The scene flashed before Ashtoreth's eyes in the half-second that she spent flying through the air: a meteor golem standing before a member of Alpha Team, both arms coming down to crush the armored soldier on the ground in front of it.

She sped across the hundred-meter gap between them in a half-second, sliding across the floor and bringing both arms up to catch the golem's blow, steel warping beneath her feet as she fell to her knees. Then she hissed, putting all her strength behind the act of rising and pushing the golem back off her.

Her sword was still conjured and boosting her [Strength] even if it was probably falling toward the planar boundary, and for all its superior mass, the golem wasn't her physical match. She dismissed her sword, leapt up between its massive arms as she re-conjured it, shrugged off another harmless bolt of magical lightning, and then clove downward with her newly-formed blade to sheer a massive slab of metal off the creature, killing it instantly as her blade sent flecks of molten metal flying.

{You gain [Meteor Golem Core]; Tier 3}

She spun to find a new target, getting a brief impression of the man she'd saved still looking at the spot where she'd caught the golem's smash with awe, then another brief impression of Frost locked in battle with a golem of his own, dodging its attacks with a languid grace as his minigun bathed in blue fire that Ashtoreth knew would disenchant the creature before he could tear it to pieces.

The sight gave her a brief little surge of elation. With flight, counterforce telekinesis, high stats, and her light bodyweight, it made perfect sense that Ashtoreth was untouchable. Frost's combat excellence was far more admirable—his showed that he had good training, not just superior stats.

As she spun, she dismissed Wanderschloss and conjured Rammschloss in its place.

Her gun-sword was every bit the heavy weapon that Luftschloss had been, though slightly longer now to accommodate the barrel length of the anti-behemoth cannon. The cannon had been merged into the sword with many modifications to accommodate it.

While the hilt of the sword was still flush with the weapon's spine, the hollow that accommodated said hilt had been greatly lengthened to include a second handhold that functioned as the main grip for the gun, and she'd added a rounded base that she could place against her shoulder. The barrel extended along the inside of the spine to end beneath a notch in the blade's upper edge.

[Luftschloss: Proximate Telekinesis] felt like it was almost a cheat when fusing the sword with the cannon, because it allowed her to furnish the weapon with many moving parts which she could operate with no hands. A scope folded out of the metal near the spine. The action of the weapon was almost completely internal—the magazine loading into another gap placed just above the hilt, but there were few other hints than the slitted venting to imply that her sword was a cannon at all.

Four cannon shots rang out across the promenade as Ashtoreth found and fired upon the four golems that looked like they were most likely to harm human targets. Two of them she struck with imperfect shots, seeming to only knock them off-balance.

Two of them had their conical heads reduced to colorful blasts of shrapnel.

{You gain [Meteor Golem Core]; Tier 3}

{You gain [Meteor Golem Core]; Tier 3}

But as she ejected the magazine and slid her spare one home, she was interrupted.

Beam shit again, Frost said in her mind.

"Ugh."

Once again she launched herself into the air and aimed her sword down the length of the forming beam. Once again it shattered and sent scattered explosions across the Promenade while Frost simply used his limited use attack-negation ability to perfectly tank the parallel beam.

Ammo? He asked as they both turned to engage the two golems each that had chased them.

She conjured Wanderschloss as she dove back into the fray, then began to create hellfire javelins that she simply launched at Frost so that he could absorb the [Bloodfire].

Her heart thundered as she set to work annihilating another golem. Her mouth flowed between two states, a snarl of exertion and a grin of exhilaration. She had never been so powerful, before—she could cross hundreds of meters in moments, could cleave through the [Defense] of level 500 golems with singular blows. [Mighty Strike] could topple one of the four-legged constructs from across the promenade.

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The golems were nothing to her. If Morax Tol had auras—and he should have—they were likely projected by the towers, and the closest two functioning towers were kilometers away.

As she fought, Gao's cool, collected voice gave orders to the individual soldiers and units behind her. Someone was commanded to move up and take Frost's role in deflecting any more focused beams from the towers—he couldn't tank another shot.

Soon she was spinning to find another golem only to see that the next-nearest target had been shattered into thousands of frozen metal shards, fog rising from its remains. A quick sweep of her gaze showed her that the situation was well enough in hand, and she paused, conjuring Wanderschloss once more.

Incoming—watch the skies, but stay low, Gao said.

