Chapter 278: Clash In Mythal (Part 1)
Silence hung over Mythal. Tiamat stood in the center of the empty city, and she didn’t move at first, simply looking around, almost as if she were taking inventory of the place.
Kai watched carefully. "So that’s where you chose."
She’d unknowingly stepped into exactly the district Lily had been counting on.
Kai slowly raised the Fractured Blade, his voice echoing across every connected relay tower. "Phase One."
For half a heartbeat nothing happened.
Then the city answered.
Golden light exploded beneath Mythal, not from one place, but from everywhere, as ancient runes buried beneath the streets ignited together, one after another, racing beneath every road like rivers of sunlight, relay towers awakening in sequence across the skyline.
North. East. South. West. Center.
Hundreds of towers lit the city in seconds, the glow surging beneath homes, across rooftops, through bridges, down alleyways.
Every buried relic Gabriel’s church had spent weeks placing awakening together until the ground itself became one enormous magic circle, golden veins spreading beneath the city like arteries carrying living blood, the entire skyline shimmering.
Mayor Ko stared in disbelief. "It’s alive."
Lily’s fingers flew across the relay console, golden windows pouring information across the screen faster than anyone else could read. Mana flow. Synchronization. Relay stability. Signal strength. Every reading climbed. "Ninety-nine percent"
"Hundred percent." She smiled. "Synchronization confirmed."
Across the room, Elden watched another series of calculations stabilize. "No mana loss." He blinked. "Not even point-zero-one percent." His normally calm expression cracked into genuine surprise. "Impossible."
Gabriel slowly looked around the glowing city. The Astral Church had theorized this network for generations, countless civilizations had attempted similar projects, and none had ever succeeded, yet before her an entire city had become one living machine.
She smiled. "Perfect."
Outside, golden light continued spreading beneath every street, every tower linking to another, every relic feeding another, every district strengthening the next, no part of the network standing alone anymore, all of it breathing together like one enormous organism.
Then Tiamat moved. Without expression she slowly lifted one hand, mana gathering above her fingertips, and the crimson sky darkened, clouds twisting violently as an ocean appeared overhead, not water falling from the sky but an actual ocean, miles across, floating above Mythal, its surface churning.
Then thousands of ripples spread simultaneously, and each ripple became a spear. Ten. Hundred. Thousand. Ten thousand. Water compressed until each spear gleamed like polished sapphire, every one easily large enough to erase an entire building, the sky disappearing beneath them.
Raze looked upward. "Well. That’s excessive."
The countless spears tilted downward together, like the heavens themselves preparing to execute the city.
Lily didn’t even blink. "Barrier Network."
Every relay tower pulsed, golden domes erupting over Mythal, one district, then another, then another, until overlapping shields covered the entire city.
The first spear struck.
BOOOOOOM!
A shockwave rolled across the skyline. Then another. And another. Soon the entire city disappeared beneath an endless storm, water exploding against barriers in every direction, buildings vanishing behind waves, roads disappearing beneath spray, thousands of impacts echoing together until it sounded like the world itself was breaking apart.
Inside the command center, nobody looked away as barrier integrity dropped. Ninety-eight percent. Ninety-three. Eighty-nine. Then golden lines beneath the streets blazed brighter, mana surging automatically through the relay network, and barrier integrity climbed again. Ninety. Ninety-four. Ninety-seven. One hundred.
Elden smiled. "It’s restoring itself faster than she’s damaging it."
The barriers weren’t surviving. They were healing. Every impact became fuel. Every strike strengthened the network.
Kai slowly nodded. "Good."
Because now Phase One truly began.
Elden smiled, watching the readouts. "Barrier restoration is keeping pace."
The barriers weren’t just surviving. They were regenerating under active fire.
Kai nodded. "Good."
The moment the barriers absorbed enough force, they triggered the next link in the chain automatically. Barrier fed into gravity, every nearby relic activating together, and the falling spears suddenly lost momentum mid-descent, freezing in place. Mana artillery fired the instant they stalled, hundreds of beams streaking upward and detonating the remaining spears before they ever reached the ground.
One activation triggered another, then another, golden light racing beneath the streets faster than anyone could visually track.
Gabriel watched it all unfold, smiling faintly. "The chain reaction actually works."
An Astral Church member beside her stared, stunned. "It surpassed our own calculations."
Lily grinned without looking up. "No." She tapped the console. "Our calculations were finally correct."
The dragons roared, and instead of converging on Kai, each one peeled off toward a different district entirely, exactly matching the pattern from the old civilization records.
Gabriel noticed immediately. "They’re following the historical pattern."
Mayor Ko nodded, watching the readouts. "Meaning our preparations are exactly where they need to be."
