Auckland.

On a cold morning in early May, the most remote Frontier on the furthermost end of Humanity's antipodean outpost saw its first true assault from the South Sea Shoal.

In future textbooks, scholars would ascertain that the attack must have been the original plan of Nyrlesvinyr, the ninth scion to He who slumbers in the Crown of Corals, the ageless Miommiriorthyr, since the siege's inception.

For those living in the present, it was the day Auckland learned a stern lesson on "Longitudinal Defence against Shoals".

The notion that a Shaol could "surprise attack" was absurd. Nyrlesvinyr's Shoal was at least six kilometres, easily visible on the surface. Every move it made was monitored by the Divination Stations and their staff of tired but dedicated Diviners.

What had caused Paladin Te Wherowhero to be struck unaware, therefore, was the endless repetition of the attacks, the mind-numbing casualties the Mer suffered, and the consequent complacency.

Almost a month and a half had passed since the Shoal began to amass on the coast. Auckland had called in every available favour, including Tower Master Shultz of Sydney. As a result, the city received the aid of both Yue Bai, Apprentice to the Scarlet Sorceress, and her contemporary, the infamous devouring War Mage.

After the early victories of Magister Gwen Song, Auckland was joined by the future Master of Arms of the Tower of London, Thomas Benedict Holland, who had arrived to tame a Steam Spirit.

With the unexpected influx of manpower and the balance of power momentarily restored by Gwen Song's auditing of the Grey Faction, the situation appeared positively rosy for Auckland. For the first time since the original Coral Sea War, Auckland's provisions were bursting at the seams with Wands, body armour, mana cartridges, food and medical supplies. The only essential defence components they were missing were Golems and upper-tier Mages, though, with Gwen Song on call and a Lord of Exeter visiting, few felt apprehensive for the future.

The high morale, combined with a month of ceaseless victories, had drugged the city's Militia with hopeful optimism that bellied the reality of their precarious position. The city's leadership had again turned from yet another assault to feud among themselves, perceiving the Shoal as an enormous, near-inexhaustible harvest of HDMs and Creature Cores that must be fully tapped before the war was over and the status quo of peace was restored.

Therefore, when the assault began, six-tenth of the Militia were on reserve or were convalescing within the city. Furthermore, the once-grim defenders had lost the razor-edged mindset of perishing with the foe, their wits blunted by the propaganda of victory. The mood swing was an important distinction, for men willing to fight to the end could hold back a Shoal for a long time—while a company and its commanders who hope to survive would only lose ground.

Ground which, for a month and more, Auckland did not think it could close.

When the sirens blared their death-wail and the Shielding Stations thrummed with palpable agony, the Tower knew immediately that the fate of the city had taken a mortal turn.

The giant Manta beasts from the South Sea, no longer gliding under the water but leaping through the air, sailed as suicide barges to crash upon the beach or flap just far enough to flatten the trenches. The collective sacrifice of their ruptured Cores was enough to overheat the Resonance shielding, spilling ten-thousand hard-shelled, multi-limbed Mer to slither from the pocket-folds of the Manta's folded flesh.

The remaining defenders had instantly taken to their positions. Nonetheless, as a shimmering battle tide of fins and scales, the Mer swarmed the Greater Barrier island of Aotea, breaking upon the Shielding Stations on the peak of the island's volcanic mass.

The Tower responded as well as it could, incinerating enormous, house-sized blocks of HDMs as it hovered into range, pulsing with disruptive resonance. With the aid of the Tower's lower amplifiers, a hundred Evokers and Transmuters rained down hyper-tier spellfire onto the moving molasses of shell and scale, painting the northern section of the island swarths of cobalt and vermillion.

For an hour stretched into what seemed like an eternity, the Tower watched the tide invade like the growth of stubborn slime into a tidal pool.

And then the ground grew fangs.

Without discrimination, near the nodes used by the Maguses to apportion men and supplies to the front lines, the volcanically formed igneous strata turned to mush and mud, changing solid slate into sucking quicksand.

Those caught by panic and surprise became swallowed immediately as a bristle-clad worm emerged, falling feet-first into a tooth vortex where six pairs of mandibles laid in wait. As the soft bodies of the men struck the enormous mouth, the snap-jaws did not close—instead, dozens of tiny tendrils, each tipped with corrosive motes of penetrative fangs, pierced their steel body plates as easily as slivers of molten lead through linen snow.

For the unlucky survivors, the erupting flames from the worm's hairy exterior turned out not to be fire, but poisonous bristles tipped with toxins strong enough to impair Draconids. Against these, a gentle brush was enough to shatter a Mage's barrier, while the most minute of prickles was enough to turn an NoM militiaman into an instant pustule of eruptive slime.

Worse still, parallel reports of flaming bristle worms the size and length of inter-city trains had spontaneously erupted in every node of Auckland's perimeter defences, paralysing the command centre with the sudden ferocity of the Shoal's simultaneous assault.

"Where's Magister Song?" the Paladin's demands tore through the Tower's command centre like a whip at the ashen-faced Grey Faction Maguses. "I'll personally strangle the lot of you if she's delayed because of your antics!"

"You accuse us of air!" came a protest without confidence, for the Greys knew as well as anyone else in the amphitheatre that they had lodged objections, bribed officials, and moved nothing short of heaven and earth to keep the Auditor of Auckland on ice in Sydney.

"Then where is she now?" The Paladin's Ta Moko glowed the same vivid blue as the Bristle Worms wreaking havoc within the lumen projector's clairvoyance.

"She should be teleporting through within the hour," an aide reported. "We're still priming the ISTC Relay."

There was a pause.

"That is...Magus Kuznetsova is priming the ISTC Relay."

"The platform was NOT primed for Sydney?" The Paladin's scowl could have stopped hearts. "Who is responsible for this lack of preparation?"

"Magus Lane and Billywort." The sweat-drenched aide glanced at his indignant Grey Faction managers. "They were readying the ISTC relay for Lord Thomas of Holland's trip to Melbourne."

"How convenient for you shonky bastards—" Paladin Te's tone grew dangerously low. With an indignant digit, he pointed at one of the displays. "Does that look like a man on route to Melbourne?"

"Te. Spare your wrath for the Shoal," the voice that answered the Paladin came from the door. Turning their heads, the council saw Wa Mātaatua, the presiding Magister of the Militant, still trailing embers of Elemental Fire from his tattoos. Behind the man were two Flights of Mage fresh from the fight, including the unmistakable figure of Yue Bai, covered from arm to chin with her unique ashen Ta Moko. "What else needs to be said? Even our guest from the Shard is fighting the Shoal, and here, our brothers from the Greys are abetting the foe."

"Be wary of your words, Mātaatua!" The protest from the Greys rose several decibels. "Are you foolish enough to believe Lord Holland's generosity will last the war?"

"I don't know about that—" the retort, to their surprise, came from the young Asian woman next to the Magister. "What I do know is that you're all bark. But you know what? This bitch bites. If the city falls because of Gwennie's delay, all of you will fight to the death. I guarantee it by the reputation of my Master, Alesia De Botton. I'll hunt down anyone in your damned Faction above the rank of Senior Mage who dares to be absent from the final beachhead at Rangitoto."

The threat was so unorthodox that, for a moment, there was only silence in the amphitheatre war room.

For reasons known to all, none doubted the young woman's promise.

"Enough!" Te Wherowhero's bark brought an end to the barbed exchange. "Mills, Henry, retrieve Lane and Billywort. Send them to the front lines and tell them to stay there until the Shoal is turned. Mātaatua, how fares your Combat Flights?"

"Minor injuries. We're licking our wounds and recovering our mana, so we'll be back in the fight soon."

"Good. Then you take sectors six and eight, where that Thunder Wyvern has taken roost. Minimise casualties until Magister Song can assess the situation and decide if her strategic-class Conjuration should be deployed. Waitiki, Marama, Smith, take your Greys and reinforce sectors one to five. Keep those Barrier Engines running, preserve the Shielding Stations, or else."

"Yes, Paladin." The Greys hastily made their exit.

"He means or die trying!" The voice of Yue Bai chided the retreating figures doing their best to ignore her.

After an exaggerated horse laugh, Mātaatua left for the Flight Deck, taking Alesia's matchless Apprentice along to avoid miscommunication with the Wyvern.

"How's the Tower Master holding up?" Te turned to his aide with a sigh. "Tell her I'll be leaving with Whetu's team for the Barrier Islands. Until Magister Song arrives, I'll hold the Shoal at Aotea."

