System Change

Derek took a step through the exit portal and into the open sky. Everything had gone exactly according to Silvi’s cliff-note explanation. Edgar’s aura while Derek and Silvi were inside the unstable space created by Void Travel seemed quite distant. However, when Derek took a small step, it was like he covered a ton of ground. The battle really would have been just a short hop away if he had gone that route.

Of course, Derek knew that traveling in the space would have been much harder if he had decided to travel between his current planet and Earth. The distance and focus alone was enough to make him wonder about if he even could do it. But that was neither here nor there. Right now, he was exactly where he wanted to be.

Derek, with Silvi on his shoulder, was standing over an enormous army of elves and humans, along with a few other races that he spotted. He didn’t bother trying to count the exact number or even try to get an estimate. The emotions of the soldiers below looked to be a mix of fatigue, worry, and resistance. Derek watched as walls and domes of earth slowly crumbled, revealing the rest of them.

It seemed everyone was honed in on his entrance to the battle as well. Damn, that feeling that Void Travel causes really is about as subtle as a punch to the face. Apparently, the warning that he was coming was so much that the entire battlefield had stopped what they were doing to try to figure out what was happening.

As Derek surveyed the area, his eyes landed on one face that looked extremely excited and happy to see him. Edgar, sitting atop Blitz the Magnificent, was grinning from ear to ear, and as soon as he locked eyes with Derek, the young prince disappeared into a ball of lightning, then in almost a flash, reappeared hovering in the air with his lightning wings next to Derek.

“Is it finished?” Edgar asked. “Is the raid completely over, or did you decide to leave early to come fight with us?”

“It’s over and done,” Derek replied. “Everyone who survived is out. Just finished earlier today, actually. After making an appearance in Savannah and taking care of a few things, Silvi and I came straight here.”

Edgar frowned for a second, then nodded. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in a month.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Derek asked as he nodded down at the army below, then looked over to where the small battle in the air had reignited. “Are we hitting them all, including the army below, or are we going straight for the leaders?” He nodded at the battle with what appeared to be a very… odd looking Alanah. “Also, are those the leaders?”

If Derek was to be honest with himself, he didn’t exactly like the idea of killing the army below. He wasn’t a pacifist by any means, and after the death and destruction he’d seen and even caused ever since the system arrived on earth, he probably wouldn’t lose much sleep over it, but there tended to be multiple ways to end wars, and a couple less royal families around would probably work for this one. Though, it might not be enough—that’s why he was asking Edgar.

“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Edgar said with a sigh. “The conclusion I came up with was a bit of both, and now that everyone’s back, I think we can pull it off. I want to hit the army hard, and with overwhelming power, so they don’t resist after we take out the leaders. I think if we can get Tyron and Avery to come help with Rocky and Lyra, that will be enough. Then we can put all our focus on those guys,” Edgar explained as he nodded at Alanah’s fight, too.

“Who are those guys?” Derek asked.

“You’re not going to believe it, but along with Ryven Elras, who is the Duke of Indria and the king’s brother, the other three are the top people from the Kingdom of Astrus. That’s the King of Astrus, his brother, and their top general.” It really was a shocker to Derek that the king had come to fight in his own battle. While he was thinking this, Edgar continued. “Are you going to close that thing? It’s making me nauseous.”

He was, of course, talking about the portal that Derek had let remain open even after he stepped out from it. “No, I was thinking about leaving it open for now. It’s pretty unsettling, right?” Derek laughed. “Besides, maybe someone will try to use it to escape… that would be interesting. Also, don’t try to use it to escape. It won’t end well.”

Derek didn’t see a point in closing the portal for the time being. It was a nice, efficient way for him or Silvi to escape if they needed, and it didn’t take any mana from him to stay open once it already was. It also seemed like a good place to chuck some leaders if it came to it.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Edgar said. “So, what’s the plan? How far away is everyone else?”

“Oh, nobody else is coming,” Derek said. “Tyron and Avery are babysitting, and the rest of the raid party are licking their wounds back at the dungeon entrance. Looks like you’re going to have to make do with me and Silvi.”

“Oh…” Edgar looked a little disappointed, but nodded. “It should be good enough to tip the scales back into our favor, at least.”

“Well, you said we needed to show some overwhelming force, right?” Derek nodded down at the army. “I think we can do that.”

With that, before Edgar could say anything, Derek gave a command to Silvi, and they both disappeared from where they were. The next instant, Derek was standing on the ground a short distance away from the combined army of the Indria and Astrus elites.

