Chapter 66.

Agatha glanced at the remains of her former friends home and thought about his conspicuous absence. It was nice to know that Ethan had been almost fully avenged. The church's leaders had been purged for the most part, with only the Pope and some of his luckier supporters left, and it would not be long before that bastard was found.

Ethan would probably not want her to avenge him like this but it was what he deserved.

She waited for five minutes. "Give me your preliminary analysis."

Both of them turned to her in unison before turning to each other. Sweat fell down their faces in rivulets and they looked away.

"Well?"

"Sorry," said Brittany, "we couldn't figure out much. It seems to have a deep root system and is very durable but it resisted our analysis."

Agatha smiled, "Good. You've done as expected," she said and savoured their surprised look, "this is an example of a very basic alchemical process, mana infusion and property modification taken up to an absurd extreme, the reason why you're struggling to read anything is that the creator made this as a defensive structure. So the mana is resistant to interpretation."

"Can you read it Teacher?" asked Brittany, standing up straighter, once she realized the nature of the test.

"Of course," she said, "As I said, this is a basic process that has been taken to an extreme, it is possible though complicated to learn about it if need be"

Agatha cut herself off when she saw the sky bleed.

A glance upward turned into a stare as blue coloured rifts were torn open into the red sky directly overhead. She swallowed as she observed small dots falling from those rifts.

Monsters. Thousands of monsters. The Wave had arrived and it was early and positioned directly above the city. Aultcray was dead. The people were out in the streets and the static defences were not up.

This was a disaster.

"Lady Agatha," she heard and turned towards the source. Alamos was running towards her. Dignity and pride forgotten, "the Wave-"

"I know," she said, calm washing over her as she realized that this was just another battle, "send the word out to the walls, the other Houses and the adventurers guild. We will need to coordinate quickly or face destruction. I want the city-wide defences activated now."

The man almost protested but a glare from her silenced him and he nodded instead. Within seconds runners had been sent along with a small group to protect the men and women and then there was no more time left for discussion as monsters began to drop from the sky.

Agatha glanced at an undead horde that was about to land near them and lashed out with her Entropic magic. It killed them.

She frowned and then realized that she had a very foolish opinion of Waves. Certainly, these Waves were a threat to a farmer but they were weak to any trained soldier. It would be best if she saw this as nothing more than an enemy assault that would have troops delivered by air for a couple of hours.

An enemy capable of bypassing most of their defences.

She exhaled and looked to her apprentices who were ready for battle, even if they were poorly equipped for it, "Get some equipment from the soldiers and secure this area," she commanded, before reinforcing her physical stats with an enhancement spell "leave this to me."

Agatha jumped into the air, created a small stone platform to jump off from, launched herself from the hyperdense projectile and dissolved it as soon as she kicked off it. A couple of jumps later she had a full view of the chaos that had gripped her city. It had only been a minute or two at most since the battle had started and yet hundreds had died. She could see that many had already raised their weapons in defence of themselves and their fellows but the panic and chaos was preventing any form of organized action.

Agatha calmed her racing thoughts, created a floating platform made out of stone, and focused on what she was best at.

Killing things.

She flared her magic and hundreds of the attackers died. But she didn't dare attack those who were near the ground. Entropic magic was powerful but her strongest attacks were indiscriminate. It would be best for them all if she focused on stopping as many monsters as possible from landing in the city.

It was the wise thing to do, the smart thing to do.

She still found it hard to hear the dying people and do nothing.

Agatha moved from one position to the next. Trying her best to reduce the strain on the defenders below. Alamos, much to her surprise, managed to muster up the people and she could see the start of organized defences in many areas. It was impressive and inspiring.

It was not enough.

The slums, the poorer parts of the city were already consumed by blood and flames. The number of capable defenders in those parts of the city had been non-existent and it had taken less than a minute to overwhelm them. Agatha found herself spending most of her time there, trying to reduce the casualties but it just wasn't possible when her best method of attack couldn't be used near people lest she annihilates them.

She protected hundreds but hundreds more died. Like water slipping through a clenched fist. Agatha stopped, jumped off her platform, move high into the sky and screamed. Her magic lanced out and consumed thousands of monsters that were above her city. It was an amazing feat of magic.

It also left her exhausted. Between reinforcing the defences of the Castle and the past couple of minutes she had drained a majority of her reserves and at her age Magic Water was less effective than it could have been. She drank it anyway and winced at the pain.

Agatha landed bracing for impact with a flare of mana that reinforced her body.

She no longer had the ability to use wide-area attacks. It was best that she focused on the ground. The mage was near a massive five-meter tall dog-like monster. A glance at his blood-covered snout told her that thing's story.

It died as a small sphere of entropically aligned mana pierced its skull. The sound its collapse made was staggering. She grimaced at the sphere continuing on its path and tearing into a home. It was empty but the damaged walls collapsed.