"Master Hildenbrandt says her spell fatigue is being maintained," the junior administrator replied after examining the logs on his Divination slate. "That and we have another two months of nominal operating power, sixteen days at full combat capacity. Is that going to be enough, Sir?"

"Not without committing Magister Song." The Paladin of Auckland studied the war map with its illusion-empowered blips. Without Gwen Song, Auckland's core focus would have shifted toward a general evacuation of the city into the inland regions held by Halflings. Their home would fall—but it could also be rebuilt if Auckland preserved its personnel.

For a brief moment, Te recalled the lumen-recording he had seen of Magister Song's Planar Ally erasing the peninsular of Triffidus from existence.

Should they come to that...

Auckland and the Shoal would be reduced to blank slates, resetting the power balance in the region. If that came to pass, would the Seven Kingdoms raise an even larger Shoal? Or, would the loss of so many mouths leave enough of a resource vacuum to calm the Mermen for a decade or more, as proven by Kilroy's victory in the Coral Sea War?

Auckland.

Port Jackson Shielding Station.

The Jackson station was one of two relays of Auckland, a concrete fortress of Abjuration that withstood everything from natural disasters to Mer-made catastrophes. Together with the headland of Pahi and the interceding Barrier Islands, the twin stations formed the "gate" into Auckland's sheltered bay waters, where the city's maritime fleets had fled into the city's coves and sounds.

Presently, Thomas Benedict Holland hovered over Jackson. Opposite, his contemporaries, a duck from Emmanuel's and a Thunder Wyvern lighting up the trenches with liquid lightning, oversaw Pahi.

In truth, Thomas wasn't supposed to be here. He did not trust his newly acquired Dragon Turtle Spirit to butt heads with its superior brethren, and his orders had been to tame the Spirit—then immediately leave Auckland.

But Thomas had stayed.

Within his field of vision, he saw millions of skittering limbs crawling over the Shielding Station's pyramidal, obsidian facade, attempting to crack the fortress to get at the flesh militiamen within. Thus far, the Glyph-enhanced exterior held, striking up cobalt sparks that numbed the assailants' limbs.

The localised Walls of Force were a marvel of Spellcraft engineering—but they were also ancient, inefficient, and ravenous for resources.

It took him a few minutes to exorcise the footsoldiers, conjuring a Maximised Maelstrom with the aid of an implement, drawing upon the new strength of his Steam Spirit to cascade the rolling banks of boiling death across the unsuspecting Mer.

To the cheers of the militiamen, red-shelled seafood peeled like ripe persimmons from the Shielding Station, exploding as they fell, cooked so thoroughly that the slightest impact catalysed pressurised gasses to erupt from the Mer's blue blood.

Next, Thomas and his aides traversed northward to the edge of the sea, where fresh Mer clambered over the steaming bodies with a grim determination.

Nearer the water, an array of spine-throwing Mer that resembled prehistoric frog-men slathered with muck and mud blew themselves up like bell-blows—then launched toward Thomas a hailstorm of barbed spears.

"Force Carapace!" Thomas manifested the spell before the spines came close enough to hurt. Six barriers, three in an open array and three closer to his body, glimmered as a freshly blooming flower of force.

The spines haplessly pinged away from the first layer while wayward and luckier projectiles were stifled by the second or warded away by his bodyguards.

"Transmute Force!" Thomas transformed the geometric shields with a simple invocation, then sent the newly formed battering balls to ram the slick swarms of Fishmen scrambling for land.

To the Mermen's confusion, the geometric spheres were hardly deadly. Each orb seemed to possess nought but air. Unfortunately, as the rough decahedrons sat among the thrashing bodies, something within seemed to build, catalysing an alarming crinkle as cracks fissured across its surface.

Thomas' grin grew cruel. "Steam Blast!"

Those closest to the explosions didn't even have time to scream as the force-shards shattered, shredding through their mortal bodies with the astrophysical energy of solidified, meta-magical force. The initial blast threw the closest Mer-soldiers a hundred meters into the air, sundered limbs from ligaments, or snapped the heavy upper bodies of the fish-headed varmints in twain.

From the epicentres, concentric rings of scalding steam washed over the survivors, superheating their mucus so that even if they didn't perish, they steamed and stamped, screaming as insane children as body fluids cooked the life from their searing innards.

"Lord Holland!" A warning came from his minders. Not far—though far enough for Holland to have at least a dozen options, a giant Manta was making one of its suicide rushes toward the Shielding Station.

Thomas spent a few seconds watching the thing launch from the sea, pondering the best way to minimise the creature's threat while conserving his mana.

His choice manifested as a "Wedge of Force", an invisible pane barring the way of the incoming Manta.

Fifty.

Twenty.

Ten meters...

Thomas fortified his Astral Body.

With both his Abjurer and Transporter by his side, Thomas focused his whole being on maintaining the shape of his transmuted Walls of Force.

THWACK–!

Never had anyone imagined that tearing flesh could make so sick a sound.

Still, the gash that suddenly appeared on the Manta's underside was enough to rupture organs and spill its guts. Unlike in its ocean home, there was no way for the Manta to steer itself with only the pressure of forcibly commissioned Elemental Air.

A few seconds after the impact, Thomas felt something salty hit the back of his throat.

When he spat out the offending taste, the spittle was bright red.

"Hmm…" He swallowed the urge to cough uncontrollably, as that would be ungentlemanly. "My new Spirit has room to grow."

"You've had it for less than twenty-four hours, Sir," his Abjurer reminded him. "Even for someone of your talent, it would take at least a year before the virtues of Draconic bloodlines may be manifested—"

Stolen novel; please report.

Before his bodyguard could finish, the beach behind them split in twain, revealing the hideous form of an enormous worm slithering toward the Shielding Barrier. Despite its size, the creature moved like a hasted serpent, swimming across the abandoned trenches with ease, its bright blue bristles flaring with Elemental Ooze, leaving caustic excretions in its wake.

Thomas felt the resolve of his Spirit shrink. Their present foe wasn't just from the same familial tree of Essences but sat on a thicker bower closer to the root.

"And now, my disobedience is at an end," Thomas quietened the shivering Astral form of Zitusphyr, whose moniker of "Zippy" he had decided to keep. To the English noblemen, a turtle called "Zippy" had just the right amount of twisted, nonsensical humour to tickle his particular fancies.

As for the Shield Station—either the girl would get here in time, or she would not. His duty as the Lord of Exeter was to his assigned demesne and its properties, not to a Commonwealth Frontier little more than a resource outpost. That the heir of an ancient house was here, taking pressure off the local Militia, was enough to set tongues wagging in London.

Anymore fighting outside protocol that risked the resources of the gentry without consent from the House of Lords would tarnish the reputation of House Holland, itself the vanguard of these very traditions.

Tapping into the rest of his mana reserves, Thomas decided he would be wilful for another ten-to-fifteen minutes.

Two more spell-crafted Maelstrom with a Delay operant, followed by a half-kilometre semi-circle of Wall of Steam, was enough to secure Port Jackson from the mundane foe.

As for the Draconic Worm—he was content with gifting Auckland's Mages a memorial monument.

"Lord Holland." Thomas' Abjurer casually moved between the spell-casting Lord and the rapidly approaching worm. "I believe even Magister Song should be appreciative of our efforts here. I will now ask Magus Gilbert to activate the Teleportation Circle."

"Agreed. I should be on my way back," Thomas spoke between his spells. "God knows what Poins will make of this."

A few seconds later, their bodies grew immaterial, leaving the baffled Militiamen in the Port Jackson bunker to gawk in confusion and horror at the now-coiling Draconic Bristle Worm, barely able to comprehend why they had descended inexplicably from heaven to hell.

The atmosphere in the Sky Tower's ISTC relay was akin to a sulphuric flue on Ringatoto as the Devourer of Shenyang descended on the platform. When the burning embers of Conjuration faded, a single figure moved amongst the rigid statues of guilty men and women to greet her.

"Pats." Gwen breathed out as her cousin approached. Petra Kuznetsova crossed the floor with the grace of a dancer. Her white lab coat was stained a hue of rainbows by the quasi-magical ingredients used to retune the ISTC platform. "Is everything okay? How's the city?"

"The outer shielding has gone to nahui, blyat!" Petra clicked her tongue as she swore. "Gwen—I mean, Magister Song, accept my apologies. I didn't think these fools would decouple the Divination Array's preset Mandala to delay your arrival."

