Chapter 57: Paris (7) (1/2)
Leonel quickly scanned the situation ahead and sighed a breath of relief when he saw that Aina was fine. In fact, she was more than just fine, she had taken out four more of Joan's knights, leaving just four remaining. But it seemed that Joan's control had grown tighter with less to worry about, causing the difficulty to actually become somewhat more difficult.
'Good, I'll take her out now and it'll all be over.'
Leonel suppressed his fatigue and dashed forward under a rain of balls of fire. He could practically see the end of this several month-long affair.
He bore down on Joan, his gaze meeting hers across tens of meters. Reimond's knights once more tried to block his path, but the last of them fell with a sweep of his spear. They hadn't even hit the ground when Leonel had already appeared several meters to their backs.
Joan's gaze was hard to read. Despite having not taken his eyes off of her, Leonel couldn't tell if she was calm or feeling complex. Her blue eyes, hidden beneath her golden mask, seemed to ripple slightly before going still every so often.
In truth, it seemed like she was finished. She couldn't pull her knights back from Aina, or else it would be that bloody ax that took her life. At the same time, she had always been on the back line, having no combat prowess of her own. That moment Leonel took Reimond's life, she knew that she wouldn't have had the ability to resist had his target been her.
20 meters. 10 meters. 5 meters.
Leonel brandished his spear, settling his scorching lungs as he pierced forward with everything he had.
He didn't waste words on her. The time for that had long since left them.
It was at that moment Leonel heard something akin to a sigh. And it came from Joan herself…
”Rise.”
A string of gold separated from Joan's polearm and entered Reimond's corpse which lay to her side, causing him to suddenly stand and accept Leonel's blow to the chest.
With a clang, Leonel's spear rebounded off of his chest plate, causing a strong reverb to travel up his arm.
It was only a moment, but Joan had already shot backward and raised her polearm high, a string of corpses that were the product of Leonel and AIna's efforts appearing in along her path.
A low shout left Joan's lips and the few golden threads from her polearm became several hundred. Not only did it shoot into the crowd of scattered Englishmen, but it also tore its way through the gates and dove into the defensive line of Frenchmen as well.
Leonel had just wanted to sigh a breath of relief. Joan wasn't a Necromancer, she didn't really make Reimond rise back from the dead, she only took control of his limbs and used him as a human shield. But, judging but the thickness of the line of gold she needed to do it, he deduced that it took more effort than controlling the living so it was no wonder she hadn't used this ability in the past.