Ashtoreth looked up to see that more than a hundred dark figures were riding toward them—drakes, from the look of them, or perhaps drake riders. They were too far to be tagged; she had to wonder if they were meant to assault their forces once the golems had caused sufficient chaos.

She took the chance to eat two more hearts from her satchel, preserving the seven in her locket for the bigger fight. As she did so, she invested some of her [Bloodfire] into conjuring several [Hellfire Elementals], ordering them to stay amidst her allies as a source of her auras and potential replenishment.

Besides: she did want to be offered the [Minion] aspect if she could help it.

Boss, said Dazel. It's now or never. Work some mana in.

Good call! she said, moving over to stand across from the tower that she kept having to block shots from. She waved a hand over the ground, burning a sophisticated series of runes in the form of a circle, a spell meant to—

That's not going to work, Dazel said immediately. Fix this—chain the eth rune in or the whole thing will fall apart when it hits the shield.

Thanks, boss, she said sarcastically, burning a new rune-circle into the metal a few yards away as she looked around for Dazel. Where are you right now?

Hiding from the g-forces, he said emphatically. You think I'm going to ride along with you through all of this? I think I'll take my chances with the constant—

He cut off momentarily. Wow, he said. Good timing.

A second later Ashtoreth watched as a swarm of missiles rushed through the air above her, heading for the drakes—there were so many of them that had been seemingly launched simultaneously that she had to wonder if they'd pushed an AA emplacement through the rift while she wasn't watching.

I was going to say 'explosions,' see, Dazel said.

Ashtoreth watched as more than a hundred missiles, all of them moving at supersonic speeds, tore through the sky and began to connect with the distant drakes.

There were a few flashes of colored light to indicate that the drakes or drake-riders were doing… something to defend against the missiles. As the smoke-streaked fireballs filled the air, she squinted, trying to discern how much damage they'd dealt.

Then smoking pieces began to rain down on the promenade and into the sky around it, most of them spinning giddily away on wild trajectories that had been generated by the violent forces at play.

I bet those guys had some cool spells or something, Ashtoreth thought as the giblets fell. Then she grinned. Guess we'll never know, though!

She returned her attention to the spell she had been working on, channeling [Bloodfire] into her magic circle as gunfire flashed overhead and the last of the drake riders were dispatched.

"Hmm," she said aloud as she filled the circle with power, raising one of her wristwatches. "Is it perhaps time for another long-range blast from the towers?"

You know I can't hear you, right boss? Dazel asked. I just see you posing with one of your ridiculous clocks and talking to nobody.

Oh—here it comes!

She dove backward along the Promenade and began to aim her weapon along the beam, planning to throw it anyway in case her spell didn't work. As she did so, she reached out with her magical focus and grabbed hold of the [Bloodfire]-infused rune circle that she'd made.

Her spell's purpose was simple—send a surge of energy back along the path created by the beam that would hopefully penetrate the tower's defenses and destroy not just the tower, but hopefully several of the towers behind it that were forwarding energy for its spell.

The tower's tip flared with white light—and then Ashtoreth loosed her spell and the beam flickered a split-second before the tower exploded, sending fragments everywhere.

Nice! she said. I was sort of hoping for more than one, though.

You probably could have built that better out of your [Hellfire Rune], Dazel said. But not bad.

I eat a lot of brain food, she said.

Suddenly there was a flash of light from far ahead of them. Above the distant, pyramidal outline of the palace that was still more then ten kilometers away, Ashtoreth saw the outline of a hulking demonic dragon.

Got him! she said.

Oh, said Dazel.

What's up?

I think I'm just realizing now that you did that more to piss him off than to handle those towers.

Ashtoreth laughed. His ego is more vulnerable than the tower count. It's also a more valuable target.

Yeah, yeah. I still know more about runes.

Ashtoreth snorted.

Then a deep, grinding voice boomed out across the world around them, seeming to emanate from the towers themselves.

"Are you cosmic toymakers, then?" Morax Tol asked slowly. "Here to hawk your clever, clockwork wares?" A guttural laughter filled the air. "Come now. Let us set aside our trinkets and comport ourselves with a certain degree of seriousness."

White light built at the top of the palace, then gathered into a bolt of power that suddenly began to rush toward them so fast that it would reach them in seconds.

I've got you, said Frost.

Ashtoreth launched herself into the air to intercept it…

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