“How much longer until our retreat’s complete?!” he shouted as he watched an endless army of apostles pour through the silver vortex.
While the knights were cheering on the arrival of the apostle swarm, the citizens looked quite scared of what they were seeing.
“We’re all good here. Everyone’s pulled out!”
The Liberators had planned this retreat in advance, so everyone had already been ready to escape via the Dark Gates.
“All right, prepare to teleport!” Salus shouted as he started propelling Lac Elain toward the palace. He knew the airship wouldn’t be able to protect the central plaza from this many apostles, so he was trying to put as much distance between Lac Elain and them as possible.
“Our barrier’s been demolished! We only have twenty percent of our mana left!”
“We’ve lost seventy-five percent of our outer armor! The whole ship’s riddled with holes!”
“We’ve lost an engine! At this rate, we’ll be sunk!”
Just as things were starting to look dicey, a huge black sphere swallowed up the silver vortex. At the same time, a series of explosions and massive hammer swings knocked away all the apostles near the ship.
Miledi and the others had arrived to save the day. Unfortunately, that meant they’d left the vortex up above unattended, so an army of apostles so large they looked like a massive cloud was descending from the eight-thousand-meter high peak of the Divine Mountain.
“Hurry it up, old man!” Miledi shouted.
“I know, I know! How much longer?!” he shouted at one of the techs.
“One moment... Mana charge complete! We can teleport at any time!”
“All right, let’s go!”
Lac Elain picked up speed and charged at the royal palace. However, Salus wasn’t planning on ramming it a second time. The teleporter activated just before they hit the walls, creating a spatial distortion in front of the ship’s prow.
Miledi and the others served as the rearguard, allowing Lac Elain to fly through the portal. The view from the bridge suddenly showed new scenery, telling Salus that the teleportation had been successful. They’d gone three hundred kilometers north of the Divine Mountain. If they could fly just another fifty kilometers, they’d be able to reach the ocean and dive.
Many of the airship’s outer walls had been destroyed, exposing the inner rooms to the elements, and black smoke was pouring out of the engines, but it was still functional. As Lac Elain limped its way toward the ocean, Miledi and the others suddenly appeared on the bridge.
Miledi was clutching her chest, worried about the comrades who were still in the middle of retreating and grieving the loss of those who hadn’t made it. She was also lamenting her own weakness, as well as the fact that she hadn’t even been able to touch Ehit.
“You could stand to look a little happier, you know?” Salus said gently.
The Liberators’ plan had more or less succeeded. They’d rescued their comrades, revealed the truth about Ehit to the world, destroyed the myth that the church was untouchable, and delivered the Liberators’ message all across Tortus. Though obviously, Salus also knew it was only the older folk like him who could keep a positive outlook in this situation.
For a while they flew in silence, allowing everyone to come to terms with the turbulent series of events that had just occurred. Unfortunately, they didn’t have much time to rest.
After a few minutes, Miledi suddenly turned around and shouted, “Sal! They’re coming!”
The bridge was immediately back on high alert.
“Prepare the teleporter!” Salus shouted.
However, the tech screamed back, “We can’t! We don’t have enough mana!”
“We’re moving to retreat plan 2-2!”
“Got it! Get ready!”
Lac Elain creaked ominously, and Salus gingerly patted his armrest, muttering, “Hold out just a bit longer for us, please.”
Looking out the window, he saw a series of silver comets chasing after the airship. Over a thousand apostles were heading their way.
“Are they after Lac Elain?!” Oscar shouted.
It did indeed look like they were targeting Lac Elain over Miledi and the others. Or rather, they were after the passengers inside the airship.
“Ehit really is one nasty fucker!” Vandre shouted, transforming into a full dragon and protecting Lac Elain’s rear while he fired off breath attacks at the apostles.
Naiz created a spatial expansion barrier, while Meiru cast a slow zone around the apostles to delay their attacks. Miledi and Oscar used gravity and disintegration magic respectively to thin out the apostles’ numbers, while Laus created as many clones as he could to wreak havoc among the apostles’ ranks. The whole time, Lyutillis cast evolution magic on everyone to support them, of course.
