High-Archon Vommik immediately began preparing a spell of his own the moment his servants were ambushed…which he hastily converted to defense as the sky lit up with magic circles. He barely completed a massive Sun Barrier in time as dozens of superbeams shot straight towards him. He grunted, and his eyes widened as his shield began to crack.

His mana density was among the highest in the world. What’s more, the beams assaulting him were a combination of Holy and Light. Light was a poor matchup against Sun, which contained Light within it, and out here on a bright desert day the Sun attribute was at its peak. Holy, while highly effective against monsters, dungeons, or anyone drawing on the Realms of Mana, had no particular effect against the inhabitants of Aelea. Against the High-Archon, it should have been only marginally more effective than unattributed mana would be.

And yet…despite the poor attribute matchup his spell was breaking under the sheer quantity of mana assaulting it. That meant that each of those strategic spells was cast with mana density exceeding his own. And Ritual Casting would average out the casters’ mana density rather than summing it, so the only explanation was that whoever was casting these spells had higher average mana density than the High-Archon.

There were a dozen of those spells. So either the Queen of the Dobhar had a dozen or more mages among her servants with such mana density…or she had such a quantity of mana and ability to split her focus that she could Multicast Strategic Spells…

Vommik was not sure which would be worse.

But Vommik’s pride was matched by his self-preservation instincts, and so he activated a Sun Dash spell as his barrier broke, pulling him out of the way of the attack even as he prepared a new spell. He opened up with another Sunfall targeting the Queen of the Dobhar, chaining his cast into another Sundash as she almost immediately adjusted her aim. Since his barriers could not hold against her for long, he needed to get her on the defensive as quickly as possible.

A small second sun formed in the sky as Vommik’s mana condensed down into the limit, igniting a ball of fire, light, and even lightning that was too bright to view directly. The temperature rose as the ball began to fall towards the Queen of the Dobhar.

The enemy had been underground for Vommik’s first strike, as the sand and rock in the way both reduced the power of Vommik’s spell and hid the targets from the sun above. Likewise, he hadn’t had direct eyes upon them, and the Queen of the Dobhar had clearly anticipated the attack, so he couldn’t say for sure if he had struck them directly. So, it was not unthinkable that they had survived the first assault.

But now Vommik’s spell was heading straight towards the Queen of the Dobhar with nothing but open sky between them. The sun was at its brightest and his spell was drawing additional power from it. Surely even a foe such as her could not emerge from such an attack unscathed…

Seero’s robotic eye flickered as she analyzed the incoming attack. High-Archon Vommik had managed to produce a miniature star, or at least a mana-based representation of one as Seero wasn’t detecting the levels of radiation that a star should emit at this range. Still, the spell was at least throwing off some electro-magnetic radiation, enough that it would disrupt some of Seero’s more sensitive components…

If it were not for 00B-Beta, that was. The being composed of mana, lightning, and code was happily absorbing all the ambient electro-magnetic energy and shielding Seero’s components in the process.

So Seero just needed to deal with the high-energy projectile headed her way. Seero converted one of her spell circles while the rest continued their assault, while requesting some assistance from Ateia.The circle shifted to a Prismatic Dome spell and laid itself on the ground. Ateia boosted over to its center and placed her hands on the ground, connecting with the nearby flows of Holy mana.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

In this case, the attribute chosen for the spell was Nature, Metal…and Cyber. The last attribute wasn’t named in the Aesdes’ system last Seero had checked it, but it was the most accurate designation she could apply to 00B-Beta’s mana, which seemed to match the mana produced by her Cyborg Dungeon Affinity. A massive tree with metal bark and an interior of combined organic matter and electronic machinery grew from the ground. Ateia filled it with Holy mana, accelerating its growth and strengthening the tree itself. Her connection to Seero and the Primary Home Base, along with her own experiences growing cyborg plants there, even allowed her to add a bit of a Cyber-flair to the Holy mana flowing through her.

The cyber-tree rose into the sky and spread its metal-coated branches in a circular canopy as the miniature sun spell approached. A bolt of straight lightning shot from Seero into the tree’s trunk, and circuitry began to light up along the tree as 00B-Beta extended itself to the tree’s circuitry.

And then…the spell struck. A massive explosion of flame, light, and lightning spread out across the canopy…and immediately dimmed. The tree’s organic components absorbed the Light mana to grow even stronger. 00B-Beta absorbed as much of the Lightning as it could before the excess was safely transferred into the ground by metal coated bark and roots. All that was left were the flames, but the tree’s metal coating made it less susceptible to catching flame than usual.

The spell tried to scorch the tree, but only ended up nourishing it. The High-Archon’s spell had failed to make any noticeable impact…

High-Archon Vommik pursed his lips as he watched the scene before him, even as he used Sun Barriers and Sun Dashes to evade the Queen of the Dobhar’s retaliation.

The Queen of the Dobhar had made some sort of metal tree that blocked his attack completely. Nature was a solid choice against Light-based spells, but the Fire component of his sun spells should have set it ablaze. Likewise, they were in the middle of an arid desert, lacking in both fertile soil and water. The environment should have favored Sun over Nature.

And he had never seen Metal and Nature combined before, which was apparently giving the tree additional protection from the Lightning attribute.

But that wasn’t the most shocking part of this.

No, the most shocking part was the Queen of the Dobhar’s human companion. The girl who held the trunk of the tree, feeding it with Holy mana. Vommik had lived for a long time. He had seen much, and read more. He had met with heroes, and had cast them low. So he knew better than most what they were capable of. Heroes could generate Holy mana and use it to cast special skills. They could even call upon the mana of the world in a limited manner, receiving small amounts of Holy mana from their surroundings to boost their durability and recovery rate, making them surprisingly hard to kill.

This was not was the human girl was doing.

She was calling on the Holy mana flowing through the world and commanding it. She was changing the flow itself, and redirecting it to support the Queen of the Dobhar’s spell. And that mana responded, and flowed freely, unlike how it would for anyone else in Aelea.

That had frightening implications for her identity…and the Queen of the Dobhar’s. Vommik’s eye twitched as he glanced over at the Heralds of the New Dawn. He now understood why they had fled…and decided they would pay from withholding such information from him when he agreed to shelter them.

But such things would have to wait. The truth was…he needed their help at present. The Queen of the Dobhar could apparently match his peak mana output…and with what could only be either an Aesdes or an Ancient Dragon commanding the world itself to support her, she would not run out of mana anytime soon. Even he was not confident he could break through her defenses, and he apparently couldn’t wear her down over time. So his only hope of overcoming her was the help of his allies.

But at the very least, his forces outnumbered hers a thousand to one, and he had brought his Archons with him as well. He may have lost one to an ambush, but he could not imagine more than a few of her companions matching the Archons one on one in the open field, much less when at a numerical disadvantage. Additionally, the Heralds of the New Dawn could lend support as well. He had initially scoffed at the Herald of Rain’s frankly paranoid amount of planning for this battle…now he could only hope that at least some of it would succeed.

But until it did…he would have to face down the Queen of the Dobhar and endure her assault. Not a single other person on the field was up to the task.

He grimaced as he watched her magic circles change color. Jets of Water shot forward, burning up before his Sun Barrier. So she could also change the attribute of her spell…without having to recast the entire thing.

The High-Archon felt a chill down his spine, even as he reinforced his spell. He could only hope that his servants would fulfill their duty…or that the Herald of Rain might prove worthy of their alliance…