"Why the hell would anyone do that?" Gwen scanned the room, knowing that some of the staff here were responsible. She was furious not at them, knowing that "grunts" had no choice but to follow their superior's orders. As for those superiors… her eyes grew dark with Void. "Who was in charge?"

"I am. Paladin Te has put our erstwhile Enchanters to use on the Front," Petra informed her before Gwen's mood further soured. "He promised the trash would be recycled."

"Magister Song! Thank Māui, you're here." Their conversation was interrupted by Auckland's sheepish locals, who finally dared to inform her of the Tower Master's orders. "The Shoal has broken through the Barrier Islands and is currently assaulting the Shielding Stations at Pahi and Jackson! We're taking significant losses among the NoMs and the rank and file Mages."

Nodding, Gwen took a second to reinvigorate her Empathic Links. Not too far, she could sense Dede and Gogo on the northernmost headland of Auckland's interior bay, battling another Draconid that was only a little weaker than Golos. Considering what Gunther had told her, she guessed the thing to be the promised appendage-avatar of Nyrlesvinyr.

If she wanted to implement Gunther's advice, she would have to hurry. With Nyrlesvinyr wholly unaware of her delayed arrival, she had the perfect opportunity to test the superiority of Almudj's Essence.

"Take us to the deck," Gwen gave the command. "We leave immediately."

At the outer ring, on the far side of the combat deck, she met the figure of Thomas Benedict Holland with his Mage Flight. The young Duke wore a white-and-navy bomber jacket reinforced with bulging attachments she assumed to be portable arrays for various enhancement magics. His men wore similarly themed outfits belonging to the Royal Air Force, though theirs were a drab mustard. Seeing the grime and slime splattered all over, they looked to have seen plenty of action.

"Pats, how're your fatigue levels?" Gwen walked toward them while the others followed. "Can you join us? I've got a plan, but it's risky. We'll need Resist Elements, Protection against Poison, and Restoration if any of us gets swiped by those bristles. And Extended Haste for the whole party."

"Aye. I'll buff Salamander Skin and Water Form if needed," Richard added. "Both will impact mobility, though. We'll observe the worm first-hand before we commit."

Petra kept up beside Richard and Lulan. "You're planning to wrangle those Draconic worms?"

"Aye." Gwen nodded. "According to Brother-in-craft, they're clones of the Elemental Prince called Nyrlesvinyr. If we don't destroy one in its entirety, it'll simply regenerate and keep on rampaging. If we cut one in half or into smaller segments, they'll become miniature Nyrlesvinyr-clones. Until its Essence runs dry, there's no stopping it."

Petra's intelligent blue orbs grew flustered. "Maybe Caliban can use his Wyrm form and slurp it up like a stubborn noodle?"

"There's that." Gwen held her cousin's advice in reserve. However, even if Nyrlesvinyr's clones were paralysed, swallowing one wholesale would take too long, inadvertently indulging its duplicates. "Thankfully, we'll be trying a more efficient method. One that should inspire Nyrlesvinyr to be careful where to stick her tongues."

Petra paused for only a dozen steps before she looked up with a face full of expectation. "Are you hoping to recreate the Balefire phenomenon? Or perhaps tame the appendage like with Garp?"

"The former," Gwen informed her cousin. "I don't think taming a living part of a fully-conscious Elemental Prince with a Draconic lineage is possible."

Continuing forward, she raised a hand to hail the incoming Lord Holland.

"Magister Song! Fashionably late!" Thomas hollered as he approached. "I am sorry to leave you a mess, my dear, but against this Nyrlesvinyr of yours, Zippy simply wasn't having it."

The two of them briefly exchanged nods. "How's Jackson?" Gwen asked.

"All three nodes await your arrival with bated breath," the Lord left her with a hopeful euphemism, then passed her. "The Barrier Islands more than the others. As you know, there's no stopping a determined worm."

"Acknowledge. Thank you, Lord Holland." Gwen half-bowed while Petra explained Thomas' summation of the present combat conditions. "Will you be returning to London now?"

"No. I still have a Northern Expedition to lead!" Thomas reminded her with a twinkle in his eye. "To think that we'll soon be worlds apart fills me with longing. Nonetheless, assuming we both survive our ordeals, I'll see you at Christmas Mass at King's or perhaps at Lady Aston's afterparty. Promise?"

"I promise. Live long and prosper, Thomas." Gwen gave the man a cryptic sign of good faith to ward away his flag-raising promise of pudding by Christmas. "Don't die in the cold, Milord Holland—We've still got accounts to balance!"

The exchange passed, and the smiling Steam Mage instantly evaporated from Gwen's mind.

Now, she had worms to wrangle, risks to take, and an exceedingly primordial Essence to flaunt.

Aotea.

"Living Punamu!" The roar of hollering invocation could barely be heard over the crash of trashing Mermen overruling the already disorderly retreat. At Whetu Tikitiki O Taranga's behest, an expanding wall of jade-green Punamu erupted from the earth in jagged crests, forming the open ground into an instant maze. Any Mermen unfortunate enough to be caught within the sharp-edged barriers soon found themselves trapped by an ever-moving vice, exhausting their muscular energy against the tectonic momentum of Mineral mana spilling from the Quasi-Elemental Plane.

Though effective, the impact of Whetu's offensive Abjuration was short-lived. As a newly minted Magus, he lacked the vast mana stores of his seniors to maintain the exhaustive spell, meaning he had to make a choice between size and duration, of which he chose the prior.

As soon as the punamu crumbled, the disabled Mermen were overrun by fresh ones clambering for space.

Unlike Whetu's earlier experience, the mass slaughter did not diminish their assailants' morale. This time, a Draconic overseer sat in the rear, driving the waves of fish and crab-headed Mer inland, whipping them into a frothing frenzy with its concentric waves of Dragon Fear.

Would my Punamu hold against the Dragon Worm? Whetu knew to ponder was futile. There were forty Mages here on Barrier Island, and each Mage he and Te's Flights managed to save would add weight to Auckland's continued existence.

On the right flank, Paladin Te had already activated his signature spell, raising from the earth a Punamu idol twice the size and ten times the weight of a Centurion MKI man-operated Golem Engine. With one swipe of its arms, a dozen Mer turned to mush, sending a deadly spray of shell and carapace toward their allies like a Spellsword's Shrapnel Blast.

With the tide so close, it was now his turn.

Invoking the Spirits of the old Maori ancestors, Whetu activated the latent Ta Moko tattooed on his body. For several days now, the runic scripts had been soaking up mana from his Astral Soul, and now he called upon them to fuel his next spells.

"Rongo! Cover me!" Whetu gave the command. "I'll bring up my guardian. Then we make for the Teleportation Circles!"

Ringo's Ta Moko burned bright blue as the man compelled a Tidal Surge from the watery mana in the atmosphere. Having survived Wellington, Whetu's old IIUC teammate had become savvier and deadlier.

Though the surge split to avoid Whetu, it drove the Mer back even as they swam against the white rush of blue-green water.

Ten seconds later, the Punamu Abjurer invoked the lesser parallel of his Paladin's spell.

"Guardian Totem!" Whetu's Clan magic was exhaustive and allowed no missteps when used by a novice such as himself. The instant he felt his mana run dry, he tapped into another Ta Moko, then swiftly injected himself with a mana potion.

The combination was enough to provide the mana necessary for a temporarily conjured Earthen Spirit to take command of the mass of Punamu spilling from the Mineral Plane, roughly forming the matt emerald into the shape of a bipedal colossus.

With only the sound of mass meeting mass, the totem idol moved forward, battering away Mer through the power of raw, unstoppable physics. Even against a King Crab Mer who could render apart concrete and steel, the weight of the Abjuration-conjured avatar was enough to drive the beast six feet into the earth, first swatting it against the cracked asphalt, then stepping on its hunched back to catalyse a sudden ejaculation of blue-white ichor from every orifice.

"Retreat! Retreat!" Rongo continued to sweep aside Mermen from the flanks as the Mages fled the general chaos. Whetu willed his Boots of Flying to drive him backwards, gliding gracefully over the sodden earth. A part of him wanted to tear the magical implements from his feet and gift them to the fleeing defenders of the now-ravaged Shielding Station. Still, the Tower Master's Apprentice knew better than anyone that a dead Abjurer was the worst fate the retreat could face.

