Zealous Calm raised a wooden staff over his head, a bubble of yellow magical power gathered on the end of it, and then he swung the staff and sent the bubble flying towards the Black Guild. Upon coming into contact with the building, the bubble grew to envelope the entire structure. The bubble held for only an instant before it popped, leaving the Black Guild exactly as it had been.
That part of the plan done, Zealous Calm immediately moved on to the next step by slamming the end of his staff into the ground in front of him. The ground around the wizard was covered by a circle of runes and lines. With the end of his staff he finished the mark, and it burst into a column of white light. Similar columns rose into the sky to the East, South, and West of the Black Guild. The air between the beams of light cracked and seemed to crystallize as the space around the guild was surrounded by an inescapable barrier.
The wizard stared at the Black Guild's obsidian spires for a moment before turning and walking towards the next glyph he had to complete.
The sight of a massive bubble forming around their citadel did not go unnoticed by the Ebony Strykers. None of them needed any orders from Dark Wraith or even the Black King to realize that this was an attack on their Kingdom.
Appropriately so, the massive army of the Black Guild mobilized and prepared for the coming battle. Sweepers were soon dispersed, already weakening the risen barrier at certain points to give their forces an edge on the offensive front.
It would take some time, but these Sweepers had been handcrafted by Dark Wraith herself for just this occasion.
As the crystallized walls of Zealous Calm's barrier cut through the space between Bellowed Mist and Falling Mercury, the two shared a look of reassurance. The black-haired assassin didn't walk any closer to the Black Guild than she had to when she unsheathed her dagger. The surface of the blade radiated a dark blue light, the light of the many lives it had had to consume to fuel Bellowed Mist's final ability.
She held the blade with both hands as she stabbed the end into the earth. The air in an area even larger than that enclosed Zealous Calm's walls rippled when "Deep Ones Awaken" activated. Then all of the air was replaced by uncountable gallons of dark water. The Drowning status appeared for Mist momentarily before fading. This was her power, so she wouldn't die to it, but the others would not be so lucky.
The assassin left her dagger behind as she continued walking towards the doors to the Black Guild. As she walked, slowly due to being underwater, she drew her second dagger and summoned her two "Deep Prey" familiars: two black-scaled sharks that circled her as she walked.
A massive wave, almost as black as the Ebony Stryker halls, filled the stronghold's initial corridors with torrents of summoned water as it ripped the front doors apart. Those caught off guard were immediately given the Drowning Status, having only about three minutes to recover or be killed. Those more adapted to water environments immediately pursued after the form of Bellowed Mist.
Two of them, one a Level 7 Gunner and the other a Level 5 Healer, took notice of the guardians swimming in Bellowed Mist's proximity. Unholstering two electrified knives modified for underwater combat, the Gunner with the Commando Spec launched forward at the two sharks while his Healer buddy activated Spectral Body.
Soon, a heavy mist began to form beneath the water, covering the Gunner and blinding Bellowed Mist from approaching enemies.
Falling Mercury waited until Mist unleashed her ability before setting off his own. "Stilled Sands" blew through the drowned halls of the guild, taking hold of those it met and stopping them from moving or even using their abilities to escape their slow deaths.
Outside the barrier and drowned space, Mercury fell to his knees and shut his eyes as tight as he could. His ability wasn't meant to be used like this, and it was showing. The ground in front of the priest was already starting to see feel drops of blood.
Rusted Feather leaned back against the rock he was sitting on. There wasn't really much point to him being here, it was his machines that were doing all of the hard work.
One such machine stood nearby, a massive metal turret that stood at twelve feet high. Technically the turret was mobile, but it wouldn't be moving anywhere today. The glowing glyph carved into the machine's side marked one of the corners of Zealous Calm's barrier, and the turret sat embedded in the wall of crystallized air. Two other mechanized turrets marked with a magic glyph sat in locations to the East and South to complete the seal.
