Capítulo 63: A Peaceful Night
A/n: Guess what people, the author of the original replied to me! I knew the bait always works. And also he is okay about this book unless I don't monetize it. But still, thanks for your reply, man, been a long time.
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The offensive was a success. The entire military might of the Theocracy was put into question as they are pushed back from all sides of the front with losses exceeding that they could afford. And all of this happened in the time span of merely a day. Dusk has settled over the land and the two moons have finally appeared together in the night sky. If only the sky was not blanketed in a cloud of ash and smoke.
Speaking of ash and smoke, the environmental effects have begun to affect the Theocracy's war efforts, mainly the soldiers and mages in the front. A deadly smog has decided to manifest in their side of the war and was showing no signs of disappearing anytime soon. The haze was toxic in a way that it contained pollutants, once inhaled, would cause severe respiratory problems.
Many of the soldiers have begun to suffer severe coughs, some are even experiencing asthma attacks and the unlucky ones would die prematurely from these ailments. The Council, however, paid the problem no heed and decided it best to continue the war effort and have the mages assist the soldiers in the deadly haze without doing anything crucial to remove it instead.
The haze could be removed by the use of the tier 6 spell: {Weathering} but no mage capable doing the spell was present at this time, they were expected to arrive after a few days but will they arrive in time to stop the invasion?
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=Alnub Forest, Hallo Highway, 115km Northeast from the Machine Base=
Deep inside the burnt treelines, blackened pillars of ash replaced the trees that once grew around these parts. Scores of dead animals littered the ground, either they were killed by knights, hunters or were just unlucky to get caught in the fiery blaze that consumed the forest, regardless they lied dead from whence they stood before.
A small group of three knights were patrolling in the area, the main armies were still caught in engagements while some have just gone and routed due to the overbearing pressure from the encroaching Metal Army.
They held firmly onto their swords and shields as they scanned the night for anything out of the ordinary. Their mission made no sense, they knew it.
Why send only three weak knights to patrol a large swathe of land in the middle of the night? Did they think the enemy would respect their ways of war? Did they think that the ceasefire request they sent would be honoured by an enemy who has so far shown its might and power against them? Was it wise?
These insignificant ants knew they were going to die, they just did not want to accept their fates just yet. This unusual moral was spread among the ranks and they themselves questioned but was an accepted gift, nonetheless.
"You see anything?" One of the knights asked the two knights in front of him.
"You expect me to see anything through this fog? And it's night!" The knight he asked angrily retorted.
"Hey, I was just trying to start a conversation,"
"It's best we stay quiet or else we give the enemy the luxury of knowing our position just by your loud mouth alone!"
The Knights continued through the night, silently walking and scanning the surroundings. The fiery flames that continued to swallow the forest whole blazed in the distance, giving them some degree of light amid the insufferable disability to see.
And as they walked further and further, they would hear the faint sounds of explosions. Once they do, the leader of the group would always guide them to a different direction, their job was to patrol the segments where the enemy was supposedly absent and send out a magical signal if the enemy were to appear so that a fast-response unit could respond.
Fast-response units were composed of mages who possessed the ability to alter their speeds and have the capability to combat the enemy by the bare minimum enough to hold them long enough for reinforcements to arrive.
This war was unorthodox. It literally made no sense to them. The knights knew wars as armies going against other armies, sieges of cities, plunder and rape of the enemy. Why does it look like this war was something far more deadly and unconventional than anything they could imagine? An enemy that could cover such a vast area of land with thousands of soldiers.
"I want to go home," The knight at the very back of the group suddenly spoke.
"We all want to go home, let's pray to the goddess that this war would soon end," The leader shrugged.
"The war would soon be over, but none of us is going home," The knight suddenly said.
"Hey! Don't speak such blasphemy, we are proud knights of the Theocracy who believe in her greatness, the Blue Goddess! Have faith in her wisdom and guidance or else you'll faced judgement,"
"Wisdom?" The knight stopped walking prompting the other two to stop as well. They knew their comrade as a strong warrior, able to withstand challenges that a normal man won't be able to take as much but what he was showing was not the warrior they knew.
"You call this torture, wisdom!?" He shouted from the top of his lungs and frowned down on his fellow knights.
"You are all blind!! We are all dead by the first light! This war is already lost! Our cities will fall, our families will be placed under the sword and our wives forced to do their pleasures, what must ye expect? The Gods have abandoned us!"
The man continued to shout, the shouting eventually transitioned into inaudible yells and uncontrolled sobbing.
