Day 13 - Midnight.
The date had changed after the clock went past midnight. In the Tomb, a great battle was raging. For the combatants of the Silver Legion, every second was a matter of life and death. Half of their members had already fallen.
Holy Inquisitor Malcolm fought valiantly like a god of war but three Level 5 were too much for him. Vestal Mita and Ash Priest Shay, the two Level 4 pillars were on their last legs as well. Blood Exarch Ursula and Lim matched them blow for blow. The rest of the legionaries were outnumbered by the continuously arriving demons from the opened Hellgates.
Wounds taking their toll, prospects getting increasingly negative.
The Silver Legion faced the possibility of total annihilation.
As if that was not enough, the Demon King’s left eye had started to awaken to its full strength. The now towering mass of meat emitted an invisible pulse that everyone felt. Half of the church’s personnel fell down, holding their heads and screaming excruciatingly. The other half managed to defend against the mental attack but not completely, even Malcolm was affected.
So much power from a mere fragment. The Demon King’s tales of dread are not exaggerated!
Tobias and Haghen didn't let the chance slip through their fingers. Tobias conjured an upside-down volcanic mountain in the air and sent it falling down on his enemy while the newest Level 5 shot a gigantic five-colored twister of crystal dust that made crackling sounds from his hands.
“Arte - Angel’s Aegis!”
The armored angel avatar behind Malcolm turned almost corporeal as he deployed the strongest defensive Arte in his arsenal. His body was encased in a sphere of white light.
The shield met the attacks and a deafening sound resounded throughout the sealed space as the spider nest crack appeared in the air, getting bigger very ominously.
Ursula was huffing and coughing out blood while looking at the unconscious Ash Priest half-buried on the wall. They were almost equal in strength but the priest’s multiple assists on the lower leveled legionaries tipped the balance to Ursula’s favor. She glanced at the other battle between Level 4 and found Lim also victorious against Mita.
“Finish it,” Mita said defiantly. The bleeding on her shoulder flowed like a river. She was bound in place by chains of metal.
“For what it's worth, I also still consider you a friend,” Lim’s hand glowed with yellow light.
“I’ll kill you if you touch her!”
A young Level 2 girl stepped forward, placing herself between Mita and Lim. The teenage girl had a red flower hairpin on her hair. Her body was covered in wounds but her grip on her rapier was still strong and steady, pointing it at the Level 4.
“Rose, get out of here!” Mita said, perplexed.
“No, I won't let my master die!”
“Master, eh? To be able to make your disciple willing to die for you, still popular as always, Mita.” Lim observed the drama.
“He’s not your match. Don't throw your life away. There’s still much you can offer to the world,” Mita persuaded her usually obedient student, hoping she would see reason.
“You always teach me to follow what my heart tells me,” the girl’s body glowed with green light, her power rising. Just like him, Rose thought. “And my heart tells me this is where I should be!”
The rising power from the body of a Level 2 Pathseeker was abnormally high, Lim raised an eyebrow. Not about the wood attuned Victa the girl emitted, but about something else.
“A Blessed,” Lim muttered. “But still too weak. An angel’s blessing does not make you invincible, little girl,” he smiled.
The crisp sound of a space torn washed over the battlefield. A figure fell, bloody and hurt. Tobias and Haghen slowly descended on the near-death inquisitor.
“Any last words?” Tobias cackled mockingly.
“KHHHEEEEE!” The tower of flesh that housed the Demon King’s left eye screamed again.
Their leaders defeated, the Demon King’s fragment was unsealed, demons kept coming from Hell, the legionaries' hearts sank to the absolute bottom.
All seemed lost, many resolved themselves for a last fight to the death.
It began, with the soft opening sound and a single point hanging in the air.
Turning into a portal made of light.
Three figures walked out from the blinding light. Two Level 5s and one Level 3.
Seeing the familiar figures, hope bloomed again for the legionaries.
“How? This is not possible!” Blood Vicar Tobias gnashed his teeth.
One of the Level 5 was a woman while the other was an old man. The woman’s voice thundered on the silent battlefield. The last of the three was a young woman not yet twenty years old.
“Stand! Stand tall, warriors of Light! We are the bulwark between the terror of the dark and all that is good in this world. We have done so for thousands of years without failure and we will not fail now. Light eternal!”
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Tens of portals opened the moment Flavia Marianus, Supreme Commander of the Silver Legions rekindled the fading spark of hope. Like a tide, an army of silver-clad warriors charged through. Steel and magic in hand, they met the forces of evil like a hammer striking an anvil.
“LIGHT ETERNAL!”
The legions roared as one, the vanguard and the reinforcement both.
The Blood Church’s leaderships weren't able to keep calm in the face of such a righteous force. The tide was turning. As light glowed stronger, darkness was chased away.
Flavia Marianus, Gregory Simon and Freya Marianus also preparing to join the fray.
“Last chance to back out, Buttercup,” Flavia said.
“Grandma!” Freya replied with a dismayed expression to her childhood calling name but returned to normal soon enough. “I too am a member of the Silver Legion. How could I back out now?” Freya resolutely said.
Flavia felt a hard pride for her answer despite the conflicting desire of the grandmother inside her.
