The Otherworlder's Invasion (1/2)

A few months after Haalfrin arrives at the Threshold, we see a small gathering of winged men and women. Their wings are all a range of browns, reds, and blacks.

One of these Rehkin clan folk slams her spear on the ground and caws, "One of our spies in the Threshold has told us that the human's new dragon slayer is critically injured and can't fight well right now!"

"So it's the perfect time to attack?" another excitedly adds.

"NO!" an elderly man raises his voice above them all, "our forces aren't big enough yet! We already lost many to the crow goddess last time we attacked the Threshold. We should just give up."

"Give up, old man? Have you grown meek? What about all our brothers and sisters they've killed over the years? Can we really give up on appeasing their souls?"

As they continue bickering, a few tall, scaled men dip their heads down and step into the tent. "Yo, little birdies!" one of the dragons says while waving casually, "I heard you're attacking the human's Threshold. We'd like to join!"

The elderly Hawk man looks at them warily and asks, "What business do you have with us? Dragons don't help people casually."

"Well," Tefka replies, "we heard that our little brother's killer is in the Threshold. We'd like to get his bones back. Father would like to scold the little rascal personally for losing to a human."

Tefka and his 2 brothers had been poking around the Threshold secretly for years now; they know the stories and many dragons being defeated there before, so they've been waiting for an opportune moment... like this one.

The hawks talks amongst each other. Now that they have 3 dragons' support, the naysayers no longer had any grounds to refuse to support the invasion.

The pacifist elder sighs with a depressing weight on his spirit, and he gestures to some empty seats at the table. "Sit down, I suppose. We have some plans to discuss."

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Haalfrin is laying on his bed, and his eyes look even more dead than usual. After the Wills have taken all his Death Aura, he literally has nothing else to do.

Just when he's about to spiral into another fit of depression, he hears some loud banging coming from outside. He leaps up from his bed and grabs the wooden crutch the doctors gave him.

(After he began treatment, the doctors had to remove his wooden prosthetic leg, as the leg is slowly growing back. In the meantime, he has to hobble around on crutches.)

In a comedic fashion, Haalfrin uses his Dra Name to strengthen his one leg, and he hops out the door with practiced precision. He uses the crutches only to balance himself while his insanely strong leg propels him through the air toward the strange noise.

"Oi!" the Doctor Balri shouts in a fury, "GET BACK HERE! IF YOU DON'T COME BACK, I'LL BURN YOUR CRUTCHES!"

…Haalfrin ignores her. Once he gets out the door, he looks around at the cramped corridors on either side of himself to check for any commotion. He sees lines of soldiers running single-file down the halls with weapons in hand.

'It's not time for drills… which means it's an attack! Plus, I can feel the Death Aura stirring above me' Haalfrin thinks excitedly while licking his lips. 'I wanna get up there!'

Funnily enough, Haalfrin hobbles away faster than any of the doctors can catch him. Once he's gone, Doctor Balri slumps onto the wall, pushes up her glasses, and harrumphs, "IDIOT! All the month's hard work... gone just like that. Does nobody take us doctors seriously?"

All the while, Haalfrin is running through the fortress excitedly in his patient's garb. The other soldiers are looking at him strangely, but he doesn't care.

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Meanwhile, we see the 3 Noble Dragons flying to the human's mountain while accompanied by a flock 10s of thousands of Hawks large.

Commander Fisco is looking at the approaching army and in his Far speak medallion, "Don't bother attacking the dragons until they've landed. They're far too quick to be accurately hit. Use rapid, low-energy bolts on the Hawks. Switch the cannons to the spread fire enchantment. I want a thick carpet of energy bolts. I want as many of those hawks dead before they reach us. I want the magi-cannons to fire in unison."

After thinking for a moment, Fisco adds, "After 1 volley, immediately switch to the Penetration bolts. Focus on the dragons.

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We then see the dragons and Hawks flying up, and a thick blanket of countless energy bolts flies out in a large wall of death. The Hawk commander screeches out through their spiritual link, "Tighten up formation and hide behind the dragons! These are low-energy bolts, so the dragons will protect us!"

In the instant he willed it, his entire clan feels these thoughts in their minds, and they all tighten up and go behind the dragons in unison.

The dragons seem to know what is going on, so they all immediately open their mouths and breathe out a stream of energy, which absorbs the spread-fire of mana bolts. Of course, the energy shields they put up briefly block their view, so they don't see the next volley coming.

With an angry roar, thousands of mana cannons spew out thick streams of white fire, and long metal spikes enchanted with durability shoot from thousands of feet away.

The metal spikes are traveling so fast that even after the spikes connect with their targets, it's several seconds before a loud booming sound rocks the earth, and a powerful shockwave pulses through the incoming army of Hawks and dragons.

The dragons are unperturbed the by shockwave, but the Hawks' formation is briefly disturbed. Even if they weren't knocked out of the sky from the shockwave, this is enough to startle them.

