Chapter 66 (1/2)
Chapter 66 (Battle of Hermes Part 1)
……
As the freezing cold rain fell, it diluted the smell of blood that covered the whole of New Holy City. While in these inhuman conditions, Alicia was fighting for her life by swinging her great sword while violently panting.
It wasn’t her first time participating in the battle to defend Hermes, but she had never thought that there would come a day when the New Holy city could fall.
The walls were completely destroyed.
In her whole life, Alicia had never seen such a horrible monster. A huge worm-like hybrid beast came out of the ground and pressed its body close to the glacier cliff, drilling its bone claws into the cliff and climbing up the wall step by step. Even when it had reached the top, its lower body still hadn’t left the ground completely.
If it had only a huge body it wouldn’t have been such a disaster, but none of them could expect what had happened next. When the huge hybrid species opened its mouth, a horde of demonic beasts rushed out and turned the wall into hell within seconds.
Originally, it could still be said that everyone in her team was calm and prepared, but when the demonic beasts attacked, everything was broken and turned into disorder. During the chaos, Alicia was separated from her squad, so she could only helplessly watch as one of her comrades was swallowed by a demonic beast. Warm human blood and black monster blood mixed together and flowed along the grooves on the stone-paved floor.
When the horn gave the signal to retreat, Holy City’s mangonels began to fire, dropping granite blocks the size of half a person from the sky, totally disregarding that many defenders were still fighting on the city walls.
Alicia could still clearly remember the image when her Captain was hit on the side of his head by a stone. When she got up from the floor and was finally able to look at him, she saw that he was embedded into the stone floor together with his armor. Folded together like a parchment, his intestines were dripping out of his opened abdomen, and his hot blood pooled into small puddles.
Alicia thought, If I hadn’t thrown myself onto the ground at the last second when I discovered the stone, I’m afraid I would have ended up just like him!
As for how she exactly archived to stay alive and return from the walls, Alicia wasn’t able to clearly remember it. She was only surrounded by yelling and cursing; everyone was frantically waving their arms, trying to defend themselves, but in the end, who they were hitting was unknown and it didn’t matter if they hit a demonic beast or one of their own.
From her own team, which started with one hundred soldiers, only twelve survived, including herself.
“What to do next, Captain!”
“Captain Alicia!”
Since Alicia had survived, she was to take over the post of captain, as per the military regulations. If the captain was killed during the battle, the vice-captain would take over the post of captain and lead the team to continue the war.
To clear her head, Alicia bit her lips until an iron taste filled her mouth, then she finally decided, “We will go to the North Gate. If the demonic beasts want to leave the New Holy City they have to pass through that point.” Following this order meant that they gave up the area between the walls and the whole inner city, but she had no other choice. There was no place comparable to the Central Church – nothing was more important than the Hermes Cathedral.
She didn’t say it aloud, but everyone knew that with only 12 people, they couldn’t play an important part in defending the walls.
In her heart, Alicia prayed, Maybe today will be the day I will die while defending the kingdom. May God be kind to me. However, to the outside world, she shouted, “Verdict will never give up! We will march!”
“Verdict will never give up!” shouted the others in union.
Alicia’s team of twelve followed her and trotted in the direction of the Northern Gate. During their run, the sound of the war became less and less clear under the rain and blowing wind until it completely died down.