Blade Over Magic

Chaos

The moment the ground started to tremble, Xander, who had closed his eyes to get some rest, immediately opened them and stood up straight.

Everyone else stood, too, and looked towards the catacombs. With each second, the tremors got worse and worse, until they reached even Landor.

’Aubrey?’ Xander asked while drawing his sword, and everyone also prepared themselves.

’Something’s not right... The ants, they’re—!’ Before she could finish, something exploded.

At the very top of the catacombs near the center, a massive explosion erupted, and building sized chunks of rock erupted high into the sky before gravity did its job and started pulling them down in arcs.

The following blast was wave hit the frontlines line a moving wall, and many soldiers were thrown off their feet. But that wasn’t all, as starting from the mountain, the ground was shattered apart as numerous chasms appeared simultaneously, the entire frontline getting broken apart as entire pieces of landed lifted and sunk together.

Some unprepared soldiers fell into these chasms. Some getting caught by their teammates, others catching themselves, and some falling several, sometimes dozens of meters before hitting the ground hard.

Outposts were literally split in half, and defenses were broken apart and rendered useless.

”What the hell is going on?!” Falael yelled amidst the thundering noises as they waved their wand, and several beams of starlight flew into the air to strike the larger chunks of rock that would no doubt do immense damage if they landed. The rocks exploding into countless smaller pieces, but they were still a whole lot of them.

That’s when Landor’s artillery activated and began bombarding the falling chunks.

’Guys, we... have a... problem!’ Aubrey’s voice sounded through the bond, but it sounded weirdly distorted.

Before any of them could ask what, someone yelled ”ANTS”, and upon looking up, they were stunned to see that, in the hole where the mountain top had been, ants were spewing out.

And this time, it wasn’t an acceptable number. Instead, it looked as though ink was diffusing into water, but this time, it was ants diffusing into the air, that’s how many they were as all of them took to the skies.

’They’re... all the ants.... from the chamber... we hit with the plague. All of them are... sick! Something... interfering with...’ Aubrey’s voice was cut short, and Xander was unable to communicate with her any further.

’That’s not good.’ He clicked his tongue as an ominous feeling settled in his heart.

”We’re going to have to split up and take a portion of the frontline each! There are too many ants to focus our power in one area!” Sparrow yelled amidst the sounds of explosions that filled the sky.

”Got it!” Xander nodded and glanced at Falael and Curtis. Both of them met his gaze and nodded before dashing out.

As for Xander, he tensed his body and took a step. As soon as he did, he matched his body’s frequency with that of the ground, and his entire body rode the vibrations with incredible speed.

After days of fighting and repeatedly using Vibration Traversal, he’d finally grasped how to use it without any external items. Hence, it didn’t take him long to reach the far side of the frontlines, and when he looked up, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of oppression.

Just a single portion of the incoming ant tide was almost as much as all the ants Landor had killed up till this point.

And yet, when Xander looked at them...

’They’re all sick.’ Indeed, most of the ants looked.. ill. Their chittin was degraded in various places, some worse than others, and most of them had dark liquids seeping from the openings in their bodies. Those that flew appeared unstable, and those that crawled constantly stumbled as they advanced, sometimes getting trampled by the ants before them. Hence, it didn’t take much to realize that their combat strength was probably significantly impeded.

But even then.

’They’re just too many.’ Xander clicked his tongue before summoning all his swords. A total of 40 different swords, each a different type with different functions. However, none of them fell to the floor. Rather, they floated, and this was due to a string that was attached to their handles.

The strings vibrated, which made the swords levitate.

Xander couldn’t fly, so dealing with both the flying and crawling ants would be an issue.

Under normal circumstances.

However, after fighting them already for so long, he’d naturally already thought of a way to circumvent this weakness.

All the swords that were attached to strings flew out until they were each a sizeable distance away from each other, some high up where they would meet the flying ants, and others stretching far along the ground.

Then, these swords each took a ’stance’, As though an invisible person were holding them.

Xander also entered a stance and exhaled, his concentration entering an all time high as he met the tide of ants, the swords all moving like extensions of his body.

***

Aubrey, the Captain, and pretty much all of Landor’s high tiers moved towards the frontline as quickly as they could to support it. The main force trailing behind them.

No one was under the illusion that the elite team would be able to hold out effectively against so many ants. So they didn’t hesitate to move to support them.

As she ran, Aubrey’s expression was dark.

’Something is interfering with my perception.’ In her perception, there was an invisible force that pressed down on all the layers she was capable of perceiving. That’s why the telepathic link was cut short, and right now, her information clones were working hard to re-establish that connection, as a battlefield this chaotic without an effective communication source was a terrible idea.

