Chapter 123 The Infinite Armada

Chapter 123 The Infinite Armada
The Rain of Iron

The Aethelgard leader lay twitching in the glassed sand, his featureless, pale face exposed to the ash-choked air. The shattered parts of my dark-matter armor created electrical sparks which followed the path of my astral lightning.

The victory celebration needed to be put on hold because I had other matters to attend.

I looked up at the shattered, bleeding sky. The first fifty warriors had been a test. A scouting party to gauge the Earth’s defenses. The true invasion started after they determined that the Architect's gravity failed to affect their slipspace technology.

The dreadnought remained motionless above the dimensional fracture which created a portal to another dimension. The massive structure began to reveal its interior through its large, broken underbelly.

Dark, metallic drop pods began their descent towards the ground, with thousands of them starting to fall from the sky. The objects traveled through the Earth’s atmosphere like a meteor shower which generated an apocalyptic screeching sound that resulted in my enhanced ears experiencing a painful sensation.

Kade’s voice boomed over the deafening roar of the falling pods as he shouted, "Elara! Move!"

He avoided using a gravity well to catch the falling pods. He understood that the method would not succeed. He abandoned the enormous Star-Metal wall which he had built on the beach, and the iron returned to its original state as it melted into the ground.

I dropped my hesitation to the ground. The Aethelgard leader's dark-matter blade lay on the ground, and I took it because Cipher needed something to research—then I activated the silver lightning energy which flowed through my veins.

CRACKLE.

I transformed into starlight, which allowed me to teleport from the beach to the sea-wall area where Thorne's men were retreating. Kade arrived next to me one moment later. He had launched himself into the air through the Earth by using his tectonic connection to the Earth.

Thorne commanded his surviving Null-Wolves to "Get behind the gates!" and ordered them to "Abandon the outer perimeter! Move, move, move!"

We raced through the enormous Star-Metal gates that stood one hundred feet tall in Aurora Citadel just as the first wave of the infinite armada crashed down on the coastline.

The kinetic impacts created violent tremors which shook the entire crater structure. The kinetic impacts created violent tremors which shook the entire crater structure. Through the fog of dust, thousands of warriors emerged from the ocean while wearing dark-matter armor and their halberds glowed with a cold, predatory hunger.

Kade commanded, "Seal it!"

The giant gates of the Citadel slammed shut with a loud, painful sound, and they secured themselves shut with the unbreakable force of the World Engine.

The Global Feast

The War Room beneath the ground displayed a picture of total panic which created a feeling of dense, overwhelming fear.

Cipher used his hands to swipe the holographic table, which showed a red alert system that lit his face with terror. Thorne gripped the console with both his hands, and he listened to the encrypted global Syndicate frequencies.

The Pacific region is not the only area affected by the situation, according to Cipher. He zoomed the map out to show the entire globe. The dreadnought maintains its position in a dimensional fracture rather than low Earth orbit, and it currently releases its pods to all continents.

The Eurasian packs are being slaughtered, Thorne rasped while he hit the metal table with his fist. "I just lost contact with the Moscow Vanguard. The South American Coalition is retreating into the deep Amazon, but the aliens are just eating the jungle's ambient magic to track them. Bullets don't work. Fangs don't work. Aethelgard can eliminate Lycanthropy from Alpha Deese's body through their marrow extraction process.

The creatures possess perfect design to hunt biological magic, according to Kade, who studied the map with his silver-blue eyes. The liquid veins on his neck showed fast pulsations of light. The creatures treat our armies as food sources.

I stepped up to the table and tossed the alien's dark-matter blade onto the holographic projector, saying "Not me." The metal was cold and unnervingly light. They couldn't absorb my astral lightning, so it overloaded their slipspace suits.

"You are one woman, Elara," Valda stated while leaning on her sword. "You may teleport to kill about a hundred or a thousand of them. But there are tens of thousands dropping from that ship. Your body will reach its burned-out point.

