns. As the third flare shimmered in the morning air, the guns fired. Mirian looked at the detector. Sure enough, Apophagorga was attempting to burrow. With a rumble, the specially modified shells exploded deep beneath the earth, sending up eruptions of dirt while the ground below trembled. Apophagorga phased back into visibility in front of them, nacreous ichor leaking from dozens of gaping wounds.

It roared again, elephantine feet stomping, spined tendrils flailing.

"Fourth strike!" Mirian called. As the flares went up, all teams commenced their assault. From her vantage, she could see hundreds of spells and rifles bombarding the beast. The titan charged, heading for the treeline. The grievous wounds hadn't slowed it. If anything, it seemed to be moving faster.

"West group, immediate retreat. Hunter group south, cease mortar fire." Mirian said. To Voran, she said, "Praetorians, engage," Several colored flares went up, and Annita's hunters began running. Apophagorga hit the treeline like a hurricane, body smashing into three pines, sending them toppling as its tendrils scythed through the underbrush and stone. The walls fell before it like playing cards.

From the hill, the Praetorians took off, spreading out as they used brief levitation spells to 'hop' towards the beast, staying close enough to the ground that they'd be fine if they were targeted with the titan's nullifying magic. They began peppering it with spells, targeting the rear legs. Apophagorga ignored the gnat-like assault to chase the hunters. They'd scattered like they were supposed to, but it still caught three of them as it stampeded forward, consuming them in an instant.

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"Hunter group east, advance. Drivers, wagons into position." The titan continued its rampage through the forest, running down two more hunters and Pelnu. As Mirian watched with her focus, the soul energy in Apophagorga surged. Pulses of it ran through the beast, sealing off the gaping wounds. Its aura was still billowing about it like a cloud, suppressing almost all the spells. Mirian grimaced. They needed to hit it harder.

"Armor piercing rounds on three of the skiffs. Two keep earthburrow shells ready. Keep our altitude." Either the titan was still reluctant to use its nullifying ability because of the high cost of soul energy, or the airships were out of range. Either way, she wanted the artillery hitting it as long as possible. With practiced hands, the gunners reloaded the guns while the pilots brought them into position. The nice thing about Apophagorga smashing up the forest was it destroyed any possible cover.

The damn thing was inexorable. It had moved ahead, and now cut off the retreat of Annita and her group. Annita signaled for the others to run while she stood her ground, channeling an immense column of flame directly at the titan's mouth. Then she was gone. Despite her heroics, her team was gone a few moments later, snatched up by the roving tendrils. Thankfully, they didn't scream long. The artillery fired again and again, as fast as the gunners could reload.

Black carapace shattered as the armor-piercing shells exploded. The titan's soul rushed into the wounds like a gyre. Gradually, the aura was retracting, but too slowly. Voran and his Praetorians continued to cast, most of their spells hitting it in the fourth dimension to discourage it from hiding there. When the titan paused, Mirian ordered another round of earthburrow shells. They had a celestial detect life fuse that would only detonate if it detected a large soul.

With the west hunters scattered, the Praetorians became the beast's target. The problem was, the titan was too damn clever. Most predators were confounded by there being too many targets to track, but Apophagorga seemed to have no problem picking a target and then running it down. She watched as it targeted one of the Praetorians with a nullifying burst, then let out another roar.

With her focus, she could see the roar let out a pulse of soul energy—some sort of natural spell—that continued to batter at the auras of the Praetorians. Each time it hit them, it sapped more and more of their mana. They had mana elixirs, of course. But will it be enough? Mirian had needed to use six elixirs already this cycle, far above what she had aimed for, but she still had more at her belt just in case.

With her dervish training, she was confident she could detect and stabilize a bit of soul instability before it became a problem. Better to have to fix that than fail here. Another Praetorian was run down by the beast using repeated nullifying spells, then devoured, but most of them were retreating east as planned. The wagons were nearly in position. Apophagorga phased, pieces of its body seeming to vanish, then rapidly pounced. Another Praetorian fell. Unlike the hunters, though, they kept their discipline.

"Mortars, resume fire," Mirian said as the titan came back into the clearing.

"All hunters, fire at will!" As the flares conveying her orders went up, the beast's body lit up with explosions and fire. Mirian clutched the railing of the airship, fingers white. Slowly, they were wearing it down. The titan had left a trail of ichor to and from the forest, and where fire had charred its flesh, its soul was struggling to regenerate it. The drivers of the wagons, seeing the titan approach, panicked, abandoning the vehicles and running on foot. Too soon. But the Praetorians will adapt.

