Darkness Consumes, Raging Fire
It wasn't just the enemy's central building. Everything was fired with shells similar to the enemy cannons but different in their properties. The moment they were shot, they were already at maximum size and had a destructive aura around them. It was more controlled but also smaller and more fear-inducing. The moment these new enemy cannons fired from the small City, the fortifications Heian Ciemnosc was still inside were razed to the ground with debris, grass, rocks, and dirt waving and soaring into the sky from every impact.
The building Heian Ciemnosc was in broke apart immediately under a few shells landing nearby, their bodies covered with energy that blasted everything it touched vehemently. Its walls didn’t even resist the explosive waves, let alone the moment the shells’ tumultuous area of effect expanded a little underneath and shook the land. Heian Ciemnosc, who was rolling and his body jerked in many angles nonstop, could feel its power as he used his dark Power Energy to enhance his body to no avail.
After the shelling, Heian Ciemnosc seemed to finally start waking up. He didn’t lose consciousness, but the hits and movements were a first. And that was even after receiving training in the Crimson Breaking Faction’s Carrier. 2 meters under rubble, dirt, and rocks, Heian Ciemnosc’s back unhurriedly raised as he pushed himself against the smooth and strangely solid ground. It was somewhat warm, but not immediately that it would hurt his hands despite the disordered pure energy around him.
“Team leader!!”
As he did, Heian Ciemnosc heard Violet’s voice as she and another few hundred seemed to rush towards him. At least, that’s what he understood from his Spirit Sense. Heian Ciemnosc’s body appeared in their eyes, and they coursed to see him. When they encircled him, worriedly, Heian Ciemnosc was all dusty, and even his paleness was slightly turned gray. His darkest eyes, ptichest-blackest hair, Claws Out and Vocón Link were still as dark as always.
“Team leader, are you alright?” - “Team leader, how are you feeling?” - “Do you wanna vent?”
Heian Ciemnosc was slightly bombarded with questions as his slightly dizzy mind cleared up. He saw more than 1,000 people under his command around and before him, looking at him with concern but respect as he raised from a thick layer of debris. Looking at his surroundings, he noticed his left arm was completely limp, his back showed his spine from right below the nape to the tail bone and his shins from the back.
“What’s been happening now?” Heian Ciemnosc asked after noticing it wasn’t just him or the fortification he was in. This wasn’t the enemy targeting him with such a powerful arsenal, but the enemy’s new, gigantic cannons aiming at their fortifications and destroying them with as many student troops as possible. His COs looked at him and spoke with some hurriedness in their voice. “We must first evacuate and rejoin the fight after 2 hours. We’re momentarily being relieved until we catch our breath. However, the transporting ships can now bombard, and they’re at it. But only those without any more student troops are allowed to.”
Heian Ciemnosc didn’t feel like sending his Spirit Sense into his Covert Space bag and was thankful to them for telling him. He was too focused on healing back as he began sensing tingling sensations all over his left arm. If he was an ordinary cultivator, even in the Spirit Rebirth realm, he might’ve just lost an arm then and there. Even more so as he knew he was under the rubble for 10 minutes. That should be enough to get some harm done to the body, even to him.
“Let’s go, we’re not done here yet,” Heian Ciemnosc said and commanded his troops back to the accorded landing zone. Since the fortification was secure, they just had to dash for a few kilometers before finding their vessel waiting for them. His COs nodded, and the other teams under him followed suit. They rapidly became one of the many small or more prominent groups rushing to be evacuated.
Although they had practically won this battle, and the enemy was eradicated, more than enough parts of the enemy’s troops were gone forever. The Academy also suffered casualties. More than 30,000 student troops perished by the end of the first round. Heian Ciemnosc counted them. Those injured were mainly from the bombardment, those who did not manage to run away in time or were reached by loose debris shooting at a worse speed than the shells themselves.
Only around 10,000 casualties came from the battle itself. The rest were all about the enemy’s sudden self-sacrificing bombardment, which took them even more by surprise and doubt than the enemy’s elite troops. It could be seen just how prepared ye still struck back were the elite student troops. However, the same results wouldn’t happen after returning and reporting the situation. It wouldn’t be only for fighting the enemy better and suffering less but also for avoiding those very likely bombardments in the future.
As they returned, the rest of the transporting ship’s army saw Heian Ciemnosc nice and alive. He didn’t truthfully look okay but had the same aura, temperament, and determined will. Seeing Heian Ciemnosc, the confused, tragic, and lost gazes of some recuperated, their eyes shone a little, and their hearts settled down. The fight… would still continue!
