Chapter 186
Twin Heavens (2)
Swoosh―!
Lucia thrust her sword forward, its tip glowing with divine light.
The monster’s hide, tough as leather, tore open with a long, ripping sound.
The creature, a grotesque being with a worm-like body and dozens of arms, let out a shrill scream before collapsing to the ground.
Thud…!
“Huff, huff.”
Lucia wiped the sweat from her brow and raised her sword again. She had felled a beast the size of a building, but her task was far from over.
Her true target lay hidden within the monster’s carcass.
The corpse twitched, and with a wet, tearing sound, a massive arm burst through the innards and hide.
“Rrrr… You’ve found me.”
Emerging from the shredded remains was a troll, its skin stained crimson with the monster’s blood, its eyes glowing a menacing red.
“You… human… how did you…?”
“Do you know how many times I’ve been asked that today?”
The red troll was a demon, one of those who had hidden within the monster to approach the fortress walls.
Lucia vaguely recognized its form from the holy knights’ ancient tomes, though she couldn’t recall its name. The fact that it was recorded at all meant it had wrought significant destruction in the past.
A demon that would be a formidable challenge even for dozens of ordinary holy knights.
“Heh. You’re dead anyway. I’ll just eat you up. Delicious—urk!”
Rip!
Another tearing sound echoed as the demon’s side was sliced open.
Blood gushed from the wound, and the demon instinctively tried to gather its spilling entrails, turning its head in shock.
Lucia had already moved behind it, flicking the dark blood from her sword. She spoke calmly.
“I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard that line. Why do you all say the same thing?”
“W-what…?”
The demon couldn’t finish its sentence. A flash of light blinded its vision, and its world tilted.
“Urgh…?”
As its sight wavered and fell, the demon saw its own headless body.
Blood spurted like a fountain from the massive form, which staggered before a brilliant flash cleaved it in two once more.
Swoosh―!
The light that split the demon’s body changed direction, crushing the head that had just hit the ground.
Crunch!
The gleaming sword strike shattered the troll’s skull, and the white flames left behind consumed even its formidable regenerative powers as fuel, burning fiercely.
”…Huff.”
That made eight.
Lucia’s body, pushed to its limits by the divine tattoos, was gripped by intense fatigue.
She watched as the holy flames slowly devoured the demon’s body, then let the power of her divine tattoos subside.
“God, grant me the strength to bear the weight of this battlefield.”
As she adjusted her body’s condition with a battle prayer, she spread her senses wide to quickly scan the battlefield.
The holy knights moved like a well-oiled machine, hunting demons with success.
Lucia, known as the Demon Slayer, had nearly reached double digits in her solo kills.
Including the demons felled by Dalen at the start of the battle and those neutralized by the holy knights’ relics, more than half of the participating demons had been incapacitated.
”…”
Yet Lucia’s brow furrowed.
Despite the holy knights’ efforts to hold the demons at bay, the fortress walls were being pushed back relentlessly.
”…I never imagined the Grand Tower would fall so easily.”
The cause was a gap in firepower.
With the aerial fortress’s functions halted by a great demon, one of their major means of large-scale firepower projection was lost.
The reason they hadn’t been overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of monsters was the combined efforts of the iron-blooded army defending the walls and the barrage of spells from numerous sorcerers.
The loss of the aerial fortress shattered the balance that had been maintained between the two sides. The demons were not ones to miss such an opportunity.
Ignoring the holy knights’ interference, they aggressively pushed their forces toward the walls, leaving the second wall nearly breached.
The monster horde had advanced further inward, with the real front line now forming in the city streets before the final wall.
No matter how effective the holy knights were against demons and monsters, they couldn’t stop the onslaught when outnumbered.
“Inquisitor! We’ve neutralized the lower demon Ziltred. Please assign our next target!”
While Lucia pondered the situation, a young knight named Paren ran up to her. His face and armor were smeared with the dark blood of monsters.
The boy, who had lost an eye to a witch and wielded a sword blazing with divine power in his one remaining hand, awaited her command.
“Well done. Hold on a moment.”
Lucia shook off her thoughts and looked up at the sky.
With the situation deteriorating, there was no time to waste.
Dalen was up there, directly confronting the great demon in the half-tilted aerial fortress.
Fwoosh…!
Divine light streamed from her eyes as she lifted her gaze skyward, elevating her vision to dizzying heights.
Her domain was specialized in tracking demons.
With divine power, she could survey the entire battlefield and clearly sense and track the presence of demons.
Unless a great demon or higher was deliberately hiding, no evil could escape her pursuit here.
The traces of demons were laid bare across the battlefield.
Lucia, her head held high, spoke.
“There aren’t many demons left outside the walls.”
Most of the demons had already slipped inside the second wall, taking advantage of the firepower gap.
The demons lurking outside had mostly fallen to the holy knights and Dalen.
