Chapter 131: The First Clash
A heartbeat before the two oceans of steel collided.
Within the charging ranks of the Penance Legion, thousands of slender Drow (Dark Elves) skidded to a halt in perfect synchronization. In one fluid motion, they drew their longbows and nocked obsidian-tipped arrows. Thousands of bowstrings groaned as they were pulled to the ear.
"Loose!" a Drow officer barked.
TWANG—!
The vibration of the strings merged into a singular, low-frequency hum. Thousands of black shafts arced into the sky, blotting out the sun and descending like a shroud of death over the Theocracy's vanguard.
Beneath the descending rain of iron, the mercenaries and militiamen of the Theocracy turned ashen. They raised their shields by instinct, their bodies shivering with a terror that bypassed their training.
"HOLD THE LINE! ADVANCE!" the officers bellowed from the center of the ranks, their voices cracking with the effort to maintain order.
The arrow storm covered a massive area, its velocity high enough to whistle. Just as the mercenaries braced for the wet sound of tearing flesh—
At the very rear of the Crusade, hundreds of women in black habits—the Battle Nuns—formed a tight ritual circle. They pressed their palms together and closed their eyes. A sanctified melody erupted from their throats—a wordless, ethereal song that wove together and rose toward the heavens.
A gargantuan, translucent dome of golden light manifested instantly above the charging Crusade. Runes of light flowed across its surface like liquid mercury.
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
The black arrow rain struck. But there was no sound of impact. Like moths diving into a furnace, the arrows dissolved into ash the moment they touched the barrier, vanishing into the wind.
One volley. Two. Three.
The golden aegis didn't so much as flicker.
The Drow officer watched the failed strike, her silver hair snapping in the wind. There was no surprise in her eyes; the volley had been a mere probe. She raised her hand and snapped it down. The Drow stowed their bows and drew their blades, merging back into the roaring torrent of the charge.
BOOM—!
The two armies finally slammed together.
The entire plain shuddered. The front-row mercenaries braced behind their shields, meeting the Penance Legion head-on. Wood and iron collided with the muffled thud of a landslide. Men were launched into the air by the sheer kinetic force, tumbling into the dirt only to be trampled into a red pulp by the surging crowd before they could even scream.
Blades bit into shields; arms were severed along with the wood. The air became a spray of blood and high-pitched wails. A mercenary had just managed to gut an Orc when a short sword threaded through his throat from the side. He stared, eyes bulging, gurgling through a fountain of red before collapsing into the muck.
Chris gripped his hilt until his knuckles turned white, charging with the crowd. His heart was hammering against his ribs so hard he thought it would burst. The noise was absolute—a cacophony of metal on metal and the shrieks of the dying. He saw nothing but the back of the man in front of him.
Suddenly, a Theocracy soldier in standardized plate burst into his path. The man's face was a mask of religious mania as he raised a longsword for a vertical cleave.
Chris raised his shield by reflex.
BANG!
The impact sent a numb shock through his arm, forcing him back two steps. The soldier didn't pause, swinging again with a roar. Chris gritted his teeth and braced.
CRACK!
This time, a jagged fissure appeared in his shield. The soldier grinned, raising the steel for a third strike—one that would surely split the shield and Chris's skull along with it.
Just then, an axe-head bit into the soldier's neck from the blind spot. The man's grin froze, his head lolling to the side as he slumped into the dirt.
Chris turned to see Block standing there, his stout frame a solid anchor amidst the chaos.
"Quit gawking!" Block roared. "Push forward! If you don't kill, you die!"
Chris snapped out of it, snatching the fallen soldier's longsword.
The battlefield was a whirlpool of carnage. There were no formations anymore, no commands—only the primal struggle for breath. The Penance Legion fought like demons, completely disregarding their own survival. Men with severed arms used their teeth; those with spilled entrails crawled forward, still trying to trip the enemy.
This "unreasonable" ferocity struck a chord of pure horror into the Theocracy's mercenaries. They were here for gold, not for an early grave.
A mercenary watched his companion being literally torn in half by an Orc, the entrails spraying across his face. He broke. Screaming, he threw down his sword and bolted for the rear.
"NO RETREAT!" an officer screamed, cutting the deserter down from behind. But it was like trying to stop a flood with a handful of sand. More and more mercenaries began to back away, then turn and run. The militiamen, having zero combat experience, followed the lead of the "professionals."
