City of Sin

Book 7, 171

Final Battle

Richard’s orders reached all of the humanoid knights at the same time, and they immediately launched all of their javelins. At the same time, three groups rused over at full speed.

Runai’s avatar smirked as golden light streamed out of her body, freezing the javelins in mid-air. The humanoids started struggling as she focused upon them, their blood starting to boil. However, her eyes suddenly widened as a strong sense of danger filled her heart, bringing her attention to the frozen javelins which were now shooting flames.

One of the javelins broke apart, the explosion targeted straight at her divine force. Her expression darkened as a hastily-constructed barrier rippled, another of the javelins exploding right after.

*BOOM!* The noise of hundreds of explosions overpowered everything else in the world, fire drowning out all vision as the priests and clerics were flung hundreds of metres away. When the thundering and the flames subsided, the avatar was the only one that remained; even the thirty humanoids had died to the explosion.

The avatar was currently kneeling on the ground, protected by a wavering golden shield. She wasn’t injured at all, but her aura had weakened greatly and all of her subordinates had died. This was an unprecedented defeat.

The avatar fixed a frosty glare on the remaining humanoids rushing towards her, form suddenly disappearing as she rushed into the middle of their formation and cut dozens of them in half. However, her expression faltered as she saw the cross-section of one wound and realised that these drones had a different bodily structure to humans; even as she turned around, those who had been cut at the waist threw their javelins towards her anyway.

Another string of explosions converged into a thunderous sound, the powerful shockwaves crashing into the avatar and tearing away the divine force protecting her. Although this still wasn’t enough to kill, her divinity faded rapidly.

Continued explosions could be heard on the other side of the cathedral, caused by the attacks of the remaining knights. The avatar left to deal with them, but this time more cautiously as she cut off the limbs of the drones before targeting what she thought could be the vitals. All 300 humanoids were dead in only a few minutes, but they still managed to kill one cardinal and mortally wounded another, with almost all of the priests, clerics, and paladins in sight now dead.

Although the avatar looked perfectly fine on the outside, the real damage was the exhaustion of her divinity. She had less than half of her reserves left, weakening her greatly. While the main bulk of the cathedral itself was still intact, the surroundings were filled with corpses.

Rage overcame Runai’s face as she looked at everything around her, looking up at the sky to discover the two cloned brains hovering above. The drones completely ignored her sharp gaze, but as she floated towards the sky to hunt them she suddenly changed her mind and flew back into the church. The exploding javelins had taught her a painful lesson, and she had no idea whether there were any other enemies hiding in the clouds.

...

By this time, the main battle was approaching its climax. Runai’s cavalry moved forward to flank Richard and tear into his backlines, but huge arrowbeasts suddenly rushed out from amongst his troops and took aim at them. Their chests and necks suddenly rippled as they took a step backwards from the recoil, conical arrows shooting out like lightning.

The first of the arrows pierced through a knight completely before lodging itself into the one behind him, the shaft completely buried into armour and flesh. The two continued running forward a few metres from the momentum, but the movements of their horses eventually threw them off and caused a commotion in the troop. A sharp whistle rang through the sky as a barrage of arrows covered the flank, not giving the knights any time to react at all. Even the few that managed to raise their shields found out that it was useless; the arrows were strong enough to pierce through anyway.

The mouths of the beasts rippled with every shot, the arrows almost as powerful as magical ballista bolts. Even the heavy armour of the shadowspears couldn’t withstand this attack, and Runai didn’t have an elite cavalry to match. Much faster than Faelorian warhorses, dozens of arrowbeasts roamed on either side of Richard’s formation, ensuring that the flank was never a danger.

Runai’s cavalry descended into chaos. Some continued to run forward in keeping with the original plan, but some others moved away to try and kill the arrowbeasts instead. However, these beasts that looked almost like normal animals were far more powerful than they could deal with; before long, hundreds of dead knights were strewn across the battlefield.

On the other hand, Gangdor had finally met an obstacle. A paladin that was bathed in a golden glow had finally managed to block one of his axes, and despite swinging harder it took him three full attacks to defeat the level 10 knight. Three more immediately replaced the man, their bodies lit up in a divine glow as well.

The brute looked up at the pope who was floating nearby, threads of diving light flying out of the old man’s sceptre to empower the paladins greatly. Aura surging, he laughed, “Let’s see how much divinity you have, old man!”

However, the paladins rushed together and attacked him viciously. Not scared of death at all and with many level 15 and 16 powerhouses in their midst, they were able to put up a good fight. Gangdor fell into a tough battle, taking several blows that would have injured him heavily if not for the legendary armour. WIth him obstructed, Richard’s frontline slowed down as well; they were reliant on the brute opening up a path for them.

However, Richard still maintained his calm, looking at the pope and remarking, “Only your priests will become martyrs, why should you take these warriors with you? Surrender, I can promise to spare the lives of the worshippers who don’t oppose me. I can even make them citizens.”

This sort of leniency was rare in Faelorian history, but the pope’s expression darkened and he bellowed, “Today is the final battle! We fight for our Lady’s glory! This is where you die, heretic!”

“Sigh, whatever. Then I’m done playing nice.” Richard took out the Book of Creation and Holding, a blaze of light shooting towards the sky as an indescribable weight settled on the battlefield. Everyone froze for a moment as he flipped through the book and pointed to his left and right, two jade shamans immediately appearing on either side of his army.

A powerful aura of nature filled the sky as the shamans immediately started waving their staves, green light covering the soldiers of the Dukedom and reinforcing them. Be it the shadowspears or the human knights, everyone suddenly found it easier to move and felt like their energy reserves had expanded as well, their wounds slowly starting to heal. The effect wasn’t great on a single knight, but these jade shamans were an ace of the ancient elven empire. With the two of them alone, a full half of Richard’s army had effectively gone up a level.

But he didn’t stop there, instead pointing to his front and covering the battlefield with a powerful holy light as a tall and imposing blood inquisitor walked out. Holding his crimson canon in his left hand and placing the right fist on his heart, the man shouted majestically, “In the name of my Lord, I am here to judge the heretics. Where are they?”

Richard pointed at the pope, “Those who oppose me this day shall be deemed heretics.”

The inquisitor’s vicious gaze immediately swept through the battlefield. He flipped through the holy canon and pointed at Gangdor, a pale crimson light suddenly covering the brute’s body. Gangdor instantly felt endless power surging through him, howling with joy as he cleaved through one of his opponents in one go. Even he was shocked slightly by the power.

The brute quickly recovered his senses and cheered, rushing into the paladins and starting to massacre them as he screamed, “This feels great, Boss!”