Chapter 467 - 429: Blood Stains Golden Radiance Avenue

Chapter 467: Chapter 429: Blood Stains Golden Radiance Avenue

「Two hours later.」

The torrent of rioters finally crashed against an insurmountable wall.

Golden Radiance Avenue.

This wide avenue, which split Zelheim in two, had now become the line between life and death.

On one side of the avenue were tens of thousands of rioters wielding torches and crude weapons. They were like a horde of demons crawling out of hell, roaring to charge into the Upper City District that represented wealth and order.

On the other side of the avenue, there was a deathly silence.

Five hundred fully armored Templar Knights stood in three ranks, their silver-white plate armor reflecting a cold, metallic sheen in the firelight.

Behind them were a dozen or so heavy ballistae, already set up. The massive Crossbow Arrows glimmered with the faint light of anti-magic Runes.

Further back, atop the high tower of the Cathedral of Holy Radiance, several High Tier Priests held their Magic Staffs aloft, channeling holy power.

A faint golden barrier of Divine Art stretched across the middle of the avenue like a transparent glass wall, shutting out the clamor and filth.

"Charge!"

"That’s our hard-earned money!"

"Drag out that old bastard, the Archbishop!"

At the very front of the crowd, a few burly men with bloodshot eyes carried a log they had just ripped from a construction site, howling as they charged the wall of light.

"SIZZLE—"

The moment the log touched the barrier, it was like butter tossed into a hot pan.

A violent sizzling sound replaced the expected crash.

The log, so thick it took two men to get their arms around it, didn’t seem to hit an obstacle. Instead, it was smoothly ablated away. The two men at the front couldn’t stop in time, and their arms were vaporized along with it.

"AHHH!!!"

The piercing screams had barely traveled far before they were cut off by the sound of something tearing through the air.

"THWUM—"

It was the muffled sound of the heavy ballistae firing.

Three Crossbow Arrows as thick as a man’s arm tore through the air, piercing the front ranks of the crowd with terrifying kinetic energy.

"THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!"

Flesh and blood flew everywhere.

Like a hot knife through cheese, those Crossbow Arrows easily tore through a dozen bodies, pinning them to the ground like skewers.

Blood sprayed several meters into the air, splattering across the fanatics’ faces.

The crowd fell silent.

It was a silence more suffocating than the previous uproar.

The people in the front stared in horror at the twitching strings of corpses on the ground. The primal fear from their instincts finally overwhelmed their adrenaline-fueled madness.

They finally remembered.

The ones standing before them were not the few fat monks who only knew how to collect taxes, but the behemoth that had ruled this continent for hundreds of years.

They could smash an altar in the mud, but they could not touch the authority enthroned in the clouds.

"Fall back."

From within the Knight formation, a captain in golden armor spoke coldly.

His voice, amplified by magic, boomed like rolling thunder over the square.

"Cross the line, and you die."

Simple. Brutal. Unquestionable.

The rioters began to retreat.

That desperate feeling of powerlessness was like a basin of ice water poured over them, extinguishing the flames of their anger and leaving only a bone-chilling cold.

Meanwhile, on the flank of Golden Radiance Avenue.

A troop of Empire garrison soldiers in black uniforms was rapidly assembling.

"Commander, sir! The rioters are storming the line! Requesting permission to open fire!" an adjutant ran over, his forehead drenched in sweat. "If we don’t suppress them, they might bypass the Templar Order and infiltrate the Noble District through the side alleys!"

The garrison commander, a Count with a brutish, fleshy face, was gripping his command sword, a cruel light flickering in his eyes.

’This is a great chance to earn some merit.’

’If I just slaughter this rabble, not only will I please the church, I’ll also get to show my face before those few Marquises.’

"Pass the order! Archers, prepare! First volley, saturation fire! Leave no survivors..."

"Hold."

A cold voice abruptly cut through the chaos of the battlefield.

The commander’s hand froze in mid-air.

He whipped his head around and saw an all-black carriage, bearing no family crest, slowly pulling into his position. The carriage’s craftsmanship was exquisite to the extreme, its wheels rolling over the blood and mud on the ground—a completely incongruous sight.

The door opened, and a middle-aged man in a crisp black formal suit and pristine white gloves stepped out.

The middle-aged man’s expression was indifferent. His hands, accustomed to gripping a sword, were now unhurriedly adjusting the edges of his gloves. The thick stench of blood and burnt flesh filling the air didn’t make him so much as flinch, as if this sort of scene was no different to him than coming home.

Upon seeing this man, the brutish-faced garrison commander’s face turned deathly pale.

He recognized this man.

This was the chief Captain of the Guard from Prince Willandar’s estate, and also the Prince’s most trusted "shadow." In the noble circles of the Royal Capital, seeing him was the same as seeing the reclusive Prince himself.

"It is... Your Excellency, the Captain of the Guard." The commander hastily sheathed his sword. Heedless of the mud on the ground, he hurried to greet the man, even humbly bowing his corpulent waist. "What brings you here in person? Is it an order from His Highness the Prince...?"

"Lord Count." The Captain of the Guard did not look him in the eye, merely sweeping his cold gaze over the commander’s dust-covered boots. His tone carried a hint of casual mockery. "You’re being too loud. His Highness is enjoying tea at his villa, and the shouting and the sound of ballistae from over here are disturbing his leisure."

Cold sweat immediately broke out on the commander’s brow, trickling down his cheeks and into his collar.

"My... My apologies! A dereliction of duty! But these rioters were attempting to storm the line. In order to maintain order in the Royal Capital, I was just about to..."

"Rioters?" The Captain of the Guard let out a soft chuckle, but there was no mirth in it.

"From what I’ve heard, they’re just a group of sick, desperate subjects of the Empire?"