But beyond that, she was wary. Whatever managed to interfere with her perception so thoroughly wasn’t going to be simple at all.

’Please be okay, everyone.’ She thought as she forced herself to run faster, pushing her Mana Breathing to the limit.

***

Sparrow had no choice but to use Overclocking. Not just to increase her speed to match the sheer number of ants in the vicinity, but also to actually keep up with everything that was going on around her.

The ants were just rushing them with raw numbers, they were actively trying to fight back as well. Moreover, it wasn’t just soldier ants either. The different variants they had been fighting throughout this entire ordeal were there too. Ranged variants, tanks, sickle ants, and so on.

All of them used their different abilities to try and overwhelm Sparrow, and the pressure was spiking with every second that passed.

If an outsider were to look, they would see a blue line moving through the mass of ants so quickly it almost appeared like a net, and with every pass it made, dozens of ants fell. Yet a moment later, dozens more would kill their place.

’There’s no end to this!’ She gritted her teeth and killed several sickle ants, then taking control of their sharp limbs with her force magic, she made them rotate around her rapidly like a storm, effectively shredding apart anything that came close.

Getting a second of reprieve, she took out a blue vial, a mana potion, and downed it, then her aura flared again, and she dived right back into the fray.

***

”Hey, puppy, you almost done!?” Falael yelled as they spared no expense on bombarding as much of the tide they could. They alone was almost more effective than all of Landor’s artillery, but the number of ants was simply unending, and it wouldn’t be long until they would get overwhelmed.

In one of the surviving mage towers, Curtis had just about completed his chant. Patches of ice covered his body, and his surroundings started to freeze as he forced the ice diamond in his mana pool to work overtime.

”... Ice Magic: Parade of Frost and Snow!” He finished the chant and slammed the staff down.

The spell formation within the mage tower lit a brilliant blue as Curtis’s spell took form. Dozens of magic circles that were over ten meters tall formed high in the sky, then dark clouds rapidly began to form around them.

Curtis fell to his knees and panted while squeezing his chest, and if one looked inside his body, they would see that ice covered numerous organs, especially his heart.

Curtis faced the opposite problem of Falael when he overused his mana construct. Where Falael risked overheating, Curtis ran the risk of getting reduced to an ice sculpture. And right now, the spell he’d unleashed and put him on the brink of just that.

But he felt it was worth it.

Once the dark clouds formed, it began to... snow.

Countless small, white pieces of snow rained down, and to most, such a scene would be harmless. Some might even reach forward to touch it.

But the moment the first bit of snow touched an ant, it suddenly got encased in a cocoon of ice that sucked out all of its heat.

In just a few seconds, the ice affected a huge number of ants, and the pressure on the defenders lessened significantly.

Moreover, when the snow touched a defender, they didn’t freeze. Rather, their bodies felt cool, and any discomfort they felt, like sweat or overheating, was undone.

This was Curtis’s most powerful spell, one he was only able to pull off because of the thing in his mana pool. It was no less effective than the nuke Falael unleashed, and it seemed like, soon, the daunting situation would be resolved after some effort.

...

Then a red line appeared in the sky.

It was abrupt, and for a moment, those who had been looking up to witness the spell that was about to save them from their predicament were unable to react. What had just...

Then, the clouds parted. The magic circles that had created them were all split in half before getting dissipated, like they hadn’t been there to begin with.

Then... something took a step.

An oppressive feeling suddenly engulfed the entire frontline, and a black-red aura erupted, rising into the sky like a pillar.

Weaker soldiers were suddenly unable to breathe, their bodies trembling uncontrollably, while the stronger ones were frozen in their tracks, bodies screaming at them to run.

But like a magnet, all their eyes shifted towards the source, and they saw it.

Its blade like limbs dragged across the ground as it walked, and every ant near it immediately stopped moving and prostrated in an almost fearful manner.

The ant from the special brood the queen had nurtured for so long looked up, quietly observing the frontline and everyone on it, then it raised one of its bladed limbs, prepared to sweep it horizontally.

Then, a blue flash appeared behind it and struck at incredible speeds.

But rather than dealing any damage, the ant just moved its other limb and blocked the attack, its movements almost nonchalant.

It turned its head, mandibles clicking faintly before it spoke.

”... You... are... leader...?” Its tone was inquisitive, and Sparrow would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a chill down her spine. But she just narrowed her eyes.

”Think what you want.” Then she moved.