The Seething Seas Ruler was spasming when it should have sucked it up and gone diving, not that diving would have taken it out of my range with Aquatic Spell at this point... but it could have tried to defend itself and moved a lot faster.

The problem was that the invisible Reynard was up here giving the thing a damn Psychic seizure, and the rippling shockwaves from the mental assault were shattering the brains of every single Aquatic close by.

It was flailing away with instinctive attacks and walls of water that my Shards were utterly ignoring on their way down to blasting open that crack in its shell.

-Swampy, tear it open!-

Swampy had gotten a LOT better at using Water over the years, especially with all the Littoral fighting and expectations of being able to Counter and Dispel enemy Water Magic.

With an awesome rolling tolling, the sea directly underneath us split right open with an Archmage-level Part Water. That naturally left this thing nearly a thousand feet above the sea floor as the water split away from around it.

“Lord Quake, turn it over!”

The Dragon plummeted out of his Summoning Space directly above the flailing, falling Seething Seas King and the pinwheeling bodies of its Commanders, latching onto the side of its massive body and wrenching it sideways and over in the air.

-Bring the Nail!-

There was just a gleam from far below, and then the Diamond Crystal Nail came spearing up from the sea bed as Lord Quake expertly guided the Seething Sea King right onto the point of it, and the point right into that damn crack.

There was a second krak as the Diamond Crystal Nail punched out through the neo-Crab’s underside, impaling the bastard.

“Hammer!”

Big John stood up on Reynard, raising his hands as he wove the Earth Magic around the Chaos Magic, and a Hammer with a head fifty feet across materialized above him, just ridiculously huge. Reynard dove fast, Big John bringing the Hammer impossibly all the way back, and then forward and down as Lord Quake peeled off and rocketed away with flaming wings for altitude.

The Hammer parted around the point of the Nail, and a thousand tons of stone slammed down on the Seething Seas King, driving it down further onto the crystalline spike, its carapace shattering and scattering.

“Shatter the Anvil!” I Screamed, a specific Note manifesting and instantly going all the way Up beyond audible Sound and into that Nail, percolating inside it as it vibrated madly with the tension. Readiness to Shatter warred with Tox and the Mick in the distance madly keeping the Nail together, building the tensions and the force inside it, building, building...

Swampy took the accumulated Sound and blew it out in all directions inside the Aquatic Ruler.

There was a massive shearing sound of all the glass breaking. The madly flailing King convulsed, as suddenly there were a thousand pieces of crystal extending out in all directions from inside its shell, while the seas on all sides were suddenly holed with countless thousands of crystalline splinters that had remarkable tendencies to find all the Aquatics floating in the waters there.

Vivus boiled up around the jutting pincushion of splinters, and Reynard Blinked back up above the seas as the waters began to roll back in, more hundreds of dead and dying Aquatics bleeding into the waters as vivus began to roil in all directions.

I reached down with boosted Telekinesis and yanked the dead Ruler up along with the incoming waters, the converging waves underneath it helping propel it toward the surface.

“Lord Quake, if you would be so kind as to tow it to shore,” I requested in more normal tones. The Fire Dragon swooped in smoothly, expertly grabbed one of the lifeless carapaced legs jutting up there, and beat his wings strongly, hauling the massive corpse along over the waters as I kept it from sinking, its rounded shell helping it skim the waves more easily.

Big John helped by reducing gravity on the thing as Reynard paced the Dragon easily, and I winged alongside and above them, telekinetic fingers grabbing onto the rest of the thing’s limbs.

“So... how do you think a Ruler Crab tastes?” Big John called out over the wind, smacking his lips.

“We are going to need a LOT of butter,” I replied with Voice, and heard the rising laughter for miles around.

The soldiers who’d fought were going to taste the best damn Crab they’d ever had in their lives, regardless of how much the powers-that-be might want to sell it off to wealthy Families as an awesome cultivation aid. This was a Coralost Community in Peru, however, and the national government and its forces were pathetically represented as a result.

Breaking the sucker down would go a long way towards satisfying our expenses this trip, although we were definitely going to leave the many-holed shell of the thing unvivified.

-Tox, get a pit dug for this thing. Swampy, fill the pit with the right mix of brine. Find a local crabber to help you if needed. Lord Quake and Big John will take care of the heating. I want this thing boiling and being parceled out to the soldiers an hour after we reach the shore.-

-We’re on it, ma’am!- Swampy /answered for both him and the reticent Tox.

-Nice to get the Ruler,- the Mick /sent to me. We got maybe one in eight raid leaders, as they were usually quicker about running away. -Almost as nice as getting the other fucks?-

I considered the three heads in my Pocket coolly. -That’s four attempts from the Curia and six from the Synod now. I’ve had enough of it. Sama, you okay with taking one glove off?-

-Just tell me which Archangel is going to lose his head over today,- she /replied icily.

-Red, you got the Healing covered? I have to have a chat with some heads.-

-Sunny and I have everything covered. Start the tracking,- the scarred Phoenix Mage /answered promptly. The Acropolis Healers definitely had a wider breadth of knowledge in the Healing Arts, but in combat and direct injury Healing, even the best of them couldn’t compare to a Phoenix Mage with the Fire Phoenix Emperor’s Blessing, able to turn broad Fire AoE’s into Healing magic!

