Chapter 579: An Outrageous Act of Wickedness
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The cataclysmic tremors of the earth made the Archmage alarmed. “Retreat! Retreat to the center of the city — no, retreat to the final defense line!” The First Voidwalker shouted, after which he raised his staff to activate the emergency teleportation portals set up by the Voidwalkers at different points in the city. The Archmage’s spell also caused the city’s bell to begin tolling.
When everyone in Arfin City heard the tolls of the city bell, they glanced at each other in dismay. They quickly abandoned their posts and fled to the nearest teleportation portal, headed to the rendezvous point.
This left the believers free to scale the city walls, like a colony of ants a.s.saulting a jar of sugar. The believers that scaled the wall did not chase the city guards; instead, they opened the city gate for other believers to charge in.
As more believers rushed into Arfin City, they began to cheer in glee, mocking the fleeing city guards as they did so. The believers were ecstatic to see the city guards, who they considered heretics, flee from them!
The believers were too excited to wonder why their enemies, who had been fighting back so definitely, would suddenly turn tail and flee. All that mattered was that Arfin City had been conquered!
Close to the border of the Arfin City — an area the Archmage designated the ‘Final Defense Line’ — only three thousand people were present. Only this group of people had made it here through the Voidwalkers’ emergency teleportation portals.
This area was only a sixth of the city, encompa.s.sing the old Aegis Mansion — which doubled as the entrance to Da Xue — Noiriciel’s recovery fortress, and five streets extending from this point. Within the area were barricades and other simple defensive structures.
The Voidwalkers had planned to retreat here when all else fails. Before this, the Church’s attacks had been laughably weak, so the Archmage did not believe they would need to come here.
“Will you look at that; we were forced to retreat here, after all,” the Archmage muttered. The tremors grew stronger by the minute, and the barricades were vibrating hard. The sky grew so dark, it was as though a world-ending storm was brewing.
“Activate the levitation system now!” The Archmage shouted.
“The students, fairies, and barbarians are here, but some of the soldiers sent by the dukes are yet to make it,” the Soul Armature Pract.i.tioner whispered. whispered.
“We can’t afford to wait for them,” the Archmage replied with regret. “They will have to be quick on their own now.”
The Voidwalkers had six thousand soldiers under their command. On the third day of the war, four thousand remained, and now, only three thousand were left. This was because a quarter of these soldiers were still fighting or had gotten lost.
The Archmage had informed the soldiers of this place beforehand, but only some of them had committed the instruction to heart.
The believers flooded the streets of Arfin City. had now taken the streets of Arfin. Fueled by the joy of their success, they moved to take down any remaining soldiers opposing them. It was then when suddenly, a loud clap of thunder blared out from the edge of the horizon.
The city was now dwarfed by an ominous overcast. Storm clouds were so densely packed together that not even a sliver of sunlight peeked through the sky’s austere color. The tremors, meanwhile, had become so violent that it became impossible to stand. Towers, walls, and other buildings began to collapse. Debris and rubbles chipped away from these collapsing structures and pounded the ground like hailstorms. Cracks resembling cobwebs croaked as they spread across the pavements before expanding into schisms.
The city was about to be swallowed whole!
“E-earthquake!” An alarmed cry rang out from the believers before they exploded into panicked screams. Even the most religious would lose their composure when facing a terrifying disaster, so Arfin city streets were now filled with people running amok for their lives. The unluckiest ones had fallen into the expanding chasms under their feet. Meanwhile, a few believers had given up on escaping on their own and knelt among the ruins, praying for help before being buried by crumbling buildings.
This earthquake bore none of the usual marks of the disaster and had come without any prior sign. Fortunately, the period before its worst tremors. .h.i.t was long enough for the Walkers to rescue a few soldiers closeby Arfin’s last defense. With them on board, the Walkers launched one of their secret ace cards: the ma.s.s levitation system.
The defense area began to break away from the earth with its buildings and barricades intact. Slowly but surely, it was lifted upward from the earth like a radish being yanked out of the ground. Though languid in pace, the ascension was enough to save everyone aboard from the super earthquake that had suddenly struck Arfin city.
The levitation system was designed for emergency retreat should the enemy’s attacks proved to be too overwhelming and vicious to contain. Activating it, the critical area the Walkers strove to protect would lift off from the earth and hover in the sky just like the floating islands in Gouve. This way, the enemy could no longer use land-based attacks.
Although the system was only completed recently, the idea, its earliest design, and basic construction began much earlier. The project started five years ago after Baiyi visited the Sorcerers’ a.s.sociation headquarter in Cloud City. Baiyi was quite impressed by the floating penthouses back then, which spurred him into replicating the same marvel in his own city.
