Chapter 398: Kamail’s Testing Ground

“Rainbow Light Unit? Overloaded Capacitor?”

Two unfamiliar terms echoed in Bishop Lemont’s ears—words that sounded cobbled together from existing jargon, as if newly coined. For a moment, he was dumbfounded. Even without fully grasping what this ‘energy being’ was, the surging magical energy in the air pressed down on him like a warning. Danger was imminent.

Driven by instinct, he raised his hand without hesitation, summoning the power of the Holy Light to form an impenetrable barrier before him. With his other hand, he swung down his bishop’s staff with force.

“Knights! Purge the evil!”

“Purge the evil!” The twelve knights of the Church roared in unison, their voices fervent and resolute. They raised their blazing swords high, and a torrent of radiant holy light surged forth from behind them, billowing alongside their cloaks embroidered with sacred scriptures. Then, these brave and devout knights charged toward the city wall—

Their speed quickened, and with it, their momentum swelled. The once scattered holy energy began to resonate in harmony as the knights advanced. Fueled by their unwavering faith, the holy light coalesced into a massive spear of radiant energy, pointing forward in the direction of their charge. At the spear’s tip, the air shimmered with heat, and chaotic magic sparked layers of flickering, illusory flames. Even from his vantage point atop the high walls, Kamail could feel the terrifying power contained within that spear of light—without adequate countermeasures, it could pierce through the city walls!

This was the kind of power a high-level transcendent could wield on the battlefield. But none of it caught Kamail off guard.

Behind him, along the broad walkway of the southern city wall, a row of peculiar devices hummed with activity.

They were hexagonal prisms—complex metal constructs no taller than half a meter—each mounted on a matching hexagonal metal base etched with intricate magical runes. The prisms themselves were assembled from layers of rune-engraved plates and steel frames. Clearly, these were unfinished prototypes; the exposed rune plates and skeletal framework betrayed their incomplete nature. Yet, despite their roughness, there was a strange beauty to their rugged mechanical design—something Kamail had grown to appreciate more and more the longer he’d been exposed to Cecil’s magical industrial technology.

These neatly arranged hexagonal prisms on the wall were nothing other than enlarged versions of the “amplifiers” Rebecca had created—their original model being the amplifier belt that could gather and focus mana from the magic network. Their sibling devices were now used in various models of magocrystal railguns.

The charging knights had crossed midfield. The holy spear they had formed scorched the earth before the southern wall, the radiant light flowing like liquid, pooling in the cracked, parched ground. The twelve knights surged forward as if riding a tidal wave of light, their spirits lifted by fervent zeal. Their minds synchronized, and they began loudly chanting hymns from the sacred texts praising the god of light. Amidst this chorus of sanctity, Kamail raised his arm, glowing with arcane brilliance.

The technicians standing by the hexagonal devices immediately sprang into action, activating all the test equipment. The runes on the prisms flared brightly. Behind the walls, magical obelisks and massive mana capacitors lit up in tandem, along with the magic network embedded in the streets and walls.

The entire southern district’s magic network surged to full power. On every street and plaza, the obelisks emitted a low, resonant hum. Even the underground magic grid became visible, shimmering with the resonance of ambient mana. From above, the southern district looked as if it were enveloped in a glowing lattice of magical energy—all converging toward the southern city wall.

The mana resonance peaked. The amplifiers on the wall simultaneously discharged blinding arcs of electricity. Bolts of arcane lightning tore through the air, forming curved energy bridges in midair. At the focal point of this energy was Kamail, now floating high above.

The ancient archmage’s energy form was unprecedentedly enhanced. The surging arcane power nearly doubled his size. The rune-engraved armor plates that bound his form contracted inward. Feeling the pure magic coursing through him, Kamail spread his arms wide.

“The energy… unprecedentedly strong…”

On the wall, Rebecca, clutching a data folder and scribbling furiously, looked up and shouted toward the charging Kamail (in his charged form), “Stop showing off! The enemy’s already upon us!”

Kamail lowered his gaze. The twelve knights had reached the foot of the wall, still caught in their frenzy, oblivious to the changes around them. They continued chanting loudly from the holy scriptures. Kamail shook his head and casually pointed toward the tip of the holy spear.

A basic arcane missile quickly formed, screaming as it plummeted toward the ground.

Arcane missiles—the most fundamental offensive magic—usually came in two sizes: a few inches in diameter, common outside the Cecil territory, and a colossal seventeen meters wide.

This one had just appeared on Cecil’s southern wall.

Since the last aberration siege, the well-informed people of Cecil were witnessing their second “basic spell” larger than a city gate. Like all of Cecil’s signature creations, it was—

Power! Massive!

