Chapter 486 ·Evil God (惡神) (3)

As he surveyed the battlefield, Zayd spotted a portion of the troops he had dispatched earlier arriving near the city wall.

Armed with heavy shields, thick armor, and a healthy dose of pure lunacy, they had somehow weathered the monsoon of arrows to reach the ramparts. 

Seeing this, Zayd raised his hand to send a signal.

In response, five thousand soldiers from the main army targeted the center, and three thousand soldiers each from the left and right flanks advanced toward the wall as reinforcements.

As the second wave charged in, the imperial soldiers already at the wall began throwing up grappling hooks and hoisting siege ladders while screaming praises to Allah. Others charged headlong toward the gates with battering rams to pound against the heavy timber.

To stop them, the soldiers atop the wall hurled heavy stones and poured boiling oil down below and scrambled to sever ropes and push away the encroaching ladders.

"Allahu Akbar!!"

"Kill them all!!"

"Oh, Heavenly Demon!!!!"

"Ugh, aaargh!!"

Blood-curdling screams blended with battle cries as both sides prayed to their respective gods.

While the soldiers on the wall focused on the enemy troops near them, a portion of the rear guard dispatched by Zayd took advantage of the thinning rain of arrows and successfully closed the distance to within sixty meters or so,

At that moment, Il-mok’s senses detected a subtle fluctuation of Qi as the iron balls flying through the air were deflected back over the enemies' heads.

Il-mok snapped his head around, and a bizarre scene unfolded in various spots among the enemy's rear guard.

Huddling together to block the arrows, squads of heavily armored soldiers arranged their massive tower shields together as if forming protective rings around something.

This formation appeared in multiple places, and that bizarre wave of Qi was emanating from the individuals shielded by these guards.

"Miss Jeong!!"

Il-mok bellowed as he hurled the Ascension Sword like a javelin.

Coated in Sword Force, the Ascension Sword cleaved through the air and flew at a tremendous speed.

Crack.

The shield-bearers tried to brace their shields to block the incoming sword, but the Ascension Sword punched through the thick steel like it was wet paper.

Crack.

Before the sorcerers inside could even finish casting their spells, the flying sword pierced their hearts in succession.

In the meantime...

TWANG!

Jeong Hyeon was already putting her sharp senses to work and sniped the sorcerers with arrows.

The distance was well within the range of her arrows, but the heavy shields guarding the spellcasters posed a significant problem for her.

She squeezed her concentration to its absolute limits and deployed Qi-guided arrows to produce continuous headshots.

Since she had not achieved Transcendence yet, her headaches intensified a little each time she used telekinesis on her arrows, but she grit her teeth and kept firing.

TWANG!

But even with Il-mok and Jeong Hyeon's combined efforts, a few of the casters managed to finish their spells. There were just too many sorcerers sprinkled throughout the rear guard for the two of them to wipe out entirely. 

The tips of their staves flared to life, and a barrage of fireballs instantly crossed the sixty-meter gap between them.

"Haah!!"

Heavy hitters like Jong-ri Chu and Hyeokryeon Seon-ah stepped up to cancel the fireballs while the sorcerers of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult chanted counter-spells in response.

Boom!!

The sky lit up with mid-air explosions, but they couldn't catch them all. A handful of fireballs slipped through the defensive net and smashed into the walls.

Boom!!

The wall shook violently, and the roaring flames instantly swallowed a few unlucky Hong Dynasty soldiers.

And in a twisted stroke of irony, the blast also caught several Muslims who were halfway up the siege ladders.

"Aaargh!!"

Apparently, finally landing a solid hit on the fortress was worth way more to them than a little friendly fire.

"Keep the pressure on them!!"

"Charge!!!"

The enemy grew even bolder and began throwing themselves at the wall.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The war drums in the enemy camp started hammering out a new rhythm, and Il-mok watched as a fresh wave of troops flooded the field again.

They were clearly accustomed to this type of warfare.

The sorcerers and their shield-bearers stayed firmly planted in their safe zones to act as static artillery, while the fresh infantry charged past them toward the walls.

After using his Sword Kinesis to skewer a few more sorcerers, Il-mok abruptly pulled his Ascension Sword back to his hand. 

In the distance, Zayd looked at Il-mok retrieving his sword and smiled triumphantly.

"Looks like he's finally starting to sweat over his aether reserves."

Whether it was walking on air or telekinetically controlling a sword from far away, techniques like that swallowed energies like there was no tomorrow.

He knew that very well since he himself could perform similar arts.

"To think he’s already running low on aether after warming up. It seems his martial cultivation is quite lacking. Hahaha."

Zayd shrugged off his lieutenant's cocky remark.

