Chapter 273: Chapter 271 ~ A Fleet on the River of Death

War is much akin to a game, people can be rather affronted at the comparison. An understandable emotional reaction, from a person assuming the worst, thinking that you find the violence of war to be ‘fun’, but the comparison remains true.

And it isn’t fun.

Winning can be exhilarating, turning the tables on your enemy and grasping victory from failure is so incredibly satisfying, the experience is much more intense than in any meaningless game.

Yet there is a reason why we play meaningless games, we don’t make Friday Russian roulette night instead of poker night.

Victory in war is so real and visceral because the consequences are just as real. Even when you don’t lose, there are losses. Pains, scars, and dead friends. Anyone would rather lose a round of poker than lose a friend.

Summoning magic through my rage, determined to shape reality by my own will, I turn the enemy into ash and mince. I spend more mana than I can properly afford, but the show of violence can sometimes be enough to dissuade further violence. I cannot sue for peace, I cannot force them into surrender, but I can scare the enemy into retreat, or so I thought.

As I’m still focused on the foes before me, others, disguised and hidden in plain sight, assault from behind. I haven’t the magic ready to respond to them, too much was wasted in the last battle, and while my warriors are fighting their best, they aren’t as experienced as I’d want them to be.

Fast and slippery, the enemy squad seizes the initiative not bothered that their allies are dead before me, they steal aboard my ship as shadows in the day, surrounding a young man. He’s an ogre if I’m to describe him, and I can barely recognise him as one of the young men who frequents the theatre. His toothy grin, so silly and cheerful, is absent today.

His friends quickly respond to the threat, trying to reach him but the enemy is faster. They cut at his elbows, shoulders, knees and ankles, cutting him down to the ground, subduing him.

As he’s held down by one soldier, another stands calm and ready for the execution. This ritual is meant to keep them clean of sin even as they bloody their hands with murder.

I throw a few quick spells their way, but I’m too slow and the others are too weak.

With a swift stomp on the ogre’s head, his teeth are crushed and his body is still. I’ll not be seeing him in the crowd at the next show. In the distant parts of my mind, I can hear his obnoxious guffaws distracting from the show itself.

The deed done, the soldiers now surrounded and outnumbered, turn away to retreat. A winged warrior slashes out at them with a spear, shouting in rage and pain. He chases them from the boat and continues after them.

When they’re all far enough from us, the soldiers turn around to fall upon the winged warrior, thinking him another easy prey.

They won’t have him too.

I throw enough destruction their way to force them back into retreat, but not one of theirs is dead. I had no chance to focus my spells, all this has happened in the seconds that passed after I slaughtered the first squad of enemies.

Before I can even come to terms with the results of this skirmish more shadows come to harass us.

I pause for but a heartbeat, my heart and soul shuddering with rage that I can’t properly express. My blackened heart stews in dark rage inspired towards violence that I can’t fully express. I would tear my enemies from reality if it weren’t for my own impotence.

I grit my teeth and summon what response I can afford as more shadows come to steal from me.

There is no magical solution, no answer that will give me what I want in the time that I have. This is a battle with assured casualties, and there’s no way to upset the board to save everyone.

“Gather your weapons, stand in tight formation!” I shout, sending the message to everyone in reach. “We fight together! All of us!”

I know what this will cost us. I know that this is a bad choice, but it’s the best of all the options that I can see. I want to scream for help, but this was as much Red’s solution as it was mine, and Arduelle isn’t going to show herself here and now.

I haven’t the strength, and I haven’t the allies.

“Don’t hesitate, don’t hold back!” I call knowing that my warriors will wound each other in their desperation. “Elites, come with me, we’ll take this ship and all here too.”

In the courtyard below, some few of the more beastly students are already rising up against their captors, but without weapons and support they’re already being slaughtered. My mind and heart burn as more soldiers charge at us, quickly surrounding allies and taking them down before we can respond.

My magic is enough to delay or stop some, but there’s always another group. Always another of us who falls before I can save them.

Tightening our lines, with the help of the weaker warriors below helps us to keep the enemy from surrounding us, but more injuries build up from their ranks as they accidentally wound one another in the tight melee.

This is wrong.

But I have no answer better.

“Get on, or we’ll leave you behind!” I shout to the people gathered in the courtyard below. Most start funnelling themselves onto the ship as an army pulls aside those too slow. The only reason anyone stands a chance is because of the rituals that the soldiers are forced into.

They take so much time with each killing that the others stand a chance to retreat onto the second ship, which I and my more powerful warriors are now claiming for ourselves.

