Chapter 97: Absurdness of a Cornered

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His injured body moved, his senses were shouting as the waves of knights coming at the monastery were getting larger and larger. He already had trouble with a few knights and ascended knight’s so it was impossible for him to face the whole brink of them without relying on his constructs. At the wave he is sensing it would take the iron egg to kill them all.

He doesn’t have the wanting to kill anyone in this place anymore. He already got his location and so he only needs to go there and end the threat of the witch. He needs to do and nothing will stop him.

The sole reason he came for was that. And fighting a small army worth of Knight’s isn’t a joke. He is strong, but not that strong to take them all down. He can hold on a few but he would have to go out and burned his magic crests and possibly stressed his organs, which would only mean death.

That is why in order to get out of this mess. He thought. What would be the best way to avoid detection at his current pathetic state?

Hiding would be useless for the Knight’s can sense his life energy. And fighting isn’t an option. Running away with a horde of them chasing after him who is tired would end up with Arden exhausting himself. He would be executed and all options would lead him to death.

He could not find a way. There was no way for him to get out being detected.  It was a dead end route if he chooses the three options he had. But somehow his head was suddenly filled with an idea.

They can detect him just by his life energy and Mana alone. So...Arden thought, maybe if he blows himself up, then act dead. Would that help?

Arden thought. It was an insane idea and even he thinks it’s foolish. But what choice does he have? He is trapped in all corners and now that he is cornered like a rat. He could only think of such absurd idea. Fighting them wasn’t an option, therefore, he could only choose the fourth option.

So with all of his remaining Mana, Arden changed his own body to Inconel. Inconel was a tough substance and with that, he relied on it. He hopes that it could resist a blast that would blow the whole monastery up. Arden was careful not to use such explosive but it was better than using the iron egg he had.

The explosive was called a thermobaric bomb that yields about 44 tons worth of TNT. His foster father had once used such bomb in dealing with colossus’s who had tough shells. He doesn’t use them without reaching a safe distance but even so, Arden has no choice.

He created the bomb that shaped like a box. The box was compressed and inside was the TNT packed tightly together. Arden then slowly worked the device. He then made sure the mechanism would activate and finally he sat on the bomb while making his body hardened like Inconel. But Arden thinks that isn’t enough and added a layer of diamond and titanium within his skin.

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Doing so made his flesh shred, his skin was gone, and his hair was completely bladed as a result. Arden felt like he was just skinned alive instantly but still he gritted through it and activated the bomb.

Then an explosion happened.

...

Sena felt something tremble in the air. It was no magic and feeling this. She stops herself, covered herself with all the Mana she can gather and protected herself to whatever is coming.

But she didn’t expect the large explosion that happened before her eyes. A cloud of mushroom appeared and the entire Knight’s who were rushing towards the monastery get instantly incapacitated.

She saw them turned to ashes and even with all of her Mana. She was struggling to keep herself from defending. She could not see what was happening and the shockwave made her kneel to the ground. There were other Knight’s that tried to defend themselves but they weren’t able to hold on to their shields and were killed.

By the time the flash of explosion ended. Sena’s was spewing blood from her eyes, mouth, nose, and ears. And her body was quivering from the impact and she could feel some of her bones broken.

Luckily she wasn’t close to the monastery.

She could feel her eyes blur. Her ears were ringing and she stands up. What she only saw the giant crater that was carved on the monastery. The crater was wide and as she stands listlessly. She paced forward only see enchanted swords of the ascended Knight’s stabbed in the ground. The swords were there, but they weren’t able to protect their masters as they get annihilated by whatever it was that killed them.

Sena felt terror in her heart. She never saw such huge explosion in her life and the lives that were lost within that single blast shook her. If the enemy was capable of such attack then wouldn’t that mean that the enemy is far dangerous than the ones in the front-lines?

It made sense to her. If someone was able to do such thing easily, then no way they fear the sun’s crown or the kingdom and their knight’s.

She felt dread just thinking how such explosion could take hundreds of lives if used in a city or a populated are like Dunwich.

She feared that the villain who did this was something that should never be allowed to live. She stood silently in dazed before wiping the blood on her face. She survived and she could feel the rest of the Knight’s who were still far away come at them.

Sena’s eyes were filled with a determined expression. The bomb should have spooked her. It should have scared her witlessly but in the end, Sena braved herself out of the fear of that explosion.

As Saclea, she told herself to never fear.