As for the NoM Militia, somewhere still in that hell of frolicking mass of teeth and claws…

Not even Paladin Te, a man famous for his sympathies, could spare the compassion necessary to secure their non-magical brethren. It was a reality that filled Whetu with intolerable guilt and helplessness.

Ding! A Message spell bloomed beside Whetu's ear.

"Paladin?" Whetu kept his calm. "Your orders?"

"Reinforcements are on route." Paladin Te's voice was a mixture of relief and annoyance. Relief that help had finally arrived, but also frustrated and angered by the unnecessary delay. "Look to the west! Stay out of her way— SHIT!"

The Message was cut short.

Whetu rose into the air, flanked by his Flight.

A Dragon Worm, one with bristles the likeness of living fire, had entangled Te's Punamu Idol. Even with all the mana the Paladin fed into his autonomous guardian, its exterior rapidly eroded, and cracks were forming all over its enormous green body. A conjured idol of that size would have cost the Paladin most of his mana—and the expectation was twenty-four hours of operation, more if the Paladin could rest. For the Totem Spirit to be disabled soon into the fight would have dire consequences for the battle's longitudinal tally.

"Rush for the southern beach!" Te gave the command. "I'll take that thing with me!"

Before the Paladin even began to finish, his idol started to run, pumping its stumpy legs with uncharacteristic haste. In its path, Mermen were stomped into fishpaste while its waving arm continued to carve out an open swarth of seafood carnage.

Whetu erected several more barriers while counting the seconds.

On the count of sixty, the idol erupted.

For a Mineral Mage's avatar, the sound of erupting crystals was dull, lacking the pyroclastic fantasy of Fire casters. Instead, what made up for light and sound was the glacial force of the kinetic energies unleashed, aided by the mass and weight of inevitable displacement.

The Idol splintered—as did the Dragon Worm, which was torn segment-from segment, leaving behind a mess of buried sinew and shattered carapace.

Ancestors. Had Uncle Te done it? Whetu's hope felt as fragile as a sheet of clear Punamu without the reinforcing honeycomb lattice. That was the best Paladin Te could manage without direct interference from the Tower, for the Tower's mana reserves must be preserved. So long as the Tower hovered, Auckland possessed an un-assailable Shielding Station. Even if every ground station were to fail, they could still evacuate the city's thousands of magic users and rebuild.

A half-minute later, Whetu had his answer.

The recovering Dragon Worm slithered through the carpet of Punamu, its inner flesh seemingly formed of a multitude of smaller creepy-crawling things from the deep. Within a minute, its flesh stitched anew, and it was making a beeline for Whetu's Totem Idol.

Unlike Paladin Te, Whetu did not possess the means to destabilise the Spirit within the idol. Once the worm finished his abjuring avatar…

Whetu turned to his exhausted charges, the survivors from the shattered station.

They were still minutes from the beachhead with the Teleportation Circles. In a few moments, sacrifices would have to be made.

_SCHWING—!_ A shrill whine of mental sliced his dilemma in twain.

A strangely familiar orison sung by thrumming steel resounded overhead. A split-second later, a slab of gleaming metal struck the still-damaged carapace of the Bristle Worm, penetrating it just behind the head with its multitudes of beady, malicious eyes, pinning the indignant creature to the floor.

_SCHWING—!_

_SCHWING—! SCHWING—!_

More followed, stabbing with incredible precision, turning the twenty-meter worm into an instant specimen.

Undeterred, the worm began to thrash.

"EE—!"

_CRACK!_ A green bolt of electricity, channelled through the instantly red-hot lightning rods, was enough to teach it momentary calm.

In the same instance, a sanity-splitting "SHAA—!" tore through the fabric of space and time, landing just behind the head, gripping both maw and torso with hands akin to a woman's delicate digits.

Caliban! Whetu felt the tension drain from his chest like puss from a swollen abscess. Their reinforcements were here, and it was none other than a woman specialising in wrangling dragons.

Incredibly, the worm's labours could not overcome the Big Bird's death-grip, nor could its bristles penetrate past the dark, ink-like feathers covering its lower body. With another "SHAA—!" Caliban opened its enormous tri-petal maw, then frenched the worm head-first.

Elsewhere, the Mer's advance had ground to a halt.

Appearing above, darkening the landscape, was the radiant visage of Gwen's Thunder Wyvern, emitting a thick haze of invisible Dragon Fear, preventing the lesser Mer from attacking or fleeing.

Below, the air crackled with excess mana as the monsters fought, spraying salted mud in every direction. The worm was now headless, but it still tore itself from the confines of the steel sword pins to wrap its bristle-clad body against the bird, hoping to squeeze from it whatever life the fiend might possess in its unholy torso. Within seconds, the Big Bird wore a shroud of envenomed, corrosive bristles, appearing comically as a faceless bird wearing a too-long scarf.

Gwen—no, the Devourer of Shenyang, then materialised behind the pair.

Whetu wasn't sure why his friend would risk mortal injury, but Gwen did just that. Dimension Dooring into place, the Void sorceress launched a dozen Void Bolts against the Dragon Worm's rear, clearing the carapace of bristles and exposing the crystalline prawn flesh.

"Lulu!" Her command was a clarion call to action.

_SCHWING—!_

Six enormous, distended skewers penetrated Caliban and the worm, keeping the confused mass in one place. With the likeness of a thieving cat, Gwen then landed on the still quivering "tail".

The sorceress began an invocation.

Inexplicably, Whetu felt his hairs stand on end.

He recognised but could not identify the spell Gwen now used—but knew well the gut-wrenching, soul-shivering reflux of Negative Energy polluting the very existence of the world. Was this a new Void Magic? His mind banished his optimistic ignorance at once. No—he knew the type of magic well. He had suffered from it during the IIUC. Additionally, a few of his elders possessed the right to practice the old ways, the ancient Faith Magic of the Clans, using it to venerate the ancestors and commune with the past.

Gwen's spell was unequivocally Necromancy.

And not just any type, but the usurping kind, the worst of the worst. Inspirations for the anecdotes of woe the Purge Teams studied in the Tower, spells that enriched the host at the existential cost of the victim.

Within seconds, the Devourer's nursed invocation manifested, kindling her dominant hand with ethereal flames, the very same that ignited the skull sockets of Soul Wraiths.

Beneath her, the Dragon Worm must have sensed something as well, for its main body now exerted every inch of force against Caliban, who seemed perfectly content with its ceaseless parrying of the strangling worm's best efforts, laughing with soundless sadism.

In one smooth movement, the Void Sorceress stamped the spell onto the Dragon Worm's mutton-jade flesh.

Whetu felt his Astral Soul shiver.

The worm grew limp on the skewers.

Then suddenly, it freed itself, dancing like an insane living whip, bouncing from Caliban, sending its assailants to scatter in every direction. From its movements, Whetu was certain the creature appeared on fire—only there were no flames, neither tenebrous and inky or electric and cobalt. As though a hysterical musical note dancing over invisible staves, the Dragon Worm leapt into the air, made delirious pirouettes, fought the air itself, and then death-rolled against an invisible foe.

His intended retreat, or what was left of it, seemed no longer a priority.

All the Flights responsible now watched the Shoal's leading combat unit perform an existential tango of anthropomorphic agony, dancing a solo quadrille, coiling, twisting, contorting itself into abstract pretzels.

A minute.

Two minutes.

When finally a third, eternal minute passed, the Dragon Worm collapsed from exhaustion, then sat there as a docile, confused mass. Milky ichor bled from every crack and gash, it wasn't dead, but it wasn't regenerating either.

_Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!_

Whetu's surviving idol approached the Dragon Worm.

He kicked it.

The creature did nothing, not even when his idol picked up the worm by the mid-section and lifted it from the floor. Curiously, the bristles appeared to have lost all potency, becoming so inert that they failed to penetrate even Whetu's Punamu.

"GHWARRRRRGH—!" The thunder rolling overhead announced the descent of the Thunder Wyvern and, as such, the routing of the surviving Shoal that once threatened to overrun the island.

With the carefulness of a blooming Maori flower, Whetu hovered closer to the Devourer of Shenyang. His Paladin had taken over reorganising the Mages, freeing up Whetu to satiate the death-desiring curiosity threatening his continued sanity.

"Is it over?" he asked as he came close. In Gwen's ink-clad crow-skin with its claw-tipped boots, her second-skin dripping with Void, his old teammate appeared more monster than a woman. "That was sweet-as Gwen, but what did you do to it?"

Whetu's companion studied the unenthused worm in the Punamu giant's hands, now completely flaccid, murmuring to herself.

