Chapter 180: 096. Judgement of the Heretic -2 (Part Two)
“Oh, oooooh!”
The living Paladins roared out their battle cry.
At the bare minimum, they needed to patiently fight back until all the members of the clergy had entered the cathedral and offered their prayers in order to fully activate the ‘Aztal’ rune’s true powers.
This was going to be a defensive battle. Until they managed to activate the goddess’s miracle, they needed to defend their positions.
Just like back when they fought against Archbishop Raphael.
-Oh, hear ye, you heretics!
Kasim Derian’s roar resounded throughout the forest.
He stepped on the ground, and at the same time, the other holy undead knights prepared to follow after him.
-You shall all be judged!
Like a bullet exploding forward, Kasim’s figure dashed forward rapidly.
The Paladins’ eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. In the blink of an eye, the knights of the divine light had already appeared right before their position.
The undead knights swung their weapons in the very next moment.
Explosions ensued. Human flesh ripped apart and rained down on the surroundings, almost as if the shields and armour covering their victims weren’t even there in the first place.
-Aaaaaaah!
Banshees singing sacred hymns began priming their bows. Arrows infused with divinity flew up in the air. Each of these arrows then split into dozens of pieces, and eventually, hundreds, thousands of arrows of light bombarded the ground.
“Uwaaaahk?!”
The arrows penetrated straight into the backs of the clerics running inside the cathedral.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground rumbled, signalling the Bone Golems and giant stone statues setting off towards their targets.
“Fire your magic, now!”
The clergymen cast their magic spells. Arrows of light made out of divinity accurately struck the Bone Golems and stone statues, but they failed to do anything against the Golems that boasted strong resistance against magic.
The lone eye of the giant stone statue, the Cyclops Golem, burned bright red. Beams of light shot out and turned the bodies of the clerics into hardened stone. Meanwhile, the Bone Golems went on a rampage and wildly swung their greatswords and maces around, flinging numerous Paladins and Priests up in the air.
The battle was overwhelmingly one-sided.
These clergymen without any proper battle experience were getting slaughtered in a one-sided fashion.
However, their problems didn’t end there. The Seventh Imperial Prince leisurely approached the cathedral while riding on the skeleton horse. But then, he summoned a staff out of nowhere and slammed it down to the ground.
Divinity spread out everywhere. The murdered clergymen began staggering back up to their feet.
The clerics and Paladins of the Church of Caiolium defending against the undead froze up on the spot, their expressions hardening at this sight.
“What... what is the meaning of this?!”
The fallen clergymen, who used to be their allies only a few moments ago, had turned into ‘zombies’.
-Kkiiiiaaahkk!
Their sunken eyes rolled around in their eye sockets before glaring at the Paladins before them. These holy zombies advanced forward and pounced on the living knights.
All semblance of colour drained out from Paladins’ faces as they desperately shoved back the holy zombies with their shields.
“This, this...!”
This was calamity itself.
Mikael gritted his teeth.
The believers were dying in droves. If things continued on in this fashion, his church would be decimated in no time!
He urgently shouted at the younger cardinals next to him, “Look, our believers are being defiled! What about the Aztal rune?!”
“T-the preparation is still ongoing, your eminence!”
“But we’ve already finished preparing the wide-scale magic spell. We can kill that devil right now!”
Many clerics by the cathedral’s windows were currently offering their prayers. They were getting ready to launch a massive-scale attack magic spell.
Finally, it was activated.
The darkness of the night sky was cleanly pierced through; bright motes of light radiated into the heavens above.
The Seventh Imperial Prince raised his head to look at it. A gigantic sword of light at least ten metres long and made out of divinity was now floating high up in the sky.
He muttered out in a puzzled voice, “What’s this now?”
It was the so-called god’s divine strike, materialised through the prayers offered by five hundred and fifty five clergymen hidden inside the cathedral – the Heavenly Sword(天劍).
The massive attack began its descent and fell on top of the Seventh Imperial Prince.
The gigantic sword split the air apart and viciously slammed down as if to crush every single undead into fine meat paste.
After witnessing this descent, the banshees, the giant stone statues, and even Kasim Derian, combined their might and attacked the Heavenly Sword, but all of their attacks were simply deflected away.
“Die, you devil!”
The clergymen roared out.
As for Cardinal Mikael on the balcony, a look of indifference floated up on his face. He was certain that an attack of such magnitude would be more than enough to defeat the Seventh Imperial Prince.
The Heavenly Sword descended on top of the boy and violent winds whipped madly all around it. However, the Seventh Imperial Prince didn’t even bother to escape, and had instead chosen to face the incoming attack head-on.
He was nonchalantly raising his head up to stare.
Was it because he had given up?
Just as the Heavenly Sword was about to crush down on him, the Seventh Imperial Prince lightly waved his staff at it.
Tap-!
Even before the Heavenly Sword could touch him, cracks rapidly developed on the blade. In an instant, they spread out to the rest of its body of light like a spider web.
“...!”
Not just the Priests watching on from the cathedral’s windows, but even Cardinal Mikael on the balcony stared at this spectacle in utter disbelief.
