Dragon Gods Reign

[Beast forest]

Taking a moment to make sure that the fractured space wasn’t expanding, Darganth relaxed visibly.

“Everything alright?” He asked, turning around to Allaire and Jennia.

“Just a few scratches.” Jennia answered, the few shallow wounds on her skin already healing with visible speed.

“Yup.” Allaire said a moment later after dusting herself off.

“More or less.” Neandra said in a frustrated tone.

Having freed herself from the dirt that had partially buried her, she returned to her human form. Now she was looking at the destroyed area with a frown.

“We’re also fine, thanks for asking.” Yldra grumbled after a few seconds of silence.

“Your body can endure the void, a bit of fractured space is no trouble. Nonetheless, are you fine?” Darganth answered her.

“Thanks. And yes, we both are.”

Flying to the others with Venrie in her arms, Yldra undid her partial transformation and returned to her human form.

Upon noticing the extent of the damage Neandra had caused after being flung back and the distance she flew, she couldn’t help but whistle in admiration.

“Lost weight?” She joked.

“Haha.” Neandra laughed drily, answering a moment later with a grin, “You probably just gained weight, that explosion barely managed to push you away.”

Yldra’s following glare was quickly cut short when she and Darganth both suddenly spun around to the damaged area. When the others followed their gaze, they could see multiple gas-like streams leaking out of the broken edges. Each one was completely dark, reflecting not even the tiniest bit of light.

“Impossible.” Darganth muttered.

A moment later one of these edges was blown apart as a similar shard was flung through it. Looking after the pieces of the void that had been broken out of it, even Darganth couldn’t fully believe what he was seeing.

Feeling even more of these tears opening just a moment later, Darganth managed to get out of his stupor and roused his mana. Extending his arms forward, he cursed the fact that he wasn’t even in the mythical rank as he did his best to counteract the growing damage.

Yldra also acted in the same moment, her body disappearing in a flicker before reemerging in her true form at the area’s edge. Containing as much of the area as she could by forming a shield around it with her body, she utilized her immunity to the void’s energies to the fullest.

But even she couldn’t wrap around even just the majority of the area, the roughly spherical area simply being too large and also extending below ground. Around these parts she couldn’t reach, she created a barrier that isolated the space on both sides from each other.

But both knew that whatever they tried, it was only a stopgap solution. Yldra lacked the time affinity necessary to truly contain the void and Darganth’s power was far too lacking.

Without reaching the mythical rank as a mage he couldn’t make even the smallest changes in the base circle of a spell and would need auxiliary circles to do so. This meant that he needed to choose between power and accuracy, the former in the form of spells and the latter through his elemental control.

Thus they only managed to delay for a few seconds. Exploding outwards with enough force to vaporize kilometers of land in all directions not shielded by Yldra, the void fully gave in. Luckily it didn’t last long, the eruption emptying the build-up energy and allowing the void to repair itself while the space was stabilized by the sudden influx of space energy.

As soon as the explosion was over, Yldra’s form shrank with a sigh. Teleporting back to the others before falling over from exhaustion, she looked up with a grim face.

“He succeeded.” She said.

“That’s not the main problem, whoever he summoned doesn’t have much mana. What worries me is that a mere two beings, not even mythical ranks, managed to break through the void. Heck, even an elemental god shouldn’t be able to damage it substantially, even at the cost of his own life.” Darganth said.

Attentively gazing toward the ongoing summoning, he had a grim expression. As he lacked the power necessary to prevent its completion, he couldn't do more.

Suddenly and without forewarning, he felt a fast projectile impacting his body. Only forcing his shoulder back a bit before bouncing off, it merely damaged his clothes. Despite this, his gaze hardened and he conjured a wall of hardened space before them with a wave of his hand.

A moment later dozens of similar projectiles flew out of the cloud that was left in the wake of the explosion, impacting the barrier and shattering upon contact. In their flight path they tore open small holes in the dust cover, revealing thousands of armored humanoids that were armed with advanced personal weaponry.

“Huh, really expected him to be from Earth.” Darganth mused when he saw this.

“What are these?” Neandra asked nearly simultaneously.

“Ranged weapons but weak ones. Technological civilizations, like this one seems to be, can rarely match mana users in smaller-scale conflicts. The only worrisome thing about them would be if they have a tracker and come from a civilization that can travel out of their universe, but even then it would only matter in the future.”

“Then he could have just saved us some time and just give up instead of placing his hopes on this. Once they arrive we'll be ready for it.” Allaire playfully complained.

Noticing both Darganth and Yldra not reacting to this and instead just continuing to look towards the army with worried expressions, her mood also became more serious.

“Please tell me I am right?” She asked hopefully.

“Sadly, no. A civilization that can cross over between universes, and not just the different universes in the same multiverse like here, would be a problem on the level of the primordials.” Yldra said.

“More precisely, the primordials were created to deal with such a problem but it would still be a coin toss each time. Especially considering that the void that had previously acted as a barrier seems to be weakened. And once one manages to cross it, others will surely follow.” Darganth added.

