Sophia Demiurge

Chapter 203: Clash of Armies Part 2

[3rd Person POV]

The sound of cannons hitting the magic barriers encompassing fleet after fleet, the sound of the barriers wavering yet standing firm, defying the assault of the weapons they had never seen before, even as weapon familiars in the continent of Numbers.

The sound of the immense recoils of the double sized ballista and their giant harpoons piercing through the sky, the sound of the undead's barriers wavering like the barriers of the vampires and devils, alongside the sound of the "counter" attribute of their shield that created streaks of white colored beams that banged against the shields of the fleets in front of them, yet, the said shields stood firm, the white beams can't even push back the ships they were protecting.

The sound of gunshots from the weapons called "rifles" never before seen in the world of Pentateuch, so condensed the bullets were that the seemingly small and targeted range of them was able to make the shield of the enemy waver than the heavy projectiles have ever done.

The sound of arrows that are targeting the air force of Kamatayan while also going for the top part of the shield of the fleet.

The sound of the commands from the admirals to stop the advance of the respective opponent's melee units so that they would fail to infiltrate their front, and finally, the air force that abandoned any semblance of order and started an all-out brawl against their enemy.

All of these, alongside the prayers of the Vampires and the solemnity of other nations, declared the Herald of the War.

The once land generals, Oni and Mantis, alongside their designated melee soldiers, have joined the effort to invade and counter the invasion of the close-range soldiers of the vampires and devils.

This invasion's purpose and feasibility is confirmed by the difference in types of barriers, in this world, there are two types of barriers, one is for a city/country and one is for a person, the first barrier is used to detect malevolent people and to intercept projectile (the greatest example here is the barrier of former Gjallarhorn Kingdom) and second are for individual protection, the main difference in these types is that the first type is used for detection, meaning they can't not allow a person or a group of person that the barrier was programmed to detect, it will just detect that person and inform the casters of their presence, and for projectiles, with enough mana, the barrier will condense strongly in the part/s that is being assaulted.

One can say that a person can be repelled only if he or she was ejected from 100 meters away, which is stupid.

Going back, the second type is the more evenly condensed one-man protection barrier. This kind of barrier is conjured by a person to protect themselves in very close proximity, for normal and slightly above average mages, they can conjure such a barrier from 1 to 5 meters with them as the radius.

This barrier is normal to be mastered in the path of magecraft, however, Sophia was someone who might get hampered if she went step by step in the development of her battle system, so it was never used by her.

For people like the calamities, they can cover the entire gulf with the "one man" barrier they can create and prevent any kind or entrance or exit, but obviously, the 4 won't be throwing hands with small fries like them, so they can only use the first type of barrier, this flaw from the defense of all armies that not even Sophia can mitigate is the thing that made the two sides use all their melee, slap them with wind magic buff and make them float and then invade the opposing side, they were accompanied by land generals, two each side respectively, and of course, as expected of a naval battle, Oni and Mantis as well as their counterparts are experts in Wind and Water respectively and upon picking up their opponents, they choose someone who is of the same expertise with them as their opponents, thus while their soldiers killed each other in their background, blades of wind and gushes of sharp edged water constructs flew against two sides of the opponents while the entangling adversaries aimed their weapons, or their built-in scythes against each other.

They fought with reckless abandon, even the vampires, as if they had devised a way to replicate the unkillable trait of the undeads.

The 4 generals are of the same strength, with only experience by the vampire and devil general, as well as Sophia's modern and effective fighting lessons as the variables for their victory, plus the fact that these 4 individuals have trained to be cautious (which is contradictory) despite being unkillable made this fight bound to be a tight and drawn out one.

Though in the minds of Mantis and Oni, if the main generals of Sophia are present, then this fight would have ended, and they would have discovered the arrangement of Queen Eris and why these people are not afraid of dying.

Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason, or maybe because of the existence of Yamato Mamorite, their Lady Sophia just made her generals defend the shores as part of the defensive patrol unit of the coast of Kamatayan.

Even their lots of ships are not used to overwhelm them in numbers, opting for a still large, yet in comparison, lacking attack size.

____________

In the fleet at the middle of the fleets, on the side of Kamatayan, Yamato Mamorite, clad in a dense, pure aura of mana that seems to radiate energy away through licks of flame-like fumes, can be seen.

This "aura" is made out of her own stored mana inside her newly made sword and the mana present in her body right now.

In this new sword, rows of magic circles in front and back were drawn from the tip to the point of the blade just before the hilt, the left side is for the storage of mana and the right side is for the Sophia-crafted new feature of the sword that seeks to upgrade the unique skill of Yamato, if one is to remember, Yamato Mamorite can slice anything with anything as long as its of the 3 states of matter, which is normally so strong that she can cut the sun of Urduja, however, the thing she sought to cut is a barrier made out of mana, which is an energy, thus it can't be cut by her, such is the loophole on her strength... if her opponent can't use fire magic, then they will just use mana itself.

Yamato became aware of this while watching her new master create the magic circles in her blade, as well as the magic circle tank embedded in her body; for this, Yamato was grateful.

"10 seconds before you unleash your new technique."

