“This is not what I expected when told to expect trouble!” Virgil growled as he sighted down his Plasma Caster. He was stationed at the Watchtower’s peak and had been watching the Ritual’s progress when the earth shook and rumbled. Some instinct had him turn around and it was all he could do not to gape at the massive avalanche that nearly buried the village of Horswick at the foot of the Imperial Pass.

He watched in horror as their Protective Dome went up, then subsequently flickered out of existence even before the avalanche hit. The ambient Chaos normally drawn to power it had been siphoned towards the Ritual and the sleepy village’s Animus reserves were in no way sufficient to keep the Dome up for long. Evidently, that fact occurred to whoever was in control of the village and they shut it down so they didn’t waste their reserves. It flickered back into existence a moment before the avalanche hit.

The avalanche split in train upon hitting the Dome, spreading ice, mud, and earth, trees, and large boulders down the rest of the foothills. It wasn’t the only area that was hit, of course. He could see many leagues up and down the mountain range, and it looked like the snowcap on every peak had broken. As there weren’t any Imperial settlements elsewhere, Virgil supposed it didn't matter much.

Horswick’s Protective Dome held long enough for most of the avalanche to pass by. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to the ritual tunnel. The armada slowly drew towards the Veil, shortening the normal journey through the Tidelands a hundredfold. It would still take more than a couple of hours though. Passing through a Chaos Channel was faster, but there were none nearby. Besides, a channel had its own set of vulnerabilities.

He kept his Plasma Caster filled with his Intent and Animus. The weapon was not the one he brought with him to the Siderious, but rather, a new one given to him while he was at the Silver Tiger. It had a jade cartridge to store excess Animus so that the weapon was not entirely reliant on his Animus core. Even better, this one had a regulator and an infuser, allowing him to store one of his techniques to apply to his plasma bolts. That saved him from having to focus and cram a technique into his attack, though it did have the disadvantage of having to wait an entire second before firing. That suited him just fine considering he was an extremely long-range marksman, where a deviation of a fraction of an inch in his aim meant missing by dozens of paces against a target several leagues away. Unless he used Guided Shot anyway.

Unfortunately, Guided Shot could not be stored in the regulator as it was too complex for it. Instead, he had his usual Piercing Shot slotted in, which was arguably his simplest technique, but in the same vein, it was the one he used all the time.

He kept his weapon trained at the Veil’s opening and he tracked one of the stubborn Chaos dwellers hounding the armada. He need not have bothered since it wasn’t as if the fleet was helpless. The warships at the borders continued to fire their Plasma Carronades at the dwellers and were easily fending them off.

If he could believe his eyes, he was sure there were even more squidships and dwellers in the opposing fleet. Did the Asheron and Telurian bring more reinforcements?

Hmm, unless he missed his guess, the Chaos dwellers didn’t seem all that eager to pursue. Other than a thin screen of attackers, the rest were bunched up next to their fortified Fysalli.

“What’s that?!” someone yelped behind him.

Virgil turned to stare at Vice-Commander Stuart, who had resumed his old office with nary a protest. The stocky man was staring back towards the mountains, prompting Virgil to look back there again. His eyebrows nearly shot off his forehead at the sight.

The avalanche had finished falling off the peak, leaving the mountainsides bereft of trees. And he was staring at the mountainside as it broke free of the mountain range and shook off the excess stone, leaving a thousand-pace high monstrosity of black stone.

And it wasn’t the only one. All along the north and south, at least one monstrosity every dozen longstrides or so ripped out of the mountainside. The skies were exceptionally clear, with not a cloud in sight, allowing Virgil an unimpeded view. He ignored the ones that spawned to the far south and north, since those would be the Federation’s problem, or they’d be wandering in untamed wilderness. No, it was the two monsters near Horswick that was the issue. The village still had its Protective Dome up, but all that thing had to do was collapse on top of it and the weight would finish the village off. And even worse, the residents wouldn’t be able to leave either.

The monstrosities shook themselves, and as Virgil feared, they began to stride towards the village.

“Call for Duchess Kinnock,” he hissed at Stuart.

The man nodded and ran for the hatch. He pulled it open and practically jumped down. Virgil, in the meantime, aimed at the creature, debating with himself whether attracting its attention towards the Watchtower was wise. He might save the village, but if the thing disrupted the Ritual of Calling, more than a village’s population was at stake.

Fortunately, it appeared he didn’t have to make the call. The monster walked past Horswick with nary a glance, and it seemed to be staring directly at him. Even worse, the other monster was doing the same, but unlike the first, its path would take it directly across Horswick, and it didn’t look like it would take a detour.

“Swarm fodder…” he muttered as he aimed at the giant that was about to tread on the village. It took several seconds as he imparted his Will and Intent, as well as the requisite techniques. He couldn’t spot any obvious weak points but nothing in the myriad planes was truly invulnerable. So he empowered his plasma bolt with the Intent to drill into the creature’s body and seek out the highest concentration of Animus, Chaos, or whatever kind of energy animated the thing.

Wsssst! Whoosh!

