With all upgrades concluded, Seero reached out with her sensors, attempting to re-establish contact with one of her dungeon cores or her subordinates. And, in a bit of a surprise, she found the connection almost immediately. It turned out…this was the Realm of Mana that dungeons with the Cyborg affinity were connected to, so there was a direct connection in this very Realm. She turned her attention to the location of the connection.

There, she found large Geo-Oscillator engines. Now that the Realm of Machines was completed, it had solidified its connection with her dungeons with the very machine Seero had once used. There was one engine for each of her dungeons with the Cyborg affinity, each resonating with the dungeon core in question. Seero moved over to the largest one and reached out for it. Her fingers transformed into plugs and hooked up to the machine.

She fully reconnected to the Primary Home Base…and with it, all of her dungeons and subordinates still on Aelea. Mana began to stream back into her core, scrubbed by her new Iesnuorium components. She confirmed that no damage was dealt, and that the mana was not attempting to terminate her.

And, now that she was reconnected to the Primary Home Base, she could open an entrance to it, which she did. Such a thing may have been dangerous in the other Realms of Mana, creating a Rift that mana and worse would flood out of. But the Realm of Machines was significantly more ordered than the other Realms, every piece in its place to work towards its task. So the CELIU network within the Realm simply kept its mana there.

And so, Seero left the Realms of Mana…

The Incarnation of Inferno sent two blasts of fire, one towards the Celestial Elf to his side, and one towards the army ahead. The Celestial Elf dodged the blast aimed at him while sending another glaive strike to intercept the other. But a third, fourth, and fifth arm grew out of the incarnation and launched more blasts towards him. The Immortal Sage was engulfed in flame.

He shot out from the blast, flames covering his body, cycling his mana to resist and slowly put them out. But in the meantime, he was no longer fighting the incarnation. And since he was already ablaze, the incarnation’s attention turned to those who weren’t.

The High-Archons began to retreat, as none of their spells had any impact. They had even unleashed their forbidden magics: mental intrusions, life-draining, dark summons, blood magic. Yet, nothing managed to make any lasting impact on the incarnation.

Emperors Lucius and Julius pointed their blades towards the burning flames.

“Bring it down!”

Ritual circles covered the field as every mage in the Empire joined together. Torrents of water fell from the sky as lightning bolts rained from above. Giant tornados wrapped around and mountains rose to crush the incarnation. Countless bolts from crossbows and siege engines filled the sky.

They were joined by a thunderous roar as every gun in Uscfrea and Seero’s armies opened fire. Machine guns, rifles, specially designed harpoon guns for the Dobhar. Artillery pieces, anti-air cannons, missiles of every size, precision bombs, cluster rounds. Railguns and laser cannons joined in as Melion and Snuan directed the airships.

But nothing worked. Every spell and projectile burned before it arrived, or made minimal impact. The Incarnation raised its hand, ready to launch a blast of fire that would engulf the entire army.

Ateia winced. She glanced over at Lilussees. The arachne’s organic eyes were wide open, and she shook her head. Neither of them had recovered, and they couldn’t stop another attack.

And then they froze. Every cyborg and dungeon master on the field froze. Taog began to grin. 01R had tears running down his face. Rattingtale stopped trying to flee. Lilussees smiled even as she let out a sigh.

“Like, finally.”

And Ateia burst out laughing.

“Oh, you’re so dead.”

R shouted for joy as he opened a portal to the Primary Home Base.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Out stepped Seero, her robotic eye glowing bright red. The Herald of the New Dawn’s jaw dropped, before it closed and he pursed his lips.

“...honestly, at this point I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve yet again cheated death. And I really shouldn’t have trusted Shialnor’s work to kill you, huh?”

He glanced up at the towering incarnation of flame between them.

“But, well, I suppose this as good a time as any. An incarnation of Inferno with an open Rift to its own Realm should be a challenge even for you.”

The incarnation launched a blast of fire, a massive cone that could engulf the entire army.

“Warning: Risk of friendly terminations at unacceptable levels. Equalizer engaged.”

