“Protect this guy, would you?” Metra requested from the earth spirit and rose from Terkal’s mangled form. It was a miracle that he was even alive; almost every inch of skin was flailed from his body, leaving only raw fat and muscles to the eye, with a whole bunch of blood covering that. Doubtlessly, it was the parts of beasts that had replaced the lanky guys usual body that made him this resilient despite the heavy blood loss.

Gnome had guided them to a place heavily shaken by explosions. Quickly, they had found the main fortress, a pentagon shaped wall surrounding a bunch of facilities, all burning or otherwise heavily damaged. Terkal’s forces were already completely annihilated or dissipated at this point, the general about to be executed by Matthew. That’s when Gnome had erected a plateau under him and Metra jumped in. A small skirmish later, and they found themselves in the current situation. The two of them around the barely alive general, a few metres above the usual floor versus fifty enemy combatants, surrounding them.

The loyalist’s sole general and nephew of Abraham was wielding an unorthodox weapon. From an immensely long shaft of a simple brown wood dangled numerous chains the dark gold colour of brass. Each link was a little edge in itself, the sides sharpened and reflecting the colours of the rainbow like the surface of oil-stained water, and they all ended in blades the size and shape of great white teeth. Unlike the links, whose colour indicated that they were made from pure Elementium, those small tips had the silvery white of Mithril. Fresh blood was dripping from the masterly crafted flail, the source of the crimson obvious.

Metra rolled her neck with a smile on her face. “I am going to do what I am best at.”

“Unless that is getting out of our way, I highly recommend you don’t even try,” Matthew stated, his words backed up by the fifty soldiers in formation by his side. That they formed a perfect circle around the two girl’s plateau was a testament to their drill. “That guy is going to die anyway. Now or later, you can’t save him without a healer.”

That was a likely truth. Undine was currently unavailable. Terkal’s fate was sealed. Unless…

Gnome extended a hand towards the ground and dug into the soil. Even from her heightened position, she could still feel the forest itself. “I will protect him, if you protect me,” the earth spirit told Metra, her brown eyes meeting Metra’s gaze with conviction.

A broad grin appeared on the berserker babe’s face. “I like the firmness there, cuddle rock,” Metra stated, as segments of dark grey metal began pushing out of her skin around her spine. “I’ll do my best to distract them, but with these many opponents, you’ll have to do some work yourself.” Very quickly they multiplied over her body, with dark red lines peeking through the gaps when she moved, a few decorative ones even winding over the surface in a jagged fashion.

In its entirety, the armour looked somewhat futuristic, due to the tightly knit segments and overall sleekness. Short spikes were covering the pauldrons and the helmet, the gauntlets lightly clawed. Metra’s face vanished under the grey segmentations, from her chin to the eyes, a green glow out of two tiny pitch-black holes taking their place.

“BRING IT, SOLDIERS! SHOW ME WHAT COUNTS FOR WAR THESE DAYS!” she howled, her voice metallically distorted. The halberd’s two crescent blades twinkled dangerously in the evening sun as Meta crouched down and then launched herself at the general. Immediately, Gnome erected an even taller wall around herself. The sound of retaliation attacks rung out against the stone, but she was already closing her eyes again.

“Come on, you trained with this before,” she mumbled keeping one hand in the dirt and another on Terkal’s body. Although this was just a copy of real soil, for the purposes of her magic, the matter inside of an Illusion Barrier was just like the real thing. There were very few differences in the first place.

Being what she was now, Gnome could extract some power out of her surroundings. Grasslands were easier to shape, making it cheaper to move the earth from a mana perspective. Deserts fuelled her destructive power, boosting Strength and Endurance. Tundras allowed her some control over ice. They had tested all of this when she had gotten her new Tier. Forests, however small they were, were a concentration of life and gave her healing capacities.

They were nowhere near what Undine could do, but enough to give an unconscious man first aid. Life force pulsated through her, a pleasantly fuzzy, warm feeling, and exited again as a green shimmering around her hand that became a glow. Once the pull was steady, she allowed herself to open her eyes, confident enough that she could keep it going.

