Chapter 189 War of the Madmen I (1/2)
CHAPTER 189
WAR OF THE MADMEN (I)
On'yal crossed his arms over his chest as space before him turned into a lotus-like shape, exploding outwardly toward the oncoming, mile long hammer. He then immediately slapped himself back onto the chest and teleported back a whole kilometer behind, just barely being out of range of the explosion. Despite the sweat collecting on his forehead, he had no time to wipe it off; he extended his left arm flat and opened his palm, pushing forcibly forward.
En'kav clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction as he swiped both his index fingers in opposite directions, tearing open a mouth-like hole in the space which then spat out two glistening swords. The contorted space and two swords met at the halfway point between the two, causing yet another explosion. All the while, both were weaving about the sky at speeds that very few could hope to follow; On'yal through the displacement of space itself and En'kav through the use of his Gates -- connecting two points in space and opening up a tunnel between the two.
Suddenly gaining a couple of miles of distance, En'kav came to a halt, roaring from the depths of his lungs. Both his arms quickly began swiping like swords across the space as the world above him collapsed, hundreds and soon thousands of mouth-like tears seemingly wailing into the universe.
On'yal's heart skipped a beat as he forced his Singularity to spit out even more Qi, shoving it all into the palms of his hands which he raised just above his head. Feeling it was enough, he coughed lowly whereupon a trail of blood cascaded down the corner of his lips before bringing both palms down. Even further up in the sky, above the mouths, a flat plane of space seemed to disconnect with the reality itself before plummeting down.
Lino observed the battle with a solemn expression, one entirely hidden by his mask. Whatever little confidence he had gathered by crafting his weapon arsenal had been completely destroyed in just ten minutes. He stood absolutely no chance against either one of the two fighting on the screen. Even if his body could regenerate hundred times as quickly, he still couldn't do anything about the two shuffling through the space itself.
”They should be flanking right about now,” Lino mumbled casually, calming his stirring heart. ”Switch the main screen over onto them.”
”Yes.” the Emperor quickly nodded; it's not as though he wasn't worried about On'yal, but the battles of cultivators at such Level could take hours to reach the utmost climax. The battle beneath them was far more important.
The screen flashed momentarily in a faint cyan before the image switched. Nearly everyone -- including Lino -- immediately frowned. The first line of defense was already overran; thousands of corpses - both human and demonic - lay sprawled over the enclave, its just recently overgrown grass already toppled into crimson strands extending barely an inch off the earth.
Dozens of craters, trees still on fire, thousands of arrows... several even sucked in a cold breath upon witnessing the sight. As On'yal's Legion -- initially comprised of 50,000 men -- was split into three, 20,000 were left to defend before the flankers arrived. Yet, of those 20,000, barely half still lived and were constantly forced in retreat. Vanguard Shieldbearers did their best to prevent the sheer onslaught of the Demons who had little care for their lives, yet they were simply unable to. This forced infantry to repeatedly press onward as to prevent the Demons from reaching the back line.
In addition, Continental Force was also outnumbered in the air battle; to say nothing of the 10 Devil Generals, there were also at least a couple of hundred of High-Tier Demons who were besieging the formation from the sky compared to just a few dozen trying to defend. However, it was exactly in times like these that the heroes are born -- a woman seemingly in her late twenties, who so far remained in the back, sending flickering bolts of flames in an arc -- stepped forward.
Lino's eyes quickly focused on her; she was one of the Generals -- the youngest on the field, actually -- but he didn't pay much attention to her information past that. She had jet-black hair and was wearing rather loose, cyan robes shimmering in deep coral.
She suddenly heaved into the air, her whole being encompassed in flames, appearing like a sun even in broad daylight. The flames quickly composed a spherical shape around the woman, repeatedly rotating at massive speeds while increasing in temperature, distorting the light itself surrounding it. Within a blink, the first tongue-lash of flames erupted, soon followed by dozen and hundreds of others, each extending like whips and breaking off from the sphere before bombarding the heavily concentrated area of Demons.
Hellish inferno quickly besieged the Hell's Forces, forcing them to scatter like brainless chicken and allowing the Shieldbearers to resume at least a pretense of control over the frontline. After nearly a minute of ceaseless torrential inferno, the woman seemed to have ran out of Qi, clearly exhausted as she landed back on the ground.
”... their morale is collapsing,” Patriarch Chen commented with a serious expression. ”There's a high chance many of the survivors will withdraw from the military temporarily.”
”... they underestimated the Devils, and especially so the Demons” Sky-bearing Monk said, sighing. ”Fear of death is the greatest divider of our races.”