Even as Seero spoke, a magic circle formed in the air. A magic circle that caused every mage present to frown, for it was…wrong. Every pattern was inverted, every safeguard reversed. And moreover…it was filled with some sort of rainbow-colored darkness, a black substance which seemed to absorb light. Seero had, after all, cut the inefficient emission of light from the Equalizer’s output, as well as its tendency to react with the ambient mana.

And then the anti-mana reverse spell activated, and a Prismatic Dome formed of anti-mana appeared in front of the blast of fire. The flames flickered and died as they contacted the anti-mana, while the barrier emitted rainbow sparks as it reacted with the mana in turn.

“Observation: Hostile mana levels exceed base core output.”

Flames from the giant Rift to Inferno continued to feed into the Incarnation, and it did not drop its assault even as the anti-mana stopped the attack. Seero determined she would need more output to match it indefinitely, much less overcome it.

So, she acquired some.

She lifted her arm to the side, and fired a beam of anti-mana into the nearest Rift, stripping it of its attribute. The Equalizer then shifted the output, and the anti-mana beam converted into a beam of angular lightning with ones and zeros inside of it. The mana from the Rift now adopted the new attribute, and changed what part of the Source the Rift opened to.

Mana from the Realm of Machines now surged into Seero like the Realm of Inferno fed the incarnation. The power output of the Equalizer surged and the anti-mana Prismatic Dome grew in size and density. The programs of the Realm of Machines moved to assist her with the task…and as they left the Realm of Machines, something happened. Their mana condensed and began to take shape. 00B-Beta noticed, and lent assistance, providing them with protocols on how to condense into forms compatible with the material Realm.

And so, a giant Cyber-Elemental began to take shape around Seero, in order to better link the processors and mana of Machines to her. And it took the form of…a bear, made out of electricity, mana, and code.

B nodded and roared to welcome the new members of the family.

Seero continued to fire anti-mana beams at the various Rifts around her, converting them into Machine Rifts, and growing the amount of mana and processors available to her. She stopped powering the anti-mana spell directly with the Equalizer, and instead used it to form spell circles that would convert mana into more anti-mana. She then fed the mana from Machines directly into these spell circles which sent anti-mana into the barrier spell, dramatically increasing the flow of anti-mana.

And eventually, she had enough.

The flames of Inferno made no progress as they crashed against the anti-mana barrier. The flames of the incarnation blazed and it thrust all of its power at the barrier, intent on burning the object that dared to resist the fire. But try as it might, nothing changed. The flames faded away as the barrier eliminated the mana powering them, and the barrier wasn’t weakening no matter how much mana it had to deal with.

And now Seero had enough mana for another spell.

She formed an anti-mana Prismatic Bombardment spell, and began to assault the Inferno Rift directly, bypassing the incarnation ahead.

The incarnation did not react. It couldn’t, for that went against its very nature. It only knew of destruction by flames, it only knew to burn anything that dared to stand before it.

So it could not conceive of the threat anti-mana posed. In fact, the very concept of defense was foreign to it. So it simply ignored the anti-mana beam, fixated as it was on burning the barrier in front of it.

And the mana of Inferno began to convert to the mana of Machines. This Rift was much larger than any Seero had ever dealt with, and so did not go quietly. The flames of Inferno surged, attempting to burn down the new mana growing within the Rift. Licks of fire shot into the Realm of Machines, setting metal ablaze.

But the Realm of Machines adapted.

New machines formed around the burning metals, forming furnaces and archaic fuel-based engines, from a time before the Geo-Oscillator was invented on Earth. As the flames of Inferno burnt the machines, the furnaces took the melted metals and reforged them into new alloys and components. And the machines that were burnt away entirely were placed inside engine compartments, the process moving pistons and spinning turbines to generate more power for the machines. Destruction by fire was harnessed to fuel the function of machines, generating new Machine mana in the process. With the anti-mana erasing the majority of the Inferno mana, that was enough to contain what excess made it through.

And so the Rift continued to convert from Inferno to Machines. The blast of fire grew weaker, and the Incarnation itself began to shrink. Eventually, over half the Rift converted, and then the process accelerated. The incarnation faded away as it spent the last of itself trying to burn the barrier.

The Herald pursed his lips as the Realm of Machines now stood before him. A thousand metallic voices now echoed with Seero’s.

“Target acquired. Engaging terminate with extreme prejudice protocols.”