The Battle of Ultopja 3 (20) – Eclipse [Superchapter]

Ulal stands at the base of his tower. He looks at the Hundred, fighting in the distance, hears the echoes of war, metal banging against metal, the only thing missing from the scene is fire. Sure, some have broken out during the battles but with the lack of fire based light in the city and the enemies mostly disciplined core of soldiers the collateral largely consists only of the cities gate. Cracking his neck the Demonmagus opens the Grimoire of the Black Sun- ‘How fitting a name if Helena is what I think she is.’ Ulal thinks with a smug grin as he slowly turns the pages. Most of them are white. That alone makes them worth thousands of Estaran coin, snow white paper was so hard to produce that barely anyone tried without a skilled alchemist, the Dragonbone laid within notwithstanding, that filled the tome with the latent power now prickling in Ulal’s hands.

However, in the middle of the book, between layers of layers of absolute white, pages yet empty, laid four black pages covered in runes of gold, platin and titanium. Runes so powerful even in their incomplete stage they burn like an arch of lightning into the magical sight of Ulal’s eyes. The three chapters of the spell of mass destruction that make it the weapon to end this war. Only the first of the double pages is in a useable state but he wouldn’t need more. Ulal activates both the Grimoire and raises his hand.

Catherine recognizes her teachers motion. Fingers on the throat, he is about to activate the enchantment that carries his voice throughout the city. Aclysia seems mildly annoyed by the fact but with her Catherine isn’t sure if she can read her. The slight twitch of her eyebrow might be a sign of annoyance or her thinking hard about how to tell Ulal he is standing anatomically incorrect by the slightest margin. With her it was impossible to tell. Nevertheless, she was interested in what Ulal had to say and even more what that tome would do.

“Citizens of Ultopja, I return to you.” Tang heard the voice of his Lord as he blocked the strike of an enemy knight. He retaliated with a punch of his damaged glove. The glass holds, the enchantments within still potent, and connects with enough force to dent the plate armour and throw that assailant to the ground. ‘Back.’ He thinks, relieved, as he swings his axe at the immobilized enemy, ripping a straight line into her chest, killing her instantly, ‘He is back.’

The situation at the plaza was dire. Despite Tangs show of strength they were swarmed by the enemy and with most of the cities districts conquered or compromised it is only a matter of time until they are completely encircled. However, now that Lord Ulal has made his way back unto the battlefield Tang feels emboldened. The enemy had spread itself throughout the city because they knew they could afford to stretch their numbers in an assault but how would that hold up in a retreating situation? There was only one way out of the city and that was where the enemy commander resided. Tang has no insurance if Ulal was about to turn the tide of the battle and he is certain that he couldn’t beat Helena the second time around either, with the exhaustion of prolonged fighting nagging at him, but he puts his faith into his Lord. “TO ME!”

“I was the target of an honourless assassination attempt.” Alratha giggles as she hears that. ‘Saeletra’s mighty tits, Ulal, you speak of honour?’ She delights in the irony as she presses her back against the wall, waiting for a three-soldier unit to pass. ‘One’ she counts, ‘Two’ she reveres the impending bloodbath ‘THREE!’ She jumps from the alley and stabs the end of the little formation repeatedly into the small gap between helmet and leather armour with her off-hand dagger. Blood, red and hot, spills over her leather outfit. The rush of murder pulsates through her as the other two, alarmed not by their comrades last muffled scream but by Alratha insane cackling, turn around. Not quick enough, not even in the slightest. By the time they try and point their weapon at her she is already pushing her one-handed sword through the second soldiers throat. Simultaneously, without even needing to look, she rams the dagger into the last soldiers gut and twists it around. The scream was exhilarating but she didn’t find pleasure in prolonging pain. No, Saeletra has blessed her with other ways to find satisfaction and so she stabbed the sword through the soft gap of the solders jaw’s underside and ended her before the first soldier even hit the ground. Years of training, the Amber Eyes and now the spine of Dragonbone had turned her into the perfect assassin but being the best was not the main reason why she enjoyed her job this much. ‘I will ride some dick tonight.’ She proclaims to herself, feeling how the taking of life excited every part of her being.

Footstep, as loud as a person hammering a gong, reach her ears, somebody is trying to sneak up on HER. Well, they could try. Alratha has no reason to even turn towards the person as two other pairs of feet move with much subtler motions. Something collided, two things to be exact, in absolute unity they end the enemies life. Alratha smiles over her shoulder at Reinal and Erica, her pupils. Erica wears a grim expression, or half of one at least. She has changed her uniform so that the mask covered the scared tissue in her face but left the rest of her face revealed. ‘I have no intention to stepping back into the light.’ She had justified the change to Alratha, ‘Let them see my face.’

