Chapter Ninety-Eight: First Battle

A month later, when Adis finally led his army to Cecil City, the city of his memory had long since become a battlefield.

Out in the countryside, vast stretches of farmland had been burned to ash, and countless villages had vanished without a trace, all of them relocated into the city by Nadir and the others, who had prepared in advance. Beneath the walls, masses of corpses lay in silence, tinged with flecks of crimson and the stench of blood, a scene heavy with oppression.

In Adis’s eyes, a star blazed fiercely above Cecil City. Little by little, the origin force of the world turned into starlight and pressed down over the city, making an already disadvantageous situation even more severe.

At the sight of this, Adis gave a cold snort. With a mere stir of his will, another star, though much dimmer than before, yet equally brilliant, slowly rose in this place and resonated with Cecil City, withstanding the other side’s original erosion and suppression.

Even so, as the two stars collided at close range, source power began to surge and seethe here, slowly locking into a stalemate and starting to oppose and suppress one another.

At once, Adis felt a heaviness in his chest, as though a weight had crashed down upon him, making him faintly uncomfortable.

That was only the pressure upon his body. In the perception of his true spirit, at that very instant, a hostile world force broke through the blockade and thundered down upon him, only after the earlier contest had put him at a disadvantage.

“Fortunately, though my position is inferior to his, we are still of the same level of existence. So although I’ve fallen behind, I won’t be completely suppressed as before,” Adis thought silently, his hand brushing over his chest as he sensed the unfathomable might of the world.

“Kekus, send word over. Tell Nadir to let us into the city.”

He looked at the tightly shut gates ahead and said.

On the other side, at the far end of Cecil City, a fierce assault on the walls was just ending.

King Barit of Indri looked at the city wall before him, where the blood had begun to stain the stone red in patches, then glanced up at the sky and said, “At this hour, let our men withdraw and rest well.”

Just then, a knight entered from outside. Seeing Barit, he hastily knelt.

“Your Majesty, news has just arrived. King Adis of the Adis realm has led his army here, and they have already entered the city!”

“So fast!” Barit could not help but frown when he heard this.

Then he raised his head and looked at the soldiers above, whose faces already showed signs of weariness.

“What a pity. If only you had given me five more days, this great city would already have been taken. Now things have become much more troublesome.”

“How many men did they bring?” he asked calmly, thought flickering in his eyes.

The knight froze for a moment, then quickly came to himself.

“The exact number is still unknown, but from what we have observed so far, it is at least over ten thousand, though fewer than twenty thousand.”

“Fewer than twenty thousand?” Barit murmured. “Then with the forces remaining in the city, that makes roughly twenty thousand.”

Thinking of this, he sneered, deep cruelty flashing in his eyes.

“Good. I heard the king of the Adis realm came as well. This time, we may as well capture them all at once and settle everything in a single stroke.”

“How many of our own men remain?”

At his question, a noble in formal attire stepped forward from nearby. Looking at his towering figure, he said quietly, “After Your Majesty ordered the lords to muster their forces, our strength has kept increasing. But because of the continuous losses beneath the walls, we have only barely managed to hold at around fifty thousand.”

“Still, in terms of numbers, we remain ahead.”

“In other words, their numbers are not even half of ours?” Barit said, gazing at the city in the distance.

“From what we can tell at present, that is correct,” the knight replied respectfully.

Barit nodded. “What about the other sides? Have they shown any weakness?”

At that, the knight’s expression turned grave.

“According to reports from the border, the enemy seems to have been prepared long ago. They had already deployed forces there in advance and firmly blocked the coalition armies sent by those city-states that submitted to us. As of now, there is no sign of any breakthrough at all.”

“These useless fools!” Barit sneered.

He lifted his eyes toward the front. The clearly outlined city walls in the distance reflected in his pupils.

“After the troops have rested, send out a squad of knights to test the enemy’s fighting strength.”

Thus, after the order was given, a few hours later, as evening drew near, sounds rose once more beneath the walls, where the blood had already dried.

“Are they attacking?” Adis looked down at the knights filing out below, each leading a band of warriors, and said expressionlessly.

“At this hour, it should only be a probe,” said the burly man behind him. He was tall, with damaged armor on his body and a face marked by blood.

“Nadir, you have defended Cecil City and fought the enemy for half a month. In your opinion, how strong are they?”