The front line was disintegrating.
Cardinal Hal watched the collapse from the rear, his face turning a dark, bruised shade of fury.
"KNIGHTS TEMPLAR! FORTH! CLEANSE THIS FILTH!"
Three thousand Templars spurred their mounts in unison. Their armor shimmered under the dying sun, and their blades ignited with a pale, cold Holy Light. They hit the battlefield like a white-hot scalpel cutting through rot.
A Penance Orc had just felled a militiaman when a glowing blade pierced through his chest. He looked down at the wound in a daze before the light consumed him.
Wherever the Templars passed, the convicts fell in heaps. The power gap was too wide. Every Templar was a Tier 3 powerhouse or higher; most of the Penance Legion were mere Tier 1 or 2 fodder.
Chris saw a Templar charging toward him and turned to flee, but a man cannot outrun a warhorse. The knight closed the distance in a heartbeat, sword raised for the execution. Chris squeezed his eyes shut.
CLANG!
The pain didn't come. Chris looked up to see Block bracing his axe against the knight's blade.
"I said: DON'T RUN!" Block roared, shoving the horse back with a heave of his powerful shoulders. He swung his axe at the knight, but the Templar merely sidestepped with an air of aristocratic contempt. The knight's wrist flicked, the blade darting toward Block's chest.
Block couldn't dodge. He twisted his body, but the knight was too fast. The steel punched through Block's shoulder, the tip emerging through the back.
Block let out a muffled grunt, but he didn't pull away. Instead, he reached out with his left hand, dead-gripping the blade buried in his own flesh. The sharp edge sliced into his palm, but he ignored the blood, using his last scrap of strength to swing his axe at the knight's head.
The Templar's expression finally changed. He hadn't expected a Dwarf to be this "unreasonable." He released his sword and threw himself from the saddle, narrowly avoiding the lethal arc of the axe.
Block yanked the sword from his shoulder and tossed it aside, blood painting half his torso red. He roared at Chris:
"PICK UP YOUR SWORD!"
Chris scrambled to comply, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Dwarf. But the knight merely drew a backup shortsword from his hip, moving with a calm, practiced grace. As Chris lunged, the knight swatted the blade aside with a simple flick, the vibration nearly shattering Chris's wrists. The knight then delivered a heavy boot to Chris's chest.
Chris hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him, feeling his ribs buckle. He struggled to rise, but his body refused to move. The Templar stood over him, raising his blade.
"For the Spirits," the knight whispered, his voice a calm, terrifying flatline.
Chris closed his eyes. He thought of his sister. He thought of the house he would never buy her. He thought of his promise to return.
I'm sorry.
SHIIIIING—!
A sharp, whistling sound tore through the air. The knight sensed the danger and tried to roll, but he was a micro-second too slow. A bone arrow struck him with the force of a ballista bolt, vaporizing his upper torso in a spray of gore.
Chris opened his eyes to see the Templar's lower half still standing, before it slowly toppled over. He looked back toward the Evernight lines.
There, behind the Penance Legion, thousands of towering Skeleton Snipers had manifested. They held gargantuan bows of black bone. Every time they loosed, a Templar fell. Their arrows seemed possessed of a predatory intelligence, seeking out the high-tier knights in the melee.
These were the elites of the Extinction Legion—all Tier 4.
Cardinal Hal watched the arrival of the snipers, and his heart sank into his boots. Thousands of Tier 4 marksmen? It was a nightmare scenario. Even if the Theocracy mobilized its entire national guard, they couldn't muster that many high-ranking archers.
The Battle Nuns were also targeted, but their personal guards—Tier 4 Paladins—stepped forward, forming a shield-wall that batted the arrows aside. The Nuns didn't even open their eyes; their song shifted to a new, higher tempo.
Suddenly, golden particles began to drift from the sky like falling snow, settling over the Crusade's ranks. As the light touched the men, their gashes knit together and their exhaustion evaporated. Even the terror in their hearts was forcibly purged, replaced by a renewed, fanatical zeal.
Hal looked at the Tier 4 Skeletons, then at his own butchered Templars. His face was a mask of grim finality.
Your Holiness... I fear we cannot wait for reinforcements.
☆☆☆
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