The Heavenly Sword was cracking apart. The goddess’s divine strike had shattered into million bits.
The coalesced divinity broke apart and dissipated from the world.
“W-what was that...?”
It was the effect of a special skill belonging to the staff the Seventh Imperial Prince was currently wielding, manifested whenever he temporarily upgraded it through Divine Aura.
[Skill nullification].
“What kind of nonsense...”
Cardinal Mikael stumbled back in pure shock. But he still managed to regain some of his wit and continued observing the unfolding situation below.
The Seventh Imperial Prince stopped approaching the cathedral, and instead, the stone statues lined up next to him. The giant statues around five metres tall were all gripping massive lances as long as themselves.
Cardinal Mikael’s mouth clamped shut at that sight.
‘Wait, could he be trying to...?’
The giant stone statues leaned their torsos back while gripping the lances. They were assuming throwing postures.
“...! Oh my goddess!”
Mikael urgently turned around and rushed back inside the cathedral. Almost at the same time, the stone statues threw the lances.
A huge lance crashed into the balcony and went through the structure.
The barrage of lances caused a portion of the cathedral to break apart and crumble down.
“S-save me-!”
Many of the priests trying to enter the cathedral were crushed to death by the falling debris.
However, the lance didn’t stop there and continued to dig into the balcony’s narrow entrance, mercilessly crushing the two younger cardinals to death.
Not only that, even Mikael’s lower torso was ripped apart from the impact force.
“Uwaaaaahk!”
“Your eminence! Cardinal Mikael!”
The Priests who were already inside the cathedral rushed towards him and managed to drag him away. However, his lower half was already gone and blood was uncontrollably gushing out from his fatal wounds.
“Uwaaahk!”
Mikaels screamed from the pain that he had never experienced before, until the shock almost caused the whites of his eyes to show.
He gasped out. “A-Aztal rune! Is it ready...?!”
“Yes, it is!”
As soon as he heard the Priest’s reply, Mikael sucked in a deep breath.
“Oh, Gaia-!” He began offering his prayer. “I beg of thee to protect this lamb from his death. Through your grace, I beg of thee to regenerate this torn body!”
Mikael shouted as loudly as he could and begged earnestly. And as if to answer his prayers, the goddess’s miracle took place.
The blood pooling on the ground began gathering where he was. His torn flesh was being restored at a visible rate.
The completely-crushed lower half was reconstructed to its previous state.
Mikael, with his eyes threatening to close as his consciousness faded away, realised that all of the soul-wrecking pain had disappeared. Even his fading mind regained its clarity.
He carefully got up from the ground.
“Fuu-woo...”
He deeply breathed in and out for a few moments.
It was right then that the wall in front of him crumbled without warning. Another lance had impaled it.
The giant lances were breaking through and destroying several parts of the cathedral, and one of them even reached right in front of Mikael’s nose.
“How foolish!”
He roused up strength from his entire body. He then extended his hand, pushing back at the tip of the incoming massive lance trying to impale him with nothing but his bare palm.
BOOM-!
The lance’s tip was crushed. And the lance shaft itself shattered into bits as the projectile was shoved back instead.
He displayed a truly nonsensical level of physical strength for a single human being.
“Oh, Gaia! I beg of thee to restore the first holy ground that worships thine glory!”
The moment Mikael roared out, all the lances impaling the cathedral were gradually pulled out. Even the destroyed building began restoring itself.
“And also, save thine faithful flock, oh dear Gaia!”
The motes of light scattered and landed on the injured and the dying inside the cathedral, completely healing them.
Mikael observed this spectacle closely.
The members of the clergy cheered out fervently after personally experiencing this miracle. This was the divine miracle brought to reality by their declaration of the holy war.
This was the power of the Aztal rune!
The power that greatly amplified the strength of the clerics, the power that could create miracles!
Mikael headed to the balcony once more. He glared at the devil leading all those undead abominations outside the cathedral.
“Allen Olfolse!”
The Seventh Imperial Prince looked rather surprised and stared back at Mikael when the latter roared out his name.
“Oh, hear ye, you accursed devil commander! You shall never be able to defile this holy ground! As long as Aztal rune exists, we...!”
“Huh... The Aztal rune, is it?”
An ominous, cracking voice brimming full with divinity came from beneath the mountain goat’s skull.
Mikael flinched nastily at that and stared back at the boy.
The eyes barely visible within the skull’s sockets were clearly filled with rage. But that was unsurprising, since Mikael was the ringleader responsible for orchestrating his assassination attempt.
But then, a change of emotions could be seen in those eyes at the very next moment.
“Well, now. That’s...”
And Mikael soon understood what that emotion was.
It was greed.
That boy, the Seventh Imperial Prince, was...
“...One hell of a nice item, isn’t it?”
...Desiring to acquire the rune letters engraved on Mikael’s flesh.
< 096. Judgement of the Heretic -2 (Part One and Two) > Fin.
(TL: Unfortunately, only one chapter today. However, I’ll make it up with a mini-mass release tomorrow. Pls look forward to it.)