Who were these people?  Why were they attacking his ark?  Was there a reason why they weren’t breaking off their attack after so long, or why they were refusing all communications?

Such questions died in Leon’s mind as he flew alongside Bolt in Shadow in Thunderbird form.  None of them mattered anymore.  The simple fact that their new enemy refused to turn around and run away was all he needed to know.

His fleet moved at a fast clip, though closed slowly enough on their new enemy that there was ample opportunity for said enemy to cease their assault.

They did not.

A thousand miles out, Leon conjured a vast storm behind him.  The wind lifted his wings, spurring him ahead of the arks.

Five hundred miles out, the carriers opened their bay doors and disgorged dozens of giants in war-ready bodies, fighter arks, and Ulta suits.

Two hundred miles from their enemy, warriors spilled out from the arks, many in beast form while others rode their war beasts.  Red in wyvern form sped ahead, joining Leon almost wingtip to wingtip.  Maia swam through the air in the form of an enormous ice dragon on Leon’s other side, with Valeria not too far behind in full armor and glaive in hand.  Anastasios and Eva were there, too, but remained further back with the rest of the force.

Closer to the enemy arks they drew, and Leon could see them finally responding to his fleet’s actions.  In line with their behavior thus far, they didn’t balk at his show of force but instead spread their messy formation out to make the best use of their numbers.  Most of Leon’s arks were much larger and heavier than nearly everything that these people had, but his large arks were still quite vastly outnumbered.

Back on Aeterna, the arks of the Ten Tribes were superior to those of the Empires, but not so much as to overcome as large of a numerical disadvantage that Leon’s people now faced.  However, Leon was confident that his larger arks and presumed superiority in tactics and cooperation would carry the day.

At least his arks weren’t outnumbered if he considered the fighters.

There were no attempts at communication; Raindrop, the frigate that had been pursued for thousands of miles, altered her trajectory to slide into formation, while her pursuers slowed slightly and moved to intercept Leon’s fleet as a whole, giving Raindrop all the time she needed to get away.

The first shot was exchanged almost ten miles out—Bolt in Shadow fired her two forward-facing Lances at one of the larger arks in the mysterious fleet.  The fore Lances weren’t the ark’s largest, with the heavy cruiser built more for broadsides, but the fiery bolts of molten iron sped forth at great speed far beyond what a Bull Kingdom Lance would’ve been capable of.  The targeted ark dipped slightly, but it was cumbersome enough that the bolts still struck the stern.  One shot splashed across the hull while the other penetrated deep; fire poured from the hole mere moments later and the enemy ark began to dip downward at a much faster rate.

Bright Intent and Silver Spear followed up with their main cannons.  As destroyers, they were meant to support ground operations, but their cannons were still powerful, if generally unsuited for more agile targets like arks.  With the enemy flying in such a disorderly formation, however, they had limited room to maneuver out of the way.

Beams of white light flashed from the destroyers’ muzzles, striking two enemy light cruisers and cutting clear through from bow to stern.  One light cruiser detonated immediately into a shower of metal fragments so hot that Leon doubted anyone aboard, no matter their power, left any remains behind.  The other didn’t explode but immediately plummeted from the sky without any power.

Had he lips instead of a beak, he would’ve smirked.  For safety reasons, his Thunderbird Clan destroyers could only fire one more shot from their main cannons, and he was glad to see that their first shots hadn’t been wasted.

Despite these losses, the enemy arks pressed forward.

With only five miles between them, both sides opened fire.  Lances spat their deadly payloads in thick volleys, iron from Leon’s side and stone from the enemy’s.  With a more open formation, Leon’s arks were better able to maneuver, so even though some shots found their marks, the damage was minimized and Leon lost no arks.

The enemy, however, lost five frigates and two more light cruisers.

And still, they pressed forward.

Leon accelerated, feeling affronted that these people were so confident against his fleet after their pathetic showing so far that they weren’t turning and running away.  Lightning flashed around him, bone-shaking thunder sounded with his every wingbeat, and before the fleets entered relatively point-blank range, they fired once more.

Again, the enemy fleet suffered greater losses, but with the closer distance, Leon’s arks weren’t able to dodge quite as well.  Stone bounced off the white light shields of his Thunderbird Clan arks, while the carriers took a few hits on shields of their own, but one of his heavy cruisers was hit multiple times and visibly lost power to her engines.  Two of his newer destroyers were hit and began falling, too.

Fury blazed within him at these losses, and he focused on the largest enemy ark he could see.  With an eagle’s cry and a mental snarl, he called upon a torrent of lightning from above.  Bolts after bolt struck him in rapid succession, covering his body in brilliant golden lightning, while silver-blue lightning flashed around his talons.

