Aiana: SwordXPlanet Volume 1

Mag Tuired

Terrible things happened that day, a few hundred years before. The colors of the setting sun blended with black clouds of smoke from burning houses, creating the image of an endless blaze that had come down from the sky to engulf the noble people of Celtica. Fire rained down from the sky as the vessels of the monstrous legions showered the city and its countryside with orbital blasts, barely challenged by the surface-to-orbit cannons hastily set up by the human armies. Descending from those ships a horde of ogres, goblins, giants, and demons made planetfall with a savage thirst for blood, charging out of black crablike landing crafts, accompanied by companies of eight-legged living spider tanks, titanic skinless abominations on top of towering decaying horses, flying beasts such as tendril covered dragons and slimy space krakens, and other nightmarish creatures. The Celtican armies and militias had had only a few minutes to mobilize their own ordnance, armor, and infantry after the surprise attack. The gentlemen's rules of war that normally made battle an admirable profession lost their weight as soon as the first orbital strike fell and the first demonic death squad landed. The battle they now fought was a desperate battle for everything they held dear.

The death toll of civilians alone had risen to the tens of thousands already. Their screams and sobs could be heard across the city, blending with the sounds of battle to play a symphony of destruction. The Red Cross Knight watched from his horse as his vassal, the Green Axe Knight, rushed to return the favor. Roaring out the challenge of the Green Axe Breakthrough, he and his own mighty warhorse slammed into the crowd as a blaze of kal emanated from the tip of his lance, the Paladin's Gallance. When the momentum of his charge ran out, the knight dismissed his lance, summoned his famous green axe, and leapt off the back of his horse, hacking into the skull of an ogre axeman. He turned around to block the warhammer coming at him from behind before swinging and slashing the throat of the grey-skinned demon wielding it. Behind him a goblin attempted to stab him in the back with his spear, only to be impaled on the forehead-blade of his faithful mount.

The invaders came at the young knight and his horse from all sides, and the Red Cross Knight knew was no way he could block all of their strikes. A power hammer slammed into his side and he winced as a sword opened a small wound on his shoulder. He quickly felled the demons that had dared to strike him but, even as the Green Axe Knight switched to his magnum to shoot the fleeing barbarians as well as the ones that ran in to join the fight, they both could tell that the battle was not going in Celtica's favor, at least not yet. Men and women around them were dying, and the streets between the ruined buildings were running red with blood. For every monster that the Green Axe Knight cut or shot down, three more seemed to take its place. But he continued. He had a warrior's pride that would never let him forgive himself in the afterlife if he died today.

The Red Cross Knight was impressed. He had originally sent his apprentice into battle alone so that he himself could conserve his kal for the important fights. However, his apprentice had learned everything he had taught him about the arts of war and the character of a warrior. From the beginning he had been an eager student, never complaining of his master's harsh lessons and merciless expectations. Now he had grown strong, more than mighty enough for the monsters that threatened their homeworld. But still, he was no master. In his heart, he lacked the thing that made knights lords, and as long as this was so, he would still be a student.

Celtican soldiers to his side to chase the remaining invaders away, and the Green Axe knight didn't need much time to catch his breath and follow after. There were a few tiny gashes in his armor, but he could fix them after the battle was won. The wounds he had sustained were a nuisance, but he could go on all day. The Red Cross Knight admired the energy of youth possessed by his apprentice. But he had been in battle before, but never one as desperate as this. His student turned around. "My lord! Our monstrous foes are on the run! At this pace, the enemies that escape from our blades back to the stars will be few in number. We must continue the fight until-"

Boom! The Green Axe Knight and his retinue burned in front of him as a blast of fire expanded from the center and engulfed the crowd. The Red Cross Knight's senses stood at alert. When the flame cleared, the noble warrior saw that see that the soldiers' armor was, although ruined and open in many areas, still in one piece, as were their guns and polearms. What was unnerving though was what lay under their armor- clean bone. The glowing skeletons stood up straight and turned in the knight's direction. What had started as a squad of brave peasant soldiers had been replaced by a mob of demon-corrupted undead. Cracks in the bones emitted a faint glow displayed the malicious golden kal that sustained them. And the most terrifying sight of all was none other than what remained of his student. Across his armor spikes of bone protruded through holes in his armor, with large ones coming from his back, sides, and pauldrons, along with horn-like growths sticking out of his helmet, which was fully open in the front to reveal his skeletal, almost demonic face.

When a monstrous breathing snickering reached the ears of the Red Cross Knight, he turned to the wicked flame's source. Looming over him was the beast that had caused the destruction. Crouching on top of a burning building, staring at him was a terrible skeletal giant. The beast was formed by the thick, barely connected bones of a giant, with wicked claws on its hands and the curved, horned skull of a goat. Razor sharp teeth lined its open jaws, a single eye socket in the center of its forehead that still flickered from the fire it had produced stared below, and countless cracks just like those on its minions crossed over its bones, emitting a flickering flame that wreathed its ferocious form. "Perish," the monster snarled in the garbled voice of a fiend.

The Red Cross Knight, for the first time in a while, grew nervous. As the monster climbed down from the building and his servants, one of whom was once his beloved apprentice, closed in, the lord, just a little, feared for his life. But he quickly shrugged it off. His fully armored horse whinnied in fright below him, but it quickly calmed down with a few pats from the knight's hand. He was not afraid. The Red Cross Knight was a high-born man, one born to rule. Other creatures were created to serve his purposes, and any that crossed him were fated to fall. He looked at the monstrous cyclops and sneered. He had slain many giants and magical monsters before. This one would be no different. "You shall be a valuable servant, and a fine trophy, wretch," the monster growled. The Red Cross Knight scoffed. That was his line. With a mighty battle cry, the legendary knight reared up his horse and charged.

Challenges:

Green Axe Breakthrough: Massively magnifies the challenger's kinetic energy, but modifies' the challenger's force's direction, exerting it to his sides and in a cone in front of his lance, as well as converting some of the energy into heat and light, giving the challenger an image of a rapidly moving fireball that repels everything around it.