Here is this week's second chapter, the third is also comming in a few moments. Sry for the irregular releases, I had quite a lack of good idea's the last days and it took me some time to come up with something good. Nevertheless hope you enjoy this.
Chapter 83 A Church's Soldier
"Attack men, kill thus heretics!"
A commander wearing a white armour yelled over the clamor of thousands of bodies rushing forward. He himself was a soldier of the Selvia Kingdom in the eastern area's of the realm. He had served in the army for many years until eventually reaching the post of a commander, having control over one thousand soldiers.
Three years ago, he and the biggest part of his kingdoms army was ordered to march towards the kingdom. Yes, the kingdom, there was no official name for it, as no one ever bothered with it. Everyone just called it the kingdom, a kingdom in which humans and demons lived together. A kingdom ruled by the most powerful cultivator in the realm.
Of course he was worried. After all this paramount existence was ruling over the kingdom he was told to attack. If this expert was to move, not to mention him or the army, the whole kingdom would find a tragic end. After all he had already killed thousands of deities three years ago.
If he could kill thousands back then, what could a dozens deities do to him today?
Nevertheless, he followed the orders and led his men into the war. Together with millions of other soldiers from different countries they flooded the kingdom and even though they were delayed by countless formation on their way from the border, to the cities and finally the capital, they continuously advanced forward.
Even as they lost ten thousands in the great sieged on the cities, to the millions of soldiers it was no big blow to their moral. Rather the interceptions of thus so called gods that had called them to attack the kingdom, the easiness in with that they destroyed the enemies defences slowly assured the captain of their backers strength and in general boosted their troops morals.
So even as he was faced by the gigantic walls of Bluedragon city and the towering monoliths covered by their blood red formations, he was still assured by the fact, that 'their gods' would easily smash it all down. It was because of this, that he could give the order to attack, without any worries. To him, it was only a matter of time until this grand city would fall under their attacks.
Together with his troops, hundreds of similar units also stormed towards the four great mountainous monoliths. Because of the formations in the area, they were not able to fly and so they had to advance per feed, what of course slowed them down by quite a margin.
In fact, this formations were common things, almost every city wall in the world had. After all, what use is there in a city wall if the enemy can easily fly over it?
Together with their advance, the blood red scale like formations suddenly started to shine brighter. As their first attacks flew towards the black surface with it's red shining lines, huge explosions sounded out together with thick clouds of dust taking their views.
But it did not bother the captain as he continued his way, continuously firing at the more then one kilometer wide chunk of stone. As his vision worsened, he quickly extended his divine sense to make out his surrounding and even though even the divine search was affected by the formations of the monolith, he still could see up to 3o meters around him.
This was also, what saved him as suddenly the defenders started to counter. A urgent feeling of danger suddenly welled up in him, as suddenly there was fire all around him.
Cursing he quickly formed shields of qi around him to avoid being burned crisp by the high burning flames. The soldiers next to him, that were also not directly hit in the first attack also quickly copied him and together they started to retreat.
Just as the commander was turning around to start a sprint together with the surviving troops, a strange sound penetrated his ears. Out of reflex, he let himself fall to the ground and covered his arms over the head. Rotating his cultivation base to the maximum the shield around him started to buzz.
He was just in time. In the next second hell descended upon the soldiers around him. Seemingly from nowhere barrages of lightning accurately stroke down onto the helpless soldiers. Like puppets whose wires were cut, they fell to the ground only small twitches went through their bodies as their muscles reacted to the electricity flowing through their bodies.
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On the spot before the captain, a dark black hole had appeared, the grass growing there completely burned to ashes.
Cold sweat run down the man's back, as he understood that if he had not stopped and let himself fall to the ground, he would have ended just like the men around him. As he though so, slowly a yellow fluid soaked his pants and dripped on the ground.
Not even noticing it, the commander just sprang up and started to desperately run towards his own lines. All around him, the charred remains of his former subordinates and friends hidden from the view of the outside by a cloud of dust.
As he finally got out of the cloud, he noticed that he wasn't the only survivor. Other then him, there were around six other man that were also standing there their eyes stiffened of the madness they saw. They slowly grouped together, soaking towards their former posts.
From the hundred thousand men that had advanced, only six had managed to come back. Along the way, no one spoke. It wasn't that they did not want to speak. In fact they just wanted to cry out, let the whole world hear what they had witnessed, what they had gone through. But strangely, even though they really wanted to get rid of the words in their heads. The scenes they would never forget, they were not able to voice any words.
It was as if something inside of them was blocking them from doing so. Even as they knew what they wanted to say, the words just did not want to form inside of their heads, no matter how they tried.
In the end, even as they reached the church's camp, even as they knew they were save, not a single word was spoken between them. Wordlessly the walked towards the tent of their superiors. There, they finally found there words, they finally told, what had happened.
30 minutes after the first advance, all the attacks were stopped for the day. The explanation was that they had to remake their strategies as there were small losses that could have been avoided. To the troops, the official death count was 300 hundred man. Before the monoliths, there were more then three hundred thousand corpses hidden under a thick cloud of dust.
The headquarters knew, brute force would never pull down this monoliths. And even if they did manage to take them down this way, there was still the outer wall and the Bluedragon Formation to take down. To break through all this defences with brute force, they would need three times their troops and in the end, there would be no one remaining alive.
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The survivors of the massacre described the hell of fire, as the main cause of their troops deaths. They narrated, that their troops were first decimated by the fire and then only the remains were taken down by precise lightnings sticking down onto them.
But in fact, the fire had only take a small count of their soldiers life's. After all, it was a round-up strike with low actual damage. Only direct hits would cause death and as the fire wasn't actually precise, there were only few that died because of it.
In fact, the fire was only so that the soldiers panic. After all, they were suddenly completely surrounded by fire on all sides and even though it were few, there were man death around them. Of course they would feel endangered. Coupled by the fact, that because of the dust they could've see well and their divine sense was affected taking their vision from them, it was only natural that they would panic and try to get out of this fiendish terrain.
Because of this panic, their senses would dull and they would become more prone to surprise attacks, not noticing the lightning striking onto them.
Of course the troops on the monoliths knew that there would be some, that would survive through the lightning, but in the end it did not matter to them.
After all, even though it was the sniper like lightning cause by specially trained experts on the monoliths top that took the soldiers life and not the sea of fire they believed to. So even if survivors told their superiors about their attack pattern, they would only create a false image and in fact help them with it.
In this manner, without the knowledge of their enemies, a first illusion was created. A illusion of false danger that would cost the lives of hundred thousands.