Almin bit into his piece of sugar bread, sitting on a crate of mortar shells. The rest of his crew acquired similar seating situations on crates or leaning against them. Around the six of them, base crew and mages shuffled around boxes on carts or carried. The horn that signaled 1400 hours rang out over the din of the base, and the entire team scrambled out past the newfangled horseless metal carriages and teams of logisticians to the field.

  Hundreds of men and heavy weapon teams gathered in front of the gate, a 50 meter construction that was embedded some 15 feet into the ground to maximize the amount of usable ramp in and out.

  “I don’t remember signing up for this, aye lad?” Birgen elbowed him, which ended up impacting his flank and doubling him over. “Ah, sorry lad. I’m used to, uh, elbowing fellow dwarves. Didn’t occur to me where I’d hit you.” “No…*gasp*… it’s fine…” Thea simply gave them a disapproving look, as if they should have known better.

  The lord walked up to the front of the formation, and began to speak over the sound of the mages chanting and doing final checks on the gate. “Can you hear him? I can’t hear a thing.” Thea and Birgen both shook their heads no.

  After a minute, the lord turned to face the gate and put on his famed intimidating silver helmet. “Go time, then.”

  ———

  The portal opened not with a long drawn out procedure or spell, but with an instant flash. One moment the overcast sky was visible through the portal frame, and the next, a hellish sky of roiling reddish clouds and a red plain interspersed with spiky rocks was visible through the frame.

  Front and center, a large demon, about 4 meters tall, was beating the body of another demon with a bone. He looked totally shocked at the sudden appearance of the gate and stopped beating on the corpse for a minute.

  Some particularly forward-thinking soldier had loaded his gun, and blew the demon's head open with a bullet. As though that were a starting gun signaling a race, the tanks at the head of the small army drove over the gate to secure the area. Followed by the lines of infantry, casting teams of construction mages, and the specialists, including Almins fireteam.

  The region on the other side was a huge plain ringed by distant jagged mountains. The soil, clouds, and plants were all a dark blood red color that Almin could tell would get dreary fast.

  Through simple trigonometry, the mages had calibrated the opening position exactly. This plain would allow them to meet with the Ahugibians, the local power, without interference from either the greater Veskayan Empire or a hostile first-layer power.

  The mages began forming casting circles and flattening out the ground, while lines of men entrenched themselves or set up sandbags around machine guns. Trucks of cement came through next, and mages accelerated the hardening process and shaping as well. After a single hour, a base had been established.

  Almin, Thea, and their stunted companion had already killed a half dozen demons attracted to the human intrusion. Most demons lived in organized society, but some species were incompatible with civilization. These species happened to be the most physically powerful as well.

  Hulking and muscle bound creatures with armor-like skin, they looked like they could take small caliber bullets and push on. It was more efficient to have a few sniper set up on top of an idle truck or hill and kill them with one shot rather than dumping bullets into them.

  Almin climbed up the preassembled watchtower that had been carried through the portal on a truck. He quickly pulled himself over the ledge from the simple metal ladder and leaned his sniper up against the built in tripod. His next target came quickly-a 10 foot tall demon with rippling muscle wielding a bloodstained greatsword in one hand.

  With a kick and a partially suppressed boom, the demon stumbled and fell to the ground, sporting a hole through his head.

  “Good shot! I’m still better, I think.” Birgen called from the ground, where he looked at the distant demon through a pair of binoculars. Almin simply tsked and scanned for the next demon sprinting across the plains towards the growing base camp. They really just kept coming.

  ————

  Kyle immediately deployed 4 Thunderhead high-altitude drones after crossing the rift. Within an hour, they had mapped out the region surrounding the portal up to the distant mountains. The target of this expedition was in sight-the demon city of Karak by the Lake. An important fortress city controlled by the Karakadann Empire, it formed the central point of their defenses against the much larger and more powerful Ahugib Quaternarchy that controlled the rest of the southern continent.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  If they could destroy the army holding the city and take the city itself, the Ahugibbians would be able to flood the frontline and reach the capital of Nistan. The next day, a fortress stood where only blood-red soil could have been found the day before.

  And the day after that, the army marched.

  —————

  The mountain ranges across the southwest of the southern continent formed a bit of an “A” shape. A huge range that gently curved around the plains, and a smaller range opposite it across the plains, forming two entrances.

