Multiple decahedron-shaped devices hovered through the air, glowing brightly as they released concentrated blue beams of mana. The beams collided with an invisible wall that did not ripple or falter against the intense magical light. After a moment, the floating constructs ceased their assault and instead began to circle the area.
They spread apart, sweeping across the endless grounds of the outer palace. In the distance, the sounds of battle echoed, accompanied by strange shrieks that resembled monstrous cries. The earth trembled briefly as something massive clashed, yet the devices pressed on with their new task. Soon one of them drifted into a large watchtower, its artificial eye narrowing as it focused on an anomaly.
The golem paused, observing a cloaked figure seated before a small obelisk. The object was an abyssal relic placed upon the ground within an occult circle. Symbols covered the floor, and at the center of a pentagram, the relic rested. As the construct advanced, a sudden swishing sound cut through the air, and its metallic body was sliced cleanly in two.
From the side emerged a monstrous creature resembling a mantis, its bladed arms retracting after striking the construct. For a moment, several more of the same creatures appeared, standing guard around the cloaked man and the obelisk before him.
‘There you are.’
Roland thought to himself as he analyzed the footage from his defeated drone. It had captured an image of a cultist meditating or praying in front of the relic. The man was inside one of the watchtowers, and Roland’s other drones quickly confirmed that all six towers were emitting a signal. If he hoped to awaken everyone in the castle, he would need to destroy every one of them.
‘The targets are there, but…’
At the moment, Roland was locked in a fight with a powerful witch. Even when he used several of his magic tricks, his opponent managed to shrug them off. The armor he wore was designed mainly for defense and physical damage, but this enemy resisted both with ease.
Matters grew worse as multiple cultists swarmed in from outside. Roland could not understand how they had entered without being noticed. Because he was unable to use a proper runic suit, his scanning capabilities were limited. If he had been wearing the right suit and not concealing his full abilities, he might have prevented this situation. The woman responsible had stood among them all the time, but her disguise had seemed unbreakable. Only after he struck her with a heavy blow did the occult energies begin to seep through, and by then it was too late.
“Arthur.”
“What is it? I am busy over here.”
“I know where the other relics are, but I am not sure I can reach them on my own.”
“What do you need me to do?”
Arthur was locked in a defensive fight as well. The Duke wore a bracelet, and so did one of his personal knights, but that was the extent of their preparations. Roland had crafted several bracelets for such an occasion, yet he had not imagined the situation would become this dire.
The cult had gone further than he believed possible, and he never expected seven relics to be activated at once, each discharging a signal in a different location. He had assumed that disabling a single relic would be enough to end this kind of threat. To make matters worse, his plan for the Duke to eliminate the enemies had failed, and now they even had to defend the man from harm.
There were several ways Roland could approach the situation, and much seemed to depend on him. The people he had awakened had no clear understanding of what was happening, and there was no guarantee they would cooperate. The man guarding Theodore would probably remain inactive, which made it fortunate that Arthur had chosen not to awaken his second brother. As a result, the large man was forced to fight off the cultists, who focused on attacking anyone who had awakened from the illusory dream.
For now, the nobles who had fallen under the spell were ignored and remained gathered in a few locations. The grand hall was spacious, and Arthur and the others had moved to a side area where no people were present. It made things a bit simpler as he didn’t need to defend the other nobles, but eventually their lives would probably be at risk.
Taking out the towers by himself was possible, but he did not know what would happen to the people here if he stormed out. If the witch decided to chase after him, then things could be fine. If not, Arthur might be in danger. This cultist was powerful enough that he was not sure he would emerge from their confrontation unscathed. To minimize the damage, it was best if the monsters focused on him instead. For that, he would need to convince them that he was the most important target, not the weakened Duke himself.
“I will take this battle outside. You need to convince the others to help you take down the cultists at the watchtowers. Each one has a relic, and they must be destroyed.”
“But I am not sure I can achieve this alone…”
Arthur replied, hiding behind the knight commanders his brothers commanded. Lady Bernadette was cutting through the monsters, and so was the Bestial Warden. Both were much stronger than he was and far more suited to the task.
“I know. Lady Bernadette will probably help you, as will the mage who came with Tybalt. They are your most likely allies. If they refuse, I know how to persuade them.”
“Very well. Just be careful, my friend.”
“I will.”
