âWhy is this happening?â the Ravenerâs scream shook its inner world. âHow⊠âŠbut you areâis this an illusion? How are you here and outside at the same time? I sense you elsewhere as well, what are you doââ
âWhat didâŠit just say?â Claygon froze in surprise.
As did his companions within the Ravenerâs cavern.
Too much had happened too quickly.
Claygonâs father had appeared out of nowhere, stabbed the Ravener then teleported it to a Wall of Roiling Magic.
It had all happened so fast that even the Ravener-spawn had frozen, caught completely off guard.
âEveryone!â the General of Thamelandâs voice echoed through the cavern. His cloak billowed behind him as he pointed at the Ravener. A disintegration beam lanced into the construct, destroying a chunk of its surface. âIâm back, everyone! Keep focused on the Ravener! Keep crushing its armies!â
âWhatâre ya sayinâ, Alex?â Cedric cried. âWhat about Merzhinââ
âIâm taking care of that!â Alex flew down, launching a fireball into the Ravener as he did, slashing through dozens of Ravener-spawn near him. âI canât explain things right now, but Iâve got this! Just stay focused! Weâve nearly got this thing dead! Weâre nearly through with it! And listenâŠHannahâs back and so is Carey! Weâre nearly there!â
âCarey and HannahâŠâ Isolde sounded awed.
âBoth of them?â Bjorgrund cried. âYeeees!â His axe split a massive spawn down the middle.
âWhat are you on about?â the Ravener demanded. âTell me how you are here and yetâŠis this an illusion? A trick? Which of you is real?â
âYou ainât got time for chatting right now,â Hart growled.
He and Asmaldestre pounced on the construct from two sides. ÆĐłeewebnovŃl.com
âWelcome back, Alex!â Prince Khalik shouted. âI do not understand what is going on, but I am glad to see you with us and happy to hear Carey has returned! Let us give it our all, my friends!â
The Tekish wizard cast earth magic over Ravener-spawn nearby, burying them in spikes and shards of stone. The other wizards attacked with their own spells, blasting apart, smashing, and electrocuting spawn.
Ravener-spawn kept springing from the constructâs surface, tasked with stopping the Heroes, but Alex cast mass disintegration on the monsters, keeping them in check.
âWeâve got your back, Alex!â Theresa shouted. âJust do what you have to!â
âYesâŠfatherâŠwe will fight off theseâŠenemies!â Claygon called.
As he spoke, he felt his father touch his mind. âClaygon, Iâm about to bring you into the Ravener. Not right away, but soon, so just be ready.â
The golem considered the words.
There was somethingâŠoff about the way his father sounded, speaking in his mind. Their connection felt different; instead of a single stream of magic connecting them, it seemed frayed, splitting into different streams.
It was like his fatherâs voice was coming from more than one connection at the same time.
Claygon thought about what the Ravener had just said.
âFatherâŠare youâŠit feels like you areâŠin different placesâŠâ the golem thought.
âWe donât have time for a full explanation,â Alex answered, casting a Wall of Roiling Magicin front of himself. Ravener-spawn charging at him collapsed in great heaps, stopped dead. âBut when I got access to more of Hannahâs power, I figured out a way to be in multiple places at once.â
âSoâŠyou are also inside the Ravener now?â the golem thought.
âI sure am,â Alex said. âAs a matter of fact, Iâm about to install the first device into one of its nodes. It should start interfering with its mana.â
âFatherâŠyou didnât bring me in with youâŠâ the golem pointed out.
âI wanted to install the device first,â Alex thought. âNot going to lie, it was hectic in here for a bit. I wanted to disrupt some of this thingsâs abilities to defend itself before I brought you in. So just give me a second. Itâs a jungle in here.â
The central core of the tower was a wondrous place: a crystal cave revealing a sea of stalactites, stalagmites and crystal cords in every colour of the rainbow, each glowing from the inner power rushing through it.
A low pitched hum emanated from the walls of the massive, vertical chamber, and bolts of power crackled between the tips of the glowing crystals.
Alex actually stopped for a second, taking it all in, his jaw hanging open.
