High-King Xavlaeron’s jaw hung wide open. Airships were dropping one by one in front of him. They formed every barrier they could, but the magic circle adjusted its element to counter whatever they had available. They tried evasive maneuvers with as much speed as they could manage, but the large ships could not dodge the beams. They fired back with lightning and enchanted ballistae and spells from the onboard mages. One airship even fired back with a strategic spell of its own, though without the support of the Aesdes the spell was shaky and barely completed. Still, the mages of Mirima showed their quality as a massive cyclone of water rose into the sky and surged towards the Queen of the Dobhar…only for the cyclone to be vaporized entirely as her own spell fused its beams together.

No matter what his airships did, the Queen of the Dobhar simply overpowered them.

This…was not what his intel had reported.

He had been told to expect Sun Elf Archon levels of power, a mighty mage who could cast strategic spell unassisted, who could take on a legion in strength.

This…this was more like a dragon. A true dragon, the kind that mostly existed in legend for those lucky enough not to encounter them.

The High-King’s face turned grim. Technically speaking, his fleet had contingency plans for dragons, joint formations that could combine the barriers of all the ships into one. But that formation took time to set up, and so needed to be prepared ahead of the fight.

They were not prepared, and the Queen of the Dobhar would not give them the time to set up now.

Even as he thought, nearly half his ships had disintegrated and fallen from the sky. It would take the Queen of the Dobhar but a moment to destroy the remainder.

The Sky Legion couldn’t help either, its forces had already been deployed towards the sea below. And once the airships were gone, could individual men and women stand against this sort of power? No, the first mage, who he first believed was the Queen of the Dobhar, had apparently moved against them and was already giving them trouble.

They would be destroyed, if nothing changed.

High-King Xavlaeron spoke in a low, calm voice.

“Activate the Arcanum Caries.”

The Sentinels’ captain frowned at that.

“Your Majesty, is that wise? If we use it on a spell circle of that size and density…there’s a good chance we will be destroyed as well.”

High-King Xavlaeron kept his eyes on yet another airship as it broke apart.

“That is a certainty if we do not.”

The captain slowly nodded and gave the order. Soon, a glass orb on the High-King’s arm rest began to glow. High-King Xavlaeron laid his hand upon it and began to channel his mana into the device.

Blue mana in the form of lightning began to crackle around his flagship as magic circles lit up its entire hull. All the mana then accelerated forward and formed a crackling blue beam. The beam shot straight for the gigantic magic circle across the sky.

The beam struck the circle, and parts of the formation began to turn blue. High-King Xavlaeron winced but continued to pour his mana into the device.

The blue started to creep along the magic circle, but then the spell began to glow near the affected section. High-King Xavlaeron grunted, and the blue discoloration began to fade back towards the point of impact. The High-King heaved a sigh and reached into an inner pocket in his armor.

He pulled out a knife, engraved in magic circles.

He did not trust his ‘allies,’ nor did he have any interest in their apocalyptic doctrine. But that also did not mean he was a blind follower of the Aesdes. After all, Mirima was founded by those who threw off the chains of the Empire of the Sun.

So, as a certain, cagey benefactor requested cooperation in research regarding the Realms of Mana, High-King Xavlaeron was not fooled. He knew well who these people were and what the goal of their research was. But still, he not only permitted it, but gave the project his full support, tasking the foremost mages and scholars of Mirima to press forward in total secrecy. They knew these people had found a way to forcibly corrupt dungeons with power from the Realms of Mana. And though the full intricacies of that process was beyond them, Mirima's top minds had made progress in their understandings of mana, the Realms, and their interactions as a result.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

High-King Xavlaeron was not interested in corrupting dungeons. He felt that was a foolhardy idea. Corrupted dungeons were dangerous and uncontrollable. Yes, the cult had some sort of ritual that could bind a person to one but who would be controlling who in that instance? Would a normal person truly retain their sanity, much less their control, when fully exposed to the Realms of Mana down to their very core?

So the researchers of Mirima had taken the process in another direction, one they had not bothered sharing with the client. They had studied the process of mana-corruption itself, how mana from one source could invade and overtake another.

They had the invading part down, but the overtaking was giving them trouble. Rather than the corrupting effect the Realms of Mana displayed, their own mana-invasion methods caused the target to explode outright.

Which was more than enough for a weapon, one that would be especially potent against large spells.

If High-King Xavlaeron’s mana could invade the Queen of the Dobhar’s to a sufficient extent to cause a reaction, that was.

