The Defense of Eclahim (3)
“Damn it.”
Dallon cursed under his breath as he pushed himself up. Smoke rose from the holes in his armor.
“Are… are you alright…?”
A young mercenary, trembling beside him, looked on with wide eyes. Dallon shrugged. It was just a scratch.
He had taken a direct hit from the red lightning while protecting his allies, but most of the impact had been absorbed, leaving only a slight burn on his skin.
Sizzle…
The regenerative power of dragon’s blood healed the wound in the blink of an eye, leaving no scar. Through the gaps in his armor, his rock-hard muscles were visible.
“Huh, what…?”
Dallon extended a hand to the astonished young mercenary.
“Can you stand?”
“Y-yes!”
The mercenary boy scrambled to his feet, wobbling as he tried to steady himself. Around them, other soldiers who had been crouching down also rose, offering their thanks.
Dallon surveyed the fortress walls. Those around him had survived, but not everyone was as fortunate.
Screams and groans echoed from all directions.
A soldier with his lower body missing let out a final gasp, while a mercenary with a gaping hole in his abdomen desperately tried to gather his spilled entrails.
The dark clouds, a manifestation of the evil god Sume’s power, had unleashed a devastating barrage of red lightning.
The first of the three solidly built walls had been rendered nearly useless.
Crack. Rumble…
The sound of collapsing walls echoed around them. Over a dozen sections had crumbled to the ground.
Including partially destroyed areas and fallen towers, the damage spanned over fifty locations.
Few survived where the lightning struck directly.
Even those who avoided a direct hit were caught in the aftermath, with hundreds dead or severely injured.
Rumble…
The ominous black clouds began to move again.
As if the previous attack was just a taste, the clouds writhed like a living creature.
The power of the lightning within them was more than double that of the previous strike.
Dallon tightened his grip on the hilt of his holy sword. To stop this, he would need to open his domain.
And at that moment…
[Leave this to me.]
A thin breeze carried a faint voice before disappearing.
Crackle…
A strange sound, like the freezing of space itself.
The eerie sensation made everyone on the wall turn instinctively.
The first thing they saw was the spire of an ice-covered palace.
A tower, unnoticed until now, rose like a lightning rod in the center of the palace.
“Charina…?”
One of the surviving soldiers beside Dallon murmured, recognizing the spire as belonging to the special forces.
Charina’s voice resonated throughout the city.
[Efel.]
[Rachina.]
[Kasta.]
[Valquer…]
Each word was imbued with immense power.
Each phrase was like the trigger for a massive spell.
Dozens of incantations layered and resonated, reaching toward the sky.
Whoooom…
The barrier concealing the spire was lifted, and all its energy focused on the resonance.
The black clouds to the north, sensing the anomaly, hesitated just before unleashing their red lightning on the walls.
[…Statia.]
As Charina’s voice, now distant, uttered the final incantation.
Crack!
“Complete Domain Release: Guardian of the Frosted Sky”
The sky transformed.
Crackle─────
It was like watching a lake freeze over.
A serene lake reflecting the sky, suddenly turning white as it froze in an instant.
But it wasn’t a lake that froze—it was the sky itself, a miracle that shattered the boundaries of conventional magic.
Crack───crack──
The sky, frozen around the spire, fanned out toward the north.
Below, the gray clouds, visible even to the naked eye, were filled with snowstorms and hail.
The frozen sky refracted the sun into an oval shape.
As the black clouds unleashed their red lightning, the gray clouds retaliated with a storm of frost.
Boom━━crackle!!!
It was a battle of skies.
A massive blizzard surged like a wave, while the red lightning pierced through, shattering the storm.
As the lightning branched out in dozens of directions, the black clouds swelled, pushing back the cold.
An extreme cold that froze everything clashed with the scorching heat of the black clouds. A desperate struggle to consume even an inch of the other’s territory.
Boom! Crack━crackle!
From the ground, it looked like a battle between gods.
“Oh…”
“The descendants of the great spirit that ruled the northern continent…”
“Could the legend of the human god Tsar be true?”
Awe spread among the onlookers.
The legend created by the first Tsar to solidify his reign seemed to come to life.
Dallon, watching in a daze, closed his eyes and slowly lowered his head.
”…”
Charina’s domain release left a profound impression on his mind.
A complete domain release, a miracle allowed only to transcendent beings of the sixth rank, equal to ancient dragons or great demons.
It wasn’t just manipulating weather or using tools; it was replacing the very laws and structure of the world with one’s own.
Rather than feeling overwhelmed, a competitive spirit stirred within him. It was similar to when he first witnessed a clash of domains in the labyrinth city.
