Chapter 105: Reinforced Base (2/2)

```

[ Aegis Bastion Turret ]

Rank: Mythic

> Long-range magical artillery. 360-degree rotation.

> Slaved directly to the Territory Core’s detection field.

> Ammunition types: mana bolt, elemental shell, anti-air burst, siege lance.

```

"Multiple ammunition types." Alice was already looking at the loading mechanism with open professional interest. "You made it modular."

"Chaos Wish." Xairon’s form rippled with something like pride. "The lord asked for weapons that could attack those who came to harm us. I asked myself what harm might look like. Then I built for all of it."

There was more.

Tideglass Flow Maren had filled the magazine racks with liquid ammunition, elemental payloads suspended in glass shells that hadn’t existed in any catalog Logan had ever read.

Molten Core Vulkarn’s Ore Grubs had stripped the Pyroclast vein out of the Warlord’s old mine and hauled every gram of it back here, and the wall had swallowed it whole.

The towers weren’t just towers either.

"Mana amplification at the top," Xairon said, following Logan’s gaze up. "Surveillance across the whole approach. And each one is a gate."

"A gate to where?"

"Anywhere the core has been. Emergency exit, if the wall ever fails." The chaos-thing paused. "It will not fail."

Logan looked at the four spires and the ring of guns and the causeway hanging over nothing, and thought about the hundred meters of sand they’d started with.

’This isn’t a base anymore.’ The realization sat somewhere between pride and unease. ’This is a target.’

---

The Chaos PsyDogs found them in the central plaza.

All ten of them, spectral and grinning, were currently very much occupied with a game whose rules seemed to involve running through each other at speed.

One phased straight through Alice’s legs, came out the other side, and immediately tried to do it again.

"They’ve been like this since they got back." Sonic drifted down from somewhere overhead, entirely too amused. "Ten of them. All finished. All extremely proud of themselves."

Logan crouched, and one of them bounded over, immaterial for exactly as long as it took to reach him, then solid enough to shove its head into his hand.

"You marked your spots?"

"Waoof!"

"All ten of you?"

The chorus that answered was loud enough to startle birds off the wall.

’Ten locations. Danger or fortune, and no way to know which until we get there.’ Logan scratched behind a spectral ear and felt the shape of the next few decisions arranging themselves. ’One portal each. Once we go, that dog is spent.’

He straightened up.

"Not yet," he told them, and got ten deeply offended looks in return. "Soon. I want to be ready first."

---

He opened the Tower Point interface on the plaza steps, Alice sitting beside him with her chin on her hand.

```

[ Total Tower Points: 81,200 ]

```

"Healing Area first." He didn’t hesitate. "If people are coming for this place, I want the ground itself to put us back together."

```

[ Healing Area: Level 1 → Level 5 (MAX) ]

[ Cost: 18,500 Tower Points ]

[ HP and MP recovery within territory bounds substantially increased. Recovery now applies to all allied units. ]

```

The change was immediate and physical. Logan felt the ache in his shoulders start to unwind just from standing there, and Alice let out a breath like something had been unclenched for her.

"Oh." She flexed her draw hand, the one that had gone numb waves ago. "Oh, that’s good."

"Now the fun part."

```

[ Summon: Combat Unit x100 ] [ Cost: 10,000 Tower Points ]

[ Summon: Production Unit x100 ] [ Cost: 10,000 Tower Points ]

```

Two hundred cards spilled across the plaza stone in a wash of light.

Logan sorted the combat pull first, out of habit, and the spread came out exactly as unremarkable as a Level 1 circle always produced.

Thirty-six Normal. Thirty-four Uncommon. Twenty-nine Rare. One Epic.

’A worse circle than half the people in that event were running.’ He cracked his knuckles, entirely unbothered. ’And it has never once mattered.’

Because he didn’t need the circle. He had Boundless Genesis.

```

[ 36x Normal merged into 18x Uncommon ]

[ 52x Uncommon merged into 26x Rare ]

[ 55x Rare merged into 27x Epic, 1x Rare remaining ]

[ 28x Epic merged into 14x Legendary ]

[ 14x Legendary merged into 7x Mythic ]

```

Seven Mythic-rank combat units stood up out of the light, and one lonely Rare card sat off to the side where Logan flicked it.

He ran the production pull straight after, and it broke down the same way, thirty-six, thirty-four, twenty-nine, and one.

```

[ 36x Normal merged into 18x Uncommon ]

[ 52x Uncommon merged into 26x Rare ]

[ 55x Rare merged into 27x Epic, 1x Rare remaining ]

[ 28x Epic merged into 14x Legendary ]

[ 14x Legendary merged into 7x Mythic ]

```

Fourteen Mythics total. Two spare Rares.

Alice looked at the new arrivals filling half the plaza and shook her head slowly.

"Two hundred garbage pulls." She was smiling. "Fourteen Mythics. I have watched you do this a dozen times, and it still doesn’t look real."

"It looks like math." Logan grinned back. "Very stubborn math."

```

[ Remaining Tower Points: 42,700 ]

```

Xairon had already drifted over to inspect the new production units, and Logan watched the Creation Sage size up seven fresh Mythic-rank pairs of hands with something that looked a great deal like appetite.

’Whatever this place looks like now, it’s going to look different by the time we get back.’

---

They picked a dog more or less at random.

The one that had shoved its head into Logan’s hand won by virtue of not leaving his side since, and it went absolutely rigid with joy when he pointed at it.

"You. Show us yours."

It spun twice, barked once, and tore a hole in the air.

The portal held steady, edges guttering with pale chaotic light, and through it Logan could see rock and something further back that caught the light wrong.

"Danger or fortune?" Alice checked her bowstring one last time.

"With that one?" Logan drew Grimlord’s Blade and rolled his shoulders. "Coin flip."

"My favorite odds."

Billy called something after them that was probably rude. Sonic was still laughing when they stepped through.

The portal closed behind them.

---

Not long after the portal closed, the horizon south of the island went dark.

Sonic saw it first, because Sonic was always the one in the air, and the joke died in his throat halfway out.

It wasn’t a cloud.

The ship came out of the haze in silence. It kept coming, and it kept coming, until the scale of it stopped making sense against the water.

Hull plated in blackened iron. Sails that weren’t catching any wind at all. Batteries running the full length of both flanks, gun ports already sliding open in a long ripple down the side.

And on every deck, packed shoulder to shoulder, units.

```

[ Hostile Force Detected ]

[ Vessel: Ironmaw Siege Carrack ]

[ Hostile units: 200 ]

[ Rank range: Normal to Legendary ]

```

Billy was on the wall before the notification finished resolving, void blades already drawn, grin stretching wide and mean across his face.

Behind him, every turret on Aegis Isle turned south at once.

"Sonic." Billy didn’t look away from the water. "Go find the boss."

"He went through a portal!" Sonic was already climbing. "A one-way portal! That dog is spent, Billy; it can’t open another one! We need to send someone to tell them the enemies are here."

Billy’s grin didn’t waver.

"Then I guess we’ll hold it ourselves because we don’t have time to send someone to inform them. Let’s slaughter them all."