She hadn’t cared, Erica is doing a great job at becoming somebody who had no need to fear witnesses. Reinal on the other hand was no less promising. She didn’t show the willingness to kill that Erica had but she had a talent for sneaking, acting and other skills that she would become a perfect infiltrator over time. Combined they might one day be as good as herself. Reinal looked at the corpse of her formed lands women with regret. The blonde had accepted her new lot in life, even seemed to find some sort of pleasure in excelling in these things, but she still had lingering doubts about working against Estara. Alratha would vanquish those in time. Nevertheless she was proud in her pupils, ‘They will share in whatever depravity I am going with tonight!’

She is interrupted in her moment of exhilaration by the sight of a hurried person of dark skin, reminding her a lot of Ulal himself. The person is a woman of middle-age and she clenches a book that Alratha’s amber eyes recognize without a problem. The Thrjterna Jarkatzzka, a book she herself has only seen once and she knows her Lord is very protective of. This is too important to ignore. “Keep hunting soldiers.” She instructs her pupils. Even if they are showing promise somebody that is able to steal from Ulal is not someone she would challenge with lower-skilled allies holding her back.

“I have returned to promise you, my people, that these attackers will be vanquished.” Helena dpes not like the sound of that in the slightest. The sun was at its Zenith, the moment of day where she felt strongest, and yet she felt like something terrible was about to happen. “Lady Light!” A warning, clenching the talisman of her fallen secretary and second-hand, Jane, Helena turns around to look what is happening.

She is surprised to find the elite soldiers that she faced earlier storming at their position. They are lower in number, exhausted without a doubt, and instead of having a positional advantage they were charging right into Helena and her elite core of two-hundred knights. The intention was clear: To reconquer the gate and block their means of retreat. But why would they even attempt it?

“To the attackers: I tell you this.” The voice of the Demonmagus echoes through the city still. Helena watches as the blue-glassed giant accelerates as he spots her. Tang is bent on challenging her again. Helena clenches her Claymore but doesn’t move. Her mind is racing, something tells her to run, run as far away as possible. “For all.” Ulal’s satisfied words are pressing into her thoughts, “that you have done.” Danger, they were all in terrible danger, not from the enemy commander, not from the voice of the Demonmagus. Helena feels as if she can’t breathe, as if the world itself was getting torn apart.

“I will paint black the sun.”

The words rang true. A small black dot appears above Ultopja. Only Helena could see it, her eyes not minding the burning of the sun around the dot. “Retreat.” She mutters, aware that her voice could not be heard. She breaths in against the pressure on her being and screams again. “ALL UNITS, RETREAT!” Her officers look confused but have no time to question as Helena finally moves and meets Tang in another clash of titanic power. Mages throw fireballs into the air, signalling every unit that sees them to go into full-retreat.

He looks at the black dot with happiness. He had no expressions to make, he would need faces for that, but he has only teeth and eyes. He doesn’t miss having a face. But he does miss to be able to laugh at his foes. Aclysia might have denied and insulted him but he has time. He always has time. They were infinite after all. They were everything. ‘All that lives is mine.’ He thinks. They agree.

The black dot grows as Ulal guides the power of the Grimoire into the sky. Rapidly it expands until it eclipses the bright sun and replaces it with a darkened, pitch black copy. The name giving Black Sun is eating away at the light as the coal-coloured flames flicker hungrily. He deactivates the enchantment of his armour and concentrates on the sphere.

“Beautiful.” Catherine marvels but her tone betrays a certain anxiety. “Are you worried about Helena perhaps?” Ulal throws her a probing glance. Hesitation, then a shrug, “Maybe, maybe not, what do you care?” “Good point.” “Use it.” Aclysia chimes in with the melancholic tone of slightest urgency. “The calculations are correct. The expected radio is reached. Preparations are complete. Make it rain misfortune.” Catherine listens up, she knows that Aclysia rarely to never used eloquent speech, why use some formulation like that now. Ulal could see how the gears in her head turned. Then it clicks, teachings about Enchantment and the studying of the blue prints for the Grimoire as Catherine finally understands what she is looking at. Ulal however is not willing to pass the moment to gloat in front of her so he explains before she can present her theory.

“This, my dear Catherine, is not fire.” He says and points the open book at the Black Sun, “It is proto-demonic essence that I summoned using the Grimoire. It is impossible to do this, absolutely impossible unless you have the reality-bending magical power of a dragon on your side, impossible unless you break an enchantment so often that it is barely recognizable, impossible unless you are the master of all schools of magic. This is the bane of humanity, demons in their rawest form and this mass seeks nothing else but life. I brought pure misfortune into this world.”

Out of the Black Sun burst thousands of pitch-black flares. Each of them seemingly having a mind of its own, tumbling through the air as it orientates and searches for a target. “And it hungers.”