"Gwen?"

The girl looked up, her face as heart-achingly beautiful as he recalled, her paleness accentuated by the jet-hued battle suit.

"Was that... Necromancy?" Whetu asked for confirmation.

"Not by the Tower's definition," Gwen explained, her face aglow with the thrill of a successful hunt. "That was... _the experimental application of Sanctioned… sorcery,_ as for why Nyrlesvinyr decided to do that..."

The recently minted Magister pursed her lips.

She drew his eyes to the northern shoreline, where something very large and exceedingly rocky angrily rose from the shallows.

Following her eyes toward the hovering landmass radiating menace, Whetu wished he had forgotten what he saw and focused on retreating.

"Besides," Gwen decided to answer after all. "It's not the spell that's culpable—but _the practical application of Stranger Danger._ "


Watching Almudj's _Strange Danger_ at work, Gwen felt like a catfishing hussy whose Big Daddy was taking her unsuspecting chump to town like Rocky to a side of beef.

The outcome was coincidental, for Henry's censured repertoire of magic was beyond the ken of her Cambridge lecturers, who gained data by abetting her experiments and sweeping regulatory mishaps under the rug.

The same could be said of Almudj's magic, for which her knowledge was an estuary meeting a vast Essence Sea.

Therefore, her "Offensive Essence Tap Field Test" was akin to the pre-Spellcraft transmutation of phosphorous by Meister Hennig Brandt, lighting up new possibilities of monster hunting like a retina-searing Lumen Globe.

When her group first encountered the avatar of Nyrlesvinyr at Jackson, it was waist-deep in steamed seafood piled two storeys high against Force Barrier. The creature had snarled at her—but wasn't content with abandoning the last few thousand HDMs worth of shielding before facing its foe.

That was her victim's last mistake, for Lulan instantly pinned it to the granite with her stone-shaping sword nails while Gwen rushed its rear, her body buffed with every form of defence Richard and Petra could muster.

Her crow armour made light of the bristles' acid and venom. However, Gwen still found it almost impossible to penetrate the mechanical defence of the porcupine spikes. A flood of Void Bolts solved the problem, with Lea sweeping her landing before she fired up Essence Tap and stabbed the worm with gut-churning necrotic energy.

The first few seconds of paralysis had been within her expectations. As with the Balefire, she and the worm entered a state of Astral shock while their Essences mingled like oil and vinegar in a cocktail shaker.

The next part was the opening act to a brave new world.

With the Balefire, the feedback had been instant.

With Garp, she had usurped the creature's will while her superior, sapient blessings dominated its dull hypo-Essence.

Compared to the Enginseer and Garp, Nyrlesvinyr's offshoot possessed an ancient and rare Essence, imprinted with the prideful psyche of a Mythic Dragon Turtle. Rather than cowering and allowing itself to either be absorbed or contained, its jaw-clenching reflex was to attack, usurp, and consume.

Therefore, before Gwen's sanctioned Necromancy could run its course—her inner Almudj decided it would take no piss from an upstart turtle worm.

And perhaps to remind her of her fidelity, it delivered a flashback as brilliant as white phosphorous.

_Cracking timber_

_Burning eucalyptus_

_Blasted bark_

_Burning wood_

_A million-million flying embers_

_Kalinda's crystalline tears as her olive skin turned to char_

_And the smug laughter of old, cheeky Tjupurrula, cackling like an insane kookaburra._

Before Gwen could gasp, the ire of Almudj had grown to admonish Nyrlesvinyr with a literal baptism of cleansing fire. If the stranger's Essence would not assimilate, it need not exist.

The result, therefore, was the manifestation of an ancient rite of the primordial universe, with the only difference being that both Nyrlesvinyr and herself were Vessels of their irrespective patrons—a pair of sly foxes borrowing the terror of their tiger mothers.

And in their case, both patrons were asleep, meaning their respective Essences were left to duke it out—only her lineage was superior, even if her body was mortal.

And so, Nyrlesvinyr burned.

The fortunate discovery came with a caveat—with _Barbanginy_ , she could control the Essence through Ariel's feedback loop.

But within herself, how could she command Almudj's flaming ire?

To redirect Al's will was no different from wrangling lightning with her bare hands—and should her wilfulness grow excessive, would the flame turn her into Kalinda?

Watching Nyrlesvinyr's Draconic Essence ignite like an expensive cocktail was an experience. The psychic stab must feel like a wasp sting to the nerve centre.

After Big Bird Caliban had pecked clean the worm at Port Jackson, she recalled Golos, who finished up his hard-won meal and then told Dede to stay as a defender. With the usurped Essence from Nyrlesvinyr, Golos was hale as ever. As a caution, Gwen had her Wyvern acknowledge that they had defeated an appendage, not the Mud Wyrm itself.

When she and her entourage finally arrived to nix her next target, the battle of Barrier Island was at its conclusion.

The Shielding Station was now a ruin, meaning the centre-dot connecting the outer barrier's connect-a-three had completely extinguished. The moment Auckland's Tower left the vicinity, Barrier Island would have no shielding, opening up the city's inner sea to the invading Mermen, meaning that as of this moment, all of Nyrlesvinyr's presumed objectives had been met.

Gwen woefully conceded that battle strategy was a shortfall she should address.

The Mermen's grand gesture of Soviet-era tactics using waves of fodder to shatter the psychic and then the physical defence of the defenders was not something that she, a finance broker, could begin to imagine. After all, if she had told London that she gleefully sacrificed two hundred of the thousand Mages assigned to her so that her foe would grow complacent, there would be an Integrity Commission, followed by her immediate imprisonment in the deepest dungeons of London Tower. Thankfully, a good manager delegates, so in the future, she would need someone on her roster capable of planning war games, someone used to the command of armies: a Militant Officer well-versed in tactics and the management of the involved logistics. That way, she could focus on her strengths, such as her role in the Tower's promise of mutually assured destruction.

But for now, she should contend with the consequence of her catfishing for Dragon Worms.

In the distance, the "landmass" approaching the Barrier Islands appeared to be moved by pure menace.

When Gunther had shown her a mock-up of Nyrlesvinyr's abode, it had looked like an asteroid with an embedded Exogorth emerging to take a bite out of the Millennium Falcon. In life, however, the asteroid wasn't bare rock but an entire ecosystem of vibrant coral overgrowths in every shape and colour. From its crags and caverns, hundreds of streams of water issued forth, some as propulsion, others merely flowing the way of gravity. The magic that compelled the island to move could only be Draconic, utilising the same reality-altering power as Ayxin's space-sorcery or Ruxin's verbal commands that compelled obedience from inanimate objects. The result was a living-breathing battle barge dredged from the deepest depth of man's limitless imagination.

_DING!_ The Message from Paladin Wherowhero bloomed a rich scarlet. "To all personnel on the Barrier Islands, get to the way station NOW! All non-Aerial Mage Flight operations will be conducted from the Tower! _Magister Song, are you present?_ "

"I am. Paladin Te, this is Magister Song," Gwen returned the response with a Divining gesture. "Where do you want me?"

"Return to the deck. You've saved my men, Magister, but also crossed us over the Rubicon. The Shoal is coming, and there will be no stopping them with Barrier Island now extinguished. After consulting with Tower Master Hildrenbrandt, we have decided to escalate to the Planar Ally summoning."

"Understood," Gwen looked once more at the island. From the disturbance in the sea, it didn't take a Tower to divine what was following the spearhead.

She had hoped to avoid the cost of utilising an all-hungering planar monstrosity held in check only by the metaphysical forces of the Prime Material. In the aftermath, would a Void-swept seascape improve Auckland's chances?

"Whetu, will you be alright here?" She asked their erstwhile companion, who was still reeling from the sight of the jumping-jack Dragon Worm.

"We'll be sweet-ass." Whetu forced a smile that was betrayed by the distance kept between himself and her. "Go with Paladin Te, Magister Song. I'll round up the survivors in the rear and take them to the Teleportation Circles."

"Okay. Caliban—gather the rest of the food!" Gwen commanded her creature toward the flaccid worm with the sundered sinews. At the same time, she readied the opening invocations to Elemental Swarm. The was an enormous amount of vitality here, dead or dying or living, none of which she could waste. "We'll be leaving first. Cali, stock up while we prepare. Eat everything. Shoggy will need every drop..."

Nyrlesvinyr, ninth of He who Slumbers in the Crown of Corals, felt an unfamiliar feeling.