Two of the dragons have good instincts and manage to dodge the penetration bolts in time. However, the third has well over a hundred metal spikes over a dozen feet long impaled in his flesh. In several other places, his scales are shattered to pieces, where the penetration spikes had hit the scales at an angle.

Of course, for the 2 dragons that dodged, the Hawks behind them were exposed to the penetration spikes. Fortunately, the spikes can't hit very many things at once, though perhaps they'd get lucky and run through multiple Hawks at once.

The Hawks are certainly startled by the spikes zipping through their army, but they have minimal casualties over it. The penetration spikes are designed for single, tough targets rather than many smaller ones, after all.

Unfortunately, the Hawks have no time to rejoice. Another volley is coming at them. "Scatter right now! Now!" the Hawk general commands through their Spirit link. There is a volley of rapid-fire mana bolts, and this time his people don't have time to dodge.

Hundreds of thousands of bolts fly through the sky in a thick blanket of death. The Rehkin don't have tough bodies like the Drakin do, so thousands of them fall from the sky as smoking corpses.

Even though their casualties are horrific from this one volley, the Hawk captain never expected any less from a trip to the Threshold. Fortunately, they have the dragons here, so there's a chance these sacrifices may mean something!

Finally, after 3 more volleys from the Threshold, the combined army of invaders makes it to the surface of the mountain.

The Drakin immediately land on the side of the mountain and start beating at it with their fists to loosen the hard dirt, then scraping away the loose rubble with their long claws.

Normally, they'd just charge at the mountain at full speed (like how Dakka blew his way from the sky all the way to the bottom of the Pit), but past experience has taught the Drakin that it's dangerous to do that on this mountain.

This is because there are countless traps placed in the mountain's outer crust, including time-locked metal spikes lodged in the mountain just below the surface, facing outward. If a Drakin were to ram into the mountain recklessly, he'd impale himself directly on the indestructible, immovable spikes with his massive body.

Their own powerful speed would kill them in the end if a spike went through their brain or heart.

So, the Drakin are forced to dig their way through the mountain and pound on it to shake the rock up. Of course, there are thousands of mana cannons lodged in the surface of the mountain that are constantly barraging the dragons with more Penetration Spikes.

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Commander Fisco looks at this from a magic mirror, and he touches the reflection of one of the dragons. "Focus all fire on that one. After a single volley, switch to the green one here." He points to another dragon.

Immediately the order is voiced over to all the mages manning the cannons.

Promptly, the already injured brown dragon is hailed with another round of spikes. The creature roars out its frustration once he notices all the cannons turning his way. Immediately, he uses his magic to strengthen himself and brace himself for the impact.

After another round of fire, he has a hundred more spikes lodged deep in his body. The pain means nothing to the dragon, but he doesn't want to bleed out so early in the battle. That would be embarrassing.

Of course, the reason he isn't directly killed by the continuous volleys is because he's put all his strength into defense at that moment.

Even still, he is starting to look worn out, so one of his brothers joins in and starts shielding him from the next volley, only for the next volley to come for him instead.

The Hawk Captain sees this and he orders all his soldiers, "Go take care of those mana cannons!"

Tens of thousands of Hawks swoop down and land in front of the holes of the cannons that are peaking out of the mountainside.

Before the humans inside can react properly, the Hawks reach in and touch the surface of the cannons. Large, copper Spirit Threads materialize around the cannons at the Hawks' Will.

These spirit threads are part of the enchantments keeping the mana cannons operational, as the Threads connect the mana stones powering the cannons to the Runes giving the cannons their instructions.

(Enchantments require spiritual magic, after all, and spirit magic happens to be a Rehkin's strong point.)

So, with relative ease, the Rehkin soldiers all grab the Spirit Threads on the cannons with their bare hands and start tearing them to shreds - effectively destroying the cannons altogether.

Even still, the Rehkin can't take down all of the cannons before one of the Drakin is critically injured.

As the brown dragon is struggling to breathe with diamond-tipped spikes piercing his lungs, his two brothers to the side have to whip him out of the way and yell, "Tefka! You're out of fighting shape! Just go back to our hideout and rest up!"

"No! I can still fight!" Tefka roars out in frustration. He'd spent too much effort planning the assault on the Threshold to be the first to give up!

Out of Tefka's nostrils and mouth, thick plumes of black smoke are rising. Dragons breathe out black smoke when they're extremely angry as a reflex, kind of like how human's faces turn red, they curl their fists, and their voices raise.

"You're not thinking straight, you fool!" one of his brothers slaps him on the back with his tail.

"Ya!" the other brother chips in, "Nobody's going to look down on you just because the humans focused their fire on you."

"Stop embarrassing yourself and just leave!"

The injured brown dragon looks down and said sheepishly, "I-idiots! I'm going back..."

After the injured dragon flies off, the two remaining dragons look at the army of Hawks and say, "Well, let's charge in I guess."