Chapter 90: Chapter 90
The King gave his command. The First of the Fourth felt the entire world shift at his word. It filled her with heat and power, spurring her to action. And she knew why, as she felt a cold chill creeping along.
This was it. She fixed her eyes upon the entrance, not looking away for even a second.
Something dark began to coalesce around the Tower’s entrance...above the ground. The First of the Fourth began dancing immediately, sending her meaning along her mana to her children at the front.
The King had warned her to be ready for anything and the First of the Fourth had taken his words to heart. His wisdom was clear as the enemy immediately defied their expectations. But the soldiers and queens both had learned the lessons of their defeat well. They knew now it was possible for an enemy to appear higher up. The soldiers trained and drilled for that exact occurrence and with the First of the Fourth’s quick command immediately reorganized for an aerial foe. Some squads moved closer to the ground to cover that angle, while a group of sprayers moved into range above the incoming invader. The rest of the soldiers began to move as well. No longer did they hover in place, holding a static formation around the enemy. Instead, they began to zig zag through the air in constant movement, with random stops and dives and turns to prevent an enemy from tracking their trajectory. They would not wait for the enemy to strike but begin their evasion before the attack approached.
A moment later, a screech rang through the First of the Fourth’s body, far louder than she had anticipated from the stories. Her body trembled as her eyes beheld the enemy. A bird, much like the one who had broken through their army, now flapped in the air. It was far smaller than the original had been, comparable to the difference between the daily wolf-shades and the very first. But the First of the Fourth would not let its size fool her. She knew that this was a foe that could quickly escape her grasp if she made a single mistake.
She would not let it have the chance.
The moment the shade appeared, the sprayers launched their attack, coating the bird in toxins. The shade screeched at them and flapped its wings, but the sprayers had already melted back into the swirling mass of bees in constant motion and the shade lost track of them. A second sprayer squad jumped out of the mass and launched their attack as well. The shade attempted to dodge and got out of the immediate path of the attack, though some of the toxin still impacted it as the sprays spread out.
Once again, the shade was free and clear to head towards the hives and the King waiting beyond.
As the shade flew forward, another hive’s worth of soldiers took up positions ahead of it. The shade veered to the side but a second hive was already moving there. It stopped and flew straight up, but it could see a third hive already climbing and now turning to dive towards it. Yet another hive plugged the other flank while the soldiers it had escaped came up from behind. ř𝔞NỐ𝐛ĘS̈
The First of the Fourth was not about to let their army fail in the same way as before. Even as the first formation had started to thin out, she ordered the reserved forces to move. She built the same containment only on a much larger scale, forming new containment formations in every direction the shade could go. It would not move without a new containment wrapping around it.
The First of the Fourth had to admit she had questioned the Firstborn’s organization of the army. If their army had proven too weak to bring the enemy down before it could escape, how would making the force actually fighting weaker help things? But now she could see the benefit. With the majority of the army not engaged in the fight, she was free to move out as she pleased, and so could set a trap for the shade when it escaped the first formation.
The shade glanced around but found no gaps to exploit. It began to gather its lightning again but the First of the Fourth moved first. She ordered the sprayer squads forward and had them attack. Toxins sprayed onto the shade from all directions. She held her soldiers in reserve for now, wary of the sprayers hitting their own side. But it was working out. If the shade remained still, the sprayers would continue to bombard it. If it tried to break through, the soldiers would move to meet it.
It turned out that would not be necessary.
The shade squawked but its voice was weak now. Lightning crackled across it but never gathered into another blow. The toxins and stings it had already received were taking hold even as the sprayers laid on more and more. It began to wobble...then to dip...and soon its wings were not beating fast enough to keep it aloft. It plunged towards the ground.
The bees below cleared out of its path while dealing it additional stings along the way, but that was unnecessary. The shade was no longer attempting to attack them. Black mist began to disperse off of it and it vanished into a fading cloud even before it hit the ground.
The First of the Fourth stared for a moment until she heard the King’s mighty voice.