A semblance of a plan had been formed, but now it was time to carry it out. The first step was to drive this monstrous witch out of the grand hall and into the open, where he could unleash his full power without the risk of the castle collapsing on everyone inside.
Roland slammed both maces into the marble floor, releasing a burst of concussive force. The shockwave shoved the witch back for a moment, giving him just enough time to take aim. Keeping his center of gravity low, he launched forward. From his back, a surge of energy burst out and propelled him with explosive speed. All four of his shields snapped into position, intercepting the counterattack that came his way.
He did not stop. His charge carried him straight into the massive armored arachnoid body of his opponent, slamming her into the wall. The impact was immense, fueled by a large portion of his mana. Though the wall was built to endure, cracks spread across its surface until, with a thunderous crash, both combatants broke through and spilled into the open air outside.
The two combatants tumbled into the outer courtyard, rubble cascading around them as the witch’s shriek rattled the night. Roland staggered to his feet, his armor dented, but his visor still shone with streams of tactical data. The witch scuttled up the side of the broken wall, her malformed limbs stabbing into the stone as her eyes glowed with abyssal fury.
“It matters not what you do, my victory is all but assured!”
The witch screamed at him as she stood. In her eyes, he had already lost, and at first glance, it seemed true. His armor was cracked, his shields partially melted, and even his weapons showed signs of damage. The monster before him, however, remained uninjured. Her form regenerated endlessly, as though defeating her was impossible.
“You think so?”
Roland activated a new sequence. Circles of light spun into place around his arms and shoulders, and his fractured maces and armor parts reconstructed themselves through raw mana. The witch stared in disbelief as his armor reformed piece by piece.
“As you can see, you are not the only one who can regenerate. This battle is far from over.”
The woman screeched at him.
“It matters not, the Duke will die. My flock will see to that!”
“Are you sure you should be worrying about the Duke? Are you not forgetting something?”
The cultist’s mouths twisted in confusion. She followed his gaze upward and saw multiple floating constructs surrounding the six watchtowers where the relics were held.
“Stop stalling. Those things cannot destroy the sacred relics!”
“Are you sure about that? Did I actually have to destroy the last one?”
He forced a laugh to plant doubt in her mind. She still remembered how he had disabled the relic in her possession, and that memory was the seed he wanted to grow. He needed her to see him as the greatest threat here, otherwise, his plan would fail. He had no way to disable all of the relics quickly while fighting her, but she did not know that.
“No, that is impossible, the sacred relics are…”
Before she could finish, he cut her off.
“Are what? Infallible and perfect? We both know that is not true. I disabled this so-called dream of yours once, and I will do it again. Once the barrier falls, the Duke’s armies will flood in. It does not matter if he survives, so go ahead, target him instead.”
Roland wondered if his provocation had been too obvious, but the cultist was far from sane. Her twisted body made her reckless, and it seemed his ruse was beginning to take hold. To sell it better, he even had his golems glow in a radiant light above the towers as if they were doing something.
“Once my golems figure out the resonance, that relic of yours will be nothing more than scrap!”
“No, I won’t let you!”
The witch let out a piercing shriek that split the night like glass. Her many eyes glowed with a violent shade of violet, and miasma spilled from every pore of her corrupted flesh. The cloud thickened around her body, roiling like smoke, yet it was something far more sinister. The ground beneath her was covered with plant matter, mostly grass, and as soon as the mist appeared, all vegetation began to wither and die.
“Good thing I led her out of the grand hall, otherwise everyone would have been killed.”
Roland leapt back while analyzing the airborne toxin. He could withstand it for a short while, but his armor was not designed to resist such corruption indefinitely. The destructive and corrosive properties were obvious, but the witch’s outburst did not end there. She continued to howl into the night like a werewolf. Suddenly, signals appeared from below.
“What? More of them were hiding?”
The sudden emergence caught him off guard. He could not understand how the cultists had managed to conceal themselves from his sensors, but within moments, countless hands burst from the ground. For an instant, he wondered if he was dealing with a necromancer summoning zombies, but one look at the creatures revealed something far more disturbing.
They were unlike the cultists he had encountered inside the building. Their forms leaned closer to humanoid than insectoid, and their heads were consumed by writhing masses of tentacles with eyes scattered across them.
| Abyssal Ghoul L 129 |
These were advanced zombie-type monsters that had been overtaken by the abyss. Fortunately, their levels were not especially high compared to his own; yet, what they lacked in strength, they compensated for with sheer numbers. The entire area was soon swarming with them. To make matters worse, many of the cultists who had been inside the grand hall now poured outside and focused all of their killing intent on him, which was exactly what he had been hoping for.