As for his limp arm, and soul stirring, creepy image from his back, they were just shows of endurance and might, nothing more in their eyes.
. . .
3 days later, still in the battle on the small City’s outskirts and destroying the fortifications. Heian Ciemnosc was now 15 years and 11 months old, only a few days from the second week of the month. While the war was a few short days from turning 6 months old.
Compared to anything he experienced, this war was the most intense, swift, and self-destructive than any other Heian Ciemnosc had previously taken part in. From their way to the Endless Desert Division, slowly and steadily taking the enemy on the way down. To the sudden, abrupt return to the Academy’s territory after going through hardship and many injuries, experiences, events, and learning. It was all a journey for him and for many.
During the following days, the Wrath Nihility Academy’s armies learned how to fight the enemy’s elite troops, but so did they gather enough information and share their experiences dealing with the elite student troops through their own improvised medallions before dying at the latter’s hands. However, with sheer numbers, better equipment, and their cultivation base’s stabilization and foundation, the student troops were always at an advantage against these traitors.
On the first day, several hundred thousand elite student troops perished from the several million in the First Step. There was nothing else going on other than the brutality of war. If the enemy had a couple tools or a device for protection, this casualty rate would increase by several layers without a doubt.
On the second day, these appalling numbers decreased to tens of thousands. Most were caused by the battles against the enemy’s elite cultivator troops. The enemy bombardments no longer had a crucial effect on the student troops. Be it mentally or with a certain number increasing. On the third day, this number was further lowered to thousands, with nearly every casualty belonging to an enemy’s hands and not their shells.
And finally, on this fourth day, Heian Ciemnosc led his more than 1,500 troops into another enemy’s fortification. They were like rats and cockroaches. But despite attacking the enemy at all times during the day and night, with student troops at most intervals and using transporting ships after the enemy’s fortifications were obliterated. The enemy could still form a dozen new fortifications from the small City and send another batch of elite cultivator troops to garrison it.
No matter how many fortifications the Academy had destroyed by now, the enemy's hidden forces consistently expended their manpower and resources to keep stalling for time, clearly looking to be allowed to live after causing so many atrocities to the Wrath Nihlity Academy. And, even if they didn’t want to accept it, everyone in the army could notice this one notion.
They had been fighting for half a day’s worth of battle. Heian Ciemnosc looked up to the sky to see the lights of the blue morning sky sometimes flash with a sudden glow. He didn’t know how it was going, but it felt like the enemy was putting more pressure on the Academy. While the Crimsonbreaking Faction seemed occupied somewhere else, where the battle was sure to be more intense, heaven-shaking, and of grand escales.
“.... sigh…” At this very moment, Heian Ciemnosc brought his team to the current fortification’s outskirts, planning to leave as he turned around and watched the few thousand meters tall tower with an artillery piece the size of a 10-story hotel in width and about 40 meters tall. It was within the enemy's small City, and its barrier made it look as if it was hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Heian Ciemnosc watched as a few aimed at the fortification they were evacuating from. It was about to start all over again. The enemy was relentless, not seemingly.
“Team leader…” Heian Ciemnosc heard Violet’s voice and turned around to see her frown. He quickly checked the heated medallion’s message, and his countenance changed. It was a simple order: to walk to another fortification still not targeted by the enemy’s colossal artillery and aid the rest of the groups from that army to safely retreat… at once. They were returning to the Academy, and negotiations with the enemy were being discussed by the upper echelons.
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“... Sigh, let’s go.” Heian Ciemnosc maintained his silence for a few moments before saying as he dashed forwards with his 1,500+ troops following him dutifully and without recklessness. They were tired and felt less spirited now that they received this message, but their team leader didn’t signal to retreat, so they continued. Even with such conditions, Heian Ciemnosc’s people had a steeled heart, not losing their determination just because of one sole thing.
Dash~, dash~, dash~, dash~... … …-boom boom… … boom… … …boom.
The small group advanced forward, leaving the fortification behind with explosion sounds going off as they departed. They rushed to a nearby fortification amidst the raining enemy shells from the small City stomping the ground around them but ignoring them. Afterwards, they entered the fortification through the upper holes in the enemy’s protective array formation. Thus, the cleaning of this fortification commenced, and those fighting here became high in morale due to their arrival.
