Alabaster leads the charge.
She bashes into Primarch Corsair with a flip of her ferocious axetail, which has been augmented by her cryomancy. In every direction, more of our forces do the same to the other Primarchs, with the biggest hitters taking on one another. Vander and Plutoryl double team Primarch Resi with blasts of green fire, and Haunt immediately rams Primarch Barius with his singular horn which strikes a burst of yellow lightning.
I keep wide to the outside, sizing up my marks.
It's a good thing I do.
Reinforcements storm us from above.
Like artillery arrows raining down on us, the higher Legends suddenly whip into sight and slam into the other Wretches as a sudden burst of force and numbers. The violence explodes all around me and I'm caught completely off guard by its immediate intensity.
Plutoryl is hit by another dragon just to my left and instead of doing anything helpful, I just end up fucking screaming. Vander rips the green-blue mass off his uncle and the two of them shred the dragon with bladetails, claws, and jaws. Red blood takes to the void and it simply floats, weightless, unbound. A blinding bolt of yellow pierces through the enemy dragon's skull and it falls limp, drifting toward the Solaris.
Haunt shouts, "Eyes up, jester!"
"Fucker came out of nowhere!"
"Disperse and help the others!" Haunt commands, cutting sharply to the side. "Storm! Do what you do best! Go!"
They scatter, leaving me all alone.
I don't know what to do. He just told us what to do but I don't know how to do it. There are so many people fighting all around me. How the fuck am I supposed to pick one? Do I pick one? Which do I pick? How do I help without getting in the way? What if I get someone killed–
"Crimson." Umbra's voice speaks directly in my head. "Quiet your mind. Act on what you know. You've done this already. It's the same thing. The only difference is the number of instances in which you must do it."
Fleeing for the perimeter, I blurt out, "Wait! What the fuck?"
Aurora bodyslams her as the red and white of their magic clashes. While clawing into her sister's back, Umbra speaks in my head again. "I blessed you with this power when you became Wretched. We've never needed it until now."
"Except when I was a fucking mental patient!"
Tossing Aurora aside with her jaws, Umbra answers, "You weren't Wretched then."
"Oh, right. Hells! Who do I kill? There are… There… So fucking many!"
"Don't think. Let go. And act. I know you can do it. I believe in you, Crimson."
That helps. It helps. Right. She's right.
I stop thinking and start acting.
Going high for an arc, I dive at the end to cut a forward flip. My dorsalblade fucking decapitates the wyvern attacking a nearby Wretched dragon. A green amphithere darts by and slings a burst of emerald flames down on me, but somebody's ward shields me from the worst of it. With a sharp brush of my wings, I take off at a sprint after it.
She's fast.
Not fast enough.
I catch up in just a few seconds, gnashing my teeth onto her tailfins. A metallic splatter of blood covers my tongue and I rip her backwards with a wrench of my neck, bringing her into my claws and then my talons. The two of us twist and spin head over tails, and I'm reminded of that other amphithere I drowned during the ambushes.
I slam my jaws shut on her neck, ripping with my claws and tearing with my talons and slashing with my tail. Something big hits us both and pulls us apart, sending me flying backwards as the amphithere is annihilated in an instant by a certain gigantic black-gray waspwing dracofae.
Graves is terrifyingly large, as similarly long and lean as in her humanoid form, and her obsidian scales shine in the light of the Solaris as her piercing tail stabs the amphithere through the chest, then the neck, then the head. With that, she tosses the dead draconid aside like litter and flies back over to me.
"You scared me!" I gasp as I regain my bearings in the air. "I'm not used to having backup!"
"Surprise."
"Good, both of you," Umbra says. "Keep going."
Graves and I share a nod and get back in the fight.
No more fodder for me. I'm going titan hunting.
Blindsiding a blue-red dragon who's distracted fighting another Wretched dragon, I sweep past with a razor bladed side slash and land it perfectly. Blood pours from the giant beast's throat like a waterfall, whisked away by the Solaris's gravity, and the dragon I assisted finishes him off. I'm already on to the next.
I make a cut through someone's icefield, keeping my eyes shut through the finer grit. The instant I come out the other side, I snap my wings tight and corkscrew over a lung dragon, then snap my wings back to full as a brake and shift my momentum to a backward flip. I'm a little far this time, but the tip of my saber's spine lands true, slamming against his head so hard his entire body lurches as he loses consciousness.
A herd of kirin makes him a pincushion with their horns.
Damn, this is nice. I don't even have to finish them. In that sense, it is a lot like the ambushes. Umbra was right, as always, because I'm doing the exact same thing, just many more times than before. Strike from a blind spot in the blink of an eye, devastate the enemy with sheer force and precision, then bail before they know what hit them, leaving the final blow for whoever was fighting them and sprinting after the next one.
Over. And over. And over. Again.
Fire explodes in massive bursts all around and ice crystals whip past like ballistae bolts and lightning cracks through the void. Seems the arcanists have arrived. Fine by me. I dive into somebody's crackling green electric field to gather charge, darting out the other side coated in furious red energy. It's so much more intense than usual it concerns me, and I can feel it taking on a mind of its own as it fights to break from my control and destroy the nearest thing possible.
"Wh–What? What's happening?"
Umbra whips past far below, biting at her sister's tail in pursuit. "The power of a divine's catalyst spell."
"Hells. You're doing this? This is all you?"
"I'm channeling your magic, Crimsy." She stabs at Aurora's wings but the two get tangled."Unleash it. Let go. Let it fight with you."
"I'm scared. It's so… so fucking strong."
"I won't let it hurt you. Trust in me."
"Okay. Okay. I do. I trust you."
"And I trust you. Go."
Wings up…
I take off as a bolt of red. It's as if time stops when I do. I'm moving through clashes as draconids slowly attack one another as if they're all fighting through thick resinous honey. I pick my target and accelerate, lowering my horns and bashing into the violet-green titan with a burst of lightning that splits the void and booms so fucking loudly that all of the draconids nearby are knocked away from us.
There's no need to leave the kill for someone stronger.
The dead dragon drifts toward the Solaris with a gaping hole through his center. I punched straight through his ribcage. All the way. My body hit him so fucking hard that it went through his. I'm simultaneously repulsed and baffled by the blood that now coats me from nose to tailblade, slowly being slicked off of me to follow the dead draconid toward the sun.
"U–Umbra? Are you…"
She drops her horns and rams Aurora up against the moon. The whole thing isn't much larger than they are. "Powerful, isn't it?"
I reposition with a confused laugh on my tongue. "That was fucking… What?"
"Mmhmhm. Bloody. Again, Crimson."
"I–I don't know that I want to do that to people!"
"No? Are you certain? Hmm." She sounds almost disappointed, clashing tailblades with Aurora on the moon. "Then use your shoulder next time. Or your serraspine. Not your horns."
"Got it! Thanks!" I keep flying, circling wide around the heart of the battle. "You're doing amazing, by the way!"
Right then, Aurora snaps her jaws on Umbra's throat, but Umbra's tailblade stabs into Aurora's side and they both shake each other off. "Thank you, my love. As are you."
"Storm!" Alabaster barks just before she decapitates a crested dragon with a flip of her axetail. Her snowy scales are just as bloodied as mine. "These arcanists are a pain in the ass! Fucking kill them already!"
"R–Right! I'm on it!"
There I have my next objective.
I take a jumpstart off Alabaster's broad back.
Before I can get anywhere, a dragon's jaws snap.
I'm caught. It hurts. It hurts. I cannot escape.