His dream was smaller in scale, of course; he only wanted Da Xue’s entrance to hover in the air so that all visitors to his academy would look up in awe. The technicality was simple; the number of the required formations must be plenty, and their levitation power must be strong enough. To that end, Baiyi had secretly purchased owners.h.i.+p of the neighborhood around Aegis Mansion before setting up the levitation formations.
Amusingly, he only realized how money-burning the entire project was after he initiated it and then calculated its cost. It dawned on him that spending this much money for the sake of symbolism was quite silly, especially since Da Xue had, by then, risen in prominence so much that it was the premier figure among academics, a renowned center of cutting-edge knowledge, and a treasure trove of talented individuals. Just the eminent sobriquets were enough to make anyone “looks up” to Baiyi’s academy; there was never any need for his silly impulse.
Unsurprisingly, the project was abandoned. It would have remained forgotten had its plan not fall into the Thane’s hands when he was appointed to oversee Arfin’s defense. After learning about the Tyrannical Admin’s embarra.s.sing hiccup, the Thane brought it to the table so that everyone could roast and laugh about it, and then complete the project.
The end product was quite different from what Baiyi had envisioned. The formations would only work for three days — the maximum number of days an angel could stay in Isythre. The island also needed not to rise too high into the air because its ultimate purpose was just to deter standard land-based attacks. Hence, with the project’s goal being laxer, on top of Baiyi’s prior progress, construction was swift and relatively free of complications. Soon, the levitation system was completed.
The Archmage greenlit the project, but he did not think too highly of it and only saw it as a back-up plan that was never going to be used. His rationale was that one could never be wrong for reserving as many schemes as possible when their enemy was the Church. Now, this unimportant plan had saved their lives.
“Look!” One of the Duke’s soldiers mustered enough courage to climb up a fort revamped from a penthouse and pointed at the terrifying abyss that was once Arfin city.
The city was not in ruins, because there were no ruins at all. With a thundering crash, the earth beneath Arfin had imploded onto itself and took the city out of its existence. Now, there was only a ma.s.sive lake of roaring and sputtering magma, burbling and occasionally bursting into sprouts that almost touched the lowest end of the ascending island. It was even more frightening that the disaster films the Walkers had seen from their Tyrannical Admin’s memories.
A violent earthquake of this magnitude could not possibly be contained nor fought back with any magic the Walkers could come up with. The entire Arfin city defenders could have all died right there and then had it not been this supposedly ridiculous back-up plan!
Perhaps the most atrocious revelation was that beyond the h.e.l.lhole Arfin had become was the same sunny, verdant plain utterly untouched by the horrors that had befallen the city. A few believers’ rattling figures could be found there, their eyes glued to the disaster they had only survived by running towards the exit with all of their might. Most of their comrades, however, were lost to the earth’s maw.
As always, there was little distinction between humans and maggots before natural disasters.
“Except this isn’t a naturally-occurring disaster; this is an a.s.sault, directed at us!” The Archmage burst out hotly. It was not just the enemy’s technique that fueled his lividity; it was also the fact that these glowing, reverend beings employed such a devastating attack without giving a hoot about their own people.
“They didn’t even spare their own allies!”
Ten million lives, gone in a single, seething pit of magma. That was a number far higher than the Void had netted, even though they were the Church and the believers’ enemies!
“And so this is what these beautiful, holy, magnificent beings are? Beings who self-righteously accepted veneration from mortals, looking down on men who grovel before their feet for one minute and cast them out of existence without a care at the next?!” The Archmage’s outburst continued. He could not help but be seething at the Angels’ atrocity.
“Y-yes,” The Cleric Walker murmured, his croaking voice heavy with grief. “These are the Angels; stones as hearts and cold inside out. They are dutiful in their roles, spreading the gospel of light as the G.o.ds had appointed them. But there was never any commiseration for humankind, just as we harbor none for the insects.”
“Then there is no reason why we should ever revere them,” the Archmage sneered as he espied the unfamiliar patterns the Angels had formed in the distance. “The G.o.ds had obviously slackened to teach them on valuing humans… It’s high time we take over their job. When this catastrophe is over, it’s our turn to attack! We’ll do what the G.o.ds had failed and teach these heartless b.a.s.t.a.r.ds a lesson!”
To the Archmage, this was more than an act of retribution or a beatdown over their maltreatment of fellow humans. It was also a practical result: there was no city for the Walkers to continue playing defense.
“Our loss in this ambush is just terrible!” The Engineer Walker wailed. “All of my hard-earned resources! And my babies! Half of them… Half of them didn’t make it back to me!”
He dropped down to his knees and howled. The marionette army had exhausted a decade of his life, yet only half of his blood and sweat survived. A few of the marionettes had been deployed to move his engineering resources and the army’s ammunition when the earthquake consume them along with the Blacksmith Walker’s artilleries.
It took only an unforetold earthquake to bury these precious life’s creations into Arfin’s boiling grave.