Sammy unleashed three spells on top of one another. The first was a contingency trigger to summon another autonomous protective shield — her other was technically still ‘out’ but it would not be doing much with a Cat Head using it as a chew toy and scratching post at once.

  The other two were Fire Funnels, relatively narrow ‘spiral cones’ the size of a person. If they hit, they not only dealt wounds and knocked backward quite forcefully, but they did something like a continuous pushing corkscrew for several rounds. She’d literally made the spell for shitfuck flying Cat Heads because as long as they got hit dead on, they’d be disabled for at least ten seconds, and possibly even twenty.

  As usual for the beasts, they had little mind to dodge and both got hit by the concentrated, spinning torrents of fire. They were blown back in two different directions and tumbling as the spells barreled over them.

  Azure shot a Cat Head with some potion round, engulfing it in a huge blob of gray, glue-like material that dropped it out of the sky immediately, struggling and howling the whole way down.

  “Hey!” Sammy called. “That’s new! You didn’t even tell me about it.”

  “Sorry!” Azure called back. “Got lost in the shuffle! Experimental. Should’ve thought of it before. Only have a few. The experiment is a success, in any case!”

  “I’d say!”

  The other beast that was on Azure got grappled by one of the biggun spiders, slammed and pinned into the obsidian wall of the tower as it screeched and writhed, tails whirling and stabbing chaotically. Futile, because the spider had a very favorable pin from behind.

  The Cat Head that had Sammy’s shield was finally moving free again, but by then, plenty of distance had been put between it and its targets. The same went for all other enemies visible right then, though far below, a small horde was beginning to recover, even still wreathed in fire.

  Sammy and Azure crawled upward as fast as they could, screened by the few remaining spider and snake constructs. The distance that was at first a very wide gap closed as several Cat Heads recovered and raced upward for them at greater speed than they could flee.

  But to this, Sammy was quite ready. She cast Wall of Force once more, this time formed into a disk around the tower, protecting the direct approach and their flanks.

  The Cat Heads stupidly slammed into the nearly invisible wall and all their built-up speed was ruined. They gave piercing shrieks of protest. Meanwhile, Azure took the opportunity to ‘summon’ more giant jumping spiders, content to leave them behind ready to attack the leading beasts, dishing out attrition and delay to their mistress’s benefit. Now she was pouring them out of a gourd, glowing liquid like molten glass growing into arachnid forms. Sammy knew she could make a total of thirteen of them that way, perhaps two every five seconds while moving.

  All the while, Sammy and Azure maintained an even pace upward, no longer sprinting so they could focus on casting and other things, but steadily making their way up.

  As the Cat Heads finally made their way around the wall, Sammy decided to improvise and craft a spell particular to the occasion. Weaving mana with sways of her staff, she took a bit of extra mana and time to double-cast it. Two constructs blossomed out like prongs from the tower base, forming into miniature towers themselves, facing downward. And they had faces indeed — of dogs.

  The Cat Heads approached, but before they had gotten up to speed, the dog-headed towers growled, then gave tremendous barks that sent a great visible cone of disturbance — sonic damage with a knock bonus. When it hit the Cat Heads, they were sent reeling backward with more screams of indignant protest. A couple slammed into the top side of the wall, with others knocked clear of it to tumble chaotically in the open air as they struggled to regain control.

  With a victorious grin, Sammy called, “My Canine Castles are all bark and no bite — and that’s just fine for tower defense! Kyehehehe!” She shook her fist. “Revenge is mine, you abominable fucks!”

  Azure was eyeing her across the space incredulously, shaking her head. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  Muttering to herself, Azure nonetheless mustered another duo of spiders to guard the new towers from those who might get too close.

  In their radius of attack, the Dog Heads created a zone the Cat Heads couldn’t bull through, as another group found themselves rebuffed. All of the beasties so hit suddenly stopped paying any attention to the humanoids — it was clear that their hatred was extensive for the new adversaries.

  A spider jumped on one Cat Head that was coming in from the flank, successfully letting the dogs keep their barking focused.

  Sammy cast another two Canine Castles a bit further up and angled to guard the most likely flank. It took her under 600 MP available after all the crap she’d done, out of the fairly absurd total reserves of Rallindin. That was plenty, but it was probably worth conserving the rest to some degree for Who Knew What ahead.

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  Because they were constantly moving up, she had to more or less abandon the faithful dogs instead of reinforcing them. It was with some reluctance she gave up attempting The Perfect Defense. She didn’t need such a thing, after all, just enough delay and distraction.

  The Cat Heads were at a certain height. Not all the way up, either. Makes me wonder if there is a limit to their flight. One can hope.

