My third point of focus was within the Mountain Gate itself, in the cluster of chambers that held the gate mechanisms. While I had expected the developments outside would draw away the majority of the soldiers inside, a select few managed to hold on to their wits and attempted to close the gate. Whenever I felt a presence appear within the mechanism rooms, energy flared out from the floor and suffused the legs of the intruder, shattering them to a bloody pulp. After each room had its own ruined soldier, their horrific injuries sent any nearby guards sprinting in the other direction.
My path of destruction eventually led me to the collapsed scaffolding that blocked the road directly in front of the gate to Lybesa. Sending my sword away with a flash, I banged my knuckles together and began to clear any rubble that would block Marin’s path. Most logs and stones were easy enough to toss aside with my enhanced strength, though a few larger sections of scaffolding required a combination of further Shatter spells and a few well-placed punches.
In the back of my mind, I saw a unit of twelve guards sprinting towards me from behind, led by a man in ornamented armor atop a large warhorse. I let out a heavy sigh and continued my work, keeping track of the soldiers as they approached and eventually stopped a few yards away. “Monster!” the man on the horse exclaimed, pointing a gilded longsword in my direction. “Turn around and face your execution!”
“I’m a bit busy at the moment,” I called out, waving over my shoulder as I walked ahead to move a log out of the way. “My execution will have to wait.”
“Your arrogance will be your downfall!” he shouted. “Know that your death comes at the hands of First Company Commander Ro—”
“I really don’t care who you are,” I cut him off, louder than before. “Go back and tell that coward Virram you failed. It might be embarrassing for you, but you’ll be alive to feel it.”
His face twisted into a furious sneer, and he spurred his horse towards me with an echoing warcry. As he leaned down to swing his sword at my neck, I spun and lunged at him, catching him by the wrist and shoulder. The force of the grab lifted him from the saddle and sent him into the dirt, where he landed with a loud crunch. He managed to let out a single pained cry before his head turned to pulp beneath a single punch of my gauntleted fist. Looking up at his assembled men, I pointed at them with a bloodsoaked hand. “Throw your weapons on the side of the road and run away. Run away as fast as you can, all the way back to Yoria, where you can tell Virram that I—”
My wrathful edict was interrupted by a series of loud snaps followed by an earthshaking rumble. I felt my stomach turn as fear gripped me for the first time over the course of the battle. The gate is closed. My scan of the gatehouses came up empty, so I suffused the massive structure in search of answers. Between the raging fire and the collapsing battlements, the intricate gear structure that opened and closed the gate had apparently been damaged enough to give out and drop the massive iron structure to the ground.
I immediately felt Lia’s consciousness against mine. The feeling of panic was clear through her energy, but I heard her voice speak the message plainly in my head: What do we do?
My Combat Acceleration enhancement flared into overdrive, and I analyzed the world around me as it sat at a near standstill. At the rate the wagon was moving, Marin would reach the closed gate in less than a minute. Based on the dimensions of the gate and an estimate based on my years spent working with similar metal in Ashedown’s forge, the structure easily weighed tens, if not hundreds of tons. It reached much further into the stone walls around it than was visually apparent, and the wall was over twenty feet thick on either side of the gate. The mechanisms that lifted and held the gate in place when it was open had broken, but the tracks on which it ran still looked functional.
A plan formed in my head, and the flow of time slowly returned to normal as I sprinted ahead, leaving the terrified guards to abandon their posts at their own leisure. Don’t stop. I imparted the message to her, along with a vision of my hands finding purchase on a crossbar at the corner of the gate as I started to pull. Don’t stop. Mana burned throughout my body as I pushed my enhancements well beyond their normal limits. The gate refused to budge as I heaved, which only served to focus me more intently on the effort.
Lux, you can’t, Lia’s voice pleaded in my head. We can still—
Don’t. Stop. My Detection magic covering the surrounding areas quickly disappeared as I redoubled my efforts, channeling more mana into increasing my Strength enhancement every second. Pain blossomed in my back as discs burst and muscles snapped, my healing magic stitching the wounds back together just in time for them to reappear worse than before. The packed earth beneath my feet began to compress under the impossible weight I held. Slowly, the gate began to groan and shudder as it raised up from