Tang is losing. That is the reality. He is getting beaten so hard that it was not a fight. The armour he had thought of indestructible was covered in chinks and parts of it were shattered, crumbling off. Helena was pushing him back with such wild fervour that he didn’t even get a chance for the slightest retaliation. Although the comrades that managed to break through with him were against weaker opponents who were unable to penetrate the armour as easily they were still heavily impaired by the sheer number. To one of the Hundred came 3-5 of the enemies. Enemies with superior experience and teamwork, evident by a knightess suddenly jumping at Tang from a dead angle, sword at the ready. Tang had made a mistake, now he would pay for it.

The attacker is suddenly shrouded by a half-liquid half-gas cloud of pitch black. The fighting stops as more of these clouds start to rain upon the battlefield. Even Helena is attacked and has to jump back. Most of the clouds miss their targets. They aren’t slow but neither are they particularly fast and they hit the ground with angry sizzling sounds before dissipating as a large pillar of black smoke in a manner that reminded Tang of splashes of water. Tang knows that this is his Lords doing, both from what the Demonmagus said and the fact that none of the clouds target his own people.

‘A good thing.’ He thinks as he looks at the body of the knightess that tried to kill him. She is shrivelled up in a manner reminiscent of a mummy. He knows what that means, before he met Ulal he would have thought it a curse and he wouldn’t have been all that wrong but since then he had gotten at least a basic grasp on magic, this much was required of him. The knightess soul is gone.

And it kept raining misfortune as Tang engages Helena once more.

“I am going.” Aclysia says and walks away from the duo. “Go where?” Ulal asks, still channelling the spell he cannot move away. “The Gate. I need to get back to research. This war is hindrance.” She has no other words to offer but still hears what Ulal shouts after her as she starts running with the abnormal speed only a superhuman or something beyond, worse can reach.

This was everything what Helena was afraid of. This is the worst nightmare she could think off. The sun, the one calming thing that she has in her life, is covered by a grotesque perversion of itself as it rains during a clearest day, rains the drops of death that kill her army. The people she is entrusted with. That were given to her by the Queen herself. This is a disgrace to Estara, to her honour.

She still can keep up with Tang even while dodging the continuing threat from the Black Sun but that is just it: She can keep up. This is not just rain, the flares come from weird angles at times and keeping track of them while still engaging in combat is almost impossible. However, she would not be a general at 25 if she wasn’t able to face odds stacked highly against her and the women in the first battalion are her whole pride. She doesn’t need to yell any more orders. They all know what their objective is now, especially with the first waves of their own army reaching the gate again.

They will buy as much time as possible for the evacuation. Helena guesses that they can hold the gate long enough for the whole army to evacuate. The enemy is unlikely to give chase and the clouds, while deadly, are not dangerous to people in movement that could concentrate on dodging them. They still claimed an occasional victim whenever a huge bulk of people tried to pass the same point at once but generally the retreat is going well.

That is until she appeared. At a speed that surpasses even Helena’s a woman of slim build appeared, slamming into two of her knights and nailing to the ground by impaling them on arms made of a single thorn. The women has a ladylike, melancholic aura to her but even stronger than that is her unnerving presence. It is like each of the ladies’ movements from how she straightens up to the way her black dress and white, backflowing hair waved in the soft breeze was just wrong by the slightest margin.

The blood drops from the thorn hands that morph back into hands. The Black Sun above ceases its constant barrage for a moment. “Aclysia.” Tang said, the enemy commander sounds like he was confused.

‘Aclysia? As in the Witch of the South, Aclysia?’ Helena thinks, her heart pulling itself together in fear. The story of the witch are the tales of nightmares, the graveyards she filled…

Aclysia looks for a moment at Tang. ‘Armour damaged. Repairing needed.’ She analyses but otherwise ignores the giant. She bows down to pick up the two knights she used to slow her sprint. It had been a crude solution but she had seen no other way to stop close to Helena. She assumed it to be Helena at the very least, all evidence points towards it. ‘Certainty is prioritized.’ Aclysia decides “You are Helena?” She asks therefore. “Yes.”

Aclysia sees Helena gulping. ‘Afraid. Of what or who? Me. Why? Superstition? The display of power? Further analyses required at a later date.’ She keeps the thought going in one corner of her mind as she tells Helena what Ulal had shouted after her when she stormed off. “You are allowed to evacuate. You have two hours. Otherwise the Black Sun will continue to eradicate you.”

Hesitation. ‘Why? Unsure what to do? Positive. Helena is not convinced of the truth of that claim. Further convincing not necessary. Situation requires she takes the gamble.’ Aclysia just waits for a few moments and then Helena nods. “Fine. We will take your offer.”