As the light pierced into the gigantic sphere of water, an almost round shape could be seen, a small point towards one side and a long tail at the other. Almost the entire shape was waving up and down, revealing the presence of a retively small body above what must be wings.

  Though it was still far away, water was visible leaving the flying bubble and flig towards them only to be blocked by numerous barriers. Each time su attack occurred, the shield it struck would shrink in size or acquire cracks, but new ones formed behind them almost as fast as they were damaged.

  Once again, a massive boom echoed out from above them, followed by a shockwave and a spike of stone hurling into the distanbsp; Now that it was light enough to see, they could spot the spike peing shallowly into the sphere of water before exploding. Just after the explosion, another wail rang out, followed by a spray of bloodied water carrying the fragments of rock smashing into the barrier, shattering another yer.

  Uedly, the spires fell silent after this test attack, allowing the beast to approahindered. As it neared, retively small balls of water began to rain from the sphere, being intercepted from below by smaller streaks of water from outside the city. As this occurred, most of the spires resumed their bombardment, though the tral one remained ominously silent, still having dohing but brighten the surroundings as though it were day.

  As the creature he city, the barriers began to be impacted by the spheres of water, revealing long unduting shapes, rge fish with round mouths f a circle of razor-sharp teeth. While most slid off the shields, a handful mao get through, dropping to the city below in spshes of water. Fortunately, most either rolled off the roofs they struck, or fell directly to the streets where there were quite a few guards roaming, many in the crimson armor of the Church of flibsp; Due to this, the unusual monsters were rapidly dispatched, for the most part.

  With the gigantic ball of water so close to the city now, the beast within was now pletely visible, revealing that the bottom tained a rge, fttened mouth with two lines of gills. As if the prior attacks were not enough, it also revealed the presence of a spike partway down its tail as it smmed into the barriers, pung straight through three before losing momentum.

  Fortunately, it appeared to have split its attention now, targeting multiple locations outside the city as well, redug the pressure on the defenses within. However, the spike regurly punctured shield after shield, fog solely upon them. Evehey were tightly pressed, they struggled to slow the strikes. The attacks using water, meanwhile, were occasionally deflected even before striking, slipping above or to the sides of the defenses, if not digging into the ground outside the walls.

  In respoo a lightning bolt unched by another spire, however, a rge amount of water lit from the sphere and shoved at the city. Shields flickered and died uhe mass of the projectile, eventually stopping it mid-air before failing pletely. As new barriers flickered ience above the city, the torrent of water smmed into the buildings below, smashing dozens directly, with the resulting flood taking down several more before it drained away into the sewers.

  Apparently intelligent enough to spot the success, the beast repeated the attack, but with more strikes over a rge area, causing the defeo fail all over the city. This time, however, arana, visible to the eye, roiled around the tral spire for a moment before a pulse was released, the shockwave somehow hitting the water harder than anything else, hurling most of it out from withiy boundaries before it could reach the ground below.

  As a side effect of this bst, however, numerous of the falling monsters were thrown around, turning them into projectiles flying in all dires. While Morris was busy fog oower, Niphru was the first to spot one of them flying towards them. As the others were still registering the threat, he pulled his focus from the spire into a thrust of force magic, smming into the creature. With the bination of its speed toward them and the spell he used, the creature burst into a shower of blood and gore that fell to the ground far below.

  More of the creatures impacted the side of the spire or flew past it, a scream ringing out below as one presumably hit another baly or person. A handful of other retively small attacks flickered out towards the ining enemies, resulting in several detonations mid-air besides the one Niphru caused.

  There was then a horrendous noise as a beam of pressurized water sliced deep into the spire closest to the beast, breaking through the other side in a few pces. This was followed quickly by a r gale that blew the attato a broad and harmless spray before even that was dissipated. As the group remained awestruck at the levels of power being thrown around, the e of air, made visible by the mist, tinued hurling from the tral spire towards the sphere of water.

  Less than a sed ter, there was a crash of titanic proportions, and huge amounts of liquid were hurled in all dires as the flying ke shuddered from the impabsp; As though the first strike was not enough, shockwaves raced through the bubble, bsting off more water each time they reached the edges.

  The rain of smaller beasts slowly tapered off, torrents of water repg them as the creature smmed its tail spike into the defenses again and again. With well over half of the liquid having been expehe wings or fins of the monstrous creature were no longer covered by a protective sheath of water. As a result, the nce of rock mao avoid fracturing on impact, instead skewering through the flesh there first.

  Fireballs were rapidly heating the remaining sphere, and lightning occasionally pyed across the body of the beast as well. Even so, it tinued approag, looming over the immense wall and casting its shadow across the city. As the immense figure writhed and wailed from the tinual attacks, there was an explosion as a blinding bolt punctured the skin of the beast. Iermath of the detonation, ks of flesh rained down upoy, several smashing through the barriers with their mass as others spttered, leaving a gory curtain hanging in the sky.

  The creature tilted to the damaged side as water rained down, trol apparently being difficult. Faced with the spread out mass of liquid, the barriers proved much more resilient. Instead of failing uhe weight of the water, it instead flowed along the defenses, sing the remains of the strike.

  With even more of its body exposed, the massive beast fared far worse against the spires’ attacks. Lances of rock punched deep into it before fracturing, scorch marks showed where lightning or fire had entered skin, and several smaller explosions occurred he wounds. With every detonation, the creature sank lower and lower in the sky until one of the bsts lit a fme that reached into the tral body.

  As if to make a mockery of all the prior ohe body detonated in ah-shaking explosie ks blowing apart before falling to the city below. Once more, the tral spire let out an immense pulse that served to blow the remains baewhat.

  Niphru began to calm down for a moment before he realized the pieces of the beast were still over the city, feeling shod fear over the link with Dawn as she noticed the same. Simir to the earlier portions of water that struck the barriers, they colpsed uhe falling gore. While blood flew everywhere, the ks of flesh smmed down at random, crushing many buildings he edge of the city. Almost ically, the tail of the creature mao twist around and nail itself to the wall, the length of it nding in two adjat streets and somehow avoiding the nearby structures.

  While it had only been a handful of mihe city looked incredibly different. tless roofs were painted with blood, slimy corpses of monstrous fish littered the ground, and several blocks had been demolished from the rge ball of water that had made it to the surfabsp; And then, perhaps the worst damage had e from the remains. Gore dripped from buildings in a signifit area, while many had holes punched in them. Over a hundred were ht obliterated, either by simply being struck too hard or by being pletely fttened and buried beh sheets of fallen flesh.

  While they tried to get over their shock at the events and present sight before them, Morris sighed and shook his head. “They must have been fident from the beginning to have fought it off this way. I was expeg the mana ray to be used for something like this. At least most of its attacks were stopped; it could have been much worse,” he mumbled as he sadly looked out at the damage below.

  Shard