Over his time at Shaleâs, heâd seen hundreds of golem coresâŠbut none could even begin to approach the complexity of this place. The power generated in here electrified his mana senses, and tingled across his skin.
He whistled.
It was actually more powerful than he and the others had estimated from Uldarâs schematics.
âThereâs always differences between a schematic and the final product,â he thought. âButâŠwow, I hope our devices are enough to drain this thing dry. I suppose thereâs only one way to find out, so while the Ravenerâs still distracted, letâs find the right point.â
Alex floated up through the forest of crystalline spikes, avoiding the power sparking between them.
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He examined his surroundings closely, the Mark of the General feeding him images of himself examining the schematics. He analysed the crystalline structure, searching carefully, noting the flow of power through the nodeâŠ
âŠand finally discovering what he was looking for.
A crystal, slightly larger than the othersâwith multiple energies of different shades coursing through itâserved as a central point of mana production in the complex.
âThis is it. And when I stab this device into the Ravener, Iâm going to have to work fast; itâll only be a matter of time before it figures out what weâre trying to do to it. And the last thing we need is for it to destroy itself before we can shut down its ability to reconstitute.â
He steadied himself, activating the device.
It hummed ominously, sounding like an immense angry hornet, preparing to sting to death anything that invaded its hive. For an instant, he remembered how he, Theresa, Claygon and Brutus had gone out to the Generasi countryside for her birthday, to hunt the wasp-like vespara. That memory sparked another: where the Ravenerâs Hunters had rampaged through the Patrizia de PaoloâsâIsoldeâs cousinâsâmasquerade ball, destroying and killing anything standing in the way of him and them.
That memory turned to thoughts of the amount of destruction heâd witnessed all over Thameland, because of the Ravener and its monsters.
Even now, he was flying through the skies of his kingdom, ridding the land of hordes of monsters wherever he found them.
So much destruction.
âAnd it has to end,â Alex thought.
He raised the deviceâŠ
âŠstabbing it deep into the Ravenerâs crystalline substance.
A hiss escaped into the air as the device injected the venom he, Professor Jules and Isolde had concocted. A mix of toxins deadly to mana-infused creatures, shards of bane, and Elder Blodeuweddâs mana-draining potion ran into the Ravener through the machineâs bane-needle.
It spread through the crystalâturning rainbow colours to a mad, chaotic array of lights and broken colour. The crystal vibrated as bane shards swept through the Ravenerâs mana-producing centre, shredding everything they touched.
And the Ravener screamed.
The sound drilled into Alex, shaking the entire terrain.
âWhatâŠwhat have you done?â the construct shouted. âWhat are you doing?â
As it sought an answer, the device began humming louder, pumping away the Ravenerâs mana as the toxic brew swept through its inner pathways, flowing to the other crystal shards within the vast node.
More crystals began shaking, rainbow colours fell into chaos, their vibrancy fading, colour dulling to sickly greys, browns, pus-yellows and greens.
The poison continued spreading, and Alex felt the mana in the air begin toâŠlessen.
His device kept pumping out the Ravenerâs mana while the venom kept spreading.
âWhat is this?â the construct cried. âWhat have you done?â
The venom was spreading faster.
Much of the mana nodeâs vibrant colours were fading. Crystal was cracking, its sheen dulling as bits of its surface crumbled to lifeless grey dust.
The air shimmered.
Monsters began appearing around the young wizard.
âNo,â was all he said.
With a twitch or two, he cast Wall of Roiling Magic around thedevice several times, enclosing it, shielding it in a barrier of lethal magic.
His attention next turned to spawn-knights dropping toward him.
He blasted them with Cone of ice.
The creatures froze mid-leap, dropping onto the dying crystal spikes and cords.
The hum grew fainter, the nodeâs essence shredding, mana draining.
The Ravener shuddered, trying to warp the nodeâs crystals, seeking to attack Alex or eject the device.
But, its control over its form in this area was failing
The poison had already spread too deeply, withering its essence, destroying its ability to control its own form in this node.
Outside, Alex and his companions continued hitting the Ravener and its minions with their most powerful strikes and spells, cutting deep gashes into the constructâs surface.
Alex watched it closely, observing it as its damaged sections healed.