The plasma bolt was coloured purple for his Animus light but was bordered by the greenish light of his Ennoia, too. Crossing nearly a hundred longstrides was no easy task, nor was it quick. Still, it took only a few seconds to cross the distance. The purple plasma bolt slammed into the creature’s stone body, but little else happened while it continued to walk. It would only take half a dozen strides to hit the village…

Three steps later, the thing collapsed.

Virgil couldn’t help but smirk, but his expression soured when he noted that it wasn’t only the other giant making their way to the Watchtower. There were dozens more in the distance, their heights making them incredibly obvious, as they closed in on the Watchtower. He could probably fire three or four more shots of that calibre before he had to restore his reserves.

He aimed at the nearer one, coming from the east. It took a dozen seconds to prep the bolt, and another five for it to hit the titan. It had crossed a quarter of the distance in that time. Twenty five longstrides from when they first appeared to now.

“Burning Moon!” He growled, but bit it off when he saw several flying shuttles shoot away from the tower and towards the giants to the south. He easily picked out the Duchess as she rode behind another pilot.

The woman glanced up at him, no doubt feeling his gaze. She mouthed a few words at him, and it took a couple of seconds for Virgil to decipher what she said.

“I’ll handle them. Keep safe.”

He nodded and saluted with his weapon. In the meantime, he turned his aim towards the north. The stone titans were making their way across the Shillogu Woods.

He drew a bead on the nearest one and shot it as soon as his plasma bolt was ready. It drilled into the obsidian body, and three steps later, fell over and crumbled. He only had a quarter of his reserves left.

The Plasma Carronades on the wall had turned towards the northern foes, but they were too far out of range. There were half a dozen closing in, well, five now. Huh? Four?

One of the titans suddenly collapsed into the woods. The canopy bent as their weight pressed down, but once the titan was completely prone, the trees bent back to their original shape. And now, it looked like nothing was there. The Avos?

Virgil decided to hold his last shot and chose to meditate to convert ambient Chaos and Wind element energy into Animus. He needed a couple of minutes, though by that time, he was sure the titans would be in Carronade range. He half noticed the Silver Tiger and the Implacable Jade turn: the Tiger to the north, while the Jade swivelled between north and east. Feeling a bit of trepidation, he looked back towards the mountains and saw several obsidian titans climbing over the peaks. None were near the Imperial Pass though.

He closed his eyes to focus on meditation, and after a couple of minutes, stood up and surveyed the battlefield.

Down south, the Duchess and her retinue had engaged the nearest titan. She could see half a dozen of the woman’s sword clones carving their way up the titan, while the woman hung back and sent wave after wave of arclight crescents. The remnants of another titan were scattered about a longstride back.

Boom! Whoosh! Blam!

The Plasma Carronades spoke and a dozen plasma balls careened towards the nearest titan, which was less than a longstride southeast of them. He noted that Faron’s Crossing had its Protective Dome up, but had not been attacked.

The Carronade fire slammed into and melted the thing’s torso, which turned it into molten rock that spread out across the fields.

Whoosh! Ka-boom!

The Implacable Jade fired kinetic rounds from its Carronades, and when they slammed into a titan directly east of the tower, it shattered its limbs off. The titan fell straight down, and when it did, the resulting shockwave slammed against Protective Domes, the tower’s and the town’s, causing a visible ripple as well as some cracking. But the monster was down and finished off by another volley.

The Silver Tiger sent its small fighter craft to harry the northern titans, but it didn’t have the might to actually put one of them down quickly. Even so, craters and cracks covered the titan, and Virgil reckoned it would fall… eventually. But there were nearly seven titans, from north and south, that were less than a longstride away, and it only took a couple of steps for them to reach the walls.

Seven arms upraised, and seven fell down, slamming thunderously on the Dome.

Booom!

Cracks appeared and slowly widened as the creatures pulled back, and readied to strike down. But before they could, Virgil fired off a plasma bolt, several Plasma Carronades blasted out, and Swordmaster Kinohara, slashed a gigantic arclight crescent at another. Four titans fell, but the other three managed to strike again. The cracks widened and fissured, and only the Watchtower’s robust protections kept them intact. With any other Imperial settlement, those Domes would have broken at the first blow.

But those three didn’t last long afterwards. Another volley, from Virgil, from the Carronades, and from the Implacable Jade finished them off. So how many were left closing in?

The Ritual of Calling continued, but Virgil knew it was in danger of collapsing. The titans had run roughshod over the patterns set across the fields…

He looked at the trenches glowing with thick ambient Chaos and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the lights still glowed brightly. Sadeen had fortified the runescript lines enough, or there were redundant lines etched underneath the surface. The armada closed in, and they were only an hour away. That might be too late.

He looked across the mountains and at the clambering titans. There were more than a dozen of them about to cross, and he thought he could see more obsidian heads hidden in the valleys of the Zarek. The titans were so big that their ponderous footsteps crossed half a longstride or more, and it would definitely take less than an hour for them to close in. Because of the Watchtower’s limited range, and the Chaos ships’ reluctance to leave, only Virgil had the capability to try and whittle them down before their numbers overwhelmed the defenders.

Grim-faced, he raised his Plasma Caster and prepared to shoot, only to stare in surprise when hundreds of golden streaks rose from behind the Zarek to decapitate an obsidian titan.