Emily stands up, stretg her arms above as she looks at the army ahead, her eyes sing their numbers with retive ease despite the low light.

  “Hmm,” she mumbles, sending a rge stream of maa into Calypso and using Overdrive to speed up their approach. “Doing this at night isn’t a good idea. We’re still an easy target to pick out and it’s just going to make it harder for me to avoid actally dropping something on someone.”

  Pns start to form in her head as her eyes roam the formation prepared to intercept them, boosted by the influence of Flow.

  There are way too many ships in the air for me to use my air cushioo drop them. Especially those big ohey’ll probably need six wind currents not to kill their inhabitants, and they’re currently directly above their ground forces too. Maybe I could make a third circle spell to help? Nah, that would be too mana-inteill.

  As Calypso approaches the distant army, a thunderous boom sounds in sync with twenty bright fshes of light, two from each of the artillery ships anchored to the ground. A volley of projectiles arc through the sky towards Calypso, and Emily quickly casts several wind walls, creating a rge barrier in front of the ship.

  A few of the projectiles hit the shield and ge dire, shooting towards the floor before detonating harmlessly in a b of fire and shrapnel. However, the majority of them detoher against or just before the wall of wind, sending ripples along it and draining a siderable k of Emily’s mana.

  “Damn,” she mutters, feeling her mana flowing out to reinforce the barrier against the repeated impacts. “Two thousand mana gone in an instant. Those things will rip through our balloon in a heartbeat. I guess I know what tet first.”

  She disperses her barrier while waiting for another volley, pulling out the Whisper and loading a full magazine of explosive bullets.

  I only have three of these left now. I may o prepare some more for this fight.

  Flig the firior into full and p maa into the gun, Emily aims at one of the artillery ons and squeezes the trigger. A silent shot flies through the sky, only noticeable by the faint, crag streak of maa trailing in its wake. The bullet sms accurately into the base of the on and explodes, ripping through the metal strud pletely disabling it in an instant while also setting off the shell in the hands of the soldiers behind it, blowing them to shreds.

  It's a shame I won’t just be able to do this. That was too votile, and I don’t think I disable those ons from this ah normal bullets.

  Oh, that could work though.

  A savage grin appears on Emily’s face as ao disable the ons at the cost of some of her rarer crystals occurs to her. She opens a note in her virtual notebook and jots it down, starting a list of items to prepare for her attempt. With ao deal with the artillery prepared, she racks the bolt of her rifle and lines up a sed shot, ready to take out the grounded ship’s sed on. However, as her sed shot flies out, the metal around the on lights up and a barrier of earth e.

  “Tsk,” she clicks her tongue as her bullet explodes, shattering the barrier and sendihen shraphrough the mage and soldiers within. “Like that’ll stop me.”

  She rapidly unloads the Whisper into the other ons, destroying four more before another volley of shots flies towards Calypso. Emily blocks the shells, taking another hit to her mana reserves, before reloading her gun and finishing off the rest of the le ons.

  Having noticed the quick removal of their artillery, several of the ships waiting in the air begin their advao meet Calypso. The two smaller craft quickly approach, travelling faster than Calypso. As they get closer, Emily tio s them for onry and frowns when she doesn’t see any guns.

  What are they going to do? Are they trying to get people closer to us so they shoot at us or something?

  She waits expetly for them to approach, holding off on knog them from the sky so she has a ce to uand their fun.

  The smallest of the two models travels slightly faster and reaches them first, and Emily gets a clear look at their design. The five small ships each have a single propeller mounted directly behind the main hull, making it hard for her to remove it from afar, with several adjustable fins cirg the hull to trol its flight. She still doesn’t see a single gun as the ships get close, and the size of the ships suggests they only carry one or two crew members at most, but a foreboding feeling builds in her gut the closer they get.

  Trusting her instinct, Emily raises the Whisper as one of the ships gets within a hundred metres of her and fires an explosive bullet straight through the small window at the front into the cockpit behind. The bullet detonates, and the ship is instantly engulfed in a massive ball of fmes that quickly expands, catg the other small craft nearby and causing a rea as they detooo.