He focused the Mark of the General on the task of comparing how fast it healed now, to how fast it healed before.
He smiled at what he found.
âItâs healing slower,â he thought. âBy only a bit, but it is healing slower. Weâre doing damage, slowly but surelyâŠand things are about to get worse for Uldarâs pet.â
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An explosion tore through the countryside in Thameland.
Ravener-spawn exploded as a colossal meteor dropped down on them, wiping out an entire horde of monsters in heartbeats. Below the Ravener-spawn army, a dungeon vanished as the meteor crushed it.
Focusing his mana senses, Alexâs eyes scanned the wreckage of the collapsing dungeon below him.
His gaze stopped.
âThere you are.â
His arm reached out, making a grasping gesture with his fingers.
Hannahâs power surged within him.
Andâsuddenlyâthe dungeon core was in his hand.
Alex smiled, remembering when long ago, Baelin had destroyed a dungeon with a single cataclysmic spell, then brought the core to his hand from the wreckage.
At the time, the chancellor had said that one benefit of overwhelming power wasâ
âConvenience.â Alex said, gripping the dungeon core.
He poured his mana into it, overwhelming the coreâs defences with his full might. He focused on its inner mana pathways, feeling out its inner controls, taking command of them.
âIâd bet normally, the Ravener would be trying to stop me right about now,â the young wizard said. âBut it has bigger problems than this right nowâŠaaaaand here we go. There you are.â
Alex found what he was looking for inside the dungeon core, and took control of it, forcing the core to begin making Ravener-spawn.
Ravener-spawn under his command.
The core quaked in his hand.
And the exact monster he was looking for emerged.
Tiny, flea-sized Ravener-spawnâeach one ablazeâflew from the dungeon core in a stream; filling the air with flame, scalding heat, and blinding light.
A new fire cloud had been born: one that would follow the Generalâs commands, attack any foe he directed it to, and give aid to anyone he commanded it to.
He addressed the Ravener-spawn, âYouâre fast. What I want you to do is to fly across Thameland and burn every Ravener-spawn you come across, unless theyâre also under my command. If you confront Ravener-spawn and donât hear these words, âI am following the commands of Alexander, Son of Alric, you are to eliminate them immediately. If you encounter Ravener-spawn attacking mortals? Kill them. Do you understand?â
âWe understand,â the creatures responded.
âGood, now go, kill all offending Ravener-spawnâŠand make sure you defend any mortal you encounter. Is that clear?â
âAs you command.â
The fire clouds flew away, ready to rampage through hordes of their former allies.
Alex smiled, placed the dungeon core in a pair of Wizardâs hands, and with it, began teleporting across the countryside. He would seek out other dungeons, relieve them of their cores and make them spawn their most powerful monsters to use against the Ravenerâs own spawn.
That would help Thameland; the number of hostile monsters would be reduced, and the number of dungeon cores that the Ravener could control would decrease.
While he was rounding up cores and spawn across Thameland, heâd be continuing to cast Army of Heroes on anyone he found.
The Ravener would starve.
With its source of fear being turned off, and its internal mana production being crippledâŠthings would start to look bleakâŠfor Uldarâs creation.
Alex teleported out of the poisoned node, watching as cracks ran along the entire tower complex, as pieces chipped away.
With a screech, the Ravener reacted.
The cords connecting to the tower fell away, splitting apart and collapsing to the ground as useless shards of crystal.
In moments, the tower was cut off from the rest.
âItâs like amputating a gangrenous limb,â Alex thought. âWell youâre going to have a lot of amputating to do.â
Alex turned, looking for the next tower.
Only to find the world warping around him.
The realm inside the Ravener was turning chaotic.
Towers were shifting away from him; the flat crystal plane below rising and boiling like waves in a storm-wracked sea. Darkness above him broke, flashes of light peppering it. Web-like, crystalline cores writhed like tentacles.
Then came the monsters.
Scores appeared from thin air, filling the space around the towers with armies of flesh-hungry Ravener-spawn.
All eyes were on Alex.
âAlright,â he said, raising a hand. Things are too off balance. Youâre up buddy.â
And with that, he cast Summon Construct.