“Gregory...”
“Relax, I’ll keep her safe.”
Flavia nodded, thanking her friend from the same generation before drawing out her sword. “Let’s clean this place up.”
“KREEEEEE!”
Among all the combatants, only the Demon King’s fragment found joy in the new arrival. Its otherworldly shriek conveyed a challenge to everything and everyone.
***
“By my authority as your master, I now free you from slavery,” Irkun said from his own mouth. Viers was standing beside his puppet while watching the women of many races looking at both of them confusingly.
They were Irkun’s slaves. Women that he collected for… nefarious purposes. The order Irkun just said didn't make sense for those who know Irkun’s personality but they all felt the slave seal restricting them dissolved.
“Now go away immediately. You’ll be in danger otherwise,” Irkun spoke as if reading from a script.
The twenty former slaves had mixed responses. Some were glad and weeping from the freedom, some realized the man standing beside Irkun was the one responsible and thanking profusely, some took a more drastic approach.
“DIE, you piece of shit!”
Viers stopped a woman he suspected from a tiger tribe beastfolk from slitting Irkun’s neck with her claws.
“Why are you protecting him!?” She cast a disgusted glance at the masked Viers.
“Killing him will brand you with a tracker mark from at least a Level 4,” he answered.
“I don't care. Do you even kno-”
“Enough,” Viers cut her off. “Leave immediately because I have too many things to do. Don't waste the life you’ve regained.”
Viers let loose his Victa to pressure them to leave. He didn't have time to deal with them, no matter how callous that sounds. None of the former slaves were Level 3 and the Level 2s felt Viers was much stronger than them. With Viers establishing the pecking order, the women calmed down somewhat.
And then, because Paina became noisy in his head, and the sympathy remaining in his villainous black heart, Viers threw a pouch full of gold coins to the most mature-looking slave.
“That should be enough to cover the immediate expenses for you all. Now go. It’s going to get dangerous.”
After the slaves, Viers sent the non-Pathseeker servants away. They were people just working on the mansion. Viers didn't want them to get involved. He also released the captured people that were supposed to reinforce Irkun in the Tomb. Viers sent them away more curtly than the slaves.
Continuing on, Viers stepped into a hall filled with the black cloaked people after Irkun walked in. The Deathsworns were the private army of the Marakkus family. When the family needed something dirty done, they ordered these people. Their mind was programmed to not defy the order from their masters.
Not much different from slaves.
There were a dozen Level 3 Deathsworns here, a mere fracture of the whole. Proof of how much power a line of Governor-King was. The resources needed to raise these people were very extensive.
“I order you to do what the person next to me says, whatever it is,” Irkun said.
“Yes, master,” they said uniformly.
Viers took a step forward, making a grandiose pose of covering his left eye with his hand before releasing it.
“Lelouch Viers Britannia commands you… All of you, die.”
A heartbeat of silence and blood flowed. Each of them died by their own hand. The room bloomed with splashes of red.
Viers watched the aftermath with regret. He very much wanted them to say ‘Yes, Your Highness!’ before dying. Alas, not everyone was a man of culture such as him.
After removing the hostiles from the board, Viers raised his hand facing up in front of him as if holding an invisible cup.
A dozen souls of Level 3 Pathseekers were gathering above his palm. He closed it after the harvesting was completed and twelve new souls were added to his Soul Prison.
Hmn?
For the first time ever, Viers felt full. As if his soul was filled to capacity.
So there’s a limit of how many souls I can store inside me. The strength of the soul also played a factor.
After proving his royal hegemony, Viers opened the window in the room and closed it, repeating the action three times. After the signal was sent, he entered the next room. There was only one person waiting there, Takju, the Level 4 giant slave.
Now what am going to do with you, Viers wondered.
Takju and Irkun stood still like statues, Viers was firing neurons in his brains, then a person joined the three in the room.
“Master, I came.”
“Yes, very good, Boram.”
Viers placed Boram on standby nearby the mansion. In case there were no storage items he could use, Viers might need to haul the loot the old fashioned way. It didn't matter now but Viers liked to be prepared.
As per the code, Boram brought Viers his equipment. Viers was happy having Guren Muramasa on his waist once more, along with the rest of his gear.
“All right, here’s what we're gonna do,” Viers had decided.
***
Alan ran in a narrow corridor underground. The mansion was compromised. The Deathsworns were dead without resistance, the vault was pillaged to the last rock, and Irkun was found dead.
The cause of death was drowning… in a chamber pot.
Alan caught the trail of the perpetrator of the whole incident. They went through a hidden passage under the mansion. It was supposed to be for evacuation in case of emergencies, the rich often had such passage under their dwelling.
The trail was too obvious so it must be left on purpose.
After a long twist and turns throughout the tunnels. Alan arrived at a spacious area. An underground cavern filled with soft blue illumination.
It was filled with mana because of the existence of the spirit spring that the city tapped for resources. The spring was like a small underground lake.
On the bank, stood a man in full battle gear. He was showing a thick battle spirit.
Alan knew the identity of this man, even though his face was hidden by a helmet.
“It’s payback time,” Avel of Javia drew his exotic sword and enacted a boss battle.