As Yamato started to form her aura into that of a giant Katana, encompassing the whole radius x2 of the whole battlefield, two voices emerged from her left and right. They were the strongest mages of the mage unit of the Kamatayan military, their job is to record for Sophia all the complexity of the countermeasure of the vampires against the never dying numbers of undeads because this war alongside the war between Urduja-Mayari-Kamatayan alliance and Apolaki, so Sophia is careful not to deviate or else the auto response of Eris near her territory will sure go off like crazy.

Also, Sophia might have understood the relativity of time and will use it as a weapon to defeat Eris, but because it's relative, that means it has fundamental equation that exists as a way to make it's speed and existence constant, the closest she knew about it is the time dilation equation of special relativity, but she is aiming for a more simple and usable equation, by usable, means usable by mortals using mana and not by machines.

She already created the pinnacle of equation-based energy creation in her previous life, there's no way she can't quantify time.

Of course, this ambition is already known to these soldiers, and with their simp-level devotion, they never doubted their queen.

Finally, the time for charging was up, in the middle fleet of the Kamatayan side where the former hero of Leviticus resided, a katana a hundred meters in height and over ten meters in length emerge, causing all the participants to stop for a moment to look at such a gigantic and magnificent mana construct, it has a grey-color and emanates an ethereal glow that seems strange for something with a grey color, yet, the wielder paid the criticisms no mind, for as the mages beside Yamato started to press their eyeballs, causing the magic circle imbedded to it that will directly convert the concept of time that they will surely see into all the possible variables and equations Sophia has ever known, from this, the true nature of time, mathematically, will then be manually derived from those formulas into a single and most coherent formula.

Such is the pinnacle of physics, for mortals, that is.

Yamato paid the bizarre actions of the mages, she raised the metal sword in her hand upwards in the same position as the mana construct sword, causing the two materials to resonate, and just like that, she swung it down, because of it's weight, the swords immediately went down to the target fleet and as intended, it "sliced" through the shield with ease, not even causing any shrapnel to shoot out, however, Yamato is not satisfied, using her reserved mana as a fuel, she influenced the giant sword, causing it to change it's countenance into a more real glow.

And the grinning sailors, upon seeing these changes has their face suddenly freeze as sharp winds agitated by such a large mass' descent assaulted their face, and even though they knew that they will not die because of this, they can't help but to instinctively retreat away from the sword that at this point have already struck the whole middle line of the middle fleet of the enemy, it did not stop that as it also caused a large storm surge that seems capable of splitting the whole gulf in half, the large wave of turbulent water caused the surrounding fleets to be on the brink of being toppled over, it was a good thing that they have a shield and the wave were considered a projectile, so they are safe.

Though of course, the same can't be said to the main targets, all of their ships were blasted off in every direction, some were snapped in half, some cleaved in a clean cut, some became numerous degrees whilst the air force on top of them are more lucky as they can immediately escape, unlike the middle fleet that got themselves starting to sink in the ocean or were flung upwards by the waves, in their numerous snapped parts and shrapnels were faint blue glows.

_There it is!_

Yamato staggered a little, but she wore a smile as she was able to accomplish her first task as an undead and she looked at her seniors, yet she can't really help them as they started to stare intently at the wreckage, for suddenly, all of the planks, metal plates, mast anchors as well as corpses that were either mangled diving down to the ocean or were still flying due to the momentum of the gargantuan wave stopped right on their tracks as if the strings that were controlling them became too taut to move further.

"CONTINUE YOUR CHARGE!"

Flou at the center mothership of the middle fleet saw all his undeads become shocked of this event, which made him furious, they are fighting someone called the dictator of time and the demigod of darkness, something like this should be within their expectations, this is what was realized by the soldiers, and ashamed, they once again, though more furiously charged towards their enemies, and now, because of this newfound vigor, the undeads as well as the vampires and devils scored their first kills, the undeads exploded into a puff of smoke and then repapered in their respective ships, while the vampires and devils that died also became suspended in the position they were killed and were immediately pulled back to their ships.

Alongside this phenomenon and the second batch of attackers from both parties starting advance, the destroyed fleet of the other side started to emit small, grain sized pocket watches, causing the whole battlefield to glow a blue colored light, the sands of time then started to connect, pulling the shrapnels as small as a millimeter and as big as a person and the vampires and devils got caught in the blade's assault.

And as the eyeballs of the undeads were strained because of the multitudes of formulas and variables that were being converted into their brain, the whole process of the fleet's time going back to them just took a second.

[Yesterday Once More]

One of the few techniques the dictator of time Eris has created as a way to mitigate the low birth rate of the vampires and devils, it uses the records of the sand of time to make an exact point of time be recreated, in a virtually infinite amount of time, the vampires and devils started to cheer loudly, with this, it has became a battle of armies that doesn't fear death or decay of any kind.

Though, of course, the expertise of the two armies is bound to make the war a grueling one.

_________

Sophia, who is walking in the borders of Mayari and Apolaki to reach the destined place on foot, looked at the 3 rims of bond papers that appeared in front of her, on which were the details of the first gaze in time and her first step in the attempt to simplify and quantify time.

"That is complicated as fuck... good thing this means time is relative."