I’m not surprised to find the enchantments damaged before I can even reach them. I still collar the pilot and, using Adler’s directions, I order him into submission.

There are no soldiers on the ship to fight, I soon find. They’re all outside claiming and killing my people as I’m chaining another pilot to my will.

More of mine die.

More violence.

More senseless killing.

I cast my magic as well as I can, melting the hands and legs of the soldiers that would take what is mine, but there are too many and my attacks are far from enough.

A squad of shadows swoop down through the skies to capture Rare, my draconic companion. The small lizard struggles but it’s clear she’s not strong enough to escape on her own. I focus on her, melting down every hand that would touch her. The enemy becomes but mince scattered on the stone, but my distraction costs a half dozen others their lives.

She is safe, but others are gone.

More still are dying, betrayed, and abandoned. I can’t save them.

I must save them.

I can’t.

Watching them die, frustration builds in me, burning through my blackened heart quickening and strengthening the talent that aids me. Yet, even this is but a small push against the tide.

The enemy no longer stays for long enough for us to slay them one by one. They rotate, washing over us in ceaseless waves and retreating as the next wave hits, keeping us so busy that I can’t charge up one of my most powerful spells. Even if I could, then the dead would simply be replaced by the next wave, ready to step in.

This tactic is clearly superior to what they have shown us thus far, and I’ve no response but to feed them the flesh that they demand of us.

My teeth crack under the force of my tense jaw, my hands are clenched so tight that I’m not even bleeding from where my nails cut into my palms.

The last of my people board the second ship, and I have the doors closed in the faces of the soldiers. Locks and defences activate, keeping them from boarding. I know that they could break through if they were determined enough, but they see no need to damage such expensive equipment. It’s better for them that many more die in this war of attrition than for this ship should have to be repaired.

Even as we take off and fly to the next troubled group of slaves, the death is unending. Soldiers come, kill, and leave us without the chance to reply. Or worse, we slay them in the small opportunity we’re given just for others to climb over their corpses.

They weep.

They cry in pain, and grief as they watch their own die.

Yet, they won’t stop fighting.

I see the same soldier come and go a half dozen times, he bears wounds greater every time yet somehow he feels invincible. I throw a dozen spells his way just to cut him down and quiet that twisted delusion.

His allies scream at the sight, and my attentions turn to them instead.

The tide continues to wash against our ships, stealing sailors from our very arms. No matter how we struggle, we can fight back the waves, but we can’t beat the ocean.

Sometimes, something greater and more powerful forces its way aboard, a soldier or officer more powerful than even myself. I rush them, pull the collar from them and drain them for their mana to keep myself strong enough to fight.

My magic is barely enough to keep the enemy at bay for some short time, but even so, our numbers grow slim. The elites survive longer as the weaker people are targeted first, replaced by others who are brave enough to climb from the protection of the ship’s hold.

I don’t know what has possessed them, such that they climb so readily into the slaughter, wielding broken table legs hammered through with the claws, fangs, and spines of the dead. Those who rise, the bravest of them, are the first to die.

I can’t save them.

I hyperventilate and it’s well beyond my control but my mind remains clear, fuelled by mana even though I struggle to grasp any air.

Our small fleet crash as a pair into a third ship, stealing it too, we take aboard those who want to fight. Those who want to live.

More who are willing to face death for a chance to live.

I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore as I guide us to the next vessel and the next. Losing people, finding people, death and growth, and a bloody cycle of violence that I can’t break away from.

I feast on corpses to find the strength to defend the few who I can save. My talents, my strength, I squeeze everything out and it’s barely enough to keep us above the water.

But it’s not enough.

I’m too weak.

More and more I find myself favouring those I know best, at least among the ones who are still living. After them, I spend more effort saving people for silly reasons.

First, the people who I find pretty, who stir a small longing in my heart. To see them hurt crushes me slightly more than the others.

Then it’s those with something eye-catching about them; a young man with bright blue spikes for hair, a girl with a stone face broken with horns made of bone, and a plant that writhes on the hull without taking the shape of a person.

I don’t really mean to choose these people, but acting on instinct when the moments come, I can only observe my own actions as a stranger might. Some people I favour with my protection, and some I abandon when I have to make a choice between them and others.

Dazed, I gaze upon the world through my Skills. I feel disconnected from my body and give only simple commands as we all struggle against the tide. My body acts as if beyond my own will, doing what I ought to do, what’s right to do.