And it appeared that it could not.

So High-King Xavlaeron now had no choice, but to rely on that uncontrollable, unpredictable method he sought to avoid in the first place.

He stabbed the knife into the glass orb.

Immediately the blue lightning around the ship began to change color, turning purple. It also started lashing out towards the ship itself, tearing away small pieces of the enchanted stone and metal hull.

The purple color traveled up the beam and into the Queen of the Dobhar’s spell. The purple discoloration began to spread across the magic circle, at a much faster rate than before. High-King Xavlaeron took a deep breath.

“Sound the retreat.”

It appeared he had succeeded in corrupting the Queen of the Dobhar’s spell. The massive spell covering the sky with a formation as bright as the sun that contained enough mana to overpower the finest battle-airships Mirima or the Empire could produce.

Reaching a minimum safe distance would be…difficult.

Seero’s robotic eye flickered as a blue beam struck into her magic circle. She detected foreign mana intruding in her spell, but she simply increased the mana density in that part of the circle and drove it back.

But then…the beam turned purple, and began giving off abnormal readings. It converted into a mana-type she hadn’t encountered before…but one that gave off similar signs to the Rifts and corrupted dungeons she had encountered previously.

The new mana began to corrupt and twist her own, converting it into more of itself as it spread across the formation.

Seero was about to turn the attack on the ship responsible but there was a problem. The thread dedicated to managing the stability of the Supercharged strategic spell indicated that the corruption was causing blockages in the circle. Any attempt to fire the spell would cause an explosion of extraordinary proportions. Both she and her allies would be at an unacceptable risk of termination in that case.

And since she no longer had full control of the circle, she couldn’t simply cancel it either. Letting go of the mana would allow the corruption to do as it pleased.

So her robotic eye flickered as she considered her options.

The Equalizer could erase the mana in question…but the Equalizer’s maximum power output paled in comparison to the amount of mana in her Supercharged spell. The corruption was spreading faster than the Equalizer would be able to erase it.

An anti-mana warhead might do the trick, but an uncontrolled and explosive deconstruction of the magic circle was not recommended.

Siphoning the mana back into herself was also not recommended. The last thing she wanted was for the intrusion to spread to her internal mana.

So, she came up with a solution.

“Command: Friend Ateia, this unit requests assistance. Blessing parameters are as follows…”

Back in the Primary Home Base, Ateia was pacing about with a frown. She was watching the battle through her cybernetic components when Seero’s message came in. Her face lit up.

“Finally!”

She immediately sat down on the ground and got to work. She understood Seero’s rationale, Blessing required a great deal of focus for Ateia and didn’t require her to be physically present on the battlefield. In fact, if she was targeting Seero or her subordinates, then casting the Blessing from the Primary Home Base was actually easier, since she could use their connection to Seero’s cores as a guide. So it made a lot of sense to keep Ateia there, where she could focus on Blessing without any distraction or danger.

But she still hated sitting around at home while everyone else was out confronting danger. So she was very pleased to finally get involved in this fight.

Back on the battlefield, Seero’s Prismatic Bombardment spell began to glow with golden and silver light as Ateia’s mana and the Holy mana of the world streamed into it. Ateia had been practicing her Blessings, and had reached the stage where she could target objects, or even spell circles. This was made easier for any spell casted by someone in the CELIU network, since data shared through their cybernetic components could improve Ateia’s targeting.

As a result, Holy mana now flooded into the magic circle.

Seero calculated that if this corrupting mana was related to the Realms of Mana, that Holy mana would be highly effective in counteracting it. But she had already Supercharged the spell to the limit, so adding additional mana from herself would be difficult. Likewise, converting the spell to fire Holy Beams might affect individual Beam circles but wouldn’t fill the overall, connecting structure with Holy Mana, not to the extent that Ateia’s Blessing could. This method was calculated as the most efficient one.

And Seero’s calculations were correct.

The moment the Holy Mana contacted the corrupted area, the corrupted mana began to burn away. Of course, that meant parts of the spell circle were now being violently destroyed, but Seero focused with all her mana control and AI precision to repair the circle as the Holy mana moved through it. This was another benefit of having Ateia perform the Blessing, as it allowed Seero to focus entirely on the repairs. As such, she managed to avoid an explosion.

And as a side benefit, kept the spell active.

The spell that was now ready to fire once again.

Seero immediately turned her attention to the offending ship, which she had designated as a priority target…