He broke off his direct charge a mere ten feet from the enemy ark and bathed the outer hull in his captured lightning.  Some kind of dark barrier sprang into place to protect it, but Leon had hardly a second to study it before his lightning tore it apart and ravaged the hull.  These outer plates were torn asunder, and he flew on, lightning pouring from his wings and leaving long stretches of torn plating behind him.

All around him, chaos reigned, though much more ordered in the case of his people.  Fighters harassed the smaller enemy arks while the larger ones were targeted by his larger arks.  His people had ceased their forward movement half a mile from the enemy arks to assume a more advantageous firing position, especially with his heavy cruisers bringing their broadside Lances into play, but the enemy arks kept charging and firing their weapons.  Leon’s arks had to continue performing evasive maneuvers to not be hit even as they did their best to attack back.

Another of Leon’s heavy cruisers was hit, and this one went down with fire pouring from several large holes in its armor plating.  Leon could sense the static in the air as his conjured storm released some of his built-up power into the ark, the thunder wood within drawing the lightning like an iron rod.

Leon redoubled his efforts, blasting the large enemy ark with lightning again and again.  Not too far away, Red engaged an enemy frigate, though the ark put up a greater fight than Sunlit’s arks had decades prior.  Maia was having similar problems, having wrapped her ice dragon around an enemy frigate and hampering its maneuverability, but she struggled to do meaningful damage.

Such struggles were not quite reflected with Anastasios and Eva, who were each ripping and tearing into frigates of their own.

Not one to be outdone, Leon flew in closer, raking his talons several times across a bulbous section on top of the ugly ark he’d targeted.  Silver-blue lightning poured from his golden talons, while the resulting fire turned his shining white feathers gray with soot.

But the plating liquified and spilled away, only for a large icy bolt to come rocketing out, nearly impaling one of Leon’s wings.  Had he not had the speed of a lightning mage, he wouldn’t have been able to retract his wing in time.

As he dipped away from what he surmised was the bridge given how many people and control consoles he spied within, one thought ran through his head.

‘They have an eleventh-tier mage…’

Notionally grinning, he flew around this large ark, bathing it in lightning and causing hopefully more than superficial damage.  When he came up the other side, he dove headfirst into the breached hole, lightning pouring from his body in sheets so thick that Valeria and the few Ulta suits following him—piloted by Tempest Knights—weren’t able to join him.

He burst through the hole he’d made like a bolt from the clouds, screeching his fury for all to hear.  His fury, however, was barely audible as the thunder that came in his wake shook the entire ark like a dog’s chew toy.  Metal screeched even louder than he did as the superstructure complained, while the lightning from Leon’s feathers struck everyone and everything around him.  Men were vaporized by the heat, while enchantment control consoles exploded.

Leon spared little attention for these men, noting only that none wore anything approximating a uniform.  Only the tall, quite thickly built man standing strong amidst his storm demanded his attention.

“Yes!” the man shouted, his words still reaching Leon’s ears despite the cacophony it competed with.  “YES!!!!”

He launched himself into the air, gigantic icy claws forming in the air around him.  He crossed the relatively spacious bridge in less than a heartbeat, bearing down on Leon with the zeal and energy of a war junkie.

Bolts from Leon’s feathers threw the man back, though not far.  He swiped with his ice claws, and Leon dipped to dodge as his talons dug into the metal beneath him, letting his lightning ravage more of the ark.  As the first ice claw passed him, however, it detonated in a cloud of ice, and the icy flakes bore down on Leon like a million tiny knives.

Pain lanced through Leon’s mind as his feathers were broken and his body battered.  Blood immediately poured from a thousand tiny wounds, and he abandoned the larger Thunderbird form.  In a moment, he was human again, dressed in his armor and bearing Iron Pride.  His injuries carried over, but the tau pearl was already at work fixing them.

His opponent, meanwhile, looked rather like a barbarian; he was dressed in leather and fur, and the now-smaller ice claws gave him a savage, animalistic appearance.  Given the magic he could sense from the man’s clothes, however, Leon didn’t assume he was unarmored despite the lack of apparent steel.

The bridge around them was reduced to smoking ruins and corpses, save for Leon and his enemy grinning like a madman—at least, until Valeria and Leon’s Tempest Knights flooded in after him.

For the briefest of moments, the enemy eleventh-tier mage averted his eyes to take stock of the new arrivals, and Leon struck quick as lightning.

A lunge saw Iron Pride flashing past the man’s throat; he’d dodged just in time.  The enemy spun, striking out with his claws.  Leon took it on the armor, grimacing with the strength of the impact but being left otherwise unharmed.  Instead of dodging, he used this time to bring Iron Pride down on the enemy’s arm, cutting into the elbow, though not nearly as deeply as Leon had hoped.  The leather proved inadequate as armor, but the skin beneath was tougher than Leon thought possible.