Only then did the rest understand the seriousness of the problem. Looking towards the army that was still peppering Darganth's barrier with renewed caution, they let their mana flare to life. Readying whichever of their respective powers they deemed most suitable for the situation, they waited for Darganth to end his spell.

“Just leave a few alive, I want to search their minds if they are tracked or if it maybe even is a coordinated plan from the beginning.” He said.

As soon as he dropped the barrier, he along with Yldra and Jennia rushed forward. Neandra stayed behind, disinterested in fighting opponents that much weaker than her, and blocked any stray attacks from reaching the forest.

Allaire and Venire were meanwhile remaining defensive, supporting Neandra with as much of their focus as they could divert from defending themselves. In contrast to the others, the two of them had far weaker bodies, Allaire courtesy to her low rank, and Venrie due to mainly being a mage. And finding no entertainment in the fight, they chose not to take any unnecessary risks as they trusted the others with handling the situation.

Darganth, Yldra, and Jennia were meanwhile charging at the rows of men in their true forms, with Yldra not growing to her full size. Bullet after bullet harmlessly bounced off their scales, presenting a terrifying sight for their targets.

Crashing into their ranks with full force, Darganth quickly started decimating them. Each swing of his claws ripped through earth and soldier alike and left paths of destructing.

The humanoid's counterattacks on the other hand had little to no effect, with his size alone serving as a great defense. Their powered suits of armor helped somewhat by augmenting their strength output but this wasn't enough. They had tried to use this in the hopes that his defenses against blunt force would be better than piercing but they quickly realized the hopelessness of that idea.

By now his body stood at nearly fifteen meters shoulder height even in his normal, slightly lowered stance, keeping all but his legs out of their reach. And even the few strikes that did land on them only brought Darganth some mild discomfort.

And just a moment after the group had managed to land these strikes on his hind legs, his tail descended upon them. Swatting them away as one would do with a fly, he freed himself from these annoyances.

Compared to him who at least took them somewhat seriously, Yldra could allow herself far more leeway and also used it. Taking on a form of nearly a hundred meters in length, she presented a far larger target as she charged her breath attack.

A moment later a cone of space energy erupted from her maw, the silvery energy swallowing everything it touched. All physical matter in that area was pushed deeper into the fabric of space before promptly being crushed by it as soon as it reached its destination.

When a being moved deeper into the folds of space, it didn't move in any of the three physical dimensions of space. Instead, it sank deeper into the foundation on which the physical world is built, with greater depths putting more pressure on the being similar to when one descends deep into the ocean.

And while it is possible to survive this, with it depending on one's resistance to the forces and the depth one reached, for the other soldier their colleagues just simply vanished. But instead of losing the morale, their fire intensified but still to no avail.

Instead, it only did one thing, giving Jennia more room to act. Of the three she had the most trouble with the constant barrages, needing to reinforce her defenses with a constant field of time magic that slowed the incoming bullets.

But despite this she still had some leeway to attack, mainly utilizing quick snapping attacks with her heads to take out small groups of them. Each successful strike took some pressure off of her and forced her enemies to spread out more to allow each strike to only claim one victim. But when Yldra suddenly became the focus of their attention, this instantly broke apart.

Thus she too had free reign to rampage among their ranks, the three of them together ending the fight within ten minutes without being even slightly winded. And it could have been faster, with a single spell possibly ending it in one fell swoop.

Grabbing the last few living otherworldlers, Darganth studied their armor for familiar technologies. As much as he prefers staying in Vunreon, he isn't clueless about the universes and multiverses outside of it and had even visited the most important ones.

Finding what he was looking for, he returned to his human form before ripping out one of the devices on its belt. Crushing it with an ugly expression, he angrily ripped apart the helm. Ignoring the largely human, only having a slightly elongated head with a second pair of eyes, soldier wearing it looking up at him in hate, he mercilessly shredded his mind as he searched through it.

“Nothing good I take?” Allaire asked when she noticed his mood sinking even further.

“Yup. They are more than just aware of summonings across universes and have developed techniques to use them to their advantage. Each child gets implanted with dormant knowledge of what to do when getting summoned and how to do it. Once in the foreign universe, they are supposed to collect the resources necessary to build an aiming beacon, bringing these guys over to create a foothold.”

Pausing for a bit, he let that information sink in for the rest as he thought about what to do next.

“Well, seems like I'll need to see Irsyr sooner rather than later. Had hoped to at least take it slow in this universe but that plan has to go now.” Darganth said regretfully.

“If you want to, I can teleport us now.” Yldra offered.

“A day or two won't matter so we can enjoy at least a bit of relaxed time. Especially considering that Neandra's presence is needed here and I would like her and Venrie to accompany us.” Darganth said.

“Yes, I'll need to calm the rest before Orielle's death sets this continent aflame even more.” Neandra said with a sigh.

“Before that, we'll have to clean up here. I don't want this technology to get into the wrong hands.” Daranth said, turning towards the battlefield with an exhausted sigh.

Looking at the chaos with similar feelings, the others soon followed after him and also went to work.