Chapter 133: The Unexpected Variable
The slaughter upon the plains raged on without reprieve. The discordant symphony of steel meeting bone and flesh being torn apart echoed across the blood-soaked grass.
Cardinal Hal's gaze pierced through the chaotic shifting of the front lines, locking onto the distant, grim silhouettes of the Skeleton Snipers. Those creatures functioned like high-precision siege engines. With every synchronized volley, a Templar was plucked from his saddle as if by the hand of an angry god.
The Tier 4 Paladins were forced to remain with the Battle Nuns, their shields forming a desperate circle to protect the singers. They were pinned down, unable to intervene.
Hal could no longer endure the sight of his elite forces being methodically dismantled. As the supreme commander of the Crusade, he could not allow his trump card to be rendered obsolete by common arrow-fire.
He raised his golden scepter high, his voice erupting in a powerful, rhythmic chant.
"O Spirits of the Firmament! Loose Your righteous fury and scour this filth from the earth!"
The golden sun emblem atop his scepter ignited. Sanctified Od swirled around Hal's frame, manifesting as visible ribbons of golden light that lashed at the air. He began to recite the ancient runes of the high liturgy. Every syllable carried the weight of a decree, causing the very atmosphere to vibrate with holy resonance.
High above, a gargantuan golden magic array began to knit itself together. Its diameter exceeded a hundred meters, with intricate runes swirling within the geometry to form a landscape of divine judgment. Its focus was locked firmly onto the Skeleton Snipers' position.
Tier 5 Holy Art: [Sanctified Judgment — Heaven's Fall].
Hal's roar echoed across the battlefield.
Atop the high ridge, Skele-Envy's Soul Fire pulsed with a violent, jagged intensity. He felt the surge of holy energy as clearly as a burn against his ribs.
I cannot allow that man to finish his prayer.
Envy snapped his bony hand upward. Behind him, dozens of ink-black spatial rifts tore open in the air. Within each crack, a concentrated, putrid tide of Death Mana swirled with hungry intent. Envy didn't hesitate; he flicked his hand forward.
WHOOSH—!
Dozens of massive bolts composed of raw necrotic energy screamed from the rifts, their trajectory aimed directly at Hal's heart. Wherever the arrows passed, the grass beneath withered instantly, turning to grey ash before the projectiles even struck.
Sensing the lethal threat, Hal was forced to break his concentration. He severed the connection to the ritual. The gathered holy energy, now without a guide, dissipated into the air in a violent, sparkling Mana storm.
Hal slammed the butt of his scepter into the ground.
"[Sacred Domain Barrier]!"
A massive dome of golden radiance erupted before him, its surface shimmering with protective wards.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
the necrotic bolts slammed into the barrier in a rapid-fire staccato, triggering violent explosions of clashing energies. With every impact, the golden light rippled and buckled. Hal was forced back, his boots plowing deep furrows into the earth as the kinetic force threatened to crush his spine.
Soldier against soldier.
General against general.
Envy granted Hal no quarter. More rifts opened in the sky; more black bolts hissed through the air. Hal was trapped in a cycle of absolute defense, pouring every drop of his focus into maintaining the barrier. He couldn't counter. He couldn't even shift his position.
The frequency of Envy's assault accelerated. Hal felt as if he weren't supporting a shield, but trying to hold up a collapsing mountain.
CRACK.
A hairline fracture appeared in the center of the gold. Then a second. A third. The fissures raced across the dome like a spiderweb.
The Soul Fire in Envy's sockets flickered with a triumphant light. He raised his hand one final time. The multiple rifts merged, swirling into a singular, gargantuan vortex of darkness. The jagged tip of a spear—vaster and more terrible than anything he had summoned before—began to emerge.
It was a strike into which Envy had poured his entire reservoir of Od. A finisher to end the duel.
Hal stared at the approaching shadow. He knew his barrier would shatter like glass. He was going to die here.
But he did not retreat. He was a Cardinal of Gusteko, a proxy of the Great Spirit. He possessed a dignity that transcended the fear of the grave.
Hal abandoned the barrier, letting the cracked dome dissolve into motes of light. He raised his scepter once more, channeling his remaining Mana toward the distant snipers. He intended to trade his life to release one final, broken burst of Heaven's Fall.
Just then—
A shadow swept over the field as a griffin cut through the clouds.
Immediately following it, a pillar of magnificent, blinding white light descended from the heavens.
The pillar manifested directly in front of Hal. Envy's black spear collided with the light. There was no explosion. No clash. The necrotic mass simply... dissolved. It melted into nothingness as if it had never existed at all.
The pillar of light did not stop there. It traversed the distance in a heartbeat, slamming directly into the ridge where Envy stood.
Envy had no time to react. He was swallowed by the radiance and launched backward, his frame tumbling and skidding across the stone, plowing a long, jagged trench before slamming into a massive boulder. His obsidian bones were riddled with cracks, and thick clouds of black miasma began to hemorrhage from the fractures.
The entire battlefield fell into an eerie, haunted silence. Every soldier—Crusader and convict alike—stopped their slaughter and looked toward the sky.
Hal shielded his eyes from the lingering glare. He saw a figure descending slowly within the pillar of light. The robes were of white and gold silk, embroidered with the Sun and the Holy Codex.
"That... is..." Hal's lips trembled, but the name wouldn't come.
Pope Hupert touched down softly upon the grass. He didn't look back at the wounded Hal, nor did he spare a glance at the battered Undead General. He simply spread his arms wide.
The next heartbeat—
A wave of infinite, blinding Holy Light erupted from the Pope's center, sweeping across the entire plain.
To the soldiers of the Crusade, the light was a miracle. As it washed over them, their gashes knit together. Their stamina returned in a surging tide. The terror in their hearts was forcibly purged, replaced by a crystalline, fanatical resolve. They wept as they felt the "grace" of their god.
To the undead, however, the light was the end of the world.
Thousands of Tier 4 Skeleton Snipers began to scream in a silent, soul-shredding agony as the light touched them. Black smoke erupted from their joints. Their bones became brittle, purifying and disintegrating into fine heaps of black ash. Under the absolute suppression of the Pope's presence, even the Empire's "Undying" attribute failed to trigger.
In the span of a few breaths, the elite long-range unit that had decimated the Templars was wiped from existence.
The other creatures of the Penance Legion—the Orcs, Drow, and Goblins—were not purified, but they felt a crushing weight settle upon them. Their movements became sluggish, their strength bled away, and the very desire to fight was stripped from their souls.
On the high ridge, Envy struggled to his feet. He looked at his broken frame; under the pressure of the Holy Light, his regeneration was moving at a snail's pace.
He looked at the field. His army was gone.
For the first time since his naming, Envy's Soul Fire fluctuated with a chaotic, unreadable tremor.
Intelligence failure.
A catastrophic intelligence failure.
The Pope of Gusteko had ignored every law of political decorum to descend upon the battlefield in person. This was no longer a conventional war.
I've failed, Envy realized. I've completely botched this.
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