CHAPTER 2463: HOW DARE YOU?
"Protect the Britannian Empire!"
"Exterminate the filthy beasts!"
"We cannot allow them to go deeper!"This text is © NôvelDrama/.Org.
The Martial Masters of the nation wore grave and dark expressions as they immediately flashed to the Britannian Empire, exterminating the Master-level and quasi-Sage-level beasts one after another now that the Sage-level primate had perished.
"DIE, CURSED BEASTS!" Master Knights Brigsby roared as he eliminated dozens of quasi- Sage-level beasts by the second.
Never before had he felt this much shame in his entire life. Not even when he had failed spectacularly in his mission to kill Rui had he felt as disgraced as he did in failing in his most fundamental duties as a Martial Knight.
Knights were supposed to protect.
His most important duty after serving the Britannian Empire was protecting it from those that threatened to harm it.
And for the first time in his entire life, he failed to do so.
For the first time in his life, countless Britannian people perished under his watch as the highest-ranking knight commander present in the Britannian Empire. It was a blemish that he would never be able to remove in his entire life.
And yet, even as they exterminated all the hapless Master-level beasts, the threats never ceased coming.
They only grew worse and worse.
RUMBLE!!!!!
"Master Knight Brigsby! Look! There are more...!" one Master screamed with horror.
Master Brigsby turned towards the horizon in the direction of the Beast Domain.
His eyes widened with terror as he saw a seemingly endless number of Sage-level creatures emerge from the depths of the Beast Domain.
Most of them were as massive as the primate before them had been.
Each of them radiated a faint Sage-level threat.
The air boiled tumultuously with peril.
It boiled with the terror that each of them felt in that moment.
"No...!" Pure horror could be heard in the depths of his voice. "No, how can we deal with this?!"
Dealing with just one Sage-level creature had caused them to neglect lesser threats which ended up inflicting a horrific wound on the Britannian Empire. How could they possibly deal with countless Sage-level beasts?
RUMBLE!!!
The Sage-level beasts gathered their power even as the Apocalypse-class siege weapons desperately tried to down them in vain. Master Knight Brigsby gritted his teeth as the beasts unleashed a devastating wave of power that threatened to annihilate not only the Britannian Empire, but also its Martial Artists!
B0000000000000000M!!!
He closed his eyes with despair, waiting for death.
It never came.
"I won't say you did well, Brigsby, for you have failed in your duties." Sage Vermillion's voice reached his ears. "But you have done your very best, nonetheless."
His eyes flew open, widening with shock and relief.
The attacks from the Sage-level creatures were gone.
Sixteen Martial Sages stood between the Britannian Empire and the Sage-level beasts with enraged and furious expressions.
The sheer amount of power and peril they radiated brought about mass despair and horror to the beasts while evoking genuine joy and hope from the Martial Artists of the Britannian Empire.
"Filthy beasts..." A murderous glare flared from the depths of Sage Vermillion's eyes. "How dare you..."
She gritted her teeth, clenching her fists. "HOW DARE YOU HARM THE BRITANNIAN EMPIRE?!"
WHOOSH
In the blink of an eye, she appeared before the skull of a Sage-level beast with vengeful bloodlust.
A single strike was all it took.
B000000000000M!!!!!!!
Sage-level creatures had immense durability by virtue of scale, not tensile strength. Their skulls could not withstand the full power of the Sage Realm concentrated through the knuckles of a human fist.
CRACK!!!
The creature died in a heartbeat.
Yet, she had already killed several more before its gargantuan body could even hit the ground.
CRACK CRACK CRACK!!!
One after another, the sixteen Martial Sages of the Britannian Empire vanquished the hundreds and thousands of the Sage-level beasts that had come close to destroying the Britannian Empire in its entirety.
This relieved the extraordinary pressure on the Martial Masters, allowing them to focus solely on dealing with beasts and monsters in their pay grade as the situation finally stabilized.
Yet, none of them could feel truly happy.
It was a pyrrhic victory.
Yet, a pyrrhic victory where the innocent citizens of the Britannian Empire paid the price instead of the Martial Artists. Each of the Martial Knights of the Britannian Army were truly ashamed and aggrieved by the losses that the Britannian Empire had suffered due to just a moment of oversight by the Martial Masters, who bore the heaviest burden in the entirety of human civilization.
And even then, they still hadn't truly won yet, considering that the beasts just kept overflowing from the Beast Domain like there was no end to them. They still had to keep fighting to protect themselves.
The alignment of the battlefield quickly shifted as the distribution of Martial Artists across the entirety of the battle changed. The Martial Sages took front and center stage at the forefront of the Britannian Empire while the Masters shifted to the diagonals, the Seniors shifted to the North and South ends of the Britannian Empire while the Squires and Apprentices went even further away alongside the perimeter line.
Many of the Apprentices ended up on the complete opposite side of the border from the Sages, for their own safety, as well as to intercept the Apprentice-level beasts that ran away from Martial Artists of the higher Realms.
This model that had emerged very naturally from positional patterns of both beasts and Martial Artists would go on to become the standard norm and model for not just the Britannian Empire but also for other nations that ended up being being hit with the waves of beasts and monsters that emerged from the depths of the Beast Domain.
And just like the Britannian Empire, many of the nations bordering the Beast Domain were completely caught off-guard by the horrifying apocalypse that had emerged from the depths of the Beast Domain, resulting in losses not unlike that of the Britannian Empire.