Ashtoreth knew that before the invasion, humans had relied on machines to wage war. She'd always loved the raw, industrial look of tanks and planes and gun emplacements.

But she'd underestimated just how much materiel the humans could put forward.

The day of their campaign had arrived, and she was standing atop the dark metal exterior of one of their captured bastions. There were multiple rifts open in the massive space around her, glowing pillars of light that linked back to Earth. Each rift was producing war machines at semi-regular intervals of under a minute.

Trucks carrying cargo, warplanes rolling across the flat steel ground to join their fellows in a line, massive battle tanks that moved startlingly fast for all their bulk… and missiles.

So many missiles—missiles of every shape and size that were being handled by serious-faced men and women in uniforms.

The humans clearly had a philosophy when it came to their death machines: more, more, more.

"Humans are so cool," she said, smiling as one of their jet planes roared overhead for a test flight.

The more that High Command had learned of the system and various styles of warfare it enabled, the more they'd become convinced that the recent revolution in military affairs had not entirely rendered their existing weapons obsolete.

Against an enemy with high [Defense], the focused, armor-penetrating nature of the explosions caused by many of their weapons could still deal enough of a blow to harm many targets. Creatures with [Defense] as high as Ashtoreth's, though, would likely be too difficult to kill with anything but perfectly accurate strikes to the vitals by their most potent weaponry.

The hellfire missile, for example, had a name that promised much in terms of destructive power—but Ashtoreth had not been impressed.

None of that mattered, however. Human war was mechanized, and much of their weaponry wasn't meant to be rammed into tiny, moving, living targets such as herself. Instead, most of their machines were meant to break other machines.

And this was what had High Command in such a titter. Realms tended to have defenses: enchantments that were made of sophisticated formations of rare metals, crystals, and written runes.

For all that human ordnance was loud, hot, and fast, its non-magical nature circumvented many of the more traditional means of detecting and defending against strikes and bombardments.

It wasn't just because nobody in the cosmos knew how to build the computerized rockets that humanity had—it was that even if they could, the effort might not even be worth it. Not compared to magically-built arms.

A dearth of magic and a surplus of ingenuity had put the humans in a position where they had teched into a clunky, expensive form of warfare than the rest of the cosmos would struggle to interact with.

Or so High Command hoped.

There were still many downsides to their various methods of missile striking.

Sending a vehicle or missile through a rift was no easy task. A typical rift ejected its travellers in a semi-random location and orientation, so that unless it was conjured high in the air and with clearance on all sides, a fast-moving object like a plane or guided explosive had to have its trajectory adjusted once it emerged. They couldn't be aimed until they had come through.

They had an array of complicated looking equipment—lasers or radios or something—pointed at where they would be conjuring the attack rift. She'd been assured that this would allow them to direct their ordnance once it was through.

What was more, mass and the magnitude of an object's velocity relative to the portal were both factors in the time and cost it took to transition it.

"This is going to be very, very loud," said Kylie. She stood with Ashtoreth and the rest of their team at the edge of the huge square. All of them were watching the endless parade of military hardware.

"Most of this is for the planet," said Frost. "Fallen Harana. They need to hit a lot of targets at once." He let out an appreciative sigh as a rocket that was larger than a semi truck was rolled past them. "Strange to wonder how many missiles and bombs the combined nations of the world must have," he said. "But I suppose someone's about to find out."

"Too bad Ashtoreth's not going to be part of the vanguard when we attack the Hell planet," said Kylie. "I don't think she's ever really been to a human fireworks show. She'd love it."

"I know," Ashtoreth said longingly. "But also: I'd really prefer if you use my temporary name."

Frost snickered. Kylie turned her head slowly toward Ashtoreth. "I told you already. Nobody wants to call you Loadsaclocks."

"Loadsaclocks!" Ashtoreth said, spinning so that the bright red alarm clock that was hanging on a chain around her neck made a wide circle in the air around her before striking a pose. She had two pocketwatches in the pockets of a glamored waistcoat, four wristwatches, and two stopwatches around her neck in addition to the alarm clock.

"Yeah," said Kylie. "It's true. You look like a jackass."

"Pfft," said Ashtoreth. "You should do to others as you'd want them to do unto you, Kylie. And I bet you'd want everyone to call you by a name you chose for yourself."

Kylie sighed. From where he lay in her arms, Dazel made a noise of disgust. "I want this to fail, boss. I hope you know that. I have never wanted you to fail as much as I do now."

"Only because you want me to take [Spellcasting]."

"No only," he said. "I also want it to fail because it's patently ridiculous. You can't mine a [Time] aspect by covering yourself in clocks. [Time] is awarded based on disposition."

"Well my disposition is 'enthusiastic toward clocks,'" said Ashtoreth. "And it's not like these can hurt anybody."

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Suddenly, a cool voice filled their minds.

We're ready. Assemble in the departure zone.

It was Commander Gao, the officer who was managing the campaign and currently connected to all of them via telekinesis, in her mind.

Ashtoreth grinned. "It's time!" she said excitedly.

The assault crew had been split into two teams, but both of them would taking the same rift in. It would be the second rift they opened—the first was for funneling explosives.

Ashtoreth and her people joined the rest of the soldiers at the nearby staging area. Hunter, Kylie, and most of Omega Team turned themselves invisible as they got ready.

A sudden hiss and crackle filled the air as light flared across from where Ashtoreth and the other troops had gathered.

The first rift was open.

Another thing about human military minds: they were addicted to information, and rightly so. Diviners, psychics, and illusionists had seemingly been given instantaneous recognition as an essential part of their changing war machine.