The wall wouldn't prevent the front half of the machine from operating, and neither would it being submerged in Mist's dark water. As its creator rested on his rock, the massive turret's barrel turned to aim at the side of the Black Guild and fired its first shot. Two more shots came from the other turrets' locations, each shot smashing into the massive castle.
Rusted Feather hummed merrily to himself and shielded his eyes from the sun to try and spot his fourth machine way up high in the sky.
Ah, those pesky cannons. The Sweepers merely ignored their onslaught and continued their efforts to support their allies. Possibly being a trap to bait them out, the Sweepers rationalized that if the walls did fall, these Orange Guild fools would be met with the power of five armies twice fold brimming within the massive Guild's walls.
Monochrome Angel held onto the metal arm of the strange flying machine Feather had created, and the shinobi Stole Gate stood beside him. Gate's purpose was as backup in case any of the others needed help or were killed. She would take their place or kill whoever interfered with the mission. The contraption they stood upon was little more than a platform kept aloft by a propeller on the top, but below it held an arsenal of deadly missiles.
Once Zealous Calm and Mist had used their abilities, for Mercury's was impossible to see the effects of, the many missiles were released at Rusted Feather's distant command to fall and splash into the drowned air far below. Below the water, it was hard to see, but the surface of the dark ocean surged as the bombs exploded.
Monochrome Angel waited until the last of the explosions was done before he let go of the flying contraption and fell like a stone towards the Black Guild. He slipped through the top of the ocean with a splash and the Drowning status instantly started sapping away at his health. As he sank and got closer to the drowning Ebony Strykers below, the damage from his own Drowning was canceled out by a sudden surge of healing. All of the many players dying from Mist's ability were restoring Angel's health faster than the dark waters could will him dead.
A second later, he didn't even need the healing from the other players' pain.
Two deathly wings of black smoke and skeletons appeared on the necromancer's back. A pale green inferno began to rip through the watery halld of the Black Guild with flames that ignored the black water and burned regardless. Angel swam inside the building through a window, inextinguishable flames following. He passed player after player on his way to the guild's heart, and each one met a not-quick-enough end from the combination of the suffocating water, green burning flames, Angel's life-draining wings.
The sound of a powerful blast made Rusted Feather jump up from where he'd been sitting back. He shot Minted Ice an annoyed look, one which the red-haired female sniper shot right back his way. His abilities made is way too easy for him to sit back and do nothing while his machines and turrets took care of his work.
Ice didn't like that. She didn't want to give the boy any time to rest while they were finally striking at the Black witches home, and the blast from her massive sniper rifle was the best way to keep Feather from having a moment's peace.
Casting "Slip Shot", "Bombardier", and "Hydra Slayer" on her next shot, Minted Ice's gun exploded once again. The bullet vanished as soon as it left the barrel, only reappearing a moment before it hit its target, which was conveniently located on the other side of Zealous Calm's barrier. When the bullet hit, it exploded like a bomb going off, instantly killing the poor Ebony Stryker that had been unable to do anything to resist the violent death. Where the initial target's head had been, two more bullets appeared, flying towards the next two closest targets and again leaving nothing but corpses. The increasing spread of bullets only stopped their killing spree when there were no more targets within range.
Minted Ice reloaded and fired again, this time at a new group of helpless Strykers trapped and drowning on the other side of the wall. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, if one had an extreme hatred for fish.
By the time he'd reached the guild's center it was doubtful if Monochrome Angel really needed to use his ability to end the lives of the many Strykers trapped within this killing ground. Nonetheless, a sickening green light streamed in and out of every crack and empty space of the Black Guild. The slow and steady damage that affected each and every person unfortunate to be inside the guild became exponential, and Angel felt each and every single life snuff out one after another.
The green glow pulled the executed souls to him, and the necromancer gathered them into a compressed ball of deathly power. He didn't need to fill any quota of kills to use his power like Mist did, but how strong the ability would be depended on how many souls he had access to. Monochrome Angel could feel the energy build as more and more Strykers died. He doubted he'd ever held as much power as he did in that moment.