A dragon's silhouette swept above the blood-soaked earth.
His army marched below, flames trailing from their heels.
Bell moved at their forefront, and the Rakian army moved to meet him.
Thousands of men charged toward him—a sea of madness, insanity, and humanity's base desires.
More monstrous than monsters. More animalistic than beasts. More savage than savages.
Bell took another step forward. Embers crackled, leaving a smoldering trail in his wake.
A soldier at the vanguard had his pupils constrict as Bell materialized ahead of him. He dug his heels into the soil, desperately trying to drag himself to a halt.
He skidded to a stop mere inches away, his eyes meeting Bell's ruby-red pupils.
Those eyes did not waver, did not judge, did not hesitate.
A shower of arrows screeched through the air from left, targeting Bell, his army, even Astraea and Ryuu.
Bell's gaze remained locked on the frozen soldier. His free hand came up, fingers spread toward the hail of arrows.
Scorching petals bloomed. One. Five. Seven.
Those petals expanded wildly, morphing from a small lotus into a colossal shield that enveloped his army's flank.
Steel arrows collided with it in a relentless torrent. Each shaft melted on impact, sliding down in a flood of liquid metal.
The soldier ahead of him tried to open his mouth to scream. He could not.
Bell split him down the middle with a single stroke of his blazing sword.
Another storm of arrows shrieked toward them from the right.
Before they could reach their marks—
ROOOOAR
A draconic roar shattered the sky.
The dragon above erupted with a flaming breath toward Bell's right flank.
Arrows. Soldiers. Earth.
Everything disintegrated into ash. A ravine was carved for hundreds of meters, etched into the ground like a scar that would never heal.
His fire army had already crashed into the Rakian vanguard like a tide meeting a wall. Flame clashed against steel on all sides, tying down most of the enemy force.
But some slipped through.
Three foes reached Bell. A spear spiraled toward his head. A sword swung for his neck. A halberd hurled at his heart.
He ignored them.
A burning sword parried the spear. A katana of fire intercepted the blade. A blazing dagger deflected the halberd.
He was not alone. He had an army now.
His heart beat. Steady. Anchored.
Something else beat alongside it—a rhythm beneath his flesh, beneath his flames. Golden threads rotated deep within his eyes.
An uncountable number of golden paths extended from his heels, winding through thousands of Rakia soldiers.
He swung his sword. A soldier was bisected.
Another swing—a head left its shoulders.
The carnage blurred. Chop. Scream. Slash. Warm blood painted his armor in layers, each spatter indistinguishable from the last.
With every motion, the golden paths in his vision unraveled, twisted, and reassembled.
His sword flashed, its length falling just short of a person to his left. The man never had a second to react before Bell's blade flattened and curved into a white-hot spear, piercing his heart.
A battle axe screeched toward him from right. The spear in his hand elongated from its base, shaft curving behind his back in a wide arc before sliding into his right grip. Its opposite end sharpened, morphing into a fiery halberd that deflected the axe aside.
Two more figures attacked from opposite sides. Bell drew his arms close, gripping the hybrid weapon.
Sparks burst as he snapped the shaft in two. He had two weapons now.
One spear. One halberd.
One for the left. One for the right.
One to pierce. One to sever.
Both assailants at his sides fell before his weapons even finished flashing.
More bodies closed in. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
He hurled both the spear and halberd simultaneously. They carved twin lines through the swarm and detonated.
Rakia soldiers were thrown in all directions. Burnt. Bloodied. Broken.
Bell moved on.
Blood dripped from his armor. His hands did not tremble.
This is what I chose.
His left foot slid half an inch forward. He pointed two fingers at the screaming horde ahead while his other hand pulled back.
Crimson and demonic black flames coiled around themselves, stretching into a thin arrow nocked on a bow of pure fire.
A phantom of the Goddess Artemis loomed behind him, mirroring his stance. Her expression was composed, her eyes piercing, her posture uncannily similar to his own.
Both loosed their arrows in unison.
Arrow of Orion greeted the world in a new form. It vanished amidst hundreds of soldiers, uncoiling an instant later—surging from a compressed projectile into a hurricane of dualistic flames.
It carved through the Rakian ranks like a natural disaster unleashed to hunt. Air ignited with successive booms. Soldiers howled as their armor melted, fusing to their skin and suffocating them until their breaths vanished entirely.
Magic.
Frost. Water. Earth.
Every elemental attribute lethal to fire erupted from the Rakian backline, hurling straight toward Bell and his army.
The bow in his grasp had already morphed into an enormous labrys traced with crimson and black. He dragged it forward with a single hand, carving a deep trench into the earth.
The volley of spells was just about to reach them when a voice rang out from their own ranks.
"Luminous Wind!"
Ryuu walked behind Goddess Astraea, her hand pointed forward, surrounded by countless blazing silhouettes.
Green stardust floated above Bell's army, coalescing into a massive swarm of spheres.
They launched a fraction of a second later, colliding with the enemy spells and nullifying them mid-air.
Barely a second passed before an enormous orb of volcanic rock was launched from a ballista, hurtling straight toward Goddess Astraea from their flank.
She glanced at it.
Her steps did not falter.
Hundreds of burning beings surged to her side, raising their shields of cinder to protect her.
She didn't look at them. Instead, she looked ahead, focusing on the back of the boy walking ahead of everyone else.
As if sensing her gaze, Bell's free hand snapped toward that tearing projectile.
A chain of embers ignited from his palm, expanding and twisting like a serpent as it raced after that rock.
The boulder crashed into a wall of emberlit shields just yards from his Goddess.
She did not look toward it. She did not need to.
Just before it could breach the shields, a crimson-black chain wrapped around the rock, halting it dead in its tracks.
Veins bulged along Bell's neck and arm as he pulled on the chain, teeth gritted. With a brutal heave, he hurled the rock skyward.
RAAAAAAWR!
The dragon dove from above, snatching the massive boulder with its talons, and beat its wings.
BOOOM!
Sound barrier shattered as it rocketed over the enemy lines, dropping that rock straight onto their backline.
Below, terrified troops scrambled and ran, discarding all sense of unity. They trampled one another in a desperate bid to survive.
BOOOM!
The sound of impact rumbled in the distance as Bell continued to drag his labrys forward. His ears rang. The earth beneath him was still trembling.
Every golden path across his vision had mysteriously vanished.
No. They hadn't.
An innumerable number of golden paths had superimposed over the sky, merging into a single, blinding line.
He did not need to follow golden paths to find victory.
The very sky he walked under was...
Victory.
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
All I see is Victory. All I hear is Victory. All I can ever be is... Victory.