BXBX NOVEL Chapter 196: The Biggest Winner
From somewhere on the battlefield, a Verlice Lieutenant who had been losing against his Arkadae Lieutenant opponent yelled out in his excitement;
"Favor smiles upon us… The Golden Child remains with us! So onward Knights and Arcanists of the Verlice Kingdom and take down the rest of the bastarda who dared storm our Fort!!!"
No one really bothered with the actual words but the tone alone, mixed with their elation did fill them with a renewed zeal.
On the other hand, the Arkadaes were in shock at the turn of events. Their most powerful trump card was dead, his body charring away and they hardly saw a way forward.
It was at this moment that Lieutenant Vernon of the Arkadaes decided to step into the shoes Hernan Vron had voided. He was winning his battle with the three Verlice Lieutenants he was battling and wished to use his capabilities to instill the forces with confidence,
"Hold your ground!" he yelled, "The battle is not yet lost!"
"It is!" yelled Anetta, her blade dripping with the blood of the Lieutenant she had been battling— A Lieutenant who had fallen at her feet, with his neck slashed.
Anetta had just watched a member of the Vron family, her family, lose his life, and when faced with a perfectly healthy Astrid Renan, she felt there was hardly a chance they could turn this around.
She knew what Hernan was capable of— Knew what he had been gifted when they were about to set out for this expedition and if that had not been enough to as much as injure Astrid, it was only a matter of time before everyone else lost their lives. The faster they ran, the more likely some of their numbers would still survive.
"Retreat!" Anetta yelled, "Everyone, fall back!"
Anetta did not have to work hard to convince the humans and monsters still alive and fighting on the Arkadaes\' side. Morale was at an all-time low.
The thought of retreating in disgrace left a poor taste in Vernon\'s mouth but of course, he saw reason and he joined the running forces.
"Where do you think you\'re going?" Asked one of the three Verlice Lieutenants Vernon had been battling as they all tried their best to hold him down right where he was.
Annoyed that they were still foolish enough to try to kill him, Vernon decided he might as well finish what he already started before going on his way.
"Since you don\'t know your place—!" he started to say before a pillar of brilliant light descended from the sky like Divine justice. As though he had annoyed a god who sorely wished to see his end.
That might as well be the case and when Astrid\'s spell faded, Vernon\'s body remained frozen mid-motion. His flesh was burnt and his tendons were melted to his bones that were already cracking under the pressure of the flames that burned them.
Somehow, eerily, Vernon\'s eyebrows remained intact within his cracking skull and appeared like it was staring hard (due to the lack of any skin that could act as eyelids) before he fell to the ground less than a second later.
The Verlice Lieutenants watched the development with their mouths gaped in stunned awe before they raised their eyes to look up at Astrid but she was no longer paying attention to them, but rather surveying the battlefield.
With the only one who could contend with her dead and done with, Astrid now held the fate of her enemies in her hands. A fate the enemies hoped to survive.
"Fucking hell!" Anetta said with wide eyes at the development and the death of yet another powerful figure on their side.
Meanwhile,
Once he had indulged himself in the view of Astrid\'s dominance, Evian returned his attention to Soul Eating. He was reaching the limit of <Seal Link> but that was hardly a concern since those he wished to kill were now more focused on survival. They turned tail and ran which made them easy pickings since they could hardly be bothered to defend against attacks from their rear.
Every Sixth Order Knight Captain of Monster Representative on that side of the battlefield had met their ends at the hands of Evian and his trusty beauties and now the Fifth and Fourth Orders needed to fall just to sate his growing urge to feed.
The thing was, just as the enemies running away was good for Evian\'s hunt, it was also bad because the farther they got, the harder it was for Evian to chase and catch up to them with Astrid still tethering him to the spot.
And then, like an absolutely dazzling angelic being, Astrid swung her sword and flames oozing with the dazzling light of her Pure Spiritual energy drew a circle around the Field to keep the slower Knights and Monsters from getting away.