In the North District, a dragon dove hard, and the response was instant. Barrier, then gravity, then terrain pillars erupting from the street to intercept it mid-dive. The dragon crashed into the newly risen stone, and before it could recover, mana artillery opened fire.
BOOM.
In the West District, another dragon unleashed a torrent of fire down a main avenue. The relay redirected underground water straight into its path, steam erupting into a thick wall that killed visibility instantly, and a suppression relic forced the dragon downward before it could reorient.
In the East District, lightning breath arced across three blocks, bending one barrier segment nearly to its limit. A healing relay repaired the damaged section before the second bolt even landed.
In the South District, a dragon’s tail slammed into the street, and terrain manipulation lifted entire sections of road upward like raised shields, absorbing the blow whole.
Every district fought differently. The city itself had become the battlefield in a way none of them had fully appreciated until they watched it happen live.
Kai, Sera, Mira, Raze, Lily, and Elden split apart, each supporting a different district’s defense in real time.
Sera blocked one dragon’s charge head-on, and a crimson claw slipped past her guard a half-second later. Before it landed, golden light flared automatically, a barrier snapping into place and stopping it cold.
Sera smiled. "Thanks."
Mira tanked another dragon directly, its bite tearing through a section of her armor plating. A healing relic activated instantly, closing the wound before the dragon had even finished pulling back for another strike.
Mira laughed. "I could get used to this."
Raze got thrown clean through three buildings by a tail swipe, and just before he slammed into a fourth, the street beneath him rose sharply, launching him back toward the dragon with even more force than he’d started with.
He laughed loudly, mid-flight. "NOW THAT’S SERVICE!"
Kai cut through a wall of dragon fire, Distortion nudging him a fraction sooner than usual, and the relay network opened a barrier gap exactly where he was about to step, like the city had already known where he’d be before he did.
Lily blinked, watching the readout. "It predicted Kai’s movement."
Elden shook his head slowly. "No." He studied the pattern more closely. "It predicted the whole battle."
Everyone realized it at the same moment. The relay network had stopped simply reacting.
It had started anticipating.
Tiamat raised both hands, and the sky itself darkened overhead. Black and crimson lightning tore across the heavens, not a single bolt, but thousands at once, entire districts vanishing beneath the storm.
For a moment it looked like it might be over.
Kai didn’t panic. "Continue."
The relay network responded immediately, barrier, suppression, and mana redistribution activating together. Lightning rods rose from rooftops across the whole city, redirecting every single bolt, and the stored energy fed directly into the artillery network, powering it beyond its normal output.
The city had just turned Tiamat’s own attack against her.
Raze laughed. "She charged our weapons for us!"
Even Gabriel looked genuinely stunned. "We never once considered using her own mana against her."
Lily smiled quietly at her console. "It just means we’re getting better."
Kai said nothing, focused entirely on the fight in front of him.
The dragons regrouped a moment later, all four peeling away from their districts and converging back toward Tiamat at once.
Kai noticed immediately. "They’re protecting her."
Lily’s eyes widened. "They know what’s coming."
Elden checked the relay readout. "They’re trying to stop Phase Two."
Kai raised his sword. "No." He watched the dragons close ranks around her. "They’re already too late."
Lily slammed both hands onto the relay console. "Operation Relay!"
Every tower activated at once, not randomly, but in careful sequence: North, East, South, West, and finally the Center, golden light racing beneath every road, feeding into every relic, every barrier, every healing pulse, every artillery shot, every last unused reserve in the network, all of it converging toward a single point.
The whole city lit up like a single enormous magic circle, visible even from beyond Mythal’s outer walls.
Gabriel whispered, "Beautiful."
The ground beneath Tiamat erupted, a colossal pillar of compressed golden light exploding straight upward. The dragons dove instantly, not toward Kai, but toward Tiamat herself, wrapping their own bodies around her in a protective shell.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!
The beam engulfed all five of them at once. The entire city shook under the release, windows shattering across every district, golden light swallowing the skyline whole.
Silence followed. The beam faded slowly, smoke drifting up from the crater it had carved into the street.
The dragons were still standing.
But not untouched anymore. One had lost a horn entirely. A second dragged a limp wing. A third bore deep burns scorched across its chest. The fourth bled heavily from a gash across its neck, crimson rain falling onto the street below.
For the first time, all four dragons roared in genuine pain.
The smoke cleared fully around Tiamat a moment later, and she stood there, completely unharmed at the center of the wreckage her guardians had taken in her place.
Her crimson eyes narrowed slowly.
Not in anger.
In recognition.
For the first time since she’d stepped through that gate, she’d finally acknowledged them as real opponents.
Kai tightened his grip slowly around the Fractured Blade. Behind him, the relay towers kept glowing steadily across the skyline.
The city had survived the opening exchange.
Now the real battle could begin.