The animated throne bellowed with a scratchy metallic tone, “Stand still for assimilation before our glorious lady of gold.”

Archmage Ventus promptly vaporized it with a flick of his finger, he may not be able to fully control his powers, but the myriad wards and spells he had woven around him were more than enough to take care of any intruders.

He was furious. Never before in the history of the glorious Horus fleets had such great acts of sabotage performed on it.

“Damn this **ing war, nothing would block me from getting this fleet back home. I swear it in the name of Endirius.”

It was a simple thing to expand the first layer of his defensive Taboo Spell to sweep through his entire ship holding all the rampaging elements together and freezing his Horus Crest in place, his Spirit dug deep into the fabrics of the ship and he gasped, “This should not be possible.”

There had been attempts in the past to control a Horus Crest by outside forces, anyone who seized one of these ships would have enough power to control a galaxy, and to ensure that this sort of thing did not happen, every Horus Crest was fitted with state of the art Defensive Scripts, that even Archmage Ventus could not even decipher after spending tens of millions of years studying these ships.

These safeguards were put in place to deter the actions of other Supreme Worlds from stealing the powers of the magus worlds and adding them to their domain, some of the greatest and the most bitter battles outside the universe were for protecting the intellectual properties because it represented the strength and capability of a civilization.

If Ventus allowed his Horus Crest to be infiltrated, even if they win this war, his future prospects would be bleak, a permanent stain on the record of an immortal did not just go away with time.

The Archmage realized that whatever took over his fleet had not performed these egregious acts by going after the spells, wards, scripts, or the million other components that made it up, but they had controlled the structure of the ship itself and gave it a weird form of life.

They essentially made his ship a gigantic golem. Archmage Ventus knew about the acts of Puppet Making, as it was a major magus discipline but he had never known of anything quite like this. For a brief moment, he felt an alarming surge of greed in his heart for whatever technique or ability that could make such a thing possible.

Perhaps he needed to devote more of his attention to not just survival but winning this battle so he could begin to uncover the tantalizing secrets this unholy place held. If he could understand this power, perhaps it would forge his path to the creation of Will, if not, the ability to seamlessly control his entire fleet was a game changer that would resound all through the universe.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he felt an endless series of vibrations pushing against his wards and spells, in addition to that there was a stunning upsurge of power around him that shook him to the core, fighting through the fog chaining down his Spirit, Archmage Ventus spread out his perception and noticed that the fleet had turned around and opened fire on their allies, except for his own that he had frozen in place.

The Archmage’s face went pale, the greatest weapons of the Horus Crest were still offline, not yet fitted in until they returned to the magus Supreme World, but there was enough minor weaponry in the ships to raze entire star systems to ash.

Whoever had taken charge of the Horus Crest fleet was not holding back in the slightest and was pushing out so much firepower as if it was going out of season, and the energy erupting from all the ships was like a thousand supernovas, going off at once.

‘My life’s work!’ He howled inside his head, seeing his prospects as a leading power in the magus world ruined before his eyes, there was even a possibility he would be punished for an eternity after this battle was over, his eyes bugging out of his skull as the weapons fired again and again.

Even with all this sheer devastation unleashed by the Horus Crest, the trait of the Magus Weapon showed itself, which was precision. Every weapon that was fired was not targeting the undead but tracking all the living signatures on their side and pouring down so much firepower it was destroying the barriers and killing even high-level Archmages.

The panicked screams of his crew all over the Horus Crest fleet had been cut off a while ago, their ships most likely devoured them all, only to be replaced by cries and curses from other Archmages outside as they screamed for Archmage Ventus to take control of his fleet. Unlike the Intent Cannons, these weapons were far more devastating against their army.

Eons of learning how to control every facet of himself gave him the ability to suppress a greater part of the debilitating effect on his body and mind, silencing the unneeded emotion and he began to assert himself, as he called on his Tower Spirit, “Give me something Charri!” He weakly called out.

His Spirit, mind, and Soul might be suppressed, but his Tower Spirit had enough autonomy to work without his supervision and was one of the reasons he could fight through the strain of teleportation.

“I have connected all Spell Fractals linking the entire Horus Crest, master Ventus, unfortunately, I’m locked out from accessing the Power Matrix of the Horus Crest fleet so I will need the power from your Spirit Matrix to push for harmonization between the fleet to achieve…”

“Take it!”

“With your condition, it could break your Spirit Matrix.”

“Charri, don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Affirmative, Opening Sequence to exploit… Warning, Incoming wave of Level 9 Destruction Level fields, composition 3,765 Intent of force, 5,332 intent of Fire, 3,221 intent of…”

Archmage Ventus cut out the panicked cries of his Tower Spirit, as his Perception swept behind him, he had forgotten for a brief moment the reason they shifted his Horus Crest to the forefront was to block the wave of Intent from the cannons, and now their shields were down.

He watched the nearly invisible wave of force reach the edge of his fleet and expected his fleet to be crushed to nothing, but the waves parted around them, bypassing millions of his ships and passing by. His ship was situated at the back of the fleet, and so he saw that no single ship ahead was damaged.

Archmage Ventus’s heart settled, it would seem that the Tower Masters had finally recovered and were ready to break the control the enemy had over the field of battle. He straightened his shoulders and watched as the wave of Intent drew nearer to his ship, he was already calling for his Tower Spirit to begin purging the unknown influence from his fleet.

Archmage Ventus brought out a new throne so he could be in a good position before his Tower Spirit began pulling power from his Spirit Matrix; he would rather not be caught flopping on the ground like a fish out of the water as his power was extracted.

Unexpectedly, reaching his ship, the wave of Intent that was supposed to pass by his ship suddenly closed the gap, Archmage Ventus’s eyes widened in realization that the Tower Master had never been in control of the Intent Wave, and they were taking care of him personally, the image of an enigmatic woman entered his mind, “clever bit…”

Then he knew no more.