  The explosions fling rge shards of metal in all dires and cause Calypso to quake despite the distance separating them as several ks of the small ships sm into her hull and a few cut through her balloon, initiating her slow dest to the ground.

  “Holy shit!” Emily excims, looking at the explosion in disbelief and frustration, swiftly sidestepping a rge shard of metal that almost impales her. “They’re all suicide bombers. How am I meant to deal with that without killing anyone?”

  As she’s staring ahead at the rge cloud of smoke formed by the rge explosion, with gritted teeth, the ten other small ships that were approag break through the cover aer her vision. The ships are spread in a wide arc, approag from varying a once.

  Whatever! I worry about that ter. Focus on gathering data for now. All I o do is stop them approag and they’ll have no reason to set themselves off.

  Taking a deep breath to clear her mind, Emily regains her calm, emotionless mask as she observes the new ship type. Uhe bombers, these ships have two propellers, one oher side, ae the ck of guns, Emily quickly identifies the ons as a split along the front of the hull widens, opening into a gaping maw with razor-sharp metal teeth. At the back of the opeal jaws, she spots a door still sealed shut.

  “B ships,” Emily muses with a small nod. “This seems like a strategy for use against a rger craft than Calypso. First blow open holes with the bombers, then board with these things.”

  As an array e runes, mixed with glistening white flecks, flows from Emily’s body to form several rge magic circles arouhe b ships suddenly lurch forwards, closing the distao Calypso in an instant. Emily’s eyes open wide as six of the b ships sm into the hull below her, tg onto her ship. She looks to the back of the ships, notig a trail of fmes behind each of them as the other four miss their marks, rocketing past at high speed.

  Short-distance boosters? Cool. Also, possibly helpful.

  She finishes casting four fireballs and throws them at the backs of the boarders that missed, watg as her spell blows their rear ends to pieces, removing their propellers and leaving them floating without any means to trol themselves. Looking through the falling wreckage of the ships’ rears, she searches for bodies and doesn’t see a single one.

  Thought so. No oands he boosters while they’re bei off at least. Looks like it should be safe to destroy their rears.

  With a satisfied nod, she pulls upon her e with lightning while slowly walking to the nose of the ship. Lightning s her being as she bends her legs and leaps off the tip of the ship, ung up to float in lih the balloon as she dehe charge in her legs. She kicks off thin air, releasing the crag psma in her limbs into the balloon behind her, ripping it apart and sending herself flying towards the army ahead as Calypso ploughs down into the sand below, crashing with a resounding thump.

  Flying forwards while drawing a trail of crag light behihrough the night sky, Emily gnces back at her grounded ship ahe hull has crumpled slightly, but mostly held together.

  My armour held up.

  She looks fain with a satisfied nod, crag runes f around her legs from the raw elemental mana ging to her. She leverages the air again, shooting forward as she approaches the army ahead alone.

  It doesn’t take long before the twenty rge ships h above the ground troops unload a volley from their ons, sending a wave of hefty, fist-sized projectiles towards her. Emily weaves between the shots with ease, like a fish in water, not slowing her approach at all. A sed volley es almost instantly, firing much faster than the heavy grounded artillery, and soon so does a third.

  As the fourth volley is fired, Emily eheir range and the ground troops open fire as well, sending a hail of bullets towards the bolt of lightning arg through the sky towards them. The mass of metal rising to meet her makes a small, battle-thirsty grin form on Emily’s face, and she kicks off the air at an aarting herself spinning as she tinues forward.

  The smaller bullets of the infantry are easily knocked aside by the twisting arcs of lightning emanating from her body as she travels, and she keeps kig off the air, propelling herself forward faster and faster, quickly draining her mana.

  This is very fun, but highly ineffit. I’d be much better off approag from the ground.

  Emily finally sms into one of the rge craft awaiting her with her arms raised before her, smashing through its hull aering its bridge. She rolls across the floor before rising while shaking out her arms. Gng around at the stunned crew staring at her in shock, she springs into motion, releasing the bdes from her Cws and sshing them around, quickly cleaving the crew’s heads from their shoulders before retrag the wires to withdraw the bloodied bdes.