Very slowly, the wounds closed. Bits of flailed off skin regrew, then fur grew over that as Terkal was restored not to his human shape but this werewolf like creature he currently was, although his arms reminded more of bears and his legs of a very muscular goat.

The hammering against the walls she had made continued. Distantly, she was aware of the vibrations of the fight outside. Heavy strikes from Metra and her enemies. The soil elemental had honestly expected that Metra would just wipe the floor with all of them, but the army core or Matthew must have been a formidable force.

Gnome concentrated on her healing. Even if she jumped in to help, all she would do was rip Metra’s bonus strength from her. The First of Wrath only got stronger from her anger as long as she fought alone, that was the rule of her power. It was best she did this and then tried…

Loud cracks echoed when the armoured body of the berserker babe crashed right through the wall that Gnome had put up. At the last moment, she managed to shield the head of Terkal with her own body. A falling chunk of stone wasn’t that bad for her health. “Whew, this is more fun than I thought!” she heard Metra say behind her.

The grey-armoured woman got right back on her feet and stood in the hole. Outside, the army core was retaking position. They had realized by now that they wouldn’t get through the walls by just attacking them. Gnome would just rebuild them whenever they had chipped away at them considerably.

“You aren’t half bad, youngster!” she added. Her armour was covered in dirt and dust, but there were only a couple of scratches on the surface.

“And what even are you?” Matthew returned, holding up his flail. “This is hardened Mithril, yet I can’t shave away this armour of yours! The only material out there that should be strong enough to achieve that is Astrotium.”

“Congratulations, you guessed right,” Metra remarked sarcastically and then jumped right at the general. Ripping down with the force of her jump, Qiada was quickly blocked not by Matthew alone, but by four of his subordinates lending their strength as well. Swords ground against the sandalwood coloured shaft of the halberd at numerous points.

Together, they managed to throw her back. The ancient weapon landed below the hole. Gnome was unsure whether she wanted to close it or keep knowing what was going on. As long as Metra was there, they didn’t seem willing to try their luck at going at it again. A couple of bodies in the ground gave ample reasons to the why.

The plates around Metra’s head parted and revealed her grinning face. “Sooo, what do you think I am knowing that?”

“All I think is that Newman must have some pretty powerful backers if he managed to create an Artificial Spirit with Astrotium inside,” Matthew returned. “Guess that explains how someone that young got into such a position. No achievements of his own, all carried by bigger figures.”

With every word of the general, the smile on the ancient weapon’s visage changed into something ruthless and deeply bothered. “What the fuck did you just say, whelp?” The question was met with Matthew swinging his weapon as quick as he could. The chains of his weapon bent over the entire five metre distance, about to hit the place the blonde had exposed.

With ridiculous speed, Metra caught all five strands of sharpened metal with a swipe of her left hand. “What…?” the enemy general felt the ground slide under his feet as he was dragged one turn around the plated woman’s palm closer. Her strength was irresistible. “DON’T JUST STAND THERE, I AM KEEPING ONE ARM OCCUPIED, CHARGE!”

Four soldiers immediately obeyed the call. Their discipline was remarkable, but in the face of Metra’s green glowing eyes, it meant nothing. “Let me guide you all…” the berserker babe growled, meeting the two of them approaching her from the right with a ruthless swipe that transformed them into four pieces. “…to the afterlife!”

It occurred to Gnome at that moment, that the only reason why this fight hadn’t been decided already was that Metra had been enjoying herself. In other words, there was nothing for her to be angry about. She wasn’t losing, her armour made her untouchable, and neither did she want this to be over too quick. Now, however, Matthew had stepped on some sort of landmine.

Metra tossed Qiada with as much force as she could into the opposite direction of her assailant’s charge. They were trying to hack at her head with swords. One of them found the massive thorn at the tip of the halberd burying through the back of his skull. The other was blocked by the taut chains of his general’s weapon, Metra continuing to pull as if Matthew’s grip wasn’t even on the other end.