"No one leaves," she said gently but with such firmness and finality that it sent shivers down the spines of everyone on the field including her allies.
Once he recovered from the shiver, Evian realized his <Seal Link> had deactivated and both Ember and Carleine were now suffering from the effects of borrowing power ahead of their station and the effects of expending physical energy they ordinarily should not have possessed. The two fell to their knees and with his hands patting their shoulders, Evian consoled them,
"You were fantastic. Rest now."
Unable to speak, Ember and Carleine nodded while drawing in Spiritual energy from the atmosphere to alleviate their fatigue.
As for Evian, once he was back on his feet, he had to hold himself back from licking his lips and got right to work.
Now that that had been trapped, humans and monsters alike decided they might as well go out in the blaze of battle. Alas, even as he was getting weaker and the long battles against multiple opponents were starting to take their toll on his body, Evian believed he was still healthy enough to hunt.
A good distance away from Evian and his elated hunting, Anetta Vron, looked around widely at the ring of fire that kept them locked in.
She gritted her teeth and retrieved a small orb from her Spatial ring. A silver light glowed from within the Orb and Anetta held it tight while she eyed every Lieutenant still on the scene,
"Everyone, to me!" she yelled suddenly.
Spurred on by even the slightest chance of Survival, the Lieutenants who had not yet lost their lives and quick-footed Knight Captains or even random Knights or Arcanists close by dashed toward Anetta.
Without bothering to do a headcount, Anetta looked upward to glare at Astrid with hate and as she did, she saw Astrid congeal yet another pillar of glorious light having picked her as the next target she wished to annihilate.
With her hand coated with Spiritual energy that boosted her physical strength, Anetta crushed the orb in her hand and it blasted out its encased silver light that covered her and those who had heeded her call and got closest to her, with a silver orb seen for barely a second before it vanished from the scene, causing Astrid\'s pillar attack to strike aimlessly at the ground.
Astrid stretched out her senses and she knew immediately that the Orb had not teleported her enemies. Rather it was imbued with the Arcane powers of an Expert who seemed to have reached the peak of the Eight Circle and might have even surpassed it.
It was a spell that required grand preparation that involved the designation of a destination and travel to that destination was faster than any movement spell, any flight speed, or even the Spiritual perception of any expert not well into the Ninth Order.
An emergency escape spell.
\'I wonder if any others were entrusted with such a powerful survival tool,\' Astrid thought, glancing at the damaged but still functional ring on Vernon\'s finger. She didn\'t bother glancing at Hernan as his ring as well as any other accessories he might have had were already incinerated to dust in his self-caused suicidal explosion.
"Commander," one of the Lieutenants called.
Astrid turned her eyes to them all looking at her with expectant expressions and frowned,
"What are you standing around for?" she asked and then glanced at the still struggling-to-find-a-chance-at-survival human and Monster forces whom she waved at with nonchalance while giving her forces her command,
"Kill them all."
And so they did.
•••
Eliminating the rest of the Arkadae human/Monster races took all of Ten minutes after which Astrid gave orders that allowed Knights to scour the Forest for hideouts the Monsters and humans who had managed to run before she set up her perimeter of flames, could have run to.
The plan was to eliminate as much of the threat to the Western Fort as they possibly could while instilling fear into the hearts of the Monster races to think better of allying with Arkadae for another \'foolish\' attempt at breaking through the Verlice Kingdom\'s barriers.
Evian was lying on the ground, resting after what had been a long night. Ember and Carleine were by his sides, cross-legged in Spiritual energy recovery but they stopped when Evian let out a chuckle and then burst out into boisterous laughter.
And why would he not laugh?
His plan had worked perfectly and as the Verlice Kingdom\'s Combined forces celebrated a victory even as they scoured for enemy hideyholes…
[Balance: 6,650,000 Soul Points]
… He was undoubtedly the biggest winner of all.