Chapter 150
“How the hell does that make sense??” Orus yelled angrily, using a spyglass to observe the battle.
The church had suffered more than expected to storm the gate, but they still accomplished their objective and broke down the barrier, as well as bearing the full brunt of the storm cloud.
What he didn’t expect was for everything else to go wrong. Not only did the light infantry fail to take the walls, but the army that was supposed to storm the opposite gate was completely defeated and fled after suffering thousands of deaths.
“Send reinforcements to the opposite gate! All foot soldiers and cavalry, take the opposite gate and destroy all those damn undead!” Colonel Orus called out to the hapless assistant at his side.
The poor man ran to do his bidding and the army moved to obey, blowing horns to let the army on the other side know that they would receive reinforcements.
‘Why not just order the troops to storm through the already conquered gate? Even if they are mana users, they will still suffer a lot of losses at the hands of demihumans skeletons.’ The assistant thought as he watched the troops move, but he didn’t dare voice his thoughts.
Ever since the battle began, Orus had been exuding a bloodlust and actively searched the enemy army, looking for the undead spirit that killed his brother. He was determined to kill the creature, along with anyone who got in his way.
The nobles in the throne hall were shouting something as they glared at Colonel Orus aggressively, but he ignored them all as he continued to watch the battle anxiously.
.....
That was why he was the first to react when the purplish black orb appeared in the midst of the priests’ formation. “All remaining soldiers, advance with me and we will eliminate the enemy leader!”
Without even waiting for an answer, the bicorn began to run at full speed, at the same time casting a fire and darkness spell using Orus’s mana. Unlike his older brother, Orus didn’t have any elemental affinity, but he used familiars that could make up for it.
“I will release you, brother. It was all that went through his head as he ran.
**********
“Die.” Was all Treevor mumbled as he teleported in front of the bishop. The gusts of wind released by the black sphere suddenly hit him, breaking his concentration and making him stumble backwards.
The bishop tried to remain alert for any sudden intrusions from Treevor, but the chained use of large-scale spells drained his focus and his nearly depleted core rendered his vision blurry and his reaction time slowed.
It took him only a second to understand what had happened, but it took Treevor even less time to kill him.
Treevor merely extended his right arm and the vine wrapped around his wrist shot forward and pierced the bishop’s exposed neck. Most of the bishop’s neck exploded from the impact as the vine continued forward, leaving only a thin strip of skin attaching the head to the trunk.
Before the body even hit the ground, Treevor pulled the whip back and continued the attack, the vines on the back of his head spreading out in an attempt to kill all the closest paladins and adventurers. Or at least he tried.
The vines had a hard time moving forward, as if there was an invisible wall blocking it. No, instead of a wall blocking it, it was like fighting underwater. The air around him was offering extreme resistance every time he tried to move.
Strangely, his body was not being affected by the pressure, but anything within a three meter radius was affected by this strange pressure.
While he was trying to understand the situation, a spear crossed the bishop’s body aiming at his chest. The blue fang moved as soon as the sphere appeared, but he wasn’t fast enough to save the bishop. But at least he wouldn’t let his sacrifice be in vain.
Treevor tried and failed to dodge, the pressurized air around him preventing him from pulling the vines back. With no other choice, Treevor used his claws to block the spear.
Sparks flew as the spear failed to break through Treevor’s claws, both locked in a stalemate much to Treevor’s surprise. Somehow, the human in front of him was matching him in strength and even though he tried to push him back, the human wasn’t backing up even an inch.
The blue fang was also shocked, but for a different reason. He was strengthening his body as much as possible, just like his brother. Thanks to their duality trait, they could flow mana and share abilities with each other without side effects.
The black fang was terrible at hand-to-hand combat and preferred to fight in his brother’s shadow, helping him with skills and spells whenever he needed it.
Even reinforcing his body to the maximum with the power of two cores, he still couldn’t overcome the power of the undead spirit. What he didn’t expect was that Treevor was also reinforcing his body with two cores.
The difference was that Treevor was wearing enchanted willow as armor and weighed over a ton despite being at human size. The only reason why Treevor still hadn’t crushed the blue fang, was that the air around him was now hindering his movements as well, while it didn’t seem to affect the blue fang.
“Too bad I can’t kill you in one hit. It would have saved me a lot of trouble if you just died.” The blue fang spoke after a while. He tried to push or pull the spear to break the stalemate, but Treevor’s grip was firm and he was gripping his spear with both hands.
The situation would be very tense if there wasn’t a disfigured corpse trapped between them.
“I say the same about you.” Treevor responded to the blue fang’s surprise. The whip wrapped around its wrist slithered onto the spear like a snake and pierced the blue fang’s forearm, injecting its parasitic venom.
“Ack! That’s foul play!” The blue fang complained and twisted its spear before pulling, at the same time conjuring a stone spike that hit Treevor in the abdomen and knocked him back. The air also stopped pressing down on him, even making Treevor’s body lighter so that he would move further away.
Treevor took no damage from a hastily cast spell, but he flew back like an arrow and threw himself into the midst of crusaders who were still stunned by the bishop’s sudden death. For all their discipline, their leader’s death was still a shock that froze them in place.
‘I’m going to use the spell now.’ Treevor spoke to Emilia through the mind link.
She nodded and transmitted the spell to the hive hawk that had teleported in with him, who immediately released the spell. Maybe it was because the spell was too powerful for the hive hawk, he couldn’t hold back even a second before casting it.
More than a thousand spikes made of corrupted mana rained down on the church’s forces, each one the size of a finger and powerful enough to pierce through rock. Skeletons didn’t expend all their mana to cast this spell, preferring to cast it a little weaker and save energy to a second.
They flew as fast as arrows, piercing the bodies of crusaders and paladins they hit without resistance.
The spikes of corrupted mana ripped through armor, flesh, and anything else that got in the way, before exploding inside victims. The corrupted mana spread out and killed anyone who had survived the blow.
Paladins were completely wiped out in that attack, while nearly 600 crusaders were killed. As the hive hawk just released the spell without aiming, some of the spikes missed their targets and hit the ground, but still caused many deaths.
“It’s the corrupted spirit! Kill it!” The surviving crusaders screamed as they turned and ran towards Treevor, but the last one just watched as the crusaders closed in.
The moment they got close enough and Treevor felt it would be impossible for them to retreat, the flower buds on his shoulders began to bloom as they drained the surrounding darkness, making his body shine like a second sun for a few seconds.
The crusaders found the glow on Treevor’s body strange and mistaken for someone casting a spell of light on him, until the vines pointed at them and fired dozens of lasers of darkness. Treevor had mixed some of his own corrupted mana with darkness, allowing the lasers to interact with physical matter.
Lasers pierced the ranks of the crusaders before Treevor moved the vines and sliced the corpses to pieces. Even the closest buildings did not escape and were cut in half whenever a crusader tried to hide behind them.
Treevor stopped the lasers before running out of energy and sent pulses of dark amber energy throughout his body, ensuring that his willow would not be weakened by the lack of darkness. The lasers only lasted a few seconds, but they killed even more soldiers than the large-scale spell.
Crusaders have now been reduced to just 1/3 of their original numbers, everything else reduced to mangled corpses throughout the stronghold. For a moment, there was only silence in the fortress, all fighting temporarily ceasing. Even fanatical crusaders found it difficult to advance after this show of power.
**********