  She stands still and pours maa into the floor, shutting her eyes and iing the ship’s design.

  No active ventition system for the bridge. There are some manual overrides for the steam flow trols in other parts of the ship, but the oo the balloon are in a closed crawlspace that will take time to access, and there are none for the propellers. Okay, this should be easy enough to handle.

  Adding another idea to her notes, Emily uses o flex of her maa to adjust the propellers to push the ship down and disable all steam flow to the balloon, opening the vents for trolled dest at the same time. As she turns to leave the ship, a silver tube with fmes trailing behind flies through the hole she created. Sensing danger, Emily immediately leaps back, the lightning around her legs sendiraight into the far wall of the room as the metal tube sms into the ceiling aonates in a thunderous boom.

  Emily raises her arms to protect her face from the heat and shrapnel, gaining several gashes on her arms and legs, and a few bruises oorso as her armour blocks the rest. Several more explosions rock the ship as Emily activates half the iors on her spio stem her bleeding.

  Trying t your own ship down with me in it? How brutal.

  Gng at her mana and maa reserves, Emily decides it’s almost time to eest. She charges her legs and arms with lightning before smming both her elbows bato the wall behind her, ung herself out through her entrance hole before another explosive be fired at her.

  She flies out into the open air above the army and looks down, her eyes quickly sing the gathered troops to try and locate Virgil Hibiscus as more bullets are shot at her. Their numbers are reduced as those below the ship she was in have scrambled to escape the falling hunk of metal. Unsurprisingly, before she sees Virgil, she feels him. At the back of the army, close to the shore, she suddenly feels an imposing mass of mana gathering.

  Emily kicks the air, driving herself towards the source as one of her hands lowers to The Clock’s pouch. She quickly spots a man with long, fiery red hair wearing rich bck robes covered in glowing red embroidered runes with both his hands raised above him and a massive crimson magic circle densing multiple beautiful flowers of fmes. His face is distorted in a reisable manic grin that overps in Emily’s mind with his son’s.

  Emily meets his eyes as he ts, and verts the rest of her maa into mana on the spot. She pours most of it into a crag, curved wall of psma that stretches under her, proteg her back from the hail of bullets flying towards her and giving her a ptform to stand on, fag the preparing mage with a matg grin. She raises a hand aures for Virgil t it on as a flicker of doubt crosses his features, and he nods before tinuing his casting.

  Emily moves the rest of her mana ints, ign the feeling of intense exhaustion that has started to wear on her and fog on the dazzling spell formed above the fourth circle mage. The bzing red flowers start breaking apart, releasing flickerials of fire that gather in the tre of the rge magic circle, spinning into a flower-shaped burning hot vortex that distorts the air around it.

  Virgil points the spell at Emily, but following his gaze, she instantly works out that he’s targeting her legs, aiming to disable her.

  Is he that fident in its speed, or does he just not want to hit me at all?

  Emily remains rooted in pce, ign the surrounding battlefield and p all her focus into the deadly bze before her. With a small twitch of his hands, Virgil releases hold of his spell, and the burning flower rockets forward in an instant.

  Emily releases all charge in her legs, shooting up at an aowards a gap behind the sinking ship above her as a solid red line is drawn from the Hibiscus patriarch’s position to hers. The fire clips one of her boots, instantly melting the metal and scorg her flesh down to the bone, but she avoids the brunt of the spell and twists midair, activating The Clock as she looks back to see the maionation.

  The burning flower sms into the bottom of the ship and in the blink of an eye engulfs it, along with two of the ships floating in the air o it, in a ball of fmes.

  I guess destroying his own ships aing his people die itle is one way of making sure it looks real.

  Emily watches with a growing respect for her oppo as the shockwave released by the spell knocks her and a rge portion of the ground forces back. She ’t help but let out an impressed chuckle at the overwhelming power dispyed.

  Damn. I do not want to get hit by that.

  KeroKeron