An hour or so later, the first city appeared on the horizon. It was larger than an entire mountain range, perhaps even a continent back on Earth. Easily two or three thousand miles wide, the city stretched up towards the bloodied iron clouds above. It looked like it could hold billions, which was probably how the realm was so filled with warriors.

  A flag bigger than any regular city flapped around above, somehow shifting its titanic bulk without having enough wind to do so. It bore a strange emblem, that of a tentacled beast, colored entirely in shining blue.

  “How do these cities just keep growing bigger and bigger?” Eliza asked. “This looks like it should be impossible.”

  “Magic?” Jonathan offered.

  Eliza shot him a glare. “Yes, I know that. But still, doesn’t it make you wonder? We were Earthlings until a bit over a year ago. Have you completely adapted?”

  “No, but I’ve seen things far greater than that city. Angranor’s bastion-”

  “Yes, you’ve talked about how large it was a lot. I mean, buildings larger than planets sounds impressive, but you have said the same thing almost fifty times.”

  Jonathan stared at her, aghast. “It hasn’t been fifty times!”

  Eliza smiled smugly. “One of the best things about high level stats is that one’s memory becomes almost perfect. I remember each one of the occasions.”

  “I would remember those times as well,” Jonathan countered.

  “Perhaps you would. Or, more likely, you’ve said it so often that it’s so commonplace as to slip past your memory. Do you often think about every one of the everyday tasks that you carry out?

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  “Watch out!” Jonathan shouted suddenly, pushing Eliza away with a sharp snap of his wrist, a wave of wind buffeting her.

  A molten spear of liquefied stone hissed through the air where she had been. Jonathan looked dead ahead, seeing a faint flash of light on one of the city’s walls as some sort of cannon fired. Even to his vision, it was impossible to make out more. They were over twenty thousand miles away from the city, at the very least. All he knew was that the projectiles from the artillery piece were fast enough to travel that distance in seconds. Or at least, they had the appearance of doing so. That sort of speed was far beyond anything that should be present in a realm like this. Even Jonathan couldn’t move any more than twenty or so miles in a second, and that was the upper limit of his speed, assuming that he had enough acceleration. Twenty thousand miles was a thousand times faster.

  As the cannon fired again, Jonathan spotted the real secret behind the speed. A portal opened up about a hundred miles away, presumably leading to the city. A blistering bolt of lava erupted forth, moving at a speed that Jonathan could easily track, now that he was aware of its presence.

  He cocked back his fist and punched. Before he could hit anything, Eliza got to the incoming projectile first, a sliver of Divinity arcing forth from her sword to slice straight through the center of the flaming lance. It split down the middle, collapsing under its own weight as the magical matrix sustaining it was sundered by Eliza’s attack.

  “Nice one,” Jonathan said, lowering his fist. As he said that, a segment of the city walls almost fifty miles long lit up with brilliant power. “Oh. Shit.”

  The sky before them went dark as thousands of portals opened in unison, disgorging a tidal wave of lava moving at massively hypersonic speeds.

  Jonathan narrowed his eyes, and called to the Void. A flood of purple power spilled forth from his elemental core, and entered his hands. With a sharp cry, he sliced his hand across the horizon. A thick blade of the Void shot out, almost fifty feet wide vertically, and a mile horizontally. By the time it reached the incoming spears, they were already close enough to Jonathan to be caught in their entirety by the technique. The spears of superheated rock crumbled apart as they touched the front of the Void blade, before vanishing into nothingness within a fraction of a second.

  Jonathan stood there, only to watch as the wall lit up again. “To hell with this,” he muttered. “Let’s take a more subtle approach.”

  “Agreed,” Eliza replied.