The last soldier of the charge saw his comrade fall over with a deeply confused look on his face. A momentary distraction that cost him his life. A hand clad with the hardest material in existence was rammed into his ribcage, and his heart ripped from its proper place a moment later. Metra tossed it away without care, the portal through which Qiada had found its target closed.

“So, let me school you on a few things,” Metra tilted her head with her grin now nothing but bloodthirst. In a motion dreadfully calm for a person this clearly filled with wrath, she kicked the still standing corpse of the last soldier so that it fell away from her. The ground around her feet was quickly turning into bloody mud. “First, I won’t let you, a fucking blue-blooded bureaucratic appointee, shittalk my current master, just because you are a little bit strong and uncle gives you nice TOYS!” At the last word, she ripped back her arm and finally pulled the flail away from Matthew, who reached after the weapon, well knowing that he was immensely less powerful without it.

Looking at it for a few moments, the berserker babe dropped the weapon without any further regard for it. The chain links shrunk down to their normal size, leaving a masterly crafted flail soaking in the mud. Gnome was just happy that Terkal was out of immediate threat to bleed out, because the overwhelming presence of the ancient weapon made it hard to think. It was like the air was trying to choke her, a basic fear felt at something much stronger.

“And your second mistake,” Metra gripped Qiada and cleanly pulled it out of the corpse's grey matter, “was to even insinuate that my current master could have created me – the guy doesn’t even want to be a king. Us Metracana and by extension Sargon’s accomplishments being forgotten by you fuckheads,” she angled her elbow for a wide arched swing, “just PISSES ME OFF!”

Matthew had the right idea about what was about to happen, quickly jumping to the ground as Qiada’s blade appeared out of thin air next to him. “What are you?!” the general asked, his voice now erratic and high-pitched. Doubtlessly, the man had seen some fights in his days, but there was a stark difference between fighting a hard battle and one against an invincible enemy that could hit him from anywhere.

Metra began a slow stride towards him. Although her attacks were impressive, Gnome knew that her mana reservoir was rather limited. Attacks of the dimensional tearing variety were some of the costliest spells out there, their potency more than making up for it. Since this fight was already decided by the fact that none of the other soldiers even dared to move as she approached their general, who stumbled and fell over.

“PROTECT ME, YOU IDIOTS!” Matthew screamed, and one of the soldiers, a blood-covered female, actually moved a foot. That was all the trigger Metra needed. In less time than it took for the military woman to complete her step, the berserker babe had rammed her hand through a portal and grabbed the soldier by the collar.

The woman was pulled towards Metra with immense force. As her body was too big to fit through the portal, she just flew through it as if it was air. Gnome had somewhat expected her middle part to be cut out and exit at the other end of the portal as a bloody pulp, but such abuses were not on the menu. Thankfully, the soil elemental really had enough gore for today.

Not that what actually happened was pretty. Metra’s hand dragged with such force that, even as it returned past the portal’s rim, the female soldier didn’t manage to stop her own momentum. For all intent and purposes, she flew right into Metra’s blade, Qiada cutting her open from shoulder to hip.

“That’s one of the sentences that pisses me off no matter who says them,” Metra turned back to the backwards crawling general, now just a sorry figure. “They say people with grey hair have dignity… in my opinion, you can all be the same cowards.” The tip of her halberd dragging a trail, first over dirt, then through the asphalt of the way between two ruined military buildings, the ancient weapon continued, “I won’t let you die any dumber than you obviously are, so let me tell you. I am the first Metracana, Metra. Mother Chaos gave me the title First of Wrath, but the people of Akkadia and of all the empires I served in after had a different title for me…” Matthew raised his hand in an attempt to exit the barrier, one last hope immediately vanquished when a thrown Qiada ripped it clean off. “…Breaker of Armies.” Metra reached the now screaming man and put a foot on his throat. “Not that you will ever know the true reason of that. I say I was successful in breaking yours even without the Entropy Arena.”