She moved forward. Realizing abruptly that it might have been wiser for her to go back to the Castle and restore herself. If the reports she had received from Seaetto were any indication this would last for hours.

Agatha grimaced at the thought of taking to the air again and started to trudge back. Her enchantments faded as her mana flow was reduced. Every step felt heavy. Not because of her exhaustion. The broken bodies, the fragile homes shattered a reminder of what she had done before.

An invisible weight settled on her as she ran through the devastation, occasionally killing the monsters she encountered, it was painful but it kept her focused and aware. The lack of visible survivors grated on her.

The rain of monsters continued. She didn't know what was happening to the rest of the city but here despite her best efforts, there was no reduction in their numbers. She decided to take to the air again. She knew that there had to be survivors here and there. Any monster she killed improved the chances of their survival. Agatha drew upon her slightly regenerated reserves but before she could do more than enhance herself the world changed.

The reddish hue of the sky was dismissed. A massive, familiar golden beam of light cut through the sky. It swept across for less than a second but for that instant, everything looked different.

When it faded the sky looked the same but the monsters that dotted it was gone.

Then the rain began.

Thousands of glowing swords fell. Each one piercing a monster. Each one killing a monster. Elemental explosions or sheer brute force. Massive beams of light and slashes of energy. All of it coloured with the same mana that she had been studying just a couple of minutes before.

Agatha laughed. Relief and grief mixing as the very same plants, back at the Castle, she had been worried about hours ago began to grow and form a massive dome around the city. Support pillars grew from nowhere, like the fingers of a giant reaching for the sky. Within seconds the city had a shield that glowed with light from a thousand flowers and the eerie crimson sky was covered by a wooden barrier.

She could feel the plants moving beneath her feet as they reorganized to support the massive structure that had been hastily created to block the monsters from reaching the city. The odd silence that filled the world was a surprise.

She looked at one of the massive skeletons, armoured with a large sword. Dead after a sword had struck its skull and pierced straight through.

Agatha looked up at the wooden construct that was studded with glowing flowers. A poor replica of the sky and the stars but one that protected them.

She shook her head and walked towards the Castle. It was likely that it was still the command centre.

This was not over yet.

The hill had been transformed.

The Castle had been a majestic structure. Less defensive fortification than a show of power and wealth. The plants that had replaced it were haphazard but quite impressive but neither compared to the immense pillar that had taken their place.

It reached high up into the sky and then bloomed into the centre of the dome that covered the city. She could see the numerous supporting strands that emerged from it to support both the dome and the pillar itself. It had grown beyond the boundary that it had selected for itself and the entire hill was being used as an anchor for the dome. From her position, she could even see that the supporting pillars across the city were also carefully placed to support the structure. It cheered her up a little to see that one of the pillars had almost destroyed Lady Katrina's house.

"Milady!" came the shout as they spotted her walking up the hill. The chaotic mess she had left behind was far more normal now. The soldiers were moving around with purpose and the Lords were arguing.

Agatha nodded at the soldier who quickly ushered her to the Lords and Ladies. Or Lady to be more specific. All of them looked haggard and were standing. No comfortable seats or luxuries. They looked grateful to see her.

It was distinctly odd.

"Lady Agatha," said Lord Alamos, his tone relieved, "we had almost assumed the worst. What is the situation in the city?."

"The Sword Hero has killed every monster that was in the city and the dome prevents further entry. I can only imagine that he's continuing to fight the Wave." she said noting Alamos' discomfort as she continued, "however, a lot of damage was done we need to send out search parties and healers quickly. We also need to cover the walls. The dome might be safe but the gates and the walls are still concerns."

They all looked uncertain and didn't speak for a fair few seconds.

"Well?" she asked, annoyed at the delay. The Wave was probably intensifying and the damage it had done in less than five minutes was intense. They needed to help now or the casualties would keep mounting as panic and injuries took their toll.

"My lady was it the Sword Hero who attacked us before?" asked Alamos.

Agatha glared at him, "Of course," she said, tempted to hit the idiot, "no one else could have manipulated the plant as he did. What of it?"

They shared uncomfortable looks. Agatha flared her recovering mana drawing attention to herself.

"We have a Wave to deal with." she said, her tone cold, "nothing else matters for the moment. If you like you can challenge the Sword Hero later. Rest assured that I'll bury you in a fancy grave if there's enough of you left to bother with."

They paused but nodded. Alamos stayed silent but the others started to speak. It didn't take them very long to get the basic set of orders established. A simple demonstration of how useless these fools were unless pushed into action.

Pathetic. They were bothered with Aultcray while people were dying. She stomped her way to her apprentices wondering why she had even considered that they would act otherwise.

After all, it was only the commoners who were dying.

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Agatha was a surprising challenge to write.

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