The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel 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.”