Unfortunately, Miledi and the others were still exhausted from their earlier battle, and they couldn’t produce as much firepower. Whatever they had done to destroy the inner sanctum’s barrier had taken something out of them that still hadn’t recovered. If they let their guard down for even a moment, their defensive line would be breached. They didn’t even have the resources to spare on repairing Lac Elain.
“Hold out just a bit longer, everyone! We’re almost to the ocean!” Miledi shouted, prompting everyone to rally for one last push. No matter what happened, they would protect their comrades on Lac Elain.
A dozen minutes passed, during which enough shots got through that Lac Elain lost its flotation power and started slowly losing altitude.
“Commander, we’re within effective range!” the lookout shouted as the ocean came into view.
“All right, everyone, abandon ship!” Salus shouted.
Everyone used a Dark Gate to perform an emergency escape. They were all teleporting to a second ship that was hidden in a rocky reef near the coast. It wasn’t just Lac Elain Oscar had modified, he’d also upgraded another ship—the Melusine.
However, the Melusine was only a third as large as Lac Elain, meaning it was quite cramped with everyone on board. Desperate times called for desperate measures though, and this plan required using Lac Elain as bait to facilitate the Liberators’ escape.
“Miledi, we’ve all escaped!” Salus shouted, prompting Miledi to turn to Laus. Laus, in turn, used spirit magic to confirm that there was no one left on Lac Elain, then nodded to Miledi.
“Time to get out of here!” Miledi shouted.
Oscar and the others all congregated around Naiz. A second later, he teleported them all to safety. And as they left, a barrage of silver beams ripped through Lac Elain, putting an end to the storied submarine-cum-airship’s long history.
Meanwhile, Salus, Miledi, and the others waited with bated breath on the Melusine’s now metal-coated deck to see if the apostles followed. The northern ocean was filled with shallow reefs for a good one hundred and twenty kilometers or so, meaning they couldn’t dive with the Melusine and had to pray the apostles didn’t find them. In the distance, they could see Lac Elain going down from the concentrated barrage of a thousand apostles. Salus sighed sadly as he watched the home he’d spent half his life in get destroyed.
Eventually, Lac Elain was completely eviscerated and the barrage stopped. Everyone was praying that the apostles would simply turn and leave, but then Mikaela said in a strained voice, “They’re coming. They found us!”
“Sal, full speed ahead! We need to get clear of the shallows and dive!”
“Miledi...”
“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence, Sal!”
Miledi knew exactly what Sal was about to say. The apostles had targeted Lac Elain obsessively, meaning that they’d almost certainly go after Salus and the others again, which meant that Miledi and the others would be able to escape while Salus served as bait.
Everyone on board was more than willing to throw their lives away for Miledi, and that scared her more than anything. After all, she didn’t want anyone dying for her sake. But at the same time, she realized that all of the ancient magic users were nearing their limits.
“There’s no way I’m letting you guys die,” Miledi said, glaring at the oncoming horde of apostles.
Panting, Oscar and the others lined up next to Miledi. They would stick with her to the very end.
“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Just then, a series of roars rang out and thousands of beams of light shot toward the apostles.
Everyone stared on in shock while Mikaela shouted, “Those are...dragons! A flock of dragons is coming in from the east!”
Miledi and the others turned eastward to see an army of dragons five thousand strong advancing on the apostles.
“No, wait. Those are—!”
As someone who shared their blood, Vandre could tell immediately that they weren’t just dragons, but rather transformed dragonmen.
“We have come to aid you at the behest of our king. I am one of Astlan the Dragon Kingdom’s generals, Grice Schnee.”
As the wave of breath attacks pushed the apostles back, an ice dragon with beautiful indigo scales flew down to the Melusine and introduced himself.
“Schnee?” Miledi asked as everyone turned to face Vandre.
Grice also looked at Vandre with his slit-like draconic eyes and said in a gentle voice, “I cannot have my grandson dying here. Please hurry and retreat from this battlefield.”
Everyone was bursting with questions—Vandre most of all—but one thing was for certain. The Liberators wouldn’t lose any more of their members today.