The giant arcane missile slammed into the front of the holy light surge. The raw, violent magical energy instantly tore apart the high-level divine spell that required all twelve knights to cast in unison. It proved, beyond doubt, that with enough power, even the simplest spell could lay waste to the world.

A massive explosion shook the earth, sending a towering mushroom cloud into the sky. Rising with it were the twelve knights, their holy light dimmed, armor shattered.

Bishop Lemont, standing behind and not participating in the attack, was stunned for a long moment. He stared at the powerful magical entity ravaging the wall, feeling the ever-increasing energy within it. He finally muttered to himself, “What kind of monsters are these people of Cecil…”

The twelve knights, blasted into the air by the explosion, finally fell back to the ground—though only nine landed intact. The three at the spearhead had been caught in the dual blast of holy light and arcane energy, their bodies mostly vaporized. What remained were melted armor pieces and fragments.

The high-level transcendent constitution saved the surviving knights, but their ethereal spiritual synchronization was forcibly broken. Coming out of their holy frenzy, they finally noticed the changed environment and recalled the terrifying attack they’d just faced. Horror filled their eyes as they looked toward Kamail—who was already raising his arm again, a swirling vortex of magic gathering at the tip of his ethereal energy limb.

Arcs of energy burst from Cecil’s walls, connecting to the fearsome magical being. The power he radiated now might even surpass that of a legend!

“Holy Shield!!”

One knight screamed hoarsely, summoning layers of shimmering holy shields around himself. Bishop Lemont quickly reacted, casting various divine protective spells on himself and the knights.

The next moment, a nearly half-meter-wide arcane beam swept across the battlefield, carving a molten trench into the earth. It slammed into the combined holy shield barrier, shattering it bit by bit, threatening to collapse it entirely.

Kamail was originally a legendary archmage of the ancient era. Only due to long imprisonment and changes in the magical environment had he fallen to the peak of high-level transcendent. Yet he remained extraordinarily powerful. Supported by the city’s magic network and the amplifiers, his destructive power had reached an unfathomable scale—beyond what traditional “class levels” could explain. This kind of power, completely detached from “class levels” and “skill trees,” was precisely what Kamail had been studying intently in recent times.

The amplifiers on the wall continued to discharge bright electric arcs. At the wall’s base, the mana capacitor arrays supplying extra energy to the amplifiers were beginning to drain. Magitech engineers from the Research Institute dashed between the massive capacitors, swapping out depleted crystals for fully charged ones. Jennipero led the rune research team, stationed at each critical device, monitoring changes and recording the flickering runes and other data.

After receiving a fresh batch of reports, Jennipero immediately summoned an assistant and gave rapid instructions. The assistant sprinted up the wall to find Rebecca, who was directing the experiment.

“Lady Rebecca! Director Jennipero says we need more capacitor readings! The mana consumption curve isn’t complete yet!”

Rebecca looked up, eyes fixed on Kamail, who was slicing through the battlefield with arcane beams.

“Master Kamail! We need more data!”

Kamail responded with a thunderous roar, “That depends on how long these people can hold out!”

Bishop Lemont finally understood—this was no ordinary battle.

He didn’t know how the people of Cecil had achieved this, nor why this newly established frontier had such overwhelming power. He didn’t understand what forbidden knowledge the resurrected ancient hero wielded to make these miracles possible on this land. But none of that mattered anymore. All he wanted was to end this—end this plan that had been flawed from the start.

He glanced at his attendants. The middle-aged cleric he had brought had fallen in an earlier attack. Now, besides himself, only nine fervent knights remained fighting.

The high-ranking cleric raised his bishop’s staff, summoning a beam of holy light from the heavens that briefly interrupted Kamail’s assault. Then he shouted loudly, “Knights! The time to serve the Lord has come! Those who draw power through blasphemy will one day pay the price for their sacrilege!”

A surging wave of holy light radiated outward from him, spreading in all directions. Every gravely wounded knight felt strength returning to their limbs. Listening to the old bishop’s booming exhortations, each member of the Church’s order was reinvigorated by this “sermon on the battlefield.” They shouted and howled, their eyes losing all reason, replaced instead by the blazing flames of sacred fire. As the holy light consumed their flesh and bones, these knights transformed into blazing torches, charging fearlessly toward the city walls for one final assault.

“For the Lord, we serve!”

The knights cried out the only command left in their minds. At that very moment, Bishop Lemont—the one who had issued this sole order—activated the priest’s “Swift Zeal” skill, vanishing like a streak as he dashed toward the Dark Mountains.

(End of chapter)