But now wasn’t the time to be lost in that exhilaration.
Beneath the clashing skies, the enemy forces were advancing.
“Get a grip.”
A deep, resonant voice.
Amplified by magic, it spread along the walls.
The soldiers, who had been staring at the sky in a daze, snapped back to attention at the low command.
Archers nocked arrows, and the surviving cannons were loaded with grapeshot.
Screams, whether of agony or battle cries, reached the walls as the corrupted northerners closed in, now just a bowshot away.
“Fire the grapeshot!”
Boom!
Beneath the battle in the sky, the ground engagement began.
Whoosh―
Arrows flew toward their targets.
“Argh!”
A barbarian staggered back, an arrow piercing through the gap in his shoulder armor.
“Ugh… aaargh!”
Snap!
The barbarian let out a guttural scream, reaching to snap the arrow in his shoulder. Blood gushed out, and his eyes, now bloodshot, searched for a victim.
“Eek!”
A distant archer, who had just fired the arrow, fell back in fear as the barbarian’s gaze locked onto him.
To the barbarian, the archer was nothing more than tender prey. His massive hand raised an axe to throw.
Bang!
A blast of grapeshot fired at close range severed the raised wrist.
Simultaneously, Craig appeared from thin air, driving his sword into the barbarian’s throat.
“Gah…!”
Avoiding the spray of blood, he quickly cloaked himself with the invisibility mantle made from dragon scales.
Craig dashed along the wall, searching for where he was needed. Beneath the cloak, his lips curled into a grin.
“Haha! This grapeshot is amazing! No wonder they call him the one-eyed master craftsman! This is what I call romance!”
If Dallon had heard him, he would have rubbed his temples in exasperation. Craig darted across the wall, where enemies and allies clashed.
In the process, eight corrupted barbarians met their end. Craig took a moment to reload his grapeshot gun amidst the rubble of a collapsed tower.
“Still… this isn’t good.”
He could feel the number of allies dwindling by the minute.
It had only been an hour since the battle began in earnest.
The first wall was being overrun without much resistance, largely due to the red lightning barrage just before the engagement.
“I heard they planned to abandon the first wall and had strategies in place… but this is too fast.”
He had expected the five-meter-high wall to hold for at least a day.
Click!
As he pondered, his hands moved out of habit. He quickly finished maintaining the gun barrel, loaded the paper cartridge containing powder and shot, and inserted the ramrod.
In truth, overthinking the situation on the front lines rarely yields alternative solutions.
As long as he could time his retreat, his job was to take down as many enemies as possible before then.
Craig steadied his breathing, checked his invisibility cloak, and stood up. It was time to dive back into the battlefield.
Squelch—
“What the…?”
If it weren’t for the hand that suddenly pierced through his abdomen.
“Impressive reflexes. I aimed for your heart, but you dodged.”
“What… the…?”
“Using an invisibility cloak, are you? I hear only enforcers get those kinds of magical tools.”
A voice dripping with malice. Craig gritted his teeth and thrust his sword backward.
“Gah…!”
“Oh, my.”
Caught off guard, the barbarian hastily withdrew his hand and stepped back.
Craig clutched his abdomen and sank to the ground. Following his training, he quickly poured a potion over the wound, and an intense wave of pain surged through him.
“Argh…!”
“Heh, you’ve got some grit. I wonder how an enforcer tastes.”
The barbarian licked the blood and flesh from his hand. His body was covered in glistening red armor-like scales.
“I am Dukacha. I was the greatest warrior of my tribe, and now, blessed by the gods, no one from the surrounding tribes can match me.”
“You’re… insane…”
“Soon, I’ll offer skulls and blood at the altar of the gods and become the greatest among the northern tribes. Perhaps I’ll even ascend and become a duke of the divine.”
“You’re a madman… dreaming of becoming a demon…”
Craig’s vision blurred as he spoke, shaking his head slowly. The barbarian laughed.
“Not long ago, I heard the duke of the Corpse Swamp was vanquished by a warrior. Rumor has it that warrior might be from the north. With so many tribes, it’s hard to know which one, but if I seize the opportunity in this battle and take his head… huh?”
The barbarian sensed something was amiss. Suddenly, the world flipped upside down.
The world spun a couple more times, and he found himself looking down at his own body.
In the stretched-out perception of time, he saw a gleaming holy sword and a shadowy figure behind his body.
Only when he saw the warrior standing before the shadow did the barbarian finally realize.
His head had just been severed.
“What… the…?”
“Even a headless fool can talk, huh? Must be because you’re a lackey of the dark gods.”
Crash!
Before the severed head hit the ground, a lightning-fast sword strike split it in two.