Page 16 of Elven Throne

The compound fared no better. The entire building trembled violently, shaking beneath the explosion and flinging massive chunks of its outer walls and insufficient foundations, as if it had already been flagged for demolition.

Total physical destruction in the blink of an eye, ending the battle that would have continued longer than Shade could have withstood.

Then it was over.

Justoveramileand a half southwest of the compound, an enormous, hulking grimbúl stood atop a grouping of boulders within the woods. He’d tried to find the highest vantage point from which to oversee his glorious plan unfolding, and he had not been disappointed.

He had the perfect view from here, laughing freely as the griybreki swarms demolished everything in their path and the fuckers who called themselves Shade scrambled desperately to fight them off.

When the blazing column of light down below erupted, the grimbúl had no idea what it was. But from here, he saw the whole thing seconds before the first detonating wave reached the outer limits of the parking lot.

“What the—”

Then the erupting magical light blinded him, and he nearly stumbled off the top of the boulders as he tried to look away, shielding his eyes.

The devastating wave of blistering heat and smoke and dust sprayed up toward him a moment later, joined by the horrid groan of the forest before the closest trees cracked in half.

The pulse made the grimbúl’s footing falter on the boulder. He stumbled off balance before crashing to the stone and sliding painfully down the rest of the way.

Raising a meaty arm in front of his face, he shielded himself from the worst of the blast and the lingering debris pummeling toward him.

It was over in seconds. Dust and shredded plant material and prematurely stripped leaves fluttered all around him in the aftermath.

When the erupting chaos finally settled enough, the grimbúl pushed himself up on one knee and looked out across the remains.

Every single one of his griybreki were gone.

“No,” he muttered, pushing himself fully to his feet. “No!”

He fumbled with a meaty hand for the control module he’d slipped into the inner pocket of his jacket and yanked it out, eyes wide in desperation. He stabbed at command buttons and desperately searched the results illuminating on the device’s screen.

There was a disturbingly small amount of data, and it all told him the same thing.

DataPoint1: Error. Equipment malfunction.

DadaPoint2: System Offline.

DataPoint3: System Offline.

DataPoint4: Error. Equipment Malfunction.

DataPoint5: Warning. Capacity Overload Imminent.

DataPoint6: Unresponsive.

All dozen locations of his new technology delivered the same harrowing response, all twelve of them suddenly rendered ineffective.

After he’d been assured this technology would work. That it couldn’t be overloaded or terminated once the startup sequence initiated.

He hadn’t built this attack on a series of channeled portals. This was goddamn magitek!

He refused to believe what his eyes and the control module in his hands told him, even after he continuously stabbed at the device with fat fingers, commanding now useless technology to reboot simply because he desired it.

None of it worked.

He turned toward the closest piece of magitek machinery he’d laid around his enemy’s base. From thirty yards away, the damage was impossible to ignore where he’d set one glinting piece of genius magitek technology.

The metal box nestled in the woods, with all its blinking lights and humming mechanisms.

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