Violence and death soak into the wood and crystal that make these ships. As our fleet grows, fewer and fewer fill the lower decks, those who are still there are the cowardly few who decided to hide while others fought.

Do they deserve the safety that they’re granted by the sacrifices of others? Their cowardice grants them life, only because of braver people dying in their stead.

Living.

Dying.

We push ever onward.

I glimpse only briefly the sight of Red and her team rising into the sky, ready to take the glass egg and free us from this world, but even should they succeed, there will be more violence waiting for us on the other side.

This is the cycle that we live in now, it is all that’s ever been. We struggle against one another, consume the flesh of the fallen, and bring more life into our fights.

After some time, so long that I can’t quite understand it, there’s nothing more to fight.

“Is it over?” Rare asks, stumbling to the deck huffing and puffing. The dark smoke rising from her nose, stains the deck as she coughs only small sparks still glowing where she tries to breathe flames.

Shy trembles where she stands beside me, her hands stained in so much blood and ash that I can’t even see the natural colours of her skin and fur any longer. She blinks down at her hands, then at the crew behind us.

They’re still worse off.

We’ve run out of potions, weapons are damaged where still useable, and the last of the rifles is covered in blood and made into a club. The surviving warriors are barely still standing, and the brief silence and pause is enough for them to collapse.

I recognise a few combat students and some people from the gangs under the surface. Others seem to be proper students, drawn into the fight by their survival instincts when they realized that there’s nowhere for them to run.

“They’re still out there,” I say, turning to look at the soldiers beyond the sight of most. They gather, heal, and recover. Officers and high-ranked soldiers seem to be preparing for something, but there is no longer any rush. We coast on calm waters as storms darken every horizon.

“Gather weapons, patch up your wounds, eat, shit, and get ready for the next wave,” I say, looking to see who I’ve still got at my side. We’ve lost a few ships, but seven stolen ships still float in our small fleet. We float together as if attached at the mast.

Yet, the crew on most are weary, bloody and out of their minds. Weapons are clutched tight, and the wounded are left untended.

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They’re barely even combat capable, but they still want to live.

I laugh.

The darkness writhing inside of me twists around into strange new patterns, reflections of the wounds I received before. A patchwork of pieces sewn together by rage and fear.

I laugh.

Eshya is hurt, I don’t know how bad.

Vii and Adler are charging into the monster’s den, and I’m here leading brave sacrifices to their deaths.

What is it all for?

Life, war, what’s the point of any of it?

It’s stupidly simple.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?” I ask, stifling the maddened laughter bubbling up from within.

“What?” Rare asks, finding her feet, her muzzle still stained black with ash.

“To get to the other side.” I laugh.

I turn my mind towards the violence, ready to wade through whatever mires stand between me and the future that I want for. This violence is but a moment that we must push through, for the sake of what’s waiting for us after.

Dreaming of tea and cakes with my friends and lovers in a beautiful garden home, I condense mana into my body and ready myself for the next stage of this war.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Stats and Skills

 

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 37,102 / 60,892 units

Current mana volume: 18,444 / 30,271 shards

 

Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):

Kyra: 30,271 shards

Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards

Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards

 

~Forms

Mana Canon

-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)

-Blood Fuel (Adapted)

-Bone Magic Storage (Adapted)

-Nail Shifters (Adapted)

 

Dancer

-Flash Nerves (Adapted)

-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)

-Burst Reflex Muscles (Adapted)

-Layered Space Muscles (Adapted)

 

Turtle

-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)

-Catalyst Sweat Glands (Adapted)

-Repulsive Skin (Adapted)

-Prehensile hair (Adapted)

-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (Adapted)

 

Investigator

-Wide eyes (Adapted)

-Wide ears (Adapted)

-Sharp nose (Adapted)

 

Misc.

-Clean bowels (Adapted)

-Mana Drive (Adapted)

 

 

~Favourited Skills:

 

Magic:

-Annihilation Magic (Customised)

-Fire Magic (Functional)

-Space magic (Broken)

-Force magic (Functional)

-Ice magic (Broken)

-Wind magic (Broken)

 

Movement:

-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)

-Mana surge movement (Functional)

-Stealth (Functional)

 

Senses:

-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)

-Combat Awareness (Functional)

-Watchmen (Functional)

-Hidden bug (Mastered)

-De-tagging (Mastered)

-Anti-stealth sight (Mastered)

 

Special:

-Spirit Transformation (Broken)

-Conformity (Broken)

-Training mana form (Functional)

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