_Doubt_.

It wasn't that a Dragon-kin such as herself was incapable of doubt, but that doubt was a psychic affliction felt by prey, while Nyrlesvinyr was a born predator.

Her Shoal had been reduced, but her most prized troops and elite Mermen remained hidden, feasting upon the flesh of the fallen and the inept, awaiting her call to sweep across the Human city to raze the hated land-kin to the ground.

Unfortunately, these prideful cohorts were not so easily cajoled into combat as the fodder from the shallow seas. Behind each Elemental General and their microcosmic Shoals stood an infinitely entwined food chain of favours, betrayals and alliances by blood and circumstance stretching into the murky depth of the Elemental Plane of Water.

As the Shoal's sovereign, Nyrlesvinyr had been certain that a slow victory was assured—until she lost not one but two appendages.

_Slumbering Miommiriorthyr!_ If a single fraction of her Essence had imploded for a single instance, she could have stomached the loss. Yet, not only had two fractions of her Astral Essence been lost, they had been eradicated with such totality that Nyrlesvinyr could no longer feel whole.

Hence, her aloof confidence turned to disturbed rage.

She knew not what happened to her Essence—for she had severed the threads when the flaring pain shocked her Astral Soul—but Nyrlesvinyr knew who was responsible.

Her Core had cautioned its many heads against an open confrontation with the Mageocracy's newly minted Void Mage. Some thirty ocean cycles prior, she and her Kin had encountered the girl's predecessor, Elizabeth Sobel, in the Coral Sea War. The Great Shoals had been larger in those days, the Seven Kings more united.

In her memory, Sobel had been terrifying to the mundane Mermen—but posed only a marginal threat to true-blooded Dragon-kin.

So why, Nyrlesvinyr wondered, was she… feeling doubt?

But be it suspicion or premonition, Nyrlesvinyr knew she could not retreat. A true Scion, one born from the Para-Elemental Plane of Ooze with its primordial womb as her birthplace, possessed Draconic pride not as a quirk but as a metaphysical manifestation of her being.

There were arrogant Dragon-kin.

Wrathful Dragon-kin.

Dead Dragon-kin.

_Usurped_ Dragon-kin.

But among her siblings, a cowardly Dragon-kin had never existed, or if there were, she and her siblings would tear them apart.

Besides, why should she be cowed? She had not underestimated the foe, having spent more than two moon cycles testing the city's defences, drawing out the Void Sorceress, testing her abilities, expending almost a million Mermen lives to guarantee victory for Shoal, going so far as to risk her true-blooded brother.

Thereby, driven by jaw-clenching credo and buoyed by confidence, Nyrlesvinyr allowed her Dragon Fear to take root in the heart of her Shoal.

Only then, with her Shoal ashore, the sorceress fled and the human city dashed, would her hearts have satisfaction.

Snug on the sky deck of Auckland's floating Tower, Gwen seriously considered if she should make her Tower the likeness of an Imperial Star Destroyer (™). Granted, they were not in outer space or pursuing rebels through an asteroid field. Still, the déjà vu generated by the thrumming of the mana engine, the running crewmen and the field of view was as close as it got.

In the looming distance, the coral island of Nyrlesvinyr approached as a bio-organic spaceship, closing the gap with the pace and determination of a strike cruiser. For the moment, Nyrlesvinyr's abode posed no danger, though there was no doubt that a hovering landmass covered in seafood could unleash a horde the likes of which only a Leviathan-class sea beast could muster.

That and the Shoal was legitimately on the move, pushing forward as a tidal cohort of coral and spines, fins, teeth and claws, swarming around and over the island for the inner bay of Auckland cove.

_It's alright, no pressure._ Gwen double-checked her Mandala. By now, her Enchantment tier had significantly improved, but a year had also passed since she conjured her last Shoggoth.

What preoccupied her was not the menace on the horizon but rather the lack of proton torpedoes or pew-pew lasers from the Tower.

Once the inner Mandala was completed, she turned to her aide, Aria Campbell-Ravenport. For the moment, her staff from Cambridge had packed away their work, for the Pocket Plane that housed their auditing office was far too dangerous a place to be in the middle of a direct Tower-to-Monster battle. As a result, the London Mages insinuated themselves into the various departments in the Tower, offering their first-tier expertise wherever they could.

To deploy the Shoggoth, authorisation was required from herself, the Tower Master and Auckland's Paladin. Aria's role was to act as London's observer, returning in the aftermath with a treasure trove of data.

"Aria... pardon my ignorance, but where's our Ray of Disintegration?"

When she fought the Lich in China, Gwen recalled that the PLA had been exceptionally liberal in using hyper-range spells of mass destruction. A nice death ray, lasting a few minutes and a half-million HDMs, should be able to slice Nyrlesvinyr's home in twain or at least give it caution that the Tower was out of bounds.

Aria remained politely mum while directing her gaze toward the tattooed giant on the rails overlooking the Mandala.

Te Wherowhero, who had joined them in person to oversee the deployment of her Shoggoth, looked sheepish. "Magister Song, Auckland is a tier 2 Tower… We have no Ray of Disintegration Mandalas."

"Hmm..." Gwen racked her brain for something that could give Nyrlesvinyr food for thought. "Surely, a super-charged Fire Storm isn't out of the question. Wasn't Yue just here?"

"Magister Song, Towers like Auckland are built for Abjuration," Aria reminded her of a long-ago lesson on the logistics of the Mageocracy. "Of course, there are offensive Towers in the Frontier—Gunther's, for example. And the Melbourne Tower. But this is Auckland—even if Paladin Te had a Disintegration module installed, which Frontier will they attack? The South Island that belongs to benign Demi-humans? Those Mandalas cost millions of HDMs and months to construct, and the maintenance material cost alone will unbalance Auckland's budget."

"Right…" Gwen gazed at the approaching island. "I guess you guys will do this the old-fashioned way, eh? Paladin Te, I saw Mages using the amplification Mandala earlier. We can use that, yes?"

"You and your team have priority, Sis," Wherowhero assured them. "However, Lord Gunther has advised that we do not tax you with this burden."

"That's because while the Mandala amplifies the spells' range, damage and overall draw-strength—" their interlocutor was Petra, currently working on the outer circles of her Mandala. "—we have limited data on the amplification of Void Magic or Barbanginy. If you remember our work with Magister Brown, the Mandala cannot lend Essence or vitality."

"And even if Magister Song does have enough," Aria raised her voice. "She would be left with nothing to summon the Strategic-class Planar Ally."

"It was just a thought," Gwen calmed her two guardians, assuring them she wasn't about to put her curiosity to the test.

After a year-long study as Brown's lab rat, she knew better than to drain her Essence to the last drop. As with Gracy and those other Void Mages she had signed up to help, a high-tier Affinity meant the need for an equal or greater offset. To drain herself completely of vitality and Essence could have dire consequences.

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"Lulu!" Gwen willed forth her bodyguard. "As discussed. Could you help the Tower with rebuffing the island? I don't believe Paladin Te has any offensive material-casters on his roster."

Lulan dipped her chin obediently. "I won't be able to control the swords with Ki."

"I don't think you'll need precision," Gwen said. "Just fire away and let the metal work their magic. The Shoggoth summoning requires a distraction, and I can't think of anyone better than you and Yue to keep a Mud Princess occupied."

"Understood." Lulan looked to Paladin Te, who nodded appreciatively, then told an aide to lead the Sword Mage down the gangway to the Tower's amplification batteries.

Gwen continued to lay down the concentric runic circles with her inscription wand. On launch, the deck section could be detached and teleported by the Tower to its desired location mid-air. There, she would summon the Shoggoth and allow it to descend, free from the interference of the water-born Mermen, who had no idea what was coming.

As always, the tiny part of her that remained unused to the moral pragmatism of her new world reared its head and whispered words of doubt.

Mermen…

It wasn't as though she didn't know any Mermen. There was that funny feller, Lei-bup, whom she met on Chicken Shit Island back in Pudong. She had also seen and met others on her journey through the coastal regions of the UK, where the Mer "folk" of the lakes and streams co-existed and thrived beside humanity.

These were sapient beings, capable of love—capable of sorrow.

These were not the alien mind of the Triffidus or the unfathomable malice of the Undead hordes.

To consign the milling millions in that Shoal to the Shoggoth…

"Magister Song—" Petra's criticism drifted through the air. "Your lower-right inscription is one stroke away from connecting to the wrong circuit."