She was correct because my muscles had already started to hurt after the brief fight we had on the beach.

Kade stated that "Human armies will not work against the current danger. The Alpha Prime held back all his feelings of anxiety as he operated his mind. "But Elara isn't the only one who wields cosmic power.

Kade closed his eyes.

The Flight of the Ancients

He didn't speak aloud. He didn't move his hands.

The white-gold plate over his heart emitted an intense frequency, which caused my teeth to shake uncontrollably. He established a connection to the greater ancient beings who rested on the Citadel spires and the mountain peaks throughout the world.

"Orion," Kade projected telepathically, the resonance echoing faintly in the War Room. "The Earth is breached. The feast has begun. Defend the skies."

The Citadel's surface erupted with an unheard sound that reached above our heads.

The celestial beings let out a sound which expressed their complete and holy wrath.

The ancient Star-Beasts which consisted of beings created from cosmic materials and starlight and pure iron which remained untainted leaped into the air all at once. The War Room monitors showed us Orion dive from the sky like a golden meteor after shifting from his griffin-like form.

Orion chose not to engage with the Aethelgard soldiers on the ground. His target focused on the incoming drop pods which were descending from the sky.

The Star-Beast crashed into a group of metallic pods which hung suspended in the air. The alien armor protected against all earthly gravity and absorbed all biological magic yet it couldn't stop the Firstborn's overwhelming cosmic kinetic energy. Orion used his Star-Metal talons to slice through the dark-matter pods which detonated before they reached the ground.

The red markers on Cipher's map started to disappear from all locations around the world. Giant ancient serpents of starlight coiled around descending pods which fell throughout Eurasia. Armored star-metal leviathans with wings crashed into the extraterrestrial front line during battles in South America.

Thorne watched the casualty reports decrease in speed while he expressed his disbelief about the situation. The Star-Beasts succeeded in blocking the enemy advance.

The Star-Beasts have achieved their mission to create a delay which protects us according to Kade who now awakened from sleep. The physical appearance of him showed exhaustion because he had spent too much mental energy on coordinating worldwide defense efforts with the ancient gods. The Star-Beasts cannot destroy the dreadnought because its size exceeds their capabilities and its protection comes from the dimensional fracture shield.

The Siphon

Cipher interrupted Alpha by making a statement which expressed complete hopelessness. The global map had lost his attention. He separated the energy data which came from the huge dreadnought itself.

I asked Cipher about his current situation. I moved to where he stood.

The dreadnought ceased its troop drops according to Cipher who proceeded to swallow hard. He showed the Pacific thermal scan which captured the complete destruction of the sky above. The ground forces who fought the invasion battle were actually perimeter guards instead of warriors who formed the vanguard.

Cipher tapped the console.

The holographic representation of the dreadnought changed its appearance. The ship's massive underbelly opened up to reveal its extended structure. A massive dark-matter energy pillar started to descend from the alien ship's belly. The mouth of the drilling machine extended multiple miles wide while it pushed down through the atmosphere to create a direct path into the ocean waters of the Pacific.

The Mariana Trench became its target. It traveled to the position where Kade had first absorbed the World Engine.

Valda asked about the nature of that object.

Kade identified the object as a siphon while his face showed horror because he now understood everything. The white-gold light in his veins started to flicker at irregular intervals.

The Aethelgard invade planets to extract their surface magic according to Kade who spoke with an empty voice. The Aethelgard function as extraterrestrial mining operators. They brought a drill.

Thorne asked about the current situation because he needed assistance with comprehension.

The Source required a drill according to my realization which made blood leave my face. The group wanted to extract raw magic from the Earth's core.

The siphon will consume the planet's entire life energy within a few hours according to Cipher while his fingers trembled as he showed the upcoming path. The tectonic plates will completely lose their cohesion.

Cipher watched the scene before him while his eyes showed pure fear.

Cipher managed to say that Earth would experience destruction but it would finally split into two separate pieces if we left that tether intact.