… Soon, it was time for Heian Ciemnosc’s small group to help evacuate these sub-commanders’ groups. After fighting close to an hour, the enemy was taken down, and the enemy's colossal artillery guns began tweaking. Just like before, when he first sensed it, the earth trembled as what Heian Ciemnosc thought to be several hundreds of shells being moved at the same time underneath began.
Feeling the artillery gun about to start firing with what Heian Ciemnosc believed to be safety contraptions holding onto those humongous towers so it wouldn’t destroy part of the small City when it fired, Heian Ciemnosc once again felt like sighing when…. Suddenly!
Whoooooooosh. Swish- rustle, fwuuu–op… BAMMM- Phhshk! Ckrsheeeeeerrrrr-...
Heian Ciemnosc’s Spirit Sense suddenly caught to a tiny blade of grass ruffled through by nothing! The moment he discovered it, as if realizing he had noticed, a figure flew through the air. Heian Ciemnosc detected it first and foremost, but his COs and the sub-commanders walking a few meters beside him caught on it only after the figure flew through the air.
It was a cultivator. One with a especial, intricate, personal concealment array formation cloaking him. Heian Ciemnosc could even see and smell the layer of inscriptions as they came off this Spirit Rebirth realm 1st stage cultivator. He was enveloped in Power Energy as his Spirit Image showed a condor with brown fur and yellow eyes. His speed was much faster than Aleksander's, whose speed increased as his cultivation base progressed, speedier than the weakest cultivators in the middle stages of the Spirit Rebirth realm.
The condor flew together with the cultivator, above his back, in the air as it streaked towards Heian Ciemnosc and reached before him quicker than expected. Nobody had the chance to react, not even Heian Ciemnosc, who could investigate and find this tiny discrepancy as soon as it occurred. Even Aleksander, as he rushed towards Heian Ciemnosc with a ferocious expression, was several times slower than this sudden appearance.
The cultivator’s left arm wielded a powerful Power Energy congregation, formulating an armored piece made of it with the characteristics and colors of his Spirit Image. Heian Ciemnosc only saw the enemy’s knuckles in the distance, still 20 meters away from him, when, at the next moment, he was struck squarely on her sternum by it. His eyes widened, almost unbelievably, and his body powerlessly arched to the cultivator’s punch.
Heian Ciemnosc’s torso was penetrated, but only 2 inches. The cultivator’s knuckles directly connected with Heian Ciemnosc’s ribcage and spine through his Power Energy, exploding it immediately out of Heian Ciemnosc’s body from the back.
Heian Ciemnosc felt his bones cracking apart and his back with his flesh and organs spluttering outside his body. Never in Heian Ciemnosc’s life had someone so effortlessly and efficiently dealt him a mortal blow such as this, not even with a Mortal grade weapon. In all his deficiency, Heian Ciemnosc’s left hand grabbed the man’s left forearm, still covered in that Art’s Power Energy. In these moments, as sub-commanders and COs alike looked on with surprised, downcast faces, Heian Ciemnosc heard the man speak.
“This is just a show, kid. Don’t ever think you are safe when fighting. You are nothing. Today, it is you, tomorrow, all of them.” The man’s mouth was incredibly close to Heian Ciemnosc’s right ear. Heian Ciemnosc could already feel a couple second-in-commands rushing over and sending Arts to save him. He was immeasurably precious to the Academy only from this war alone, let alone his background!
“Now go down there and rest in your little heaven or hell. It won’t matter anyways because your Academy will not become our friends, hahaha, heheh.” The man gloated and felt amused, but he felt too good and continued, knowing he would die in a few seconds. The stimulation left him wanting more, so he kept on. “Hahaha, you’ve fallen under my fee- oh- WHAT?!”
Pshift, pshift, pshift, pshift….
‘...’ Heian Ciemnosc’s mind wavered as the figures of second-in-commands rushing in blurred even in his Spirit Sense. His body felt weak, and the sound of moving Power Energy became null as his left hand limply let go of the man’s wrist. However, as warm blood struck his face and neck, Heian Ciemnosc didn’t even feel the liquid landing on his pale skin as he flopped downwards. Aleksander and Violet arrived first and caught him before he could fall head first on the ground.
“Uuooh…” Heian Ciemnosc’s eyes narrowed almost to a close. Violet held him tight as Aleksander showed an extremely worried countenance. Heian Ciemnosc’s back looked ghastly. Only deep red fleshy remains and organs’ fragments remained, but his heart and spine were mainly undamaged. But even as Heian Ciemnosc was weak, he felt his ears recuperating sense before becoming deaf. In this silence, he seemed to regain awareness as he looked up, gazing upon the enemy small City in front.