"Whoops—sorry," heeding the admonition, Gwen redoubled her focus, making provisions for the expression of lesser woes. "Say, do you think the Mermen will accept a loss by _Shoggoth_? Or are we setting ourselves up for something more sinister later down the track?"

"The full impact of something like this is impossible to predict," Richard butted in. He would be her bodyguard in place of Lulan while on the platform, using Lea's supernatural invisibility to disguise their presence and mask their mana signature. "And it's above our pay grade. For now, we are merely the Mageocracy's implements."

On cue, the floor began to tremble. The Magnification Mandala was active, meaning Worm Island had hovered over the Barrier Island's northern lip and was now close enough to take damage.

"Look, if you're worried about using the Shoggoth on _people_ ," Richard's next words seemed to have read her mind. "It isn't as though you're preventing the Mer from fleeing. Any that doesn't wish to perish by Shoggoth merely needs to turn tail and swim as deep and far as they can. When we make the decisions, you can give them a warning and a Lumen-caster Trailer to watch. For now, we're just doing our job."

"Likely, Magister Song, this needs to happen only once," Aria was also an excellent mind reader. "After Auckland, every Shoal between here and the Seven Kingdoms of the Deep will think twice before committing a force of that size."

"That," Richard added with his usual sardonicism. "Or they would hail Auckland as the perfect garbage disposal for their excess citizens."

"Ah, of course," Gwen didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Thank you, Dick. The prospect of an annual Shoal has put me completely at ease. I—whoa—"

Her words were cut short by an ear-splitting, teeth-grating, onomatopoeic _SCHWING_ splitting the air, joined by a chorus of suddenly manifesting metal projectiles.

From their vantage, Gwen and her company saw the parabolic curve of Lulan's blades shrieking through the cloudy yonder, trailing white streaks of chemtrails as they flew.

The first blade, much to their disappointment, fell short.

As the trail behind it grew dense, it failed to maintain the momentum of its flight and began to dip about three-quarters into its two-kilometre flight.

"A shield?"

"Looks like a Vapour Barrier, an enormous one," Richard remarked as Lea manifested beside his ear, delivering a string of whispers in Elemental. "It's not much up-close, but if it's a kilometre thick, it'll work."

Lulan must have adjusted, for the rest of the blades came closer. One was enough to float past the island, where a second command word from Lulan was enough to deploy a Blade Shatter, pelting the coral surface with metal shards. In the aftermath, living bits of bone, rock and aquarium interiors splattered upon the abandoned installations on Barrier Island. From the looks of the collateral, these were very dense and heavy debris, compressed by the immense pressures of the sea.

The other swords, which now dotted the general vicinity, erupted in sequence, harvesting great semi-circles of sea fodder.

At the same time, a spiral began forming from the coral island's misty surface, creating something akin to a lance.

"Brace for impact," her Water Mage cousin notified Gwen before the mud missile materialised. A dozen breaths later, a battering mud ram leapt in an arc across the distance between the two flying structures, making for the Tower's sky deck.

Gwen was already afloat, though she had underestimated the true forte of Auckland's Tower Master. Esther Hildenbrandt might be a wizened old Abjurer from Henry's epoch—but she remained the famed inventor of the honeycomb lattice employed by many a Mineral Mage.

As the projectile mud-slide approached, deflecting panes of hexagonal force began to shave away at its trajectory, eventuating in the beam striking at the lower, slender segment of the Tower, where a multitude of panes deflected the blow.

Several breaths later, the landscape behind the Tower erupted, uprooting ancient trees, turning stone to spontaneous mud, resulting in a landslide beginning from the cape's tip to the disturbed ocean below.

"Holy shit." Gwen's brows twitched.

"Good thing we didn't fight it head-on, hey?" Richard whistled. "I'd done a few lair Purges, but this is the first time a lair itself has attacked. It's kind of surreal, don't you think?"

Gwen nodded. There was no possibility of her personally dealing with the mud sprout.

It was one thing to fight a Magical Beast on its own and a whole other thing to fight it in its lair. She had felt incredibly powerful after besting the Dragon Turtle—but now, not so much. A part of her wanted to give Gunther a call so she could grumble—and her Brother-in-craft would likely arrive to help. Should such a thing come to pass, the spoils of victory would be tithed to Sydney, leaving Auckland with a ravaged city and no means of re-investing. That and the Factions would implode, leaving her and Gunther up shit creek.

Heedless of her thoughts, the two flying fortresses continued to close in upon one another, reaching the span of a half-kilometre. With her Essence-enhanced eyes, Gwen could see every detail, including the beady eyes of the numerous heads lurking in the caverns of Nyrlesvinyr's abode.

At once, each head manifested separate magics to attack the Tower.

The floor thrummed.

Gwen gripped her inscription wand and continued her work.

A minute later, Auckland began its return volley.

_SCHWING—_

Cruise Missiles in the shape of iron slabs sallied forth from the Plane of Earth. This time, the swords reached their target, embedding themselves into the craggy surface of the coral island.

An invocation later, the upper surface of the landmass erupted, tearing out chunks of fossilised stone, exposing the underlayer of Nyrlesvinyr's home.

"SKY Metal!" Petra recognised the composition at once. "That's no coral! That's a hollowed-out celestial ore!"

Like Petra, Gwen paused her work to stare.

This world, like her own, had a dire need of rare metals for Enchantments and assorted circuitry for Mandalas. A rare source of these hyper-dense materials that had soaked up the elemental energies of the cosmos was celestial ore—known to her as meteorites.

To think that Nyrlesvinyr made her home in the largest deposit of rare Elemental Earth metals she had ever seen!

But that made perfect sense, for Nyrlesvinyr was a true-scion Dragon. It needed to be surrounded by dense mana similar to its Elements to sleep and grow. What better bed-cum-nest than a meteor fallen into the ocean, sent adrift into the Elemental Plane of Water?

Her money-making senses tingled.

If they got their hands on the worm's home, Auckland might have ninety-nine problems, but finance wasn't going to be one.

Shrugging off Lulan's best, the island continued its forward trajectory at ramming speed.

In response, the Tower's creep ground to a halt as it readied itself either for Teleportation or to pull its gravitational arrays for a quick reverse.

" _ELEFA-MUNTHREKI—_ " a blast of loud-hailing Draconic reverberated from the island, triggering a visually confirmable pulse of Dragon Fear that turned the Tower's defence matrix momentarily white-hot.

When her vision returned, Gwen confirmed Nyrlesvinyr's commitment.

Where the invasion wave was making steady progress, it was now surging forward at full tilt, swamping the island from east to west. From her vantage, she could see the Human stragglers—either Militia who were left behind or the stubborn inhabitants who had refused to leave, disappear under a tidal wave of roving, clambering, slithering bodies.

Once the main mass of the Shoal reached the inner sea, Auckland as they knew it would cease to exist. And so, any doubts about the Shoggoth's deployment perished.

The floor jolted.

The Tower began to move backwards, maximising its chances of avoiding a direct impact from Nyrlesvinyr.

_Focus._ Gwen told herself. _Focus on the Mandala._

She had another section to finish, and then Petra would need to check and double-check the inscriptions while she lay down the HDMs necessary to invoke the gate for her fictive "Old Ones".

Turning her mind from the battle of the titans merely an eggshell's Wall of Force away, Gwen continued her work.

Six arrays later, the atmosphere outside glowed a sudden amber, turning the interior of the sky decks vibrant autumn, mirroring every surface with flame.

_That_ would be Yue working her magic below in the Amplification Mandala. Her heart grew sore for her companions, for Gwen knew from her academic studies that any connection with the Tower's sub-systems was extremely taxing on the mind and that consecutive uses of magic would render a Mage's brain into jello. Lacking a super-human like Gunther, it was why a Tower had a Paladin and a Master, for one controlled the battle, while the other managed the Tower's complex resources through its array of support Mages.

Gwen lifted her hand each time the Tower shook and waited for a lull to continue. The process persisted for an uncertain number of exchanges between the Tower and Nyrlesvinyr, with Mages swapping in and out of the Amplification Mandala.

"It's done!" Gwen stepped back as Petra stepped in to double-check her work, making minute corrections here and there. "Paladin Te, we're ready to proceed."

"Thank Old Yog for that," her cousin replied cheekily.

Te instantly began the process of shielding and teleporting the platform.

Looking outside once more, Gwen noted that the floating island was now below the Tower and out of her line of sight. Up close, the island looked more beautiful than ever—and the "true" bodies of Nyrlesvinyr were as menacing as they were colourful.