Adis turned around and looked at the man.

“Very strong.”

Nadir stepped forward, his expression somewhat solemn.

“During these half-months, Cecil City has been short of troops, and the enemy launched repeated fierce assaults. If Your Majesty had arrived even half a month later, the city might already have fallen to them.”

“Their knights are powerful, and their numbers are enormous as well. The allegiance of so many nobles has filled their army with no shortage of knights, and even the ordinary soldiers have been carefully selected. Some of them are even a little stronger than our own carefully trained warriors.”

“Only, their crossbows are slightly weaker. Compared with the original city-states, the Indri Duchy, though equipped with relatively well-made bows and crossbows, still falls far short of ours, so we have been able to suppress them somewhat.”

Adis nodded. “This time, I deliberately brought a large number of arrows and weapons blessed with various divine arts. When we meet them in battle, it should give them a surprise.”

Nadir was overjoyed. “If that is so, then the defense of the city will be much more certain!”

For someone like Nadir, who had used divine weapons before, no one knew their power better than he did. That was why he was so delighted, and why his confidence in defending the city rose at once.

As they spoke, the knights below had already formed their ranks, each carrying a large, sturdy shield. It was clear they had long been prepared.

After all, during the previous half-month, the two sides had fought repeatedly. After suffering enough hardship, they naturally had adopted corresponding measures.

In the past, these measures had often been effective, greatly reducing casualties and allowing them to advance.

But this time, on the wall, Nadir only gave a cold smile. After Adis granted him authority, he slowly commanded the soldiers around him to raise their crossbows. The bolts already loaded gleamed with light, carrying a faint ripple of divine power.

Whoosh.

At last, with a single command, countless bolts shot out at high speed toward the enemy below.

At once, a series of strange sights began to unfold.

One bolt struck a huge shield and was blocked by the heavy plate, unable to push forward. Yet in the next moment, the divine power within it erupted violently, wrapped in a trace of raging fire element, and exploded at once.

With a thunderous boom, flames burst forth, filling the entire area and burning furiously, impossible to extinguish.

Then came more and more explosions, turning the battlefield into a small sea of fire and driving many people back in an instant.

Still, though the flames were fierce, they did not actually burn many people to death. Most of the dead had perished in the first wave of impact, when the blast shattered the originally solid shields and killed the warriors behind them.

Only a few knights awakened to battle qi could escape disaster. Relying on bodies strengthened by battle qi, they pressed onward even though their flesh was torn and mangled.

But at that moment, the second wave of bolts arrived.

A sudden rush of wind appeared, and traces of wind element began to ripple. Carrying divine arrows, they stabbed down with fierce speed.

At once, one knight after another groaned in pain. Some had not even managed to react before an arrow pierced their bodies and took their lives on the spot.

“What kind of arrows are these!”

In the rear, seeing this horrifying scene, Barit’s expression changed dramatically. He sprang to his feet in alarm.

With his strength, he could naturally see the anomalies within them. Not only the earlier fire, but also this tremendous piercing force that treated armor as though it were nothing at all, could not possibly be ordinary arrows.

“They seem to be a powerful weapon made by the priests in the north!”

Beside him, a noble was likewise horrified, and then dropped to his knees.

“Your Majesty, under these circumstances, do we still need to send more men to test them?”

“No need!”

Barit’s voice rang out from the side.

He looked ahead at the warriors left standing after the assault, his face ashen with fury.

“In a situation like this, there is no need to test anything any longer.”

“Send the slaves forward. We will assault the city directly!”

He fixed his eyes on the walls ahead, his expression cold.

“Even if their arrows are formidable, if there are enough of them and they are easy enough to make, then why were they not used earlier?”

“They must be difficult to produce, which is why there are so few of them. Send the slave troops in and see whether their arrows run out first or my slaves die first.”

Thus, once his command was given, under the urging of a group of knight overseers, a great mass of slave warriors in simple armor charged madly forward.

These were not slaves like the ones before, but professional slave troops bred and maintained year after year by the Indri Duchy. They trained frantically in peacetime and were equipped with simple leather or cloth armor and the like, all for the purpose of being consumed on the battlefield.

As these slave troops, each with madness in their eyes and blood staining their bodies, surged forward, Nadir’s face on the wall slowly turned solemn, his gaze heavy as he stared at the enemy across from him.