The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 157

Part 24

At the beginning of the engagement, hundreds of millions of demons had seemingly erupted out of the surface of the moon, and had been countered by a few hundred Strike Wizards, each wielding the power of millions and protected by Shields powered by millions more. The battle in the void went entirely against the demons, who couldn't counter the concentration of power and automated spells they were attacked with, not even bolstered by the firepower coming from their many attack ports on the moon. But once the demons retreated inside their tunnels they gained the advantage.

The vastness of the labyrinthine tunnel network and the exercise's time limit meant that Mark's forces had to split up into platoons and check every nook and cranny, and the searching battle was complicated by the fact that most of the demons were capable of at least short-range Translocation. It was a vicious, chaotic battle that required careful psionic co-ordination via the Command Link to wage successfully, and without being tricked by the demons into attacking their own fighters.

They succeeded, but barely. Only one in thirty-four of their forces remained active at the end, and everyone in Mark's family except Fire had been 'killed', but all the enemy were eliminated except for eleven prisoners.

They gathered all of their forces on the surface of Dehrla, over four and a half billion strong, and reviewed the exercise together. Debriefing, analysis, and discussion were all conducted over their Command Link beginning at the platoon level, then proceeding to evaluation of companies and brigades, and finally culminating in the judgment of the entire exercise.

Then they received the evaluation of the gods and strategists who had run the simulated demons.

"Well done." Mark told his gathered forces. "This exercise was designed to make us fail. It was expected by the organizers that there would still be almost a billion demons left when all of us were dead, based on your results in training and previous exercises. Today we fought more effectively than we ever have before, about a third better in fact, and I thank you all for your incredible effort.

"Return to base."

Each unit Translocated back to their own bases, and Mark's family went to the patio of the cottage on Hilia.

Talia immediately cast a dome of Weather Protection over the whole yard, since a tremendous rainstorm with gale-force winds was blowing over Hilia at the time. They'd already been soaked in the second before she cast it, so they all cast to dry themselves.

A moment later they were joined by Pakdag, God of War of the humans of the plains of Debivin, who had led the team that ran the demons in that day's exercise. He appeared as a man about two hundred and fifteen centimeters tall with bushy black hair and beard, dark eyes and olive skin, equipped with bronze arms and armor of a very ancient style, and was letting his aura of divinity be obvious.

"I wanted to congratulate you all in person." he stated in a heavily-accented and gravely voice. "Your forces fought incredibly well. They are extremely motivated and superbly well-trained. Your universal use of The Healing of Valentia has made you all very hard to kill, and before its introduction, we would never have expected you to stand one-on-one with the demons that you faced. You rooted out an entrenched enemy while facing a numerical disadvantage of three to four.

"But you here now were phenomenal. Had there not been DemonLords among your enemies, I'm sure none of you would have fallen. You commanded your forces as well in the void as I've seen it done on Kellaran, which is quite impressive since you commanded from the field, in the midst of close battle and personal combat. In addition, your personal prowess was decisive. Half of the unexpected improvement in your forces' performance was due to you nine, and your use of automated, self-replicating attack spells. You nine have been given a combined combat effectiveness score of six hundred and forty million. "You realize that such a score means that you nine are judged to be capable of matching six hundred and forty million recently-promoted Smingan Journeyman Battle Wizards.

"Even more impressive is the fact that most of the power of you nine was wielded by Mark and his children. It seems obvious that only you four are capable of increasing the volume of your magic-collection fields, or of casting such fields in other locations, or of using them to make your automated attack spells self-powering. It seems it is an ability that is unique to warlocks, as is the nature and intensity of your power. Each of you has been given scores of over one hundred and fifty million.

"You children were obviously not jesting when you said that you had power to rival the gods.

"I look forward to the joint Hilian-Xervian exercise in two days."

"Thank you, Pakdag." Mark said with a grin, speaking for all of them. "It was very courteous of you to come here and tell us this yourself."

The war god smiled and said; "Perhaps, but I wanted to meet you, and I'm glad I have.

"Be well and strong." he finished, and with that he was gone.

"Well, I have been given the lowest score among us." Talia stated in amazement. "But at one million, nine hundred and fifty thousand, it seems even mine must surely be an exaggeration!"

"Not at all!" Alilia laughed as she Summoned an armchair and flopped into it. "We cast an automated self-replicating attack spell, and it goes out and kills demons until it runs out of power, and they're pretty damn power-efficient. Meanwhile we turn our attention elsewhere, and it's easy to not notice how many demons the spell kills while we're not watching it. But you killed millions of demons today, my love, and you were still fighting an hour after I was dead, and you fully deserve your score. You were Magnificent."

"Thanks, but you only died before me because you were less cautious and more aggressive, and you were targeted by a lot more demons than me."

Alilia shrugged, then stretched. "I haven't led my people in battle in a long time, not even in an exercise, and it felt damn good. I might have been a bit too fired-up, but I wanted to be inspiring."

"You were." Mark assured her. "And it wasn't that long ago since you led them at The Battle for Zarkog's Lair."

"True, but it seems like it was." Alilia responded. "And the last time before that was over seven hundred years ago."

"I think Fire deserves some extra congratulations." Povon proudly opined. "One of the few survivors, and commander of the final stage of the battle and the clean-up. Well, done, child."

"Thanks." Fire nodded, her eyes unfocused as she thought back on it. "I was just lucky though. My units were on the verge of being overwhelmed a few times, and we just barely managed to squeak out of it every time."

"Thanks to your amazing fighting and command skills." Karz teased.

"And the fierce will of the Sylvan units I was commanding." Fire nodded.

"Do you think Pakdag was right?" Kragorram asked Mark. "Do you think only warlocks can manipulate collection fields?"

"He may be." Povon nodded as Mark shrugged. "I can do almost everything that they can do, and I can still do a few Draconian things that they can't, but I can't manipulate my collection field because I can't detect it, or anyone else's either."

"Same as the rest of us." Alilia agreed. "We can't manipulate what we can't detect. We've all been Linked with Mark and the kids when they do it; they seem to just shift their focus a bit and there it is, now that they've practiced it. I can see and feel how they do it, but it just doesn't work for me."

"Hey Sweets, are you working again already?" Mark asked Val, seeing her expression of concentration and her unfocused gaze.

"Yup. Now that I've automated Yzell's Fertility and Hilsith's Transformation, it seems the next problem is the training of the billions of new wizards. So I'm working on what will be my most complex spell yet; Valentia's Magic Education. It'll train every new wizard up to Journeyman level, as fast as they can learn it, starting with what they need to contribute their power to a Command Link. I'll be working on it for a week at least, and if I hadn't come up with the Spell Compiler it'd be impossible."☐☐☐

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