Novel Full Chapter 1134: Frightening Spell
Chapter 1134: Frightening Spell
Rynne found herself staring at the dogkin courier for a few too many heartbeats.
She hadn’t even felt her approach, for she had been so absorbed in the fireworks tearing through the Fujimori line that she let the woman slip into her shadow unnoticed.
Unacceptable.
That was the kind of rookie lapse a green lieutenant might make, not her. Not after centuries on the field. She forced her expression back into professional mode.
’Focus, Rynne.’
Maelstrom was on his way.
The Fujimori likely knew it, too. They were deep in enemy territory, having arrived not by spearheading a line through the enemy lands but by teleporting here.
This meant that on all sides, they were surrounded by enemies. It was only a matter of time until they had to make a tactical retreat unless they took the stronghold for themselves and used its potent defenses to make this place their own fortress.
Minutes. That’s all they needed to break the barrier apart and descend on the place from all angles.
But she needed dozens of minutes, likely an hour, until Maelstrom got here.
If the walls broke before reinforcement, it wouldn’t matter how many tricks Devil and his entourage had; inside the stronghold, sheer numbers and individual strength of the Fujimori army would crush everything.
Her gaze slid back to the hills. The earth itself was moving again, ridges uncoiling like serpents, each crowned with the moon elf’s silver engines. These strange hills slithered across the battlefield under Devil’s impossible magic, weaving and rolling, refusing to be pinned down.
On their backs stood more than constructs.
A samurai with a blade that split the air in luminous arcs, shockwaves tearing gaps in the Fujimori vanguard.
A woman clad in black steel and holding a similarly dark sword that flashed as she deflected incoming projectiles.
A pink-haired warrior braced at the front as she simply absorbed the punishment, shielding both mage and hill with her flesh and spells.
On another moving hill, she spotted a tanned woman with red hair, whose fists erupted in fire. Beside her, Rynne’s breath hitched as she realized that Raika the Brutalizer herself stood and was punching projectiles out of the sky. Together they stood unyielding, two forces of nature deflecting entire barrages with nothing but their fists.
Further still, she glimpsed a woman whose blade dripped malice, Vex, the Hexblade, Rynne realized, flanked by a berserker wielding an axe large enough to split siege towers in half.
Each hill bore two or three of Devil’s champions, coordinating with the moon elf and himself.
And when the Fujimori pressed too close?
A dimensional doorway would snap open beside the fighters. They leapt in without hesitation while the constructs dissolved and the hill stilled, only to reappear on a fresh ridge moments later, silver engines already rematerializing to unleash more devastation.
It was warfare unlike anything Rynne had seen in her centuries of campaigns and studies of history. Every rule, every treatise, every bloody tome on strategy she had ever studied… they all meant nothing against this.
Against a man who treated battlefields like his private gameboard, rearranging hills and champions like pieces on a whim.
“This is the true potential of that strange teleportation spell… How utterly frightening…”
Her fingers tightened around her spear.
It was intoxicating to watch, but she knew the truth. The elf couldn’t sustain this forever. Devil himself couldn’t. They were bleeding mana with every shifting hill, every impossible strike. Their curtain of destruction was only a reprieve.
That meant it was up to her. Up to the stronghold.
If they didn’t sally forth now, if they didn’t seize the opening Devil carved, then all of this brilliance—this madness—would crumble.
She looked back at the eager dogkin, Ghosty, who was now busy beaming at her master’s image as he burned bright in the distance. Her eyes were sparkling with more than awe. ’A girl madly in love, huh…’ Rynne chuckled for a moment.
Rynne raised her spear and, with her free hand, touched the small crystal orb that hung at her waist. The artifact came to life with a blue glow, and when she spoke, her voice carried across the entire stronghold.
“Soldiers of the Consortium! Hear me well!”
Every single pair of ears perked. Even in the chaos of the siege, her words cut through.
“Lord Maelstrom marches to us with twenty thousand men. In one hour, the storm will fall upon the Fujimori. All we must do is hold until then. One hour, and victory will be ours!”
The roar that followed was brief. The soldiers understood how tall an ask that was.
She knew it too.
“But the barrier will not last that long. Minutes. That is all it has left before it collapses under their assault, and that’s assuming the slit-eyed slut won’t personally attack again. Once the barrier falls, their numbers will flood this stronghold, and not even twenty thousand men could reclaim it from within these walls.”
A hush fell, grim and heavy. Rynne’s voice did not falter.
“Yet fate has not abandoned us. You have seen it with your own eyes. Devil and his allies fight even now, turning the battlefield on its head. They tear apart the Fujimori rear and their siege machines, but they cannot stand forever. Every soldier who forces them to reposition using their strange magic brings them, and us, closer to defeat.”
She lowered her spear until it pointed toward the battlefield.
“So here is what we will do. The mages, the archers, the enchanters, the healers, and the engineers will remain behind the barrier. You will continue your work, because the barrier and the engines are our lifeline. You will provide backup from behind the walls. But the melee will sally out. We will charge into the front of the Fujimori and break their endless waves. We will drag their warriors away from their mad chase of Devil’s group, force them to clash with us, and keep their strongest at bay while Devil carves apart their backline.”
Her voice thundered one last time, calling upon her 5,000 warriors, whom she was about to order to make a suicide charge.