Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Chapter 180: A Worthy Opponent

The sleek black rowboat sliced through the water, moving so quickly that if one didn't see the rowers heaving the oars back and forth, they would guess that it was propelled by magic or pulled by some Magical Beast. The truth was far simpler, every one of the sailors who rowed currently was used to pulling the enormous oars on the flagship, and the much smaller oars on the rowboat felt like nothing to them.

Anteris stood at the prow, his eyes gleaming with excitement behind his helmet, clutching his halberd in his unharmed right hand, pointing it toward the defenders who watched the approaching Grand Admiral in terror.

They had all seen his battle with the Emperor, and though he had lost, they knew that they would be no match for the mighty demon with the burning wings.

"To the left!" Anteris yelled, he could see the Ursten forces being pushed back slowly but surely, with Slate and Shale on the right, the forces on the right side of the harbor would need no reinforcement.

Anteris leapt off the bow and onto the rubble of the tower as soon as they were less than fifty meters away, landing amongst the retreating Ursten forces.

"Men and women of Ursten, Newport and the Plains! Is this all you've got! Your commander is picking apart the Emperor in the skies above, and yet you're being pushed back by these puny Imperials?" Anteris bellowed out as he landed, and a chorus of yells answered him, as the morale of the soldiers surged, and slowly but surely they began to push back the Imperials.

Anteris stood for a moment, he was eager to leap into battle but with Tam fighting above, he was technically the highest commanding officer, and so he had a duty to be aware of the battlefield in general.

Anteris smiled as he looked to the east, where yet another rowboat launched toward the melee occurring on the right side of the harbor, this one held Boson, and his twenty most powerful shock troops, he had grown tired of watching the Mages slowly advance against the Imperial forces.

Confident that with Boson's shock troops and the Mage Unit combined, there was no chance that the Imperials could resist, Anteris turned his attention back to the battle unfolding in front of him.

By now, fifty of his black clothed soldiers had joined him, the vast majority of them wielding wickedly curved cutlasses alongside a shorter blade. 

"Come on lads! Let's have at 'em!" Anteris roared, striding through the mess of Ursten and Imperial forces locked in combat, his men following behind, ginning savagely as they tore into the Imperial soldiers.

The forward Imperial troops decimated, Anteris stood before the ground that the Imperial Mages had raised up, preventing the Ursten forces from advancing.

"Graaaaaagh!" Anteris let out a bestial scream, swinging his halberd back so it pointed up toward the sky, the thick blade bursting into a searing hot flame, sparks dancing all around Anteris.

The flames grew in intensity, now spreading all across the halberd and onto Anteirs' hand, spreading up his arm, but were still most intense at the blade.

"Fwoosh." All across the harbor, a sudden rush of air was felt, as Anteris swung his halberd down impossibly fast, then an enormous shockwave followed, moments after.

Anteirs had completely cleaved the raised stone in two, the sheer explosive power of one of his blows completely destroying the hard work of the Imperial Mages.

Now, the ground was cloven in two, and formed a sort of mini valley, the dirt below the stone of the harbor exposed. 

"Let's go lads!" Anteris yelled, leaping down into the furrow he had made, marching across, his men following eagerly behind. The Ursten forces followed along behind, a dazed look on their faces, they had seen Anteris fighting above, but seeing it first hand, mere meters away, was a completely different experience.

Anteris had changed the tide of the battle with a single swing.

While Anteris' and his personal guard rushed across the left side of the harbor, Boson was coming in to land. 

As the rowboat bumped into the rock, he lifted his enormous Axe from where he had been resting it against the bottom of the rowboat, stepping onto the rubble. As Boson stepped out of the boat, it suddenly visibly rose in the water, the enormous man, along with his axe, and heavy plate armor weighed almost as much as five or six men combined. 

Boson wore a simple helmet, of a thick blue colored alloy, a grille of steel bars covering his face, and a few runes swimming across it. Similarly, his plate was thick and unadorned, the gaps in the armor covered by thick chain mail. 

The armor's defense against most attacks was unparalleled, due to the ridiculous thickness of it, but it was Boson's ridiculous strength that allowed him to even walk under the weight of the armor. 

His troops followed, leaping out of the rowboat after him, all of them were tall and broad, and would have dwarfed the rest of the soldiers in the Ursten Army, but next to Boson, they looked tiny. 

"Let's go, men, General Tam said to speed things up if he got caught up anywhere."

Boson growled, his deep voice vibrating through the air, as he marched up the pile of the rubble. 

As Boson created the pile of rubble, the fighters from the Arena finally arrived at the docks, at their head, the enormous warrior wearing a helmet in the shape of a screaming banshee.

He came to a stop, the marching fighters behind him crashing into him, as he watched the enormous Ursten soldier walk over the rubble of the tower, he stared down, and as if he could sense the fighter's gaze, Boson looked to the  spiraling stone staircase at the top of the docks, meeting the fighter's gaze.

Both the enormous Arena fighter and Boson were thinking the exact same thing. At last, a worthy opponent.