MIGHT AS WELL BE OP-Chapter 453: It begins

The first breach was announced not by the distant drum of combat but by an earth-shuddering roar from the base's heart.

A torn rift of violet-black light split the reinforced courtyard's granite paving, disgorging a horde of hideous silhouettes.

Soldiers looked up from their drills only to see grotesque forms, horned, sinewed, and leering, pouring through the shimmering tear.

Chaos erupted in every direction.

Warships docked on retractable pylons unleashed volleys of searing plasma and scintillating arc-lance beams, their fire streaking through the courtyard's mist.

The sky over the base lit up with tracer trails; cruisers banked and pivoted to strike at demons that caromed across the tarmac.

From the flight decks, gunners pressed gauntlet-mounted relays, unleashing torrents of compressed mana that sizzled against the invaders' flesh.

On the ground, infantry units scrambled to form defensive perimeters.

Human soldiers instantly raised their warded shields, absorbing the first onslaught of demonic claws and sulfurous flame.

Across the lines, elven archers let fly volleys of enchanted arrows that exploded into radiant blossoms on impact, scattering fiendish ranks.

Dragon soldiers, scaled and indomitablez roared as they hefted massive greatswords, cleaving demons in two.

Even phoenix soldiers, their crimson feathers aflame with inner fire, soared into the fray, unleashing spirals of solar-hot embers that consumed any chaos-spawn unfortunate enough to cross their path.

No one could say how the demons had bypassed the base's arcane teleportation barriers.

Every countermeasure had been calibrated to detect and neutralize rifts opening from outside.

Yet now, portals of shifting runic geometry bloomed at will: at the armory's entrance, within the healer tents, and even above the command tower's observation deck.

From these tears, demons poured forth with startling rapidity, overwhelming outlying pickets before they could sound full alarm.

Magic and chaos energy collided in a tempest of crackling arcs.

Soldiers chanted incantations taught since their first muster: pillars of azure flame sprouted beneath charging demons; tremorsplit shocks rent the stone under unholy behemoths; chains of binding light flickered into existence, ensnaring lesser fiends.

Their energy, drawn from raw mana reserves, burned bright and dangerous.

Yet the demons answered with their own brand of sorcery, chaos bolts that warped the air and unleashed corrosive outbursts, tendrils of eldritch smoke that choked lungs and rusted armor.

Amidst the cacophony, weapons clashed in brutal intimacy.

A demonic knight, crown of obsidian horns gleaming, lunged at a human swordsman.

Their blades met in a thunderous ring; sparks flew as metal resisted abyssal steel.

The swordsman staggered back, crimson spray painting the courtyard stone, but his companion, a phoenix sent a wave of solar ardor crashing into the demon's flank, forcing a retreat that saved multiple lives.

Overhead, warships unleashed beam salvos that carved brilliant gouges through columns of fiends.

The thunder of their cannons rolled like distant storms; columns of smoke rose where demons had massed too heavily.

But, for every demon felled by plasma and mana, two more swarmed through newly opened portals.

Defenders realized with grim astonishment that the rifts were proliferating, as though some hidden master scripted their emergence.

Within the healer tents, sanctified lanterns glowed with healing energies.

Medics moved swiftly: etheric bandages were wrapped around gaping wounds, fists pressed over shattered bone to staunch the flow of blood.

Battle-choruses of suffering groans mingled with the keening of wounded dragons and the crackle of residual magic.

Even as healers patched one soldier, they were forced to leap back from another demonic incursion at the tent's edge.

In the command tower, the officers' crystal diagrams flickered red with expanding breach markers.

High Command barked orders into comm-spheres, frantically reroute reinforcements, collapse perimeter barriers, seal capstone wards.

Yet every sealing ritual was met by the instantaneous birth of a new portal.

The realization dawned: these invaders possessed an unprecedented mastery of chaos to circumvent defenses.

Amid this storm, a base's elite Phoenix soldier emerged.

Clad in gilded armor that shimmered like dawn, they formed a living phalanx around the command hub.

Spears tipped with dragonsteel pointed outward, channeling both mana and inner auric flames.

In tandem, they unleashed a conflagration of light and heat that swept across the courtyard, obliterating lesser demons in a blinding gust.

Below them, Titan juggernauts broke through frantic melee lines.

Each step they took crushed a fiend beneath clawed boots; each swing of their halberds carved arcs of molten embers that scalded chaos forges.

Their warcries shook the very air, bolstering faltering troops and reminding all that even in this sudden siege, valor could turn the tide.

Sorcerers stationed around the perimeter lit prismatic wards along the ramparts.

These walls shimmered like living rainbows, each color tuned to repel a specific chaos frequency. W

hen a vortex of dark energy slammed against the barrier, it flared violet-white before dissipating into harmless motes.

For brief moments, pockets of calm formed behind these wards, offering refuge to stragglers and wounded.

Inside the shattered armory, gunners and engineers attempted to restore power to fallback weapons.

Turrets dormant since the last training drills whirred to life, gyroscopes locking onto targets with mechanical precision.

Steel-lined projectiles discharged in rapid volleys, staggering demons mid-assault.

The rhythmic hammering of turrets offered a heartbeat of stability in the unending tumult.

Yet, the demons pressed on.

From a massive portal torn open within the medic quarters, a rampaging behemoth emerged, its form a shifting amalgam of sinew and shadow.

It hurled fist-sized motes of corruptive zeal that exploded into plumes of noxious gas.

A contingent of elven soldiers met it, launching piercing lances of concentrated mana into its chest.

The creature reeled, but its shriek split the air as its flesh reknit, chaos energy thrumming through its form.

At that moment, the commander atop the command tower gave a single, resonant shout, an order that rang clear through every comm-link: "Activate the Prism Barrier!"

Mages along the outer sky platform converged their staffs, weaving a lattice of refractive enchantments.

The air above the base fractured into translucent shards of light.

As the behemoth tore rampage across the courtyard, these shards descended like celestial hail, bombarding it with pure prismatic wrath.

Under their assault, the creature convulsed, and with a final, great crash, collapsed into a smoking ruin.

For a breathless instant, silence fell, broken only by the hiss of dissipating magic.

Every eye turned to the shattered courtyard, where men and beasts alike breathed ragged, victorious gasps.

But the war had only begun.

Through the remaining portals, more demons swarmed, pouring into every sector: from one floating island to the other, from the training grounds to the subterranean vaults.

The base had become a crucible of fire and steel.

Spells and chaos energies crackled; beams cut through demonic ranks; blades clashed against jagged infernal steel; healers raced among the injured.

In this sudden and savage maelstrom, bred from the unknown art of portal invocation, the defenders fought with every ounce of skill and courage at their command.

And though stunned by the demons' ability to infiltrate so deeply, no soldier, mage, or healer wavered.

Each knew that this day would be etched into history: when the enemy struck from within, and the garrison endured.

In that brutal half-light of chaos and valor, the true war had finally begun.