The enemy savagely smiled and roared in glee, smashing his face against Leon’s visor.

“YES!” he screamed as blood started pouring from his nose.  “THE BRINK OF DEATH!  TO FEEL ALIVE!”

Leon’s head snapped back as the enemy took hold of him in a strong grapple, and headbutted him again.

Fueled by anger and indignation, lightning flashed from Leon and targeted the enemy’s arms.  Leather was incinerated, revealing the skin and the intricate runic tattoos that covered it.

‘His armor is his own skin?!’

Despite Leon’s incredulity, enchanted skin was not enchanted plate, and it split open, disrupting the enchantments and spilling more blood.

At the same time, Valeria came in slicing into the back of the man’s knee with her glaive.  Two Tempest Knights activated their blue light blades and drove one each into the man’s chest.

Ice exploded from the man, hurling them all back, though Leon remained standing.

“I will remember this!” the enemy shouted, his mad smile only widening even as blood poured from his wounds.  “I will be back!”  He took to the air, but Leon lunged after him with speed greater than what he’d displayed so far.  Before the enemy reached the hole in the bridge’s roof, Leon was upon him, swinging Iron Pride with deadly precision.

The enemy responded in kind, but Leon trusted in the strength of his armor and, undeterred, remained on the attack.

With every strike, lightning and Adamant sliced and burned the man’s skin.  Any pain the enemy felt seemed only to fuel his savage glee, though as the damage mounted, he slowed and weakened.

Finally, with two clean slashes, Leon took the man’s arms off at the shoulders.  The enemy screamed in pain, agony finally overpowering his glee.  His wounds sealed in only a moment in a display of origin power, while Leon assumed one final aggressive stance.

With his sword in an overhead guard, Leon brought it down hard on his enemy.  Lightning exploded from the blade, arcing into the ark around them.  Metal melted, then vaporized, the ark’s superstructure groaned in distress and began to warp, and Leon’s sword shattered his enemy’s collarbone and kept going, slicing clean through his body.

His enemy was cut from left shoulder to right hip, everything between blackened by Leon’s lightning.  The man fell in scorched pieces, everything between his neck and knees barely recognizable as human.  Despite this, Leon followed through with another strike, sinking Iron Pride into the remains of the man’s chest to impale his heart and obliterate his soul realm.  With fury in his heart, Leon left his enemy no chance of survival in any form.

His eleventh-tier opponent had been killed, and he couldn’t help but revel in his victory.

“Leon!” Valeria called out, drawing his attention.  She gestured around them at the destroyed bridge, now engulfed in flames.

“Get outside!” Leon shouted, pointing first to her and then to the Tempest Knights.  The knights moved immediately, but she didn’t do the same until Leon made for the egress point himself.  They left together, joining his Tempest Knights outside.  He looked back into the ark, raised Iron Pride, and let loose with the strength of his origin power and the Iron Needle.

Silver-blue lightning poured from Iron Pride like water from a faucet.  The air inside the bridge became superheated until it glowed red like heated metal, while Leon’s lightning practically sawed the ark in half.

He watched the ark fall from the sky with great satisfaction and grinned behind his visor when it exploded before it reached the ground.  His grin died when he turned his attention elsewhere and saw the rest of the battlefield.

The enemy arks were pulling back now that their largest ark had been destroyed.  Disengaging would’ve been a fatal move if Leon’s arks were in perfect condition, but another of his heavy cruisers had gone down, along with Raindrop and two destroyers.  All of his remaining arks save for those from the ancient Thunderbird Clan were damaged, with one carrier even appearing on the verge of losing engine power.  A couple dozen fighters now lay among the redwoods of the mountain slopes, as did a few Ulta suits, giants, and the bodies of war beasts and their riders.

No one made to pursue the fleeing enemy, who numbered eight frigates, four of their light cruisers, and one of their larger heavy cruisers.  Their enemy had lost quite badly, but instead of pursuing himself, Leon surveyed the mountain valley below, his eyes washing over his crashed arks, and then at his other damaged arks.

The battle had been as brief as it had been bloody.  He’d handily won but paid a price.  He’d lost more arks and who knew how many good warriors.  On top of that, many of the enemy arks were fleeing in different directions, complicating any possible pursuit.

Though a significant part of him was disappointed, he knew that it would be best to stop here and see to his people.  He needed to save who and what could be saved, and he had many people in need of saving.

The battle had been won, but without a way to get speedy reinforcements, if he suffered many more victories like this one, his expedition would fail.

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