  The city of Karak by the Lake stood in the way of one of these entrances. If it fell, the armies of Ahugib would have clear access to the Karakadann heartland. Kyle’s forces drove in a huge convoy of trucks across the plains, and eventually across one of the huge magically-formed trade spine roads that crossed the continent. The motorized infantry made good time across the black brick road.

  Kyle wasn’t willing to wait and give the defenders a chance to call for reinforcements, so upon reaching the city, the infantry disembarked from their trucks and quickly surrounded the city.

  Three rings of huge walls topped with crenelations surrounding a formidable keep, all of which was manned by some 15,000 demonic veterans. From centipedes that looked like an earthworm with dozens of human hands to hulking bipedal bulls with metallic skin, the races of demonkind were presented in force in the garrison.

  Mortar teams formed firing blocks and infantry entrenched themselves over the course of a few hours. An expeditionary force from the Magocracy erected magical shields and helped construct earthworks and defenses.

  After only 3 hours, the mortars began pounding on the walls of the fortress. At first, extensive runework and active spell casting from the mages of the fort held off the bombardment, but the sheer number of shells falling soon broke through. The demons weren’t cowed by any measure-they redoubled their counterbattery efforts, and deployed their fastest moving demons from the gate in an effort to shut down the artillery.

  Monstrous centaurian hybrids, wolf-like races running on all fours, and more obscure ones like fleshy living hamster wheels or huge metallic spiders.

  Before they came anywhere close to the mortars, riflemen and Mags cut them down in swathes. It looked like it was a lost cause for the defenders-until the garrison commander joined the battle.

  ———

  The garrison commander was an absolute unit of a demon. Some 6 meters tall and two meters wide at the shoulders, he looked like he ate bodybuilders for breakfast and washed them down with some bricks. He was a humanoid demon with four muscle-bound arms wielding a bardiche axe twice as long as the height of the average human.

  Jumping down from the ramparts deftly, the demon tramped across the field towards the line. While, like most demons, he wore no armor, he did possess dozens of runic plates and enchanted items across his body on chains and jewelry. The MGs and riflemen poured massive amounts of low-caliber fire into him from their trenches and dugouts, but the bullets were deflected, stopped, teleported slightly out of the way, or blocked via shield.

  After a minute of trudging across the field, Kyle noticed a few of the items breaking down, magic used up. Kyle signaled over his helmet's radio connection to stop the firing. He leaped over the defenses in his armor, and marched to meet the demon commander. The demon lord called out to him in a surprisingly normal voice compared to his appearance. Must have been the magical translation matrix fixing things up again.

  “I don’t know WHO YOU are, but YOU'VE made a grave mistake by attacking MY city. Do YOU know WHO I serve?!” “I don’t give a shit! Surrender and you will all be spared!” “I would never surrender MY city to the likes of YOU! Have at THEE!” The demon's strange enunciation of some words was almost comedic in action.

  With a dash of speed, the commander swung his axe at Kyle’s midsection, clearly intending to test his armor. Even fully feared, the demon was a few feet taller than Kyle. Kyle deflected the swing into the ground with Daphne, and followed through on the moment of vulnerability by nearly landing a powerful blow on the demon's upper shoulder. However, his size belied his grace, and the commander danced away deftly.

  Sizing each other up once more, the two combatants separated. Two combatants both fighting with two-handed weapons was quite the slog. Going on the offensive again, the commander activated some runes on his axe which coated it in a layer of red mana. Kyle didn’t want to let that touch his armor, and ducked under the swing. However, the commander managed to redirect his swing to a limited degree at the last moment, and skimmed the back of Kyle’s helmet with extreme force.

  Although the impact didn’t rattle Kyle due to the myriad inertial dampeners and kinetic shock absorbers in the helmet, it still ruined the roll.

  And so, the battle continued for nearly half a minute, until an overextension on a swing by the captain allowed Kyle to connect a solid swing to his chest. The PPIE-now sadly dwindling in supply-on the fist exploded on impact. Even with the near-vaporizing force that the punch imparted, the demon only lost a few ribs and spat up some blood.

  Magic really wasn’t his thing, he decided in that moment.

  “Goo…*hack*… shot, YOU invader. I will defeat YOU, and then move on to YOUR army nonetheless!” Kyle simply shook his head. “Give in! I’m willing to show mercy!”

  The demon responded by pointing his axe at Kyle, and launching a bolt of red magic at him which he dodged. “Never would I surrender to SOMEONE from the base layer! Especially not to a HUMAN, of all things!”

  Kyle simply grunted and charged back in.