“He- no- we’ve- now!” Violet’s cut-off words were bitter in Heian Ciemnosc’s head. He continued staring at the small City, and something within him wanted to come out. It was a similar situation, from similar sensations and events. Only he was the one to suffer here. And although others have perished, they had nothing to do with him. However, the intricate events happening inside him were very familiar, making Heian Ciemnosc want to… go all out.
“H- sc-?” - “T-m- der-?” Heian Ciemnosc pushed Violet and Aleksander away, his pale fingers slowly folding back as he stood by himself, his back destroyed from the inside out and his senses about to falter.
Gazing at the ground, fighting hard to endure, Heian Ciemnosc raised his chin, his darkest eyes calmly, serenely, and ultimately coldly looking at the enemy’s small City…
‘Leave? Negotiations? Letting them… live?!’ Heian Ciemnosc silently thought as he struggled to lift his face. His nose and glabella wrinkled, frowning and showing a direct discrepancy with his darkest eyes. They wanted them to leave? Wanted to discuss whether or not to form an agreement with the enemy?! To allow them to live here… in his new home?!?!
Bowwbooumb.
The world changed. The COs felt confounded by what their team leader was trying to attempt. Their gazes changed when they noticed it wasn’t just them, nor the previously seen 16,000 meters covered by pure darkness… but… everything?!
“...” - “...” - “...” -”...” -”...” To the occasion, many tried speaking, raising their volume as they felt their breath, thoughts, and voices gone. They still existed and were happening, but… they just… couldn’t.
Others screamed to the top of their lungs, desperate as they, like most others, didn’t notice a dark looming over them as they fought or watched the battle from afar. When they tried resisting it, they realized they couldn’t even move properly, as if ordinary humans were walking through dense swamps. Their Power Energy was more like stuck in their skin, bones, and organs. Their blood stopped circulating, and their heartbeats stopped. But any of this hardly damaged the cultivators. The civilians in the small City were another matter.
From a typical morning day with light blue skies and the whole world illuminated by the Blackotia Kingdom’s suns turned a blind eye to whoever was interrupting their existence on the living beings below them and continued giving color to everything else. Abandoning the rest.
The entire small City was filled with darkness. The skies no longer existed within a colossal dome spreading for tens of kilometers. Inside this dome, everything was dark. They could only see fragments of their hands, skin, and clothes, but nothing could be heard. Yet, everyone began to feel as if… like… they were being watched by the mightiest predator of everything. In all that exists and there is.
Heian Ciemnosc felt himself standing in the same spot. To his sides, COs, sub-commanders, and the second-in-commands had stopped as if paralyzed. Only his COs were tranquil, knowing Heian Ciemnosc wouldn’t hurt or endanger them. Suddenly feeling desolate and with marvelous power, Heian Ciemnosc intrinsically looked far and deep into the City.
Those colossal artillery pieces… the enemy’s small City tremendous barrier, and the enemies still within ready to take their turn to fight the Academy with fervor. It was all… as if in Heian Ciemnosc’s depths of his being and Soul.
‘Burn.’ Heian Ciemnosc thought, and like a god creating with just one’s imagination, he waved his right arm, his palm facing his front. At once, a tiny little spark went off inside the City. It was as if it was always there, yellowish and orange. It had an ordinary appearance. It condensed into a flame almost instantly, lighting up nothing but causing the entire pure darkness to become even creepier.
Everyone inside this darkness looked at the flame, feeling attracted and obsessed to watch it. And then…
FUOMP… FWLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH~~~!!!!
All over the small City, from every corner, building, foundation, and its skies! Everything swept up in flames! These flames had traces of darkness, tongues, and ribbons that fluctuated with the ordinary yellowish and orange colors. The small City became one filled with a holocaust. Like the destruction of everything in the world, it rotted away the barrier, the walls, the artillery, and the enemy’s mentality!!
Plop.
Heian Ciemnosc fell unconscious. His body hit the ground when the darkness dissipated, returning everyone to reality. However, their eyes were still wide and obsessed with the small City in flames. They ignored even themselves. Their hearts could beat again. Their blood could circulate, and their breaths could come in and out of their bodies. But they were so lost in the holocaust they didn’t even remember they existed.
“Team leader!!!”
…