City of Sin

Book 6, 164

Domination

Black clouds covered the sky towards the centre of the city, a dense storm of lightning raining down on the soldiers below. Each blue bolt was powered by astral energy and the laws of life; they could only paralyse the rune knights and silversword guards for a few moments, but most normal soldiers would fall to one blow. The dozen clouds formed a zone of death in the centre of the city that blocked the two guard garrisons meant to aid the heavy infantry; it would take at least ten minutes for them to reorganise.

As it stood right now, ten minutes was too long. The scattered heavy infantry was slaughtered by the shadowspears, and by the time the lightning died out the Silversword army had crumbled in on itself. Richard’s rune knights had finally recovered from the exertion and rushed in, their iron hooves shaking the city and drawing attention to the ogre in the middle of their ranks.

“I win,” Richard said with a smile towards Nyris, although there was a hint of gasping to his voice. This was the first time he had set up such a large-scale siege spell, and even with his blessings and Manacycle and all the boosts to the thunderclouds it was difficult to accomplish the equivalent of an entire mage corps as one man.

The regular knights flooded into Swordwind City, marching right up the central avenue towards the castle. The Silversword rune knights were finally dispatched, but they ran into the shadowspears and were slowly eaten up. The first collision killed a dozen of Richard’s drones, but they continued to pile on and eliminate the enemy. The knights collapsed quickly; it was only human nature to hesitate, and Fenlier didn’t give his men any reason to die for him.

Richard’s rune knights and regular cavalry rushed out in the gap opened up by the shadowspears, cutting down the remaining rune knights and silversword guards that were in the midst of retreat.

It was at this point that all of the tactics had come to a head. A day and night of intermittent attacks had tired out most of the ordinary warriors of the city, but this was no problem for elites. When the midnight war began, the soldiers had already lost morale and would fall at the slightest mental hurdle. The thunderclouds were a display of might that were meant to accomplish that, but Fenlier had even done Richard a favour by not sending out his rune knights when he had to. It thus became a war of elites, where the shadowspears and savage knights had an absolute advantage.

Richard and Nyris rose to the sky, a clear challenge towards the enemy saints. If they still didn’t rise to the fight, the few soldiers who were still trying to hold on would surrender instantly. Three saints did rise up to meet them, avoiding Tiramisu who was slaughtering rune knights without end. They still couldn’t forget the image of the Chaos Dragon, something which inspired fear even if it likely couldn’t be used again.

The strongest of the three saints headed straight for Nyris to stall him, while the other two moved to fight Richard. From the looks of it, they wanted to kill the weakest of the group first.

They really thought he was the weakest one here? Richard just smirked. Before the battle could even begin a shadow flashed across the sky, catching up with one of the saints who were rushing towards him. The man suddenly burst into a fountain of blood, his broken limbs falling even as Phaser popped a fresh heart into her mouth. Face flushing red, her aura soared.

The other saint was stunned by the death of his companion, and in his sheer terror he flew as far away from Phaser as he could. However, he quickly realised that there was something wrong; he couldn’t feel the wind on his face! Feeling a grave sense of danger, he erected a small barrier of energy before him as he turned back to look Richard’s way.

As a green blade crashed down upon him, the saint was left wondering just how Richard had covered a hundred metres in the blink of an eye. It would be the last thought he ever had; the shield was good as paper in front of Moonlight, and the single blow drained him of all vitality and sent him crashing to the ground. One could barely see a red afterglow on Moonlight as the sword was returned to its sheath.

Not far away, Nyris was fighting a dazzling battle with the strongest saint. The Fourth Prince had enveloped his enemy in a storm of attacks, sparks and flames flying everywhere as the saint was batted around like a ball in a cat’s hands. Every blow sent him flying tens of metres away, and by the time he could recover the next would already be upon him. This fight was ten times as loud as Richard and Phaser, but the opponent still wasn’t dead. Although barely able to defend, the man was slowly making his way west to escape.

Nyris quickly grew frustrated, his offensive growing more and more fierce as he noticed Richard just looking at him from the distance. However, the saint continued his defence and repeatedly tried to break through the barrage, eventually finding an opening and bolting away.

Phaser’s eyes flashed in the distance as she moved to help; of course, her real purpose was to eat the saint’s heart. The body of Richard’s enemy that had fallen to the ground already had its heart missing, but she still wasn’t full. Tiramisu looked up as well, all three eyes fixated on the fleeing saint. The ogre lord had no rune knights left to kill, and the silversword guards were too weak to care about.

Both were stopped by Richard; Nyris was actually much stronger than the saint, but he still lacked the battle experience to kill a defending enemy. This would be a good course in the same. Instead, both were directed towards Silversword Castle itself; the castle’s fall would end the siege.

The ogre lord bowed his head and lifted his warhammer once more, continuing to move forward and roll over his opponents. His thick steel armour could only be pierced by the spears of rune knights, but most of those were killed or injured with about ten having fled.

At this point, the fall of Swordwind City was a foregone conclusion. There were still 5,000 defenders left, but there were on rune knights or saints to take on Richard’s elites. No matter how fiercely they wanted to resist, they would only be able to delay things a little. On the other hand, Nyris had failed to kill his opponent but his battle had still frightened far more people than the quiet destruction caused by Richard and Phaser. The Silversword soldiers saw their strongest saint being beaten down with no power to fight back, and it crushed them.

An hour later, Silversword Castle had fallen. Another hour later, the last people defending Swordwind City had surrendered. Fenlier himself had annoyingly escaped the city with his ten rune knights, but Richard had still caught eight other lords who didn’t have the time to escape.

Unexpectedly, Fouen had wished to make up for the shame of his previous defeat and fought to the end until Nyris knocked him out. With the Viscount at his feet, Nyris took off his helmet to reveal a face full of anger. Even chasing the saint for tens of kilometres, all he had managed was to cut off an arm. Thinking of how easily Richard and Phaser dispatched their opponents, he growled with rage.

In the middle of his disappointment, he kicked the unconscious man at his feet and woke him up. Screaming awake, the Viscount saw Nyris’s mouth open wide in surprise and gasped in confusion, grumbling to himself, “Beaten by a woman...”

Nyris immediately went red with embarrassment; nothing was going right today! Not knowing how much of it Richard had seen, he quietly turned Fouen around with his left hand and punched the back of his head with the right. The impact was so loud that Richard flinched for a moment.