It was time to support the wall’s defenders. Killing the last demon outside the walls would be meaningless if the walls themselves fell.
With that in mind, Lucia flicked the blood from her sword and issued her orders.
“Signal the other battalions. Split the forces in half: one to reinforce the second wall’s defenders, the other to support the street battles between the two walls…”
At that moment, something strange registered within her expanded senses.
Thud, thud, thud…
It was a massive wave.
Thousands of presences surged from the northeast of the battlefield, shaking the ground.
Lucia’s domain was specialized in tracking demons, so she couldn’t immediately identify the nature of the wave.
But she could tell they weren’t demons or monsters, which only added to her confusion.
‘Didn’t we already bring all available forces from the eastern defense line…?’
“Inquisitor! Urgent report from the 3rd Battalion!”
A holy knight ran up, shouting. He was the lieutenant responsible for communication with other units, thanks to his divine tattoo abilities.
“A large horde of high orcs is approaching the battlefield! Estimated numbers exceed four thousand!”
Roars and shouts soon filled the battlefield, voices she had heard countless times over the past few months.
“High orcs fight! High orcs win!”
“If we win, we eat! Monsters are meat too!”
“Charge! Charge!”
Even from kilometers away, the high orcs’ cries were clear, and another presence caught in Lucia’s senses.
“Akasha…?”
The young dragon Dalen had taken from the lair of the rift’s azure dragon.
Though it had become an ally, its lineage as a dragon—a type of demon—meant Lucia’s domain could distinctly sense its presence.
Turning her head, she saw the adolescent true dragon soaring over the walls into the battlefield.
On Akasha’s back, now too large to be called a hatchling, was a load almost as big as itself.
“Ha ha ha! Perfect weather for dropping bombs!”
The load was explosives.
Specifically, a massive amount of explosives, with a stocky dwarf sitting atop them like a saddle.
[Stop chatting and drop them already! If it weren’t for my father’s request, I wouldn’t even consider such a plan!]
“Heh heh, Dalen’s quite the madman too! Dropping bombs from the sky, what a crazy idea…”
[If you don’t lighten the load soon, I’ll drop you instead of the bombs!]
The half-mad shout and the dragon’s exasperated voice echoed as they bombarded the monsters near the walls. Lucia couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.
Rumble…
Then, another tremor shook the air behind her.
The aerial fortress, tilted and towering in the sky, began to shake.
“My God, oh Lord…”
The lieutenant waiting for orders beside her gaped in awe.
Before them was a sight more overwhelming than the sudden appearance of the high orc army or the dragon and dwarf’s bombing run.
Rumble…
Boom―!
Dark, crimson storm clouds pushed their way through the sky, casting ominous shadows over the floating fortress.
Lightning bolts rained down in relentless torrents, while from below, pillars of fire erupted from the fortress’s ashen underbelly, as if in response.
The spectacle of lightning and fire clashing from above and below was like a monstrous beast gnawing at the fortress with hundreds of sharp teeth.
The fortress, barely afloat through emergency measures, couldn’t withstand such an onslaught.
As it shattered into hundreds of pieces, the sky fortress began its descent toward the army of monsters below.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sheer mass of the falling debris became a bombardment, crushing the northern flank of the enemy forces.
The aftermath of the battle between the archdemon and Dalen swept away the remaining monsters in the vicinity.
Lucia took a deep breath and spoke calmly.
“We’re changing the plan.”
”…Inquisitor?”
“We’ll continue to support the defense at the walls. However, I will act alone from now on.”
This wasn’t a reckless decision.
The balance of the battlefield, once broken, was now teetering back—or perhaps even tipping in their favor.
Only one variable remained in this battle.
One decisive fight would determine the outcome of victory.
”…Are you planning to join that monstrous battle?”
The lieutenant, who had served the order for over a decade, couldn’t miss the shift in the situation.
The middle-aged knight looked puzzled at the orders from his younger superior. Even though she was known as the Demon Slayer, the battle ahead was one only a transcendent could hope to join.
“I entrust the command of the First Battalion to you.”
Without further explanation, Lucia moved forward.
Her destination was north, where the fallen fortress had landed.
Amidst the towering clouds of dust, a fierce battle continued to rage.
Lucia expanded her senses once more. Her ability to track demons allowed her to clearly perceive the fight beyond the dust.
Until the fortress fell, Dalen had been dominating with his dual domain. But the appearance of another archdemon had turned the tide.
Dalen was beginning to falter under the relentless assault of the two archdemons.
Even for Dalen, facing two archdemons was no easy feat.
‘I won’t lose again.’
The words she had spoken a month ago echoed in her mind.
Lucia’s stamina and divine power were nearly depleted after fighting on the battlefield for so long.
Yet, inexplicably, a strange resonance filled her, and an unknown strength surged from within.
A low hum resonated as silver ripples began to spread outward from her back, forming concentric circles as she moved northward.