‘Good… I just hope those guys can work together.’
Before the tide of ghouls and cultists could pour into the courtyard where he stood, he chose to act. His visor displayed hundreds of signatures, and his HUD flashed warnings faster than he could tag them. Yet he did not despair, for he still had a few aces up his sleeve. He loosened his grip on one of his maces and dropped to one knee. His armored hand pressed against the ground, and a great circle spread out from beneath him.
His magical power surged in all directions, and his onyx armor began to glow. Before the mass of monsters could surround him, a towering column nearly ten meters wide rose into the air. This armor was not merely built for defense. Aligned with the element of earth, it allowed him to reshape the ground itself.
Jagged spikes thrust upward from the courtyard, blocking the ghouls from charging him all at once. To tilt the battle further in his favor, he summoned reinforcements. Spatial runes opened around him, releasing what they could. Golems marched forward, some fashioned in the likeness of spiders and others formed of hardened stone that mirrored the armor he wore.
“You are not the only one with minions.”
This was always meant to be a defensive battle, and he had prepared for it. The ground was reshaping into a makeshift fortress of hardened stone wrought by his magic. Golems with ranged capabilities, such as his cannon spider constructs, clung to the rising pillars and opened fire from above. The larger rock golems engaged the ghouls directly, their sheer size keeping the tide of monsters at bay. The struggle of attrition had begun, and all he could do was hope his allies carried out the other part of the plan while he held back the enemy.
****
“You want us to do what?”
“We need to reach the towers. Unless we destroy those relics…”
Before Arthur could continue, his brother Julius raised a hand in protest.
“I disagree. We should leave this place and take Father with us. Your knight is a brave man, but we should use this chance to retreat.”
Arthur frowned at the words. Only moments ago, they had been fighting side by side against the cultists, but now in this brief pause, Julius was already looking for a way out. Roland had managed to draw off most of the enemy force, yet Arthur knew it was only temporary. His brothers showed no desire to press the advantage. Instead, they clung to their own safety and to their father’s, which Arthur suspected was little more than an excuse to abandon the fight.
“I see. Then perhaps Lady Bernadette will see the light. I thought paladins of Solaria were supposed to destroy cultist filth, yet you seem to tuck your tail and run while people suffer.”
Arthur’s words landed sharply, and his voice trembled. Julius did not like the accusation that he was running away, but Arthur was not speaking to him. His gaze was fixed on Bernadette. Her great blade glowed with a golden aura, burning through the blood of the abyssal cultists it had just slain.
“Your brother speaks the truth. As a High Paladin of Solaria, I cannot ignore this. Young lord, you seem to know the way. Lead me and I shall be your blade.”
To his surprise, the paladin woman did not even protest. Roland had been right about her. Once relics and the cult were mentioned, she was ready. She showed no concern for Julius’ well-being, as if she fully expected him to defend himself.
“Lady Bernadette, I am not sure you should…”
“Young Julius, the radiant sun compels me to act. Stay here and protect your kin while I resolve this matter. Do not fear, a few cultists cannot defeat me. The sun is with us, we shan’t be defeated!”
“I… I understand.
Julius nodded, and Arthur smiled. He had secured one ally, leaving only one more to persuade. He had already given up on the larger man, who might have been even stronger than Bernadette but would never leave while Theodore remained.
“Master Anzeneus, would you be willing to aid us as well? We could use a mage of your power.”
Tybalt’s aid was an elderly wizard. He looked to be in his sixties, with a full beard and a tall hat pulled low over his brow. His robes hung loosely, yet the mana that surrounded him was immense.
“Me? Preposterous. If I had known this would happen, I never would have agreed to come.”
Arthur was taken aback. Tybalt’s aid did not seem loyal at all. It was as though his brothers had merely paid these people at a high price without ever earning their allegiance. Now it fell to Arthur to convince the mage. Fortunately, he still had Roland on his side. As the conversation began, the golem floating above him moved. From within, Roland’s voice resounded.
“Great Wizard Anzeneus, I am sure we can reach an understanding. I know what you desire, and if you aid us today, I will see it done…”
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