  The tower defense below them got further and further away, and it performed smashingly to frustrate and distract the Cat Heads, who diverted their attention to it completely. Spiders defended numerous flanking angles as the Dog Heads blasted a huge swath of the approach in a great semi-circle, and the speed of approach was manageable thanks to the nearness of the force wall speed bump. Large numbers of the enemy beasts began getting blasted continuously, only to keep coming back for more, angrier and angrier not to make progress. If there was one thing Cat Heads didn’t have, it was intelligence.

  But their tenacity was unquestioned and they never gave up. Eventually, the beasts coming at the towers became almost the entire horde, and they started getting chaotically knocked wider and wider out, thus making larger numbers begin approaching from the flank, with the spiders struggling to guard the weaker flank to Sammy’s right.

  Sammy and Azure took potshots from long range to keep the defense going as long as possible, but inevitably the spiders were overwhelmed and took casualties. The sweet, sweet canine towers were swarmed from multiple sides. Cat Heads bit, stabbed, and clawed at the enemy heads, which resisted with raw toughness for some moments more. Then, with final piteous whimpers, the towers were toppled and destroyed by sheer mass strength one after the other, crashing down into the force wall to splinter into pieces.

  By then, the distance was great between the tower remains and the fleeing duo of Sammy and Azure. The Cat Heads would need over half a minute of flight to catch up, she reckoned.

  Sammy did a salute and declared somberly, “Well done, faithful canines. You were Good Boys to the very end.”

  Inevitably, the feline-bat-scorpions resumed their climb with their ample flight capabilities. Sammy had no intention of letting them max out their acceleration, though. She made more force wall barriers to act as speed bumps, stalling them out again and again. Each time, they went around eventually but were confused and slowed down once more. They quite stupidly resumed the same angle closer to the tower eventually, as they always attempted to bee-line to their prey.

  For all their invulnerability, they lack real adaptation. An entire horde neutralized by technology. The power of Progress!

  She could have possibly ‘boxed them in’ with force walls, but at the best of times, their numbers were very scattered around and distributed, and to have enough material would take multiple castings at the scale needed. While she did that at medium-ish range, those that were missed would come for her. If she really had to neutralize them entirely, it was a decent play despite the risk. Or perhaps doing it on a smaller scale, systematically, with high mana costs. But she was banking on simply getting clear, and so the speed bumps were the safest, mana-cost-efficient method.

  It was useful to consider strategies, though, even unused. If needed in the future, she had an existing framework in her head.

  Hmm. Maybe the first bowl facing the opposite direction. I could have ‘topped it’ after so many were inside, sealing a large number. But then I would’ve had to go over it to get through the rest. Hmm. Another force bowl stacked over? The material limits…

  She suddenly noticed Azure breathing more labored and realized the air was… different. She blinked and looked down, trying to make out the forest canopy. It was very far below, visible like a bit of a disk that gradually faded into the fog of the spirit world. That particular fog had a darker outline in the shape of a planet within.

  “Altitude?” she asked, puzzled. “But this is the spirit world.” She looked around at the more immediate environment, and if anything, it was getting brighter, not darker. Above, the moon and its palace seemed to loom like silver within a sea of gold.

  Azure shook her head. “It’s hot.”

  “Oh. Oh yeah, I guess that’s what this sensation is. Just feels kinda good to me, I guess.”

  “Lucky you. Let’s just push through.”

  “You got it!” She found the moon and the sky it sat in a fascination that drew her eyes. Beautiful. It speaks to the concept of the day and night being wedded. The silver moon paired with the golden sun. Not unlike Azure and I. Huh.

  Panting a bit, Azure called, “If you’d stop staring at the shinies, you’d notice the change with the felines below.”

  “Huh?! What?!” Sammy quickly looked down, scrambling to cast spells, expecting the worst… but all was more than okay. The Cat Heads were ringed around the tower, beating their wings furiously and howling to climb… to no avail. For whatever reason, they couldn’t fly any higher. The air and the energy were perhaps not palatable for them, though they tried with all their might. None seemed to grasp the idea of using the stairs, either.

  She also noticed the majority were not even looking at them anymore, and their calls were desperate in some urge as opposed to that of fury or aggression. Their eyes were looking beyond the bodies of Rallindin and Tanjhere — up the tower. To the palace.

  Sammy followed that gaze, contemplative. Your mistress hates you, doesn’t she? Even as you ache to reach her. She mocks you, mocks whatever failure you were to her because she is cruel. As cruel and unforgiving as the tangled, unnatural mass below, a temple of spite and derision.

  With no clue what to expect for a reception, Samantha continued her climb to the top, feeling energized despite everything — because that bright sky, and particularly the light itself, was hers. It was a symbol spelling out so much that she’d already conquered.

  Azure, Sammy literally cannot stop staring at shinies, including you!

  Next Chapter...

  A terrible complication arises.

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