He took a deep breath and stepped forward as he channeled mana directly into both of his boots. This time, he didn’t take his time, and pumped as much mana into them as quickly as he could. In seconds, both of his legs were on fire and his enormous mana pool was almost drained completely. Immediately, he has happy he topped his mana off before leaving the void.

With each step he took, the next became hard and harder. It was like there was a gravitational force trying to hold him still. He looked down, and the stars on the boots were rotating faster than he’d ever seen before. After one more step, everything clicked in his head, and he knew the skill was ready.

Derek leaped high and into the air, and a small black ball no bigger than a basketball appeared beneath his left boot. Then, while maintaining his balance on the small sphere, he reared back and kicked the sphere with his right boot. Instantly, the stars transferred from his boot to the small sphere, and they both began rotating in opposite directions.

The same scene as before played out directly in front of his eyes, but this time, Derek was the one to produce it. The small ball traveled slowly at first toward the army, but picked up speed as it grew. Once it was half as big as the one the Starfury Leonarus had produced at first—about twice as big as a basketball—it stopped growing and sped up. In at least a ten-feet radius around the sphere, the space had an almost invisible distortion and small tears in said space were being produced.

Derek really didn’t know what he had just unleashed on the army, but he wasn’t going to stand there and find out. Instead, with what little mana he had left, he shifted back in front of his portal and began meditating to recover a portion that he just used. He had no idea that the skill was going to be that costly to perform, but he was anxious to see what the skill that Silvi had basically protected the entire raid team from would have done—what kind of damage it would have caused.

The skill didn’t seem all that deadly at first, which turned out to be a costly mistake for the front of the army. It was only a decent sized black sphere with a bunch of lights in it, after all. It looked like they didn’t notice the distortion until it was too late.

The ball hit the front of the army and passed directly through the earth shields and barriers cast to stop it. Derek watched in horror as people were sucked in by its gravitational force and bent and broken in every which way—their own bodies distorted with the distortion of space.

The black ball of death traveled about a quarter way into the army, then stopped. Everyone looked panicked and relieved, but then the stars were unleashed. In a ring around the black ball, small stars circled and expanded almost instantly. Like a saw, the stars bit into and cut everyone even remotely within the range of the sphere. Blood and chunks of body parts began to fly, then, something even worse happened.

The stars retracted themselves in an instant, and the sphere exploded. A black dome spread out from the center of the sphere and covered a quarter of the army. The dome stayed static for around five seconds, then collapsed in on itself before imploding. When the dust cleared, there was nothing left—no blood, no body parts… nothing. A giant—perfectly rounded—crater was left in the shape of the dome from above. It had created a perfect sphere, and anything that was inside was now gone—and that included a not small portion of the enemy’s army.

But, unfortunately, Edgar said he wanted overwhelming power, so they weren’t finished. Derek flashed back down in front of the army and took a step towards them. He didn’t have enough mana to do what he just did again, not to mention that the stars on his boots were now static, and he had no clue how long it would take before he could activate the skill again.

But he didn’t need to do any of that. Two steps were all it took for the army to panic and lob spells at him before turning and running for their lives. Derek allowed a couple of fireballs, some stone spikes, and a few arrows to shatter on his armor as he continued forward. This time, however, Derek wasn’t the army’s problem—it was Silvi.

With the army retreating away from Derek, it gave Silvi the perfect opportunity to come in hot—quite literally. A massive jet of flames appeared out of nowhere—or, if you had extremely good eyesight or some vision skills—out of a very small figure positioned just above the rear of the army. The flames hit the ground and blasted outward as Silvi slowly raised her head and directed the flames to move through the rear of the army.

Derek moved back to his resting place in front of his portal and watched on as the army panicked and ran into each other while looking for a way out. Soon, the army was completely busted and everyone scattered in different directions. ‘That’s enough,’ Derek sent to Silvi. He knew she still had plenty of mana left, but Derek believed that the two of them had made their point.

He hadn’t expected the skill on the boots to be as effective as it was, so that was both great news, and a bit somber when he thought about it. He wasn’t planning on killing so many people or in such a brutal way—he had planned to show them overwhelming might, just not that much. With a thud, Silvi appeared back on his shoulder and the flames from the sky disappeared at the same time.

Edgar, who was still standing by the portal when Derek got back for the second time, was staring at the destruction that had just been caused below.

“Is that overwhelming enough?” Derek asked.

“That… should do it,” Edgar replied.

“Good,” Derek answered mechanically. “I’m going to go help Alanah now. She looks like she could use it.”

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