As the elemental mists around the Ishodir Battalion shifted away from concealment, sharp eyes above the clouds immediately spotted the difference. Hesitation lasted only for a moment before the Ib'honara scout flipped over and flew south as if all the hounds of the Abyss were after him.
__________
Eddie expected the woman's flight spell to fail the moment she entered the range of the Control Ritual—he counted on it, actually, and had prepared multiple renditions of obsidian arrows to catch her off guard. He had no qualms about striking her with lethal force as she more than demonstrated the strength of her defences. He expected the rest of the Magus corps to strike alongside him as they watched the mists roll towards her.
The attack she flung at them had been strong enough to deplete part of the gathered Elemental energies, and half a dozen Magi who had been the focus of the shielding spells had fainted when the attack exploded over the command centre.
Colonel Barnard remained cool and detached as he observed the battlefield. The man was no stranger to fighting a singular foe that was much stronger than the norm with his battalion but this might be the first time they fought a human with such a power differential.
The elemental mists engulfed her, and contrary to what he expected, her flight did not falter. It didn't seem as if she even noticed the effects of the Ritual, at least, not yet.
Eddie unleashed his obsidian arrows, guided by the trajectories he foresaw, which had two volleys going on either side of her, while the last one was aimed just behind the target. She moved towards the left, and his trajectories wove into her active defences but as he foresaw, she slapped the arrows away with a golden blade held in her hand.
That was new, Eddie thought. She had not actively wielded any weapon before.
The volleys of gunfire and attack spells continued. Her agility in the air was unaffected, but he saw the surprise on her face when she tried to cast her flying swords towards the Golem Riders. When they reached a third of the limit of her range, the weapons suddenly lost control and continued to go towards where their original velocities pointed. Only about a tenth of them were actually aimed at the Golems, while the rest had been in a flanking manoeuvre.
Warning bells chimed in Eddie's head, and he yelled, "Fireballs!"
The yell came almost too late, but the Magi corp managed to create a curved shield just before the glowing golden blades erupted.
Boom! Boom! Booom!
Dozens of explosions accompanied by the very same golden glow that the shard back in the original's lab, came from the blades. Eddie felt a thrill of fear and anticipation. Once he captured her, he expected the original to progress with his research. His current existence was temporary, but once the original advanced, he could become a permanent incarnation. He didn't mind being tethered to the original, they had been one and the same, though he did wonder if he could live a different life. The original was close to the end of his projected lifespan, but the remaining years were still longer than mundane people. But then again, who enjoyed living for centuries as a walking fossil?
The woman darted away from the encroaching mists. The range of the Ritual of Control wasn't fixed but expanded the longer the Magus corp kept it up. But he knew that she could bombard them continuously if he let her. She was already conjuring more of those weapons, but doing so wasn't that fast, and while doing so, she was vulnerable.
He saw her break towards the hilltop, and he saw her descending to the ground. Either one could happen should the bombardment continue, and he carefully adjusted the vision to show him what he had to do to get the latter result. He angled his obsidian volley towards her left, forcing her away from the hills, but instead of that happening, his vision showed her deflecting the arrows and proceeding anyway.
"Sheep dung!" he growled as what happened was exactly what he didn't intend. Watching her future was quite dicey, but being forewarned when she was about to blow him to the sky was worth putting up with the uncertain visions.
The barrage of spells and bullets followed her to the hills. She landed on the crest, still within sight, but no longer without cover.
The gunners ceased fire as she was now too distant to easily hit. Instead, it was time for field artillery to shine. Several battery companies readied their mortars, which would fling powerful ordinance, which would either be explosive spells, or capture spells, and aimed it at the hilltop. Eddie listened to what the colonel commanded.
Several dozen were killed from the initial counterattack, and a fifth of the Golem Riders were down. A cavalry company had been wiped out, but that still left the battalion with more than 95% of their forces. Another two cavalry companies skirted far from the battlegrounds and were headed towards the professor's companions, and even at the risk of increasing her ire, the leverage might allow them to force her to surrender. But in the meantime, they had to keep her distracted.
"She's building fortifications," one of the observers said. The birdkin flew low on the ground, having descended from the clouds. "And we've been spotted by a local scout."
"ETA on reinforcements?" Colonel Barnard asked.
"An hour, maybe two," The Ib'honara answered. "I did not see any out in force."
Eddie pursed his lips and considered peeking farther into the future, but shook his head when the next couple of minutes split into so many possibilities that a spike of pain shattered his focus.
"Storm her location," Eddie commanded. "Pin her down."
Colonel Barnard turned to him with a mild expression. "My lord, we can either bombard her and hopefully pin her there, or rush her with infantry. We cannot continue bombardment in the latter case."
Eddie shook his head. "Commander, the goal is to capture her." He left unsaid that he would sacrifice the entire battalion if that was what it took.
