Chapter 578: Summon
Thick puffs of smoke and ashes rose from Tark Prairie’s borders as blazing flames disrupted the darkness of the night. Countless animals fled deeper into the center of the forest as the crackle of burning wood pursued them.
The pressure from the sky had vanished after the intense explosion, and the terrifying aura from the sky was gradually fading away. Even so, none of the forest animals dared to remain for even a second longer.
At the heart of the explosion, a black-haired man opened his eyes.
His consciousness felt hazy as if he was inside a dream, and a feeling of weakness in his body was lulling him to sleep. Amidst the billowing smoke, the awoken Roel blinked his eyes. For a brief moment, he was unable to feel anything in his body at all.
In the earlier clash, he had channeled his mana into the Nine-headed Serpent Staff to exploit the Nine-headed Serpent’s neverending cycle of regeneration to keep the black sphere at bay. Eventually, the black sphere chose to explode itself, releasing all of the accumulated energy at once.
The sudden explosion released an intense shockwave that instantaneously destroyed the five remaining serpent heads and threatened to crush everything in its direct vicinity into meat paste. At this critical moment, the Nine-headed Serpent Staff’s defensive mechanism kicked in.
A dark green light burst forth and formed a barrier reminiscent of snake scales.
This urgently deployed barrier blocked half of the explosion’s force, but that was all it managed to do.
Roel looked at the burning wooden smithereens and scorched earth around him with a grave expression. Even after it had been weakened, the explosion was still able to unleash immense destruction.
Had he received the brunt of the impact, he would have surely died even with his enhanced resilience from Indestructible Body. To make things worse, he knew that the terrifying attack was just a portion of the enemy’s true strength.
That immense pressure that silenced the world earlier was definitely capable of more than just this explosion. That black sphere was probably just one of the many it had scattered around the forest to locate him.
It was unbelievable how a tracking spell embedded with offensive prowess could unleash such destruction. In a way, this showed just how powerful the enemy was. It was already difficult enough to escape from such an existence, but his enemy was far from just that.
Wuuuu!
A deep horn reverberated in the forest, and the deviants cried out excitedly.
Even though the black sphere had depleted itself during its face-off with Roel, it had accomplished its mission of exposing his whereabouts. The shockwave from their clash had covered such a large area that it was impossible for the deviants to overlook it.
.
Just like that, the tens of thousands of deviants combing the forest found him.
From the armies that had already reached the heart of the forest to those who had just arrived not too long ago, they picked up their weapons and began marching toward where Roel was. Thunderous footsteps shook the forest floor like loud war drums.
Roel’s face turned incredibly livid.
The ferocious war cries and the intense thumping of the earth vividly drove home just how large the forces after his life were. By this point, he had already lost his ability to battle. The enemies might appear weak in comparison to the Deviant Sovereign, but they currently posed a larger threat to him than the black spheres.
It was often said that an army of ants could kill an elephant. That was an extremely real possibility to Roel, given the awfully feeble condition he was in.
As if echoing his worries, a dense cluster of whizzing sounds echoed from the distance. Thousands of arrows were flying across the air in his direction like an ominous cloud of death.
Roel endured the excruciating pain he was under and clenched his hand around his staff.
“…Nine-headed Serpent Staff,” he ordered hoarsely.
A massive serpent manifested from the ashes. With an intimidating hiss, it surged forth and shielded the weakened Roel with its massive body.
Ding ding ding!
Arrows ceaselessly rained down on the massive serpent and exploded, but none of them were strong enough to significantly breach its resilient scales. All they managed to do was to provoke the serpent.
Ssss!
The massive serpent began to slither with incredible speed amidst the ashes. Through its ability, Ruler of Venomous Beasts, it began furiously spraying a deadly black fume that could kill with the slightest inhalation into the vicinity, forming an absolute defense ring around Roel.
The effectiveness of this fatal trap immediately showed as the deviants charged over in droves.
At the forefront of the charge were the deviant cavalry. These weren’t an organized army but individual soldiers who were patrolling nearby when they received the signal from the black sphere. Little did they know that what awaited them wasn’t a dying enemy, but a deadly fume hidden amidst the ashes.
Gwah!
A mere second after charging into the vicinity, the fifty or so demonic beasts and their riders screamed in agony. The deadly fume instantaneously corroded their bodies, inflicting upon them unbearable pain that pushed their nerves to their limits.
In a matter of seconds, they had been reduced to puddles of blood.
It looked almost reminiscent of snow melting after being thrown into the incinerator. It had happened so fast that their screams continued to echo in the forest even when they were already dead. Their remains emanated an awful stench.
All of the deviants who were charging from all directions immediately halted their footsteps at that blood-curdling sight, but they resumed their charge a mere instant later.
To them, the Deviant Sovereign was an inviolable existence whose orders couldn’t be defied. Commands from a direct higher existence had to be unconditionally obeyed. What they had to do had already been decided from the moment the black sphere exploded, and nothing in the world could change that.
An increasing number of deviants was converging around Roel as time passed. Batch after batch of oblivious platoons charged into the deadly fume, only to pass away with wretched cries.
After over a thousand soldiers had been sacrificed to the deadly fume, the others finally figured out the fume’s rough perimeter.
With that, the battle proceeded into its second stage.
