BXBX NOVEL Chapter 293 Confrontation (4)
Emperor Valentin almost took out his sword and charged at Callan haphazardly. His rage peaked upon seeing how pleased the dark knight was at his murder.
"Evil! Such evil! May the heavens strike you with the utmost punishment even in the afterlife!" Emperor Valentin cursed vehemently, almost tearing his throat so that the heavens could hear his words.
Callan did not mind Emperor Valentin's cursing and just let out an amused chuckle. He was not like Duke Maxim who had a deep-seated hatred toward the Imperial family. All he cared about was following his master's orders and growing his curse powers.
As such, after a brief banter, he had already made his move and used his mana and melded it with his cursed power. The purple and green light, representing two kinds of power, intertwined with each other and formed several summoning portals around Callan.
"Men, on your guards!" Leon knew that the dark knights were already capable of doing the same things as an open path would do so he carefully warned the knights around.
In the next moment, several figures emerged from the portals that made the Emperor, Leon, and the rest become astonished once again.
"Necromancer!" The knights from the Temple who joined the brigade exclaimed as they recognized the creatures to be human skeletons and even beast's skeletons that formed an army of the dead.
In Prasinos, necromancers were like the witches, so rare and also associated with sinister magic. As such, the Temple had the most violent reaction among the crowd as they were the ones who were responsible for apprehending the reports.
They immediately took their weapons and marched in front of the Emperor, as the matter had already escalated to something within their jurisdiction.
The Emperor also did not stop the Temple knights who were led by Keren, it was much better for them to navigate the fight as they were trained to deal with a necromancer.
On the other hand, it was more important to divide his forces to search for Empress Carolina who had gotten away ahead of time.
Emperor Valentin looked at Leon and gave a nod, "Take your men and search for the Empress."
Leon acknowledged the orders and rallied the blades to search for Empress Carolina.
Callan noticed the father and son's plan to divide their forces and immediately said, "Are you thinking of getting away because you have the support from the temple?"
He casually waved his hands and another set of portals conjured at the back end of the troops' position, effectively surrounding the Imperial troops.
"Growl!" Loud ferocious roars sounded through the portals as they watched several gray wolves emerging from the summoning portal.
Leon, Olivier, and Kayden, who joined the ranks as support for curse-related injuries, looked at each other because they both recognized the creature. It was the wolves who could berserk and turn into hell wolves which were a product of a sinister experiment of merging human receptors into the wolves.
Callan also did not dilly dally and immediately proved Leon and Kayden's conjecture. He took out a crystalline bottle with the berserk potion and scattered it in the air, effectively triggering the transformation of the hell wolves.
The horrifying transformation made the knights shudder as they could not imagine how a normal-looking wolf would transform into a grotesque and terrifying creature that looked like a spawn from the underworld!
"You can freely divide your troops now, Third Prince and Emperor, divide it to deal with these hell wolves! Oh, by the way, you probably would have sent some troops to the Vesala estate, wouldn't it? Do not worry, the hell wolves might have long devoured them too!"
Callan taunted opponents yet again and took the highest point of the palace to watch the chaos happening below.
At the site of the battlefield, he was incredibly pleased with the number of people that gathered in Empress's Place.
"This is much more food for me and the Empress!" He thought in excitement.
The hell wolves have the of an A-class devourer which would already exceed almost ninety percent of the troops from the Imperial Palace and the Temple. Add the undead that he summoned, Callan was pretty confident that the Emperor had stepped into a losing battle.
"It's just too bad that I have to spend a lot of mana and cursed power," He let out a regretful sigh as if dealing with the troops below was a waste of his precious energy.
When Leon heard that the hell wolves were also present on the Vesala estate, he immediately became worried. Hell wolves were incredibly strong and hard to deal with, even with a person with peak A-class abilities like Randel.
And to think that one dark knight could summon more than ten wolves at once, how much more would the people in the Vesala estate have?!
Emperor Valentin also immediately recognized the perilous situation. They no longer have the luxury to split forces and search for the Empress with the appearance of the deadly rampaging wolves.
To think that the other half of their forces would be in a much more dangerous situation than they are in!
And while they were realizing these things, the entire army was already fighting for their lives not to get eaten by the wolves nor get defeated by the undead. It was total chaos!
"Leon…" Kayden, who had been supporting the rear guard, assessed the situation and called his friend. He took out a glass canister containing a light green ointment and continued,
"I was not able to deepen my research about the hell wolves because of the appearance of the captives, but I was able to replicate the ingredients of the calming potions submitted to you on the wolves you have captured earlier.
Of course, this one was an ointment version instead.
The issue was that these wolves right now were clearly a better version of the former, and they could already recognize their allies and enemies. There's a possibility that this potion could no longer take effect on their berserking
But would you like to gamble?"
Kayden asked Leon, it was the first time he would be introducing something to Leon without certainty, but time is of the essence.
"Let's do it." Leon displayed no hesitation. They were out of options anyway and everything at hand that could make their battle easier has to be deployed and used.
"Then I'll try smearing this to your sword and see if it could affect the hell wolves even a little bit. Let's hope that this would have some effects if not completely calm them down." Kayden opened the glass canister and smeared an adequate amount on Leon's sword, from its tip down to the hilt of the sword.
Leon then immediately changed to the nearest hell wolf and observed if it would react to the scent of the ointment.
"Nggrrrr!" The hell wolf gave a threatening growl, he looked at Leon like he was an enemy he had to get rid of.
Leon brandished his sword, preparing for his next attack. He swung his sword in an attempt to feint and carefully observed the wolf's reaction. The tip of his sword, which contained the greatest amount of ointment, came to the wolf's nose.
"Howl!" The hell wolf let out a howl of agony as if it sustained a grave injury. Then it whined like he was in torture, scratching his head with his sharp paws and shaking it vigorously.
Leon also observed that the intense bloodlust displayed in its eyes slightly dimmed. "They do not like the smell of the ointment." He concluded.
Kayden also witnessed and observed Leon's testing. So without further thought, he took the ointment and smeared it on the nearby knights who had heard of their conversation.
The crimson blades also initiated to push to the vanguard and disseminate the information for the knights to also get an amount of the ointment in their weapons. While they and the knights who had the ointment pushed forward, the knights without an ointment slowly made their way to Kayden.
The circulation continued until almost a third of the army was able to get the ointment and join the fight. It was a bit inefficient for the army, but with their determination, they were able to make it work.
Not until Callan detected the sudden shift of the battle's momentum.
Observing that more and more hell wolves were behaving oddly, he swept his gaze into the battlefield and caught the sight of Kayden, who was deeply protected in the middle, busy administering the ointment to the vacated knights.
Locking Kayden as his target, he stood from where he was leisurely sitting and immediately leaped down with his hands conjuring a spell to attack Kayden.
"Tsk tsk… You there… what you are doing is not permitted. I'd have to eliminate you in my playground!"
Callan said as he made his way to attack Kayden with his cursed spell that was formed on top of his palm.
His target was Kayden's head!