Switching to Golos' Link Sight, she saw from its flyby that Nyrlesvinyr and the Tower were engaged in a deadly, tentacle-themed tango.

Nyrlesvinyr's abode had lost much of its mobility out of the water, staggering toward Auckland Tower like a drunk, persistent admirer. A dozen "worms" distended from its caverns, each a living hose of mud and acid, spraying down the Tower's exterior with all manners of ejecta, trying to latch on and bore a hole into its interior.

The Tower was playing hard-to-get, equally lacking in mobility but still better than a worm-island out of water. From its lower batteries, it was hammering Nyrlesvinyr with everything from Punamu, Lulan's iron, Yue's Fire, Lightning and every other magic its Mages could muster. Golos assisted with lines of lightning, but the Thunder Wyvern had to rest between each attack, and Elemental Lightning was itself mud when used against… mud.

A missing element, Gwen supposed, would be Steam—but Thomas and his team had earlier teleported out, having already overstayed and fought in a battle they were not authorised to participate. If one were to put Thomas in a twenty-magnitude amplifier—and if Thomas were to manifest a Steam Bomb...

"Paladin Te has authorised the Mandala to be deployed," Petra stepped back with both hands raised, like a surgeon stepping away from a sutured wound. "Magister Song, you may proceed."

Gwen took a deep breath. She stepped into the centre of the Mandala.

"Paladin Te, Magister Hildenbrandt?” She dropped the Message to the control centre. "Let's end this war."

As an oceanic Elemental Princess, Nyrlesvinyr knew every advantage offered by her "shell", one stout enough to withstand attacks from her sibling rivals.

Yet, bathed in the shadow of an existence she could not comprehend, Nyrlesvinyr felt seized by the all-consuming riptide of a Leviathan's sea-swallowing gulp.

The _Thing_ that emerged from the heavens, rending the Prime Material apart like a ragged cloth as it came, was living hunger from the Unformed Land.

As it descended, the Elemental Princess became reminded of an absurd rumour she had heard from traders in the North Pacific: that a great cult had arisen near the Yellow Sea, one disassociated from the Seven Kingdoms. In battle, the Shoals of these fanatic cultists would perform suicidal rushes, eating and devouring everything in their way, howling the name of an unnamed "Pale Fleshed Priestess". If left alone—and if enough Mermen were to perish, or so the stories went, a great Kraken of the Void would emerge, with tentacles studded with eyes, consuming cultists and foes alike.

Nyrlesvinyr had no idea if that rumour was genuine—but the cloud-Kraken currently being regurgitated downward certainly matched the description.

Immediately, Nyrlesvinyr had ordered her troops to turn the creature back into the aether from which it came.

Elite Mermen calvary riding on spirited seahorse Undines surged forth on high-rising crests to blast beams of ice and water toward the draping tendrils.

These were successful—until they were not. The fallen segments of the Kraken merely took on a new life. Where the tendrils fell, they began to consume her Shoal en masse, rapidly expanding into floating drapes of oily film that dissolved scale and shell alike. As for her Wave Riders, those who charged into the lumbering tendrils soon joined the wailing chorus of existential agony.

Nyrlesvinyr redoubled her efforts against the Tower—but knew that a breach would take several moon cycles while her Shoal had already entered a state of severe shock. Without her below to compel order with her Dragon Fear, the Shoal would soon disperse into the deep. Even now, only a short distance away from the loci of her presence, she could feel the hysteria brewing below, touching the sanity of the lowest prawn to the highest Shark-kin.

An enormous tendril, dark and tenebrous and studded with unblinking eyes in every shade and colour, dipped into the water.

When it struck the churning surface, its split tendrils erupted into an oily dragnet, each teeth-covered tentacle holding the screaming, howling form of a semi-paralysed Mermen, each singing insane orisons, pleading for death.

Nyrlesvinyr fought the desire to look up—for she could not withstand the hungering gaze of that singular ocular orb staring down at the feast of fish below, devoid of feeling yet full of malicious intent.

_The Summoner!_ Nyrlesvinyr knew the solution.

She tasted the air for the sorceress' Essence.

Then felt despair.

The Vessel with the ancient Essence had fled inside the Tower, near the top, where the panes of force were thickest—where Nyrlesvinyr could not reach without first breaching its defences.

Despite her growing chagrin, the volleys of spellfire pounding her shell continued unabated.

After a moment of indecision, Nyrlesvinyr lifted herself from the Tower.

Auckland's floating battle station pulled away from Nyrlesvinyr like a fleeing dance partner. It began to beat a retreat back to the human city, withdrawing the dragnet of echoing resonance as it went, abandoning every landmass of the islands below, including both stations on either headland.

_So that's what it was._ Nyrlesvinyr read the tactical retreat at once. _So not even the Land-kin could control this unnamable beast from the Void._ Her adversary might appear magnitudes more powerful than the Coral Sea's Void Witch, but the whelp possessed no control over that which she unleashed into the world.

However, that didn't change the fact that her Shoal, having been caught unaware, was rapidly disintegrating.

For a while, her synaptic organs had been bleating Dragon Fear non-stop to no avail. Only those of her Essence and blood managed to respond, though, by their meagre numbers, they were subsumed by the dangling tendrils, becoming nutrients to its exponential growth.

_Deep Miommiriorthyr!_ Nyrlesvinyr involuntarily turned her dozen eyes upon the unformed monstrosity. _The bloated fiend was already a hundred times the size from whence it emerged!_

She should have fought it as soon as it manifested.

Perhaps then, she could have caught the summoner.

Or at least expend enough of her vital force to force it back into the devouring Void.

_Should I flee?_ The self-imposed question shook all three of her Cores.

Nyrlesvinyr felt a sudden and unwelcome sympathy for Shyvaphyr.

Somewhere in the Shoal's depth, her headless brother remained unconscious, his Essence busy at work re-knitting his sundered sub-Core.

Soon, he would be nourishment for the great eye.

To fight the creature now, as it continues to absorb her Shoal, portended no victory.

But to flee from the creature without her Shoal—to return to the deep without Shyvaphyr—would entail shame and mockery from her siblings, torture from those who coveted her domain, and then— her Essence would be parcelled out to others.

Following her anagnorisis, Nyrlesvinyr felt a sudden weight lifted from her dozen heads.

To become blissfully extinct in glorious battle against the appendage of an Old God of the Planes.

Or to die a worm's death.

For one as old as Nyrlesvinyr, a Prince's death was far worthier than a pauper's.

Besides, what if the beyond wasn't oblivion but the Unformed Land?

The Yellow Sea.

Deep below the surface, the Great Shoal was once more on the move.

“GWEEE—GWEEEN— GWEEENGH— GWEEENGH—“

With each echoing cry, a sea shanty of psychic madness polluted the waters of what human sailors dubbed the gateway to northern China, driving any Mer caught in its mental net into a frenzy of indiscriminate feasting.

"PRAISE!" Came the echoing cry of a singular voice from within the swirling vortex of the roving Shoal. "FEAST UPON THY FOES, THAT WE MAY PRAISE THE PALE PRIESTESS!"

"WEEE— WEEE—" sang the Shoal in response, surging forward and in every way, rolling like a grinding mill wheel into the necrotic waves of lumbering Mer-carcasses making up the opposing Shoal. "WEEE—WEEE—WEEE—"

The year-long battle for the dominion of the East China Sea had been at a stalemate for months, but today—but now!—Lei-bup, Archpriest of her Paleness the Priestess of White Flesh, was truly confident they would win!

As early as the morning, when the first rays pierced the blue yonder, his un-healable void-wounds began to ooze, putting him in such exquisite agony that only the soothing songs of a dozen Mermaid Priestesses could prevent him from seeking eternal union with the Pale Priestess.

Then, after a meal of SPAM and an hour's supplication at the alter of her likeness, Lei-bup knew that the time had come.

_Today—no—this hour!_ — _The Old Ones would descend!_ Unlike the dozens of failures that saw the death of a hundred thousand faithful to the zombified Shoal, their current crusade would succeed.

All the Shoal needed was faith and belief in the great egalitarian dream that no fish was unworthy of her Paleness' all-devouring consumption.

And those zealots of Undeath! Those mad kings and princes who dared to hound his Shoal and put an end to Priestess' wild dreaming—

All would be punished!

All shall be consumed!

ALL—MADE—EQUAL by the great devouring eye!