City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

A Historic Victory

The skies were filled with a mix of Richard’s summons and the reapers, making it difficult for Richard’s party to distinguish friend from foe. They fought with pure instinct amidst dragon breath, magma balls, and corrosive strikes, the exploding warships and dying cries of the summons intertwining into a deafening cacophony.

In the midst of this chaotic battlefield was a rather special creature, an adorable little dragon that was only two metres long. Tiamat had felt rather uneasy over the past few days, with the nagging feeling that something bad was going to happen. She hadn’t been able to sleep nor eat properly, and now her fears had come true. She had been pulled away from her cave by the strength of her contract without warning, being tossed into a completely unfamiliar environment. A large warship had appeared less than three metres away from where she landed, its beam cannons filled with the power of death. It was only after she swatted the strange metal ship away by instinct that she realised just what it was.

“What is a reaper doing here?!” she screamed with rage. As someone who had lived for many generations, she had seen images of most reaper warships before. Although not all warplanes looked alike, these metal creations with no souls were a hallmark of destruction.

From Tiamat’s perspective, the reapers were a threat second only to Sharon in danger. Now completely awake, she felt a chill down the length of her spine and subconsciously grew in size to regain most of her strength. However, this change attracted the attention of the surrounding reapers and gave her a clear view of all the machines around her. Was it thousands? Tens of thousands? Had Richard summoned the weyr to fight this?

It would have been difficult for the weyr to fight a thousand reaper warships, but there were clearly ten times that number around here. Victory wasn’t even a consideration; just surviving for more than a minute would be an achievement.

“RICHARD!” she screamed as she saw hundreds of energy beams being shot towards her, instinctively shrinking herself back down to dodge them. The feeling of bullets whizzing past her scared her out of her mind, melting away the tyranny of the dragon that was once considered a demigod. Fortunately, her power still remained; allowing her to zip around like lightning as she swatted enemy after enemy to the ground.

The sheer number of stray shots made the chaotic battlefield dangerous even if one wasn’t targeted, but Tiamat noticed a strange stretch of space where the warplanes weren’t attacking much at all. She rushed over immediately, with almost no reapers attacking her the moment she entered, but as she smiled and looked ahead to find out just why her eyes went wide.

Right at the centre of the area was a dark orb a few centimetres wide, one that she recognised immediately. She turned around and tried to fly away, but her wings felt exceptionally sluggish like she was a snail. She now understood why the warplanes around her weren’t attacking; they were escaping as well!

“RICHARD! I’LL HATE YOU FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!”

The rushing Richard suddenly felt his heart throb, as though he had been cursed, but the sound was softer than a fly’s buzz and he ignored it instantly. All of his attention was focused straight ahead as he continued to fly as quickly as possible, charging into the mothership in the sea.

His flight quickly reached a pace where the reaper bullets couldn’t even catch him, only the energy beams still fast enough to hit. He didn’t even bother dodging the sparks all around, simply allowing his body to bear the damage as he charged to the centre of the ship like a shooting star. All of Faelor’s strength was poured into his body for this dive, origin energy being channeled into him through his laws. The plane itself was investing its all in him as a last ditch effort to avoid its destruction.

The sea parted before him, exposing everything down to the bedrock to reveal the entirety of a slanted pillar. Richard crashed into the mothership at full speed, its barrier letting off blinding sparks as the full might of an epic being crushed it immediately. Most of his momentum stopped by the explosion around him, he gracefully flew down to the walls and plunged Moonlight’s sharp blade into the metal.

Cracks spread across the glossy surface, a glaring light shining through every gap. The night sky of Faelor suddenly turned white, forcing even Richard to close his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, the mothership had been disintegrated into countless components that floated in mid-air under the power of the light. All of the reaper warships froze in place as well, even starting to fall.

Richard waved his hand and collected all of the intact components into his spatial equipment, grabbing a small silver brick from amongst them. This was the last reserve of activated ember essence that the mothership possessed. Amongst the rest were things that he suspected to be the reactivation device and control centre; the only things that weren’t disintegrated entirely were things that he had failed to analyse.

As he absorbed Faelor’s origin energy to mend his injuries and search for anything that seemed useful, Nasia, Asa, and the rest rushed over at full speed. His success was obvious from the reapers coming to a halt, but they didn’t know just how much damage he had sustained for it. They had all seen the tornado of warships nearby, and knew that his wounds couldn’t be minor.

Richard heaved a sigh as he sensed that Nasia was the first to arrive. He didn’t have too much strength left at the moment, and Asa or even Greyhawk could kill him with ease. For some reason, the one person he knew nothing about continued to be someone he trusted more than his daughter or even Mountainsea.

Nasia blinked past Asa and Greyhawk, blocking their paths with her body as she smiled, “This is rather inconvenient, he isn’t wearing any clothes right now.”

The two looked towards each other, a thousand words being exchanged in their gazes before Greyhawk smiled, “It’s okay, we’ll wait outside the wall of fog.”

“That’s a good idea,” she agreed.

Richard finally relaxed; without another epic being nearby, his nervousness started to fade. However, a shout rang out before he could speak a word, “RICHAAAARD! STOP CHATTING AND SAVE ME, DID YOU FORGET ABOUT YOUR BLACK HOLE?”

Almost everyone around cringed, looking towards the source of the cries. If the black hole was allowed to progress, it could potentially destroy the entire plane. Even as Greyhawk and Asa looked at each other with surprise and considered fleeing into the void, Richard floated up and stared at Tiamat who had already been halted by the suction of the black hole. Some of his summons were still ravaging the battlefield, many of them like the demons and devils even fighting amongst themselves, while the shadow portal continued to spawn nightmare creatures that killed every living thing in sight.

He sighed, “I’ll take care of the black hole; Nasia, buff me. Greyhawk, Asa, go close the shadow portal and kill the nightmare creatures. Fiora, help Mountainsea take care of the demons, devils, and undead.”

Having assigned duties to everyone, he personally blinked to just outside the black hole’s range. His three faces appeared once more, shooting large fireballs into the all-swallowing dark orb.