"Illusion away!" a man nearby barked. And as he did so, the space around Ashtoreth seemed to ripple and distort until she was in a completely different world entirely, not a single trace of the bastion in sight. Instead she saw as if she were floating in the air beside the newly-opened rift, looking out at the very place they would be assaulting in mere moments.

Below her was what they had referred to as the Welcome Mat—a flat platform of polished silvery metal whose surface area was greater than a square kilometer. When the labor crews returned from their work on Primeval Karaz, this was where they unloaded their cargo. There were a great many circular rifts built into the platform, each intended to take materials and returning slaves down into the inner workings of the realm.

Ahead of them, spanning away into the distance, was what they'd decided to call the Promenade: a stretch of silver roadway almost three hundred meters wide, rising at a slight grade to travel almost 28 kilos toward the citadel where Morax Tol the Detailer, King of Dereemo, resided.

Both the Promenade and the Welcome Mat were rimmed with hundreds of equidistant towers. Each of them was five stories in height, made of what appeared to be a singular piece of black glass, and formed into the shape of a grasping dragon claw at the top. The claw held a large crystal, and the crystals glowed white.

The towers transferred magic from the citadel all across the whole realm, forwarding the dragon's magical power while adding their own. The offensive magic they wielded could likely one-shot even Ashtoreth.

The towers were their primary initial concern. Demonic dragons struggled with trust: they preferred to invest their wealth in static defensive structure such as these than be surrounded by elite fighters whose power was too close to their own.

It was an attitude that the humans appreciated.

Floating in the midst of the illusion, Ashtoreth watched as human weapons filled the air around her, each of them materializing, then seemingly twisting to orient itself properly before speeding off toward its target.

There was a sudden series of explosions that made a few of the other soldiers flinch as fire enveloped them. Ashtoreth hadn't seen what had happened—perhaps some of the missiles had collided or been stricken down.

It didn't matter. As the flames cleared, she saw dozens of the guided explosives striking their targets, shattering the towers with blasts of noise and light.

Some of the towers manifested translucent, spherical barriers that seemed to protect them completely from the explosive blasts—but the barriers were only momentary, likely generated by spellcasters sequestered in the citadel. They bought the towers a stay of execution… but only for a few moments. Two, three, five—it didn't matter how many missiles it took, the humans were happy to supply them.

Others conjured jagged lines of white lightning, striking one missile from the air only to have another blast it to pieces a half-second later.

She might have made some remark about fireworks, but there was no point: no-one would have heard her unless she used telepathy, which was reserved for essential communications. The illusory world around her was obliterated piece by piece, second by second, until…

Barrier up, Gao's voice said coolly. Bust it.

Ashtoreth squinted ahead and saw that filmy field of purple had appeared several kilometers up the promenade, seemingly unharmed by the cascade of explosives breaking against its surface.

They'd known coming in that they'd have to deal with something like it, and not just from Eldunari intelligence. Morax Tol had to have some kind of heavy defense in order to deal with something like Ashtoreth's nova, after all.

She raised a wrist and eyed one of her watches. "What do you know?" she asked, her voice drowned out by the ongoing cataclysm. "Did someone hear a trumpet? Because it's time for the big one!"

She watched the massive rocket appear by the rift and then streak through the air like a comet, crossing the several kilometers to the barrier in less then a second and then tilted down to strike the Promenade floor at its base.

The entire realm seemed to shake as the bunker buster caused substantial damage to the workings of the artificial fortress below, presumably disrupting the sophisticated enchantments that helped focus the power of the barrier.

The barrier flickered and died, and a moment later more missiles rushed forward to hammer at the towers studding the promenade.

For a few more seconds, the missile barrage continued unimpeded. Then they heard the voice of one of their oracles, urgent but not panicking.

Incoming. Protect the portal.

As he was speaking, Ashtoreth heard the hiss and crackle of another rift opening—as planned, they'd opened the second rift in the exact place that the illusion depicted the first one.

Frost and several other humans immediately leapt inside, and in the illusion she saw them emerge two seconds later from a second glowing rift that had appeared to her left.

Then she saw the approaching attack: a constellation of white projectiles coming from the direction of the citadel, spreading out as they travelled. They drew closer, and she saw that each of them was a massive bolt of white fire, all of them converging toward the rift that functioned as the source of the missiles.

Frost raised a hand and the first of the projectiles collided with his blue-colored barriers. Another of the humans used a similar ability, and the others struck out at the oncoming firebolts with spells of their own, clearing the sky within moments.

Ashtoreth grinned as her heartbeat quickened. Now that their people were in, they were committed. They had to protect the rifts and advance.

She heard the voice of Commander Gao.

Both teams, proceed.

It was time to move.

Because of the transit delay, they entered the portals in a specific order—and Ashtoreth, part of Alpha Team, went first.

She emerged above the platform what felt like an instant later, then formed Wanderschloss, conjured a dozen hellfire javelins, and launched them up at the next volley of white fire coming toward the portal.

The rest of Alpha Team materialized below her. Then Hunter appeared, still invisible, and drew both his katanas before shouting, "Adun toridas!" and teleporting into the realm's understructure.

Ashtoreth continued to rise into the sky, launching her next volley of hellfire javelins toward the Welcome Mat below her in order to keep her allies in her aura.

The humans had gotten the dragon's attention. Her job was to steal it away from them.

"Morax Tol!" she shouted, her voice booming through the air even as more missiles came through the rifts.

"Your time is over! My moment is at hand!"

She rose high, spreading her arms and wings as more hellfire javelins winked into existence above her head. Then she grinned, elation running through her like an electric current as missiles sped past her, leaving trails of fire and smoke as they screamed toward their targets.

"Come and see!"

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