Chapter 296: Nine Stars on Both Sides
A sharp crack came from the Amber.
Its seal split open, and a Dragon’s roar rolled over the sea. A golden body hundreds of meters long unfurled above the battlefield, clouds curling around its scales.
For a moment, Lords on both sides forgot the battle below.
"A Divine Dragon!"
"A living Mythic troop..."
"That’s the Crown’s Dragon! Let them try to stop us now!"
The coalition’s cries were rather less joyful.
"That damned pendant can summon a Dragon too? Increasing the drops wasn’t enough?"
When Cassian had first released it against the Brahma Legion, the Divines had been its witnesses. Azrak had barely managed to mention the creature before being driven from the contest. The Crown Champions who heard him had later received orders from their thirteen Governors to keep the matter quiet.
This was the first time the newcomer Homeworld could see the Mythic troop openly.
Apart from the twenty-odd Divine Province Champions who already knew, nearly every Lord watching felt a chill run down their spine. Those broadcasting the battle turned their views toward the sky.
Cheers flooded the Homeworld Channel from all thirteen Crown Provinces.
The coalition’s three War Marshals stared upward.
One Mythic fighter could tie down a dozen or more Legendary Nine-Stars. Unless someone strong enough could face it alone...
Vivienne found her answer first.
"General Veylan, weren’t you looking for a duel? There’s a worthy opponent for you. We won’t stand in your way."
Damon’s expression darkened.
"How many more things has Cassian hidden?" Tavian snarled. "When we get back, every intelligence officer responsible for this report is going before a military court!"
He had spoken too soon.
The sea beneath them churned. Mist rose in great white clouds, and a radiant figure burst through the surface.
Harriet spread her wings and climbed toward the Dragon, the presence of a Legendary Nine-Star rolling from her body.
More Dawnwings followed their Marshal. One after another, they rose from the water until the sky glittered with their light.
Two months after the great battle for Divine Province, Cassian’s Dawnwing corps had returned to public view.
There were far more of them this time.
"A thousand? There must be over a thousand!"
"Look at them! With that army on our side, what is there to fear?"
"I thought he lost almost all of them during the Individual Contest!"
Behind the Dawnwings came more than a thousand Epic Four-Star Eclipse Legionnaires. Aurelia and Liora rose with them.
Nessa clasped her hands, delighted.
"He hasn’t just rebuilt his army. It’s stronger than before!"
Darian chuckled under his breath.
"He sank hundreds of thousands of ships by himself. He must have earned over two hundred billion Battle Essence. That’s enough to recruit a thousand Dawnwings."
The expansion had indeed been paid for. Cassian had recruited replacements and new troops through the Pool, then spent the Battle Essence to develop them. His surviving Dawnwings, including the completed Nine-Star squad, formed the core of the larger corps.
For the Eclipse line, he had drawn on his paid reserves and recruited the reinforcements he needed. The selected Legionnaires had completed the Hall’s required trials, and he had paid for their advancement to Epic Four-Star and their further Level growth. The Swordgrave had forged the additional Legendary blades, with materials and fees paid before the weapons were issued.
What Darian did not know was how much remained.
Even after bringing both fighting corps past a thousand, Cassian still had a hundred and forty billion Battle Essence.
Darian laughed aloud and stepped toward the rail.
"We can’t let the rest of Divine Province look useless!"
A Golden Behemoth appeared at the prow and roared at the sky. Nearby, great waves rolled apart as a Hydra’s enormous body surfaced.
Light-and-Dark Templars gathered power between their hands. Legendary Knights rode over the waves as though crossing firm ground. Around a hundred Hill Kings activated Titan Descent, drawing on the storms across dozens of kilometers of sea.
Even among those forces, Mara Thorne’s three hundred Bone Dragons were impossible to miss.
In the two months since receiving the Dragon Tomb Blueprint, she had poured herself into building an army. She had paid to build her own Eclipse Chapterhouse from the Blueprint Cassian had given her earlier, recruited its troops, and sent them hunting to accumulate Battle Essence.
Once the Dragon Tomb was complete, she had paid its recruitment costs and the growth costs of her new Dragons. Now three hundred great skeletal bodies took to the air at her command.
Thousands of other Legendary troops joined the advance. They came from many different lines, but together they made an army no one watching could dismiss.
Every part of it went out on the live broadcasts.
——
The Lords of the five nations that had already withdrawn watched with complicated expressions.
Shock. Fear at what might have happened.
And relief.
"Dozens of Legendary warships, nearly a thousand Epics, and fifty thousand ships in the main fleet... This is Divine Province?"
"A Mythic troop. Over a thousand Dawnwings. An entire Bone Dragon corps. Thousands of other Legendaries."
"They might have been able to fight our million-ship fleet even before the losses."
"Divine Province has only a fraction of the Lords in a major Province. Where did it get the strength of several of them?"
"If it wins today, even the older sectors will have trouble crushing it."
Orrick Selwyn could hardly bear to listen.
"Who was it who said they were an easy target? Who promised us easy spoils?"
Talassar had sent more than seventy thousand powerful warships. Only twenty thousand had made it home.
Alton Greaves was feeling considerably better about his own decision.
"The Coral Federation will always be the Crown’s friend!" he declared.
Cedric Rook shuddered as he watched the rising troops.
"Thank the Realm we paid and left. Even if we’d reached Divine Province, we would have lost everything here."
Above the battle, the three War Marshals looked grimmer by the moment.
"Those Bone Dragons are a standard troop line too," Tavian said. "Just like the Dawnwings. In less than two months, they’ve multiplied their high-Quality troops several times over."
Vivienne took a deep breath.
"No more holding anything back. Even if every troop we brought down dies here, we must destroy Divine Province."
"Agreed." Tavian’s gaze hardened. "We still have the advantage in Nine-Stars. And several Nine-Star Heroes."
His eyes widened before he had finished speaking.
"What?"
A vast palm of interwoven light struck his Legendary Nine-Star Spiritbinder Hero. The handprint stretched hundreds of meters across the sky.
"Twinflow Palm!"
The Spiritbinder formed his own sign to meet it. His defense broke, and the blow hurled him hundreds of meters backward.
Maren’s cold laugh came from behind her veil.
"Osric Vaust learned half an art from our Equinox School, then had the nerve to build a Spiritbinder class from the scraps. What a disgrace."
A Nine-Star Hero.
Divine Province had those too.
"Don’t panic!" Vivienne called. Then she sneered. "With their resources, they could have obtained a dozen or so Legendary Hero Souls in these past months. They’ve wasted most of them on a single Hero just to impress us."
Damon glanced in another direction.
"General Crowe, perhaps you should look at your own favorite Hero before saying that."
She turned.
Iver Caldus, her most capable mage, was being driven back.
Her Legendary Nine-Star Arcane Mage could barely hold his position against the Human woman before him. A dark cloak streamed behind Liora’s full figure, and blue light shone along the staff in her hand.
"Flame Will. Frost Will. Arcane Will..." Iver’s voice rose in disbelief. "How can one person understand so many schools? Even fire and ice together?"
Everyone who understood magic knew what that meant.
Liora gave him a scornful smile.
"Never met a proper student before? Master Aldren chose me as his apprentice."
Cassian’s mouth twitched. Her family’s connections had certainly done her no harm there. She was making the most of that recommendation now.
A cry cut across the sky.
"My Hero!"
Damon’s amusement vanished. He shot forward like a drawn sword, his shout carrying over the battle.
"Stop!"
His own Legendary Nine-Star Hero was a Sword Saint. Unfortunately for the man, his opponent was Aurelia.