The colonel frowned but nodded. "We will do both." The hilltop was about two hundred paces above their current elevation, but there were numerous pathways up there.
The first ranging shots from the spell mortars struck the hillside dozens of paces from her. She was no longer within view, and instead, an earthen rampart had been shaped from the hillside. It took a couple more ranging shots before the shells struck the hastily built fort, but the explosive ordinance didn't do more than chip the walls.
Several companies of infantry moved around the hillside even as the field artillery pounded the walls. Eddie considered flying up, but unlike the professor, he was not foolish enough to turn himself into a target, not when his foe was stronger than anything he'd ever fought on the same level.
"Perhaps she is an Ancient…" he muttered.
The more pertinent question was if she was an Authoritarian Conclavist, a member of some other faction, or a rogue Ancient. No, she couldn't be the last. If she were an Ancient, then she would be beyond their initial threshold, and the World Trials for a rogue were brutal. He was more than thankful that the Magi path did not need to tackle the combined Wills of the World just to begin walking the path.
He kept observing her spells, or techniques. He was starting to suspect that her true power did not come from spells, considering that the Control Ritual was of limited use… no, it was of use. The Elemental Mists crept up the hillside, and it would only be a few minutes before it encompassed her position and forced her out of her defences.
Minutes passed and the ramparts expanded over the hillside. The mortals slowly wore away at the stones, and they were eroding them faster than the professor could put them up. The cavalry sent to capture the caravan had moved out of sight, but the colonel's connection spells allowed him to keep in contact, and in turn, he linked the viewpoints to Eddie.
His sight followed the lead officer, and soon enough, they spotted the road and the caravan. They were already heading towards the forest conflux. It was a foolish, but understandable choice. They might or might not face dangerous beasts inside, but they would definitely avoid the soldiers.
Dispassionately, he watched as the cavalry force, nearly three hundred strong, approached. He couldn't augment his senses through another's spell, so he had to content himself with using one of his foci to keep a closer eye. He also began casting a scrying spell, viewed through a small handheld mirror, in order to keep an eye on the hilltop.
"Halt!" The cavalry commander yelled as she drew her firearm and pointed it at the caravan, "Stop and surrender and you will not be harmed!"
The frightened looks that came from the civilians belied the determination of the defenders. As the caravan guards moved to confront the cavalry, a streak of silver light flashed in front of the commander, and the next thing Eddie saw was the blue skies there was a piercing scream, followed by a monstrous growl.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sharp report of bullets fired echoed from the front, but it was subsumed by the ongoing bombardment. The only reason Eddie could hear was because of the link. There was a flash, and an impression of sharp teeth, then the cavalry commander's viewpoint darkened to nothingness.
Eddie exchanged glances with the colonel, who immediately shifted the viewpoints, but each and every one of them darkened before they could get more than a glimpse. The frightened cries of the horses and the explosive sounds of gunfire were the only thing they could hear.
"What's going on over there?" Eddie growled.
"I will send three more companies," the colonel said. He should have done that at the start!
But before he could give the command, a scintillating streak of golden light speared down on one of the other cavalry companies, and the explosion took most of them out, leaving a couple of stragglers behind.
"Godforsaken cretins!" Eddie swore. Managing an army was not his forte, and he would rather use his Arcana Weaving to solve his problems.
And that's what he should do.
"Convert and isolate. Earth and Stone," he commanded and the colonel relayed it to the Magus corp members who weren't preoccupied with the Ritual of Control. A full thousand belonged to the corps within the battalion, far in excess of what was normally allocated. But all of the invading… training battalions were like that.
Earth Elemental energies gathered in droves, eclipsing every other Element. Eddie began his Arcana Weaving, muttering vocal components and making sure his somatic nodes were concealed.
His inscribed spell circles were only thirteen, but that was more than enough to speed up the casting of a twenty-circle spell. The prodigious amount of Earth Elemental energy helped, too.
The professor continued blasting her golden spear spell, and another company of infantry that was attempting to flank her was wiped out. The colonel looked at him nervously, but he made no moves to recall the soldiers. Doing that would clue the enemy in on what he intended to do.
The other cavalry companies moved around in a wider circle, but that also meant it would take them longer to reach the potential hostages. Several prongs of attack were needed to confound the target, and the might of hundreds of Magi could not be overwhelmed so easily. The problem was that the woman was far too agile to pin down, and the only reason she was sticking around on that hilltop was to prevent the army from capturing her friends. Those shackles were her weakness.
The Arcana Weaving was done, and above Eddie was a chunk of rock so large that it rivalled the size of the hill. Then he flung it towards the professor, fully confident that she would survive the blow, but hopefully softened enough to capture.
Eddie grinned as the Clashing Rock smashed into the hill with a thunderous explosion. The earth shook, and the ground cracked, but none of it breached the barrier that the Magi corp raised.