A whole lot of Shards lined up around me. I didn’t go into Spellwarped Shardray form and Split them for double damage now. Oh, no. I went all the way down to Weapon form, actual hit-rolls through its armor needed… but opening this sucker up for quadruple-damage crits with a Biting Strike Threat Range of 12-20, Crushing Blow x4.


    Then, I hammered it.


    I didn’t go with Fastcasting, as I needed to conserve mana. My mana pool was emptying out of twenty mana every six seconds as I pounded this bastard with Paired Admixtured Topped Shards with a whole lot of lesser Metas attached, Holy Metas flaring and giving it the business. The kinetic impacts bounced the False Aerbax around like a rubber ball in their grips as it ate all the impacts.


    I wouldn’t say I did more damage than the Mick and Kris had been doing, but the sixty-eight Shards coming in were like a non-stop stream of exploding javelins driving deep into the bastard, and the crits blew out Health Qi in wild sprays of venting Construct.


    Of course, there was nothing for that but to switch its Immunity back to magic, but the Curse was still on it, and it had to wait for the first Immunity to wear off before it could erect another one.


    It was plenty of time for the first three of Kris’s students to make it back to the top, line up in front of it in Stance, and just wait for it.


    There was a flutter of realigning magic and I left off my bombardment, flicking a Haste spell over the three Skeeters.


    Silver lightning crawled over them, and they started moving every bit as fast as their elders. They had worked together for a long time, and even in tight quarters their cutting motions didn’t interfere with one another. Their ki swirled and fed into one another, pictures of poetry in motion as their elbows never knocked and their Blades never met.


    Chum-li had the middle with his Katana Lang, Colmus was concentrating on the right arm and shoulder with his bastard Sword Soerun, and Xena was on the left arm with her Longsword Donti.


    The Construct was trying to escape, but three masters of heavyfoot weren’t moving, despite it being strong enough to send them flying even with complete lack of leverage, TK-level strength and what-all.


    But there was no chance of it getting free now. The Veil was hard as a rock, so it wasn’t ‘Porting out anywhere or anyhow, and it certainly wasn’t flying anywhere. It did manage to get off a couple Ring spells of devastating power, but my Shardrays Healed everyone up, and its spell to reduce Hit Points to one point was a negative energy attack that bounced off Death Wards, while Protection from Curses stopped the attack which reduced a Stat to one and might render them vulnerable to a follow-up spell, or too weak to lift their Swords.


    Timer up, it shifted back to Melee immunity helplessly, and the three Skeeters jumped back out of my way.


    Ten more spells, a hundred more mana and ten Valences, each one hitting harder and surer, blowing apart its Health Qi, tearing apart its magic resistance, giving it no chance to do much of anything to those holding it as the gyration of impacts left it unable to Cast at all.


    “Release!”


    They all let go, and this time I Split the Shardrays as everyone jumped as far away as they could.


    The explosion wasn’t that big, but it was totally lethal, even as it was being converted to vivus before it could spread very far. The blast of it blew my hair back, spattered ash and dust through the air, and filled the area with a black and white whirlwind of energy and disintegrating matter as the essence of this False Aerbax was annihilated and fed to the Land.


    Primus flexed, and the air emptied itself of dust and vapors, clearing from the top down as everything precipitated back to the ground, giving us a clear view of the shallow crater, purest sparkling white, where the False Aerbax had been.


    ---


    The Glory Award came down ten minutes later, when the last key elements of the virindi’s ley line-siphoning Formation below was cut through and set en vivus.


    It was not small. This place was a blot on the land that had endured for literally thousands of years, as well as the center of power for a deity-class hivemind Entity of tremendous power.


    We had cleared the entire Obsidian Plains of Summons. Kings Borelean and Bobo were wiping any shades or undead from it, Feeding them to the Land as well. More importantly, the Pyramid was igniting the ley line energy flow with vivus. A circle of white was spreading from the Pyramid, reaching out into the elements of stone and sky alike. It was purging the Taint that had endured here for so long, mending the planar imbalances that still rippled here after the ages, and starting the work of stilling the wild Elemental imbalances that went storming out from this place.


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Chopping down Aerbax and his Citadel, which was profiting from said imbalances, was also key, of course.


    I received the largest amount of the Glory Award, naturally. The Obsidian Pyramid, its stones blacker than black now, Runes like silver stars and galaxies glittering on and through it, was the crux of all of this.


    The circle of vivus was expanding at maybe a foot an hour. It would take a few years to completely do the job even if the consumption rate increased slowly, but that was fine. After suffering for a thousand years, the Land was going to drink deep of this stuff, and where had stood a testament to foul magic and dark forces, a green and fertile land was going to come into being.


    One free entirely of Summons, right in the middle of the Direlands. I had very deliberately made the Pyramid so that its Domain and purpose could not be repurposed by any artificer or mage who fancied they could do something better with all the power of the Bore’s Ley Lines.