"Tack southward," she said to Voran. The First Praetorian didn't acknowledge her, but their loose formation began moving in that direction. They filtered between the wagons, their casting starting to grow wild as the beast pressed them hard, black nullifying rays shooting out each time they tried to levitate. Soon, they were just running on foot. She watched as Trinea downed a mana elixir, even as the titan roared again. The titan was forcing her hand.

"Phase shells on skiffs two and four, earthburrow on three and five. Command skiff, armor piercing." If Jei's spells worked like they had on the stone moles, the phase shells would detonate as the titan tried to leap through the fourth dimension, the glyphs of the shell directing most of the energy there. Mirian theorized it was more vulnerable there, and given how little it was attempting to phase, she thought there was credence to the theory.

Apophagorga hesitated a moment, then directed its many-eyed gaze directly at Voran. Shit, Mirian thought.

"Voran, you've just become the target. Make it count," she said through her spell. The titan charged, supernatural bellow echoing as it did. Then, as it approached the wagons, it scrambled to a halt, huge feet scrambling in the dirt as it attempted to slow its incredible bulk. It knows. It can sense it, Mirian realized.

"Detonate! Detonate now!" she screamed. An orange flare hung in the air. From her distant hill, Torres hit the first glyph switch. There was a sound like the very world tearing. The wagons near Apophagorga had been loaded with pure fossilized myrvite—and an ignition sequence. The fireball that erupted was blinding. Mirian's ship was the closest; she'd done the calculations and thought they'd be far enough, but she'd underestimated the burn rate of the fuel when multiple detonation sequences were applied.

The shockwave shattered her eardrums and damaged the stabilizing wings of the airship. The ship began to list, sending two of the crew sliding across the deck. The pilot had been dazed by the explosion. Mirian rapidly cast her healing spells, first on the pilot, then on her ears, then the rest of the crew.

"Repair that wing. Pilot, course correct." Mirian rushed back to the railing. The other airships were still in the air, though another of them had suffered some sort of damage. Its engine was smoking and its rudder was simply gone. It fired one last shell, but with no steering, it would be out of the fight. She looked down. Apophagorga was writhing in the ground as the D-class mana from the uncontrolled burn poisoned it. Its aura had become turbulent, and its limbs flailed. A screaming sound filled the air.

"Focus fire! All teams, fire, fire fire!" Mirian shouted, sending out the flare signals herself. Then she noticed something strange. The flows in the beast's soul had changed. They weren't gathering at the wounds anymore, but swirling about in spiral patterns—then brightening. Almost as if— Mirian's blood ran cold.

"All units fall ba—!" She was cut short as below, another explosion took place. This one wasn't of fire and brimstone, though, but of soul and raw arcane power. Apophagorga reared up. Four colossal rays of dark energy split from it, each hitting an airship directly in the engine. The glyphs on the engine shattered. The carapace on the back of the titan unfurled.

It wasn't at all like a beetle's carapace moving to reveal wings; rather, it was like the fractal pattern of a crystal shattering, like the dark armor was splitting apart and vanishing into the air. Beneath it, Apophagorga revealed six great wings, covered in eyes and spines, the flesh and feathers of them swirling about like a pot of tar being stirred. Two more appendages, more like scythes than arms, erupted from it and stabbed at the ground to anchor it. Mirian lingered just long enough to get a look at it.

She jumped from the airship, just before it began to spiral out of control, plunging toward the earth. As she fell, the beast sent out more nullifying rays. Mirian conjured Eclipse and interposed it between herself and the beast. She rapidly cast bursts of levitation to slow her fall, but even with the incredible spell resistance of the blade, the nullifying spell still tore at her spells. She managed to slow her plummet, but she was still falling far too fast.

Desperately, she embraced the Lone Pine stance and kept casting, even as the dark ray followed her. In her peripheral vision, she could see all four remaining airships plummeting. She glanced at Jei's, and her heart skipped. Respected Jei had taken over the controls of her airship and was directing the ship directly towards the titan. No! Mirian thought, but she was too far, and Apophagorga was still targeting her.

There was another explosion, and the shockwave passed over Mirian sending her dark hair flying and skirt billowing. The ray ceased, and Mirian managed a full levitation spell, just before she hit the ground. She grit her teeth, landing. The hunters had been decimated. The Praetorians' strength, depleted. The airships were out of the fight. Apophagorga loomed above her, twice as tall now that it was reared up on its hind legs.

Its eldritch wings blotted out the sky, and along its belly, she could see dozens of mouths, slavering and ravenous, filled with too many teeth. It falls to me, then, Mirian thought, and opened up Luspire's spellbook.