Tox and his Plants and Earth Magic was actually partly in charge of Soul Crystal recovery, making sure we didn’t miss any coalescing from the full vivic treatment. They were our biggest payment here, money we didn’t have to spend on cultivation aids, especially for our Typeless People... and they really helped our local Coralost employees, too. Seven crystals, hit Tier 4, almost automatic advance to Adept if you qualified, but double your spell power even if not... what was not to love?

Sure, the Families would moan about the waste to peons instead of elite mages, but the fact was that it was a LOT of fine meat, and it could treat tens of thousands of Novices and even Adepts, really helping turn their lives around. The higher-tier mages needed a great deal of the stuff to actually benefit, and they had alternate resources they could buy elsewhere.

This was probably the single biggest material cultivation aid many of the citizens of the area would receive in their lives. I wasn’t going to sell it off to people to whom it was just another meal!

I also left quiet instructions that if such directives came down they were to get lost in the shuffle of paperwork and conflicting orders. I was absolutely sure they were coming. Heck, they’d want to confiscate the shell to make some pricey Magic Armor and Shields from, no doubt...

-Artificer team, get some plans up for that Shell to anchor an enhanced Area Ward against the Aquatics, a functioning Earth Pistil-alternate. If the government wants to confiscate it, they can pony up for replacing the Ward, which should cut the profit margin way, way down.

-As soon as the Crab meal is done, I want every Novice mage who can take Soul Crystals to be in Formation to do so. Be ready to allocate the rote Crystals out. I’ll hear nominations for passing them to the local Adepts, and for Soul Eggs, as usual.-

Tens of thousands of dead Aquatics, tens of thousands of Soul Crystals of various sizes. Although we actually needed tens of thousands of them to treat all the Stars of higher-level mages, the Mages and Archmages who worked with us were totally capable of quietly acquiring the Cores and Eggs they needed on their own, and the Littoral Zones in Boston and Baja had been very generous to all of them.

-1722 Soul Gems,- the Mick /relayed quietly. Tox’s #1 job was to retrieve all of those, and his smaller Plants were on the job over the entire battlefield to do so. The Commander-derived Soul Gems were the majority of our pay, even if we never sold them.

-Fifty miles down the coast in the Jungawa district, Jagged Blacktip Finmen have come ashore into the territory and occupied it. There’s over two thousand Commander-grade Finmen spread across fifty square miles of abandoned towns and villages, with about ten times that number in Warrior-Tier underlings. Their Ruler is flying around with impunity, finding stuff for them to eat.-

We weren’t obligated to fight Aquatics who didn’t attack us. The Beasts weren’t going to press to the shores, and the Finmen weren’t going to get too far from the water that was their single greatest defense and advantage.

Still, two thousand Commanders was a monstrously powerful force, and with a flying Shark anthro occupying the skies while any Bird Rulers were holding off, we were literally the only thing that could stop them, unless they got really stupid and headed too far inland.

-I’ll get on the resupply,- the Mick /promised, which meant he’d hand it off to Glenn immediately. One thing we did not have problems with in the present day and age was using up all the ammunition we could make, even with unbelievable accuracy behind our shots.

-I’ll bring in a Butcher team from Coralost. Start recruiting volunteers from the locals. We’ll vivic the Commanders, but process the Warriors for some hard cash and cultivation meat for the locals.-

There was an ominous turning in the Markspace. -I’ll join you for that one,- Briggs /murmured, grins breaking out all around at the news.

That bloody Shark-man Ruler was going to fall out of the sky in shock, and then it was going to die. Like the Seething Sea King, the Jagged Blacktip Finman Ruler was going to be worth a bloody fortune.

Briggs was going to tie it to the ground, and Archmage-tier magicks were going to make the fucker soooo heavy and soooo slow. Briggs would open the bastard up, and it was going to die really badly when the assault magic poured into its innards.

I wouldn’t have to be there. It would be entertaining when he started chopping Commander-class Finmen apart with Endure, too.

Sama would be gone hunting, missing out on some of this fighting, which was only going to put her into a more appropriate mood for doing what needed to be done.

I headed for our rough camp and a dark tent, already discreetly walled in to block anybody looking on, as the Synod and the Curia both had watchers in this town, at least six that we knew of.

I was pulling out the first of the heads, the dead assassin gaping blankly with four additional openings punched through his skull, when the next message came through, from back at the Compound, of all places.

-Lady Fae,- Communications Manager Stephanie Brown /contacted me courteously via Marks.

-What’s up, Steph?- We usually talked at the end of the day about things, so getting me early like this meant something important.

-We’ve received a sealed communication from the Orthodox Council of the Kabbalists, addressed to you. I opened it on your behalf, and perused it.- She /paused significantly. -It gets wordy, but they are asking for a Doctrinal Verification. They wish to know if Radiant Holy Auspicious Butterfly Emperor was the one who revealed the secrets of Light to the First Prophet of the Kabbal.-