    The rest of the Skeeters and the Roaches came out of the deeper mines, their Disks laden with some loot and ores, mostly from collapsed virindi Banished when the Pyramid fired up, some as excavated spoils that had been dug up and hoarded against some esoteric use.


    The air hummed with fresh, invigorating energy, like a new spring, in contrast to the surrounding barren black landscape.


    “The mushrooms?” Kris asked, plopping down on her own Disk next to me, everyone spread out on the levels of the Pyramid to look over the area.


    It turned out the Pyramid worked as a decent Henge site, with that much magic flowing through it. Lense-fueling took a lot of mana, so everyone was getting it all back and watching the changes.


    “You noticed. Yeah, the mushrooms were feeding on the interaction between Void, Shadow, and Elemental energies. They are going to go up like torches when the vivic Burn reaches them. In the meantime, I advise NOT eating them.”


    Kris pointed to the east, where lines of motion were coming through a crack in the hills there. “Make sure you tell them!” she half-laughed.


    King Bobo was mostly alone as he trotted into the center of the mushroom forest and gazed upon the new Pyramid blasting a radiant fountain into the sky. His sparkling eyes settled on me. “A good plan, Lady Magos!” the massive tusker with the towering green silk miter bellowed respectfully as we waved at him. “The Plains empty out by the moment! It is a wonderful thing for Bobo to finally witness with his own eyes!”


    “A pleasure to be of service, Your Majesty. If you could kindly warn your people not to eat any of the mushrooms to be found here. They are full of processed Taint, although they may not look like it. Let them Burn to the vivus.”


    “Bobo will do so!” He looked away, thoughts transmitting to his fellow tuskers, and then he resumed his advance, hopping up and pulling himself over each twenty-foot Pyramid level in series, just like an ape or monkey might, until he was also on the top level, a bit cramped for him.


    Two custom Disks peeled off his back, wider ovals than normal circles, and he settled in on them, front paws on one length of steel and back feet on the other.


    He couldn’t keep his lips from splitting open into a wide tusked grin constantly as he slowly ambled around the top, avoiding us deftly as he took a good look in all directions. “So good to see, little ones. Not a one of Bobo’s enslaved people, not a one of the cold masters, and none of their other rivals or slaves, either. Just a black land, waiting to be Burned away by the white flames.”


    “Would that it was so simple for all such areas,” Briggs murmured, shaking his head. “Not a solution we can use on the northern islands so easily, King Bobo.”


    “One takes one’s rewards where one can find them, Commander Briggs,” the mighty tusker king said calmly. “Long has Bobo waited for this day, knowing Bobo could never bring it to pass himself. To see the cold masters so humbled… ah, such a wonderful feeling!”


    “They aren’t defeated, Your Majesty,” I reminded him pointedly. “This was their strength, but they do have other holdings. One could say we’ve regressed their grip and their strength, but we haven’t gotten rid of them, only cost them time. The next step is to clear them out entirely.”


    “Ho. Bobo looks forward to seeing how you would do this,” the great tusker nodded slowly.


    “Since you are here, a point of knowledge. What is the most powerful and well-informed virindi that might manifest here?”


    “Hrm.” The pleased smile on the tusker king’s face turned down in thought. “Powerful, with authority and information? Bobo has recollections of a being called the Grand Imperator impressed into his brains by the virindi, the highest member of their caste system of incarnations. It is very powerful, and will be difficult to deal with…”


    “Not as difficult as it might think.”


    “What are you thinking, Magos?” Briggs asked calmly.


    “The virindi should not be here, but they are being continually occluded from realizing that. If I can make a powerful virindi realize that, it may catalyze them just enough to withdraw from Dereth entirely.”


    Kris smiled slowly. “The power of Truth affects even Axiomatics, does it not?” she asked.


    I nodded once. “It does. If this Grand Imperator has the authority to order the virindi to withdraw from Dereth, all we need do is wipe the last of the spawns of them from the landscape, and they will no doubt depart in some haste to get away from whatever influence brought them here originally, and has manipulated them so.”


    “Good plan, and hunting down the virindi will be decent work for the scouts. If the information can be leaked to the shades and undead, no doubt they’ll do a great deal of the work for us, too.”


    “It also means having to track down Aerbax and its renegades. I doubt there is much question that they are being unduly influenced by old powers and corrupted along paths they shouldn’t take. The withdrawal of the true Singularity and Quiddity will doubtless destabilize them, as they draw on the virindi collective whether they wish it or not.”


    “I imagine that’ll be a big surprise to ‘em. Also, I don’t think there’s any rynthid spawns outside the OP, so we should’ve seen the last of them with ye getting rid o’ them here, lass.”


    “Good to know,” I nodded. We didn’t need anarchic emoforms around any more than axiomatic hiveminds.


    “They haven’t parked one of their Masters in Candeth Keep or anything since last week?” Briggs asked, frowning.


    “No. But the undead ambassador is still there.”


    His expression cleared up. “Ah, yes. The undead will certainly have a way to contact the virindi diplomatically…