Chapter 106: Island Battle (1/3)

The first broadside came before the ship did.

Forty guns fired at once along the Ironmaw Battleship’s side. The sea between the ship and the island turned white with smoke.

Billy watched the shells arc toward the wall. He did not move.

"Terry."

The Terravault Sentinel was already walking. He reached the southern arc of the wall and sank both feet into the stone. He did that on purpose, not because the stone gave way.

Then he threw both arms wide.

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[ Ironwall Barrier ]

```

Earth and metal shot up along the face of the wall. The barrier rose forty meters high and packed itself solid in under a second.

The broadside hit it. The whole island rang like a struck bell.

When the smoke cleared, the barrier had nine deep cracks in it. It was still standing. Terry had not moved a single step.

"Good." Billy grinned. "Our turn."

Every Aegis Bastion Turret on the southern wall fired at the same moment.

---

On the deck of the Ironmaw Battleship, Kaevan Dross watched four siege lances punch straight through his forward shielding.

He did not stop smiling.

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[ Kaevan Dross ]

[ Class: Ashfall Siege Marshal (Mythic) ]

[ Talent: Detonation Sovereign (Legendary) ]

```

"Turrets." He said it slowly, like a man hearing good news. "Core-linked too. Look at how they track. That is a real base."

Serai Vokh stood beside him. She watched the same volley and saw something different in it.

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[ Serai Vokh ]

[ Class: Hollowpoint Rift Duelist (Mythic) ]

[ Talent: Severance Point (Legendary) ]

```

"Two players hold this island," she said. "Only two. And they still found time to build artillery."

"Then they spent everything they had on walls." Kaevan pulled a belt of small black spheres off the rack. He armed them one by one with his thumb as he spoke. "Walls come down. They always do."

He had taken nine islands in this match already. Every one of them had walls.

The ram at the front of the Ironmaw Battleship lit up with stored energy. Two hundred and twelve units pushed toward the rails.

---

The landing was not really a landing. It was a crash.

The Ironmaw Battleship drove its prow straight into the base of the causeway. The whole stone span broke apart and fell into the water.

The units came off the deck in a black wave before the pieces finished falling. They hit the lower terraces and started to climb.

Sonic met them halfway up.

```

[ Overcharge Dash ]

```

The Stormrunner Wraith moved so fast that he stopped looking like a person. He looked like a line drawn across the terrace.

Everything he touched came apart. Then the lightning did the rest.

Chain Current jumped from one body to the next, all the way up the slope. Forty units locked up and dropped before the front rank understood it was under attack.

"Storm’s Herald is up!" Sonic shouted as he blurred past the wall. "Everyone is faster now! Use it!"

Solveig used it.

The Vorpal Lord did not jump off the wall. He stepped off and fell, crimson light trailing behind his armor, and landed in the thickest part of the enemy formation.

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[ Bloodfall Destruction ]

```

A column of crimson light came down on the terrace. Everything standing inside a thirty meter circle stopped existing.

Then Solveig raised his sword. His command aura spread across the whole island.

Every defender on Aegis Isle felt it at once. Their wounds stopped being a weakness and started feeding their attacks instead.

Below them, Winsmoke opened his hull.

```

[ Cafe Mode ]

```

A full kitchen unfolded out of the Cinderstove Corvaincraft’s chassis. Burners roared to life along the terrace wall.

The smell that rolled down the slope was so good that three enemy units actually stopped to breathe it in.

They died standing still.

```

[ Banquet Barrage ]

```

Superheated projectiles poured off Winsmoke’s line in a steady stream. Each one hit hard enough to punch through armor plate.

The terrace below him filled with fire.

---

The production units were not sitting this one out.

Ironbound Siege Kroth had spent the ship’s approach pulling apart the broken causeway. What rolled out of the lower gate was a war engine that had not existed a minute earlier.

Runic Sigil Draventh walked the wall behind the turrets. It laid a hand on each gun housing as it passed.

Every turret it touched fired brighter and hit harder afterward.

Tideglass Flow Maren fed the magazines by hand. The glass shells were still cloudy with whatever it had brewed inside them.

The first of those shells burst above the enemy’s left flank. The flank stopped moving.

Whatever Maren had mixed into it did not need a second dose.

Molten Core Vulkarn cracked open the grate in its chest. Ore Grubs poured down the cliff face by the hundred.

They burrowed into the stone under the advancing units and pulled the ground out from under them.

High above all of it, Starlit Void Nyriel hung between two spires. Its little floating lights spread wide across the entire approach.

Nothing on that field stayed hidden. Every turret knew exactly where to aim, because Nyriel was telling them.

’This is what he built.’ Billy watched the whole thing lock together from the wall. ’Not one strong thing. A hundred things that fit together.’

Then he stepped off the wall and went to work.

```

[ Wing Reaping Arc ]

```

Billy’s wings swept out and threw a storm of blade fragments across the lower terrace. The enemy line lost thirty units in two seconds.

His twelve Void Motes scattered off his frame and went hunting on their own.

---

Kaevan Dross came up the terrace behind his units. He was in no hurry at all.

He watched the Ore Grubs collapse his left flank. He watched Maren’s shell kill sixty of his units without a single shot being fired at them.

He watched a Mythic-rank blade carve a hole straight through his center.

He kept smiling. He kept walking. He kept arming spheres.

He had said they spent everything on walls. He was updating that guess now, and he still was not afraid.

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[ Ashfall Cascade ]

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Nine black spheres left his hand at once. None of them exploded.

They landed. They rolled. They settled into cracks, under bodies, and against the base of the wall.

Then they sat there, quiet and harmless, exactly where nobody was looking.

That was the real trick of his talent. Detonation Sovereign did not make his bombs bigger.

It made them wait as long as he wanted. Then it let him set all of them off together with increased power.