To the backdrop of a burning forest, thousands of deviants scoured the outer perimeter of the deadly fume while releasing long-ranged attacks inward. Under their persistent attacks, the Nine-headed Serpent finally lost its patience and charged out from the ashes. Nine massive mouths swept across the battlefield to reap the deviants’ lives.
Within minutes, the forest was strewn with carcasses. Half-eaten deviants fell from the sky with their blood spraying in all directions before crashing with a loud thump. Those who were unlucky enough to be touched by those victims’ blood immediately began corroding under the serpent’s venom.
Broken limbs and melted flesh could be seen no matter where one looked, and the rain of blood simply wouldn’t stop. The Nine-headed Serpent was practically a walking disaster that terrorized the battlefield!
Despite having kept his enemies at bay, Roel remained terribly anxious.
I mustn’t get dragged down here. I have to get out of here as fast as I can!
He knew that his enemies were rushing over now that his location had been exposed. His only hope at surviving this ordeal was to create as much distance from them as possible before the main force arrived.
Every single second was precious to him now.
But the reality was harsh. With hordes of deviants piling down on him, he couldn’t move at all due to his mana deficiency.
Still, he knew that he had to at least try something. Thus, he endured the pain and struggled to his feet. At the same time, the Nine-headed Serpent dispatched three heads over to protect him. But before he could think of a countermeasure, he suddenly felt an immense mana pulsation coming from the prairie behind him.
It was an army spell.
“This is bad…”
Roel’s face warped in horror. He turned around and peered through the thick layer of ashes with his enhanced eyes. There, at the horizon of the moonlit prairie, the deviants’ main force was closing in on him.
Marching at the forefront of the deviants were bulky deviants armed with thick spears and shields forged out of demonic beasts’ scales. It would have been rare to encounter a well-armed deviant anywhere else, but here they were clustered on the prairie.
Behind the vanguard were priests cloaked in beast skin. They carried iridescent staves that glimmered with a faint light. Crimson specks reminiscent of fire sparks were flowing from them toward the center of their formation. They were in the midst of channeling an army spell.
Roel knew that he had no other choice upon witnessing this sight.
The Nine-headed Serpent Staff could still shield him against individual attacks, but it was helpless against army spells that devastated everything in a set area. In the first place, this magic tool wasn’t intended for defense.
A resplendent cloud of flame began to form in the night sky under the deviants’ channeling. Inside the forest, war horns echoed ceaselessly as thousands of deviants fearlessly charged at the Nine-headed Serpent to bring it down.
Roel was in a precarious situation with threats from all directions, but he didn’t surrender to despair. Instead, he lowered his head and gazed at the short sword that had accompanied him for many years.
Ascendwing glowed as brilliantly as ever under the moonlight.
Roel stared at the holy weapon for a few seconds before abruptly plunging it into his arm.
“!”
The sharp pain brought a frown to Roel’s face, but it didn’t distract him from his goal. He determinedly channeled the mana in his blood toward Ascendwing, inducing the holy weapon to shine even more fervently. Then, he murmured the name of his protector.
“Nora…”
“!”
A very, very long distance away, a golden-haired woman heard the whisper and jolted awake. Moments later, Ascendwing’s second ability, Crown’s Bestowment, was invoked. A ray of light shot out from the ashes and slowly shaped into a feminine silhouette.
…
Crown’s Bestowment was the miracle born from the deep ties between Roel and his childhood friend. It was the manifestation of her determination to protect him back when he was still weak.
This spell allowed her to project an avatar that possessed powers equivalent to the main body for 24 hours once every 700 natural days. However, this spell came with a huge downside: any damage sustained by the avatar would be transferred to the main body.
For that reason, Roel had never used this spell until today.
Golden light pierced through the ashes and purified the nearby deadly fumes. Under the cold moonlight, Ascendwing buzzed in anticipation as the silhouette of a golden-haired woman was slowly shaped out.
“Nora…” Roel looked at the radiant angel in the sky as he murmured with the final sliver of his strength.
The golden-haired woman trembled upon hearing that voice. She lowered her head and stared at Roel with eyes filled with disbelief.
“Am I… in a dream?”
“Hm?”
Roel had been planning to explain the situation when he heard those words and was stunned. The golden-haired woman continued to stare at him with incredulous eyes, not daring to make a reckless move as if she was afraid that she would shatter this mirage.
“Roel… is it really you?” she asked with a quivering voice.
“…”
Roel was perplexed by her bizarre reaction.
W-what’s going on? Is there something off with my spell?
Unfortunately, the surrounding deviants didn’t give them time to talk things out.
Nora’s descent had dissipated the surrounding ashes and purified the deadly fumes, thus fully exposing Roel to the enemy. Upon locating the target, the deviants sounded the war horns once more.
After a despairingly one-sided battle against the Nine-headed Serpent, the deviants finally saw an opening for them to exploit. At the same time, the army spell also started to take shape. These movements on the battlefield filled Roel with anxiety.
“You’re all eyesores…” a hoarse voice dripping with ire echoed.
Nora raised her hand and drew in a flood of mana that irradiated the night sky with golden light. The atmosphere was suddenly suffused with a holy but authoritative aura. She then pulled the golden light down, causing it to rain down like holy spears.
The holy spears struck the cloud of flame channeled by the deviants, causing it to go off with a resounding explosion. At the same time, the deviants charging at Roel were also pierced by the falling holy spears, causing them to disintegrate entirely.
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