"What is even happening," The other knight began to show the same psychological damage. The leader stared helplessly at his two men as they slowly lost their sanity. He had never seen such disgrace, not even when he was a mere trainee, even the lowest and most frail privates at the time stood strong even through the hardest of challenges, how come this war was different.
His answer is soon answered when a hovercraft suddenly zooms above them, causing a powerful wind to push them onto the ground, the screech of the hovercraft's engines temporarily blinded them. They covered their ears in reflex and pleaded for the sound to stop.
After a while, they stood and looked around. They saw small pairs of light in the sky that moved at fast speeds, they were by the hundreds and came from the side of the enemy. This was the beginning of the second offensive, the second jab to the liver to be delivered by their enemy.
"Beautiful isn't it?"
Someone suddenly spoke.
The knights, frightened, turned their attention to the figure that suddenly appeared beside them. The figure bore the silhouette of a man and that man stared at them and smiled.
The man had red lines that were across his body that glowed in the dark and his red eyes were enough to make a man scream.
"W-Who are you!?" The leader of the group and the only sane man capable of speaking was about to lose it.
"The night is beautiful," The shadowy man said in a calm voice.
But such a calm voice in the middle of an enemy attack gave him an even more eerie aura.
"Don't be scared, look at me," The shadowy man extended his hands and showed the glowing cracks.
"You see? Beauty, as beautiful as the stars that shined in the sky,"
"Until you burned the forest and covered the only beautiful scenery I could see," He added.
The knight jumped a few meters back due to fright and shivered. His sword began to shrivel as did his hands that froze in shock. He was gritting his teeth so much that saliva has begun to drip down from his mouth. Sweat drenched his already smelly armour and tears were beginning to gather within his eyes.
The shadowy figure continued to look at the knight. The two were awkwardly staring at each other to the point that one of the other knights decided to stab himself to spare his eyes from the gruesome scene that was to unfold.
He shrieked in pain as he thrusted his sword deep inside his belly.
"Your friend seems to have a problem,"
The leader refused to look away, fearing that the man would slice his head off if he does so. He heard the screams, the wails and the blade entering his friend's stomach but refused to pay his suffering any attention. He only needed to survive and escape.
"You may be thinking, who am I? why are we attacking? Well I shall give you the benefit of learning about my plans before they go into effect,"
"Why must a monster like you tell me your plans!? Might as well kill me right here, right now!" The leader said, so much for survive and escape, the knight could not decide.
"Eh? Of course I'll tell you, I will kill you after I finish anyway so might as well give you a glimpse of the future,"
The knight refused to open his mouth again, fearing that he would waste such a chance to think of an escape as the enemy in-front of him wasted his time.
"Cover three segments of the front. The northern army is almost defeated, the central army has routed while the south is barely standing,"
"H-How do you know all of this?"
The shadowy man extend his arms to his sides and raised them high.
"It's because I saw it happen, how could I not be sure?"
"No, impossible! You're here talking to me, our armies were still standing when we left!"
"Yes, yes they were still standing and they were still standing a few moments ago, what I said has only just transpired as we speak,"
"W-what?"
The knight's face became blank as he stared at the ground, his grip around his sword began to loosen and fear began to finally take hold.
The shortcoming of a human.
Emotion.
Easily exploited by the ones who aren't affected by it. The ones who won't flinch even if millions of innocent lives are wasted in front of them, even if swim across an ocean they filled with the blood of billions of humans they slaughtered, they won't flinch, they would not care, why should they?
Surprisingly, there is someone in this world right now that is exactly that, he is someone who shall drown the Theocracy in their own Ecstasy. The one who will unite every human under one single banner with the guidance of machines that far surpass any human mind by a milestone.
And his name is Artemis, and he was also literally in-front of the knight.
"Ka!" Suddenly, the other surviving knight of the group charged at Artemis.
"Fool! No!" The leader pleaded to no avail, his comrade lurched his sword at Artemis who easily stopped the blade mid-air by the use of only two of his fingers. The knight struggled to remove his sword from the frightening grip of the man he wanted to slice apart but to no avail.
"Sigh, we have an unwanted guest, I was certain you'd do the same as the other fellow a few seconds ago,"
Artemis merely slightly twisted his two fingers and the sword snapped into two with the upper part of the sword breaking off.
"A High Human..." The knight stumbled back and stared at what remained of his blade. He then turned his attention back to Artemis who was just standing, no rush to even eliminate him. It was time for him to escape!
He made a run for it, he turned his back and ran as fast as he could, as far away as his legs could take him. His armour clanged against each other as he bolted away. He was heaving and crying, his wails echoed through the night combining with the echoes of explosions. He did not look back, he just wanted to get out.
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