"You really think a Muharib Azim is going to start wheezing after a minor skirmish? He's simply taking a long war of attrition into account and pacing himself to conserve his strength."

The generals around him nodded in deep appreciation, marveling at Zaid’s insight.

Unfortunately for them, Zayd couldn't have been more wrong.

Il-mok had never had a prolonged war in mind to begin with.

‘Alright, that looks like a big enough crowd. I’ve reeled in as many as I’m going to get.’

Seeing his enemies charging at him like rows of packed sardines on a shelf, Il-mok immediately put his three dantians to work.

Yin Qi flowed from his Upper Dantian and Yang Qi traveled from the Middle Dantian. As for the volume, he drew 30 years' worth of internal energy from each.

Finally, he drew a full 60 years' worth of internal energy from his dantian before splitting it in two for each of the Yin and Yang Qi.

Shortly after, two orbs of power formed in Il-mok's hands.

Each orb of Qi contained a full 60 years' worth of internal energy.

This was the maximum amount of Qi Il-mok could control without sustaining internal injuries.

As roughly four-tenths of his total internal energy drained away at once, a profound sense of lethargy washed over him.

Since he couldn't very well stand around yawning in the middle of a war, Il-mok shook off the fatigue and quickly merged the two spheres into one.

The giant single orb flew forward over the heads of charging zealots.

Had he detonated it right in front of the wall, his own allies might have been swept up in the blast.

The World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm soared past the zealots clinging to the wall like a swarm of ants until it hovered directly above the entrenched sorcerers and the shield-bearers protecting them.

By coincidence, the third wave of soldiers advancing from the enemy ranks was passing through that spot.

BZZZT!!!

Without delay, a precursor to destruction echoed above their heads.

BOOM!!!!

A blinding radiance swallowed the plains, accompanied by a world-shattering roar.

And then, silence descended upon the chaotic battlefield as all noise was buried beneath the roar of the World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm.

The few fanatics still clinging to the siege ladders woodenly turned their heads to look behind them.

"…"

Not a single word could escape their lips.

They couldn't even force out a scream.

A massive crater of dozens of meters had been carved into the earth, and not a single living creature remained alive in its vicinity.

The only ones lucky enough to survive the purge were the soldiers who had already pressed themselves against the fortress walls.

In the blink of an eye, thousands of men had simply been erased from existence.

The fact that the enemy soldiers had clustered together and charged had resulted in even greater casualties.

Frankly speaking, a loss of a few thousand men among seventy thousand troops could indeed be said to be catastrophic, but the enemy side still had many more troops in reserve.

The World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm had only annihilated the soldiers who had charged directly from the front, and quite a few enemy soldiers still remained on the left and right flanks.

But the human brain was not so rational.

More than anything, they had no way of knowing if this would be the only time.

The faces of the zealots turned pale upon reaching the conclusion that the same explosion could occur above their own heads.

Below the wall, Il-mok watched the enemy vanguard spiral into a mass panic with indifference.

This was the very reason he had saved the World-Destroying Primordial Jade Palm.

It was an art that’s not suitable for repeated use in a single battle, so he’d rather use it to hammer the word fear into their very being.

"All forces!"

But before Il-mok could even bark out the order...

"LIGHT HAS DESCENDED!!"

"VICTORY IN OUR GRASP!!!"

The fanatics of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult immediately erupted in frenzy. They launched a merciless attack toward the enemy forces without even being ordered to.

One could see that madness glinted in every one of their eyes.

***

Boom!!!

As the deafening echo and blinding flash of the explosion finally faded, Zayd stared at the scene of destruction with a dumbfounded face.

At that moment, one of the generals standing next to him absentmindedly mumbled to himself.

"An avatar of the Evil God..."

That blasphemous whisper was like cold water to Zayd’s mind.

As an Amir leading an army, he drew his scimitar and swung it at the general he had fought alongside for years.

Slash.

"!?"

The nearby generals belatedly turned to look at him in shock.

Zayd met their gazes and asked coldly.

"Have you cowards also been consumed by fear at the sight of that Evil God's avatar?"

Inside, Zayd was in full agreement with that assessment.

That man was the avatar of the Evil God.

Just like the dead general had said, it wasn’t something a human being should be able to manifest into this world.

That wasn't martial arts.

That was the unholy grace of the Evil God.

But even though Zayd completely agreed with him, he didn't hesitate to butcher one of his most cherished generals.

He knew very well that there is no plague on the battlefield more frightening than fear.

"Use your heads for a second. Even if the Evil God has blessed him, do you really think a mortal man can manifest that miracle infinitely?"

When the generals failed to answer easily, Zayd willingly provided the answer.

"Of course not. If that were possible, that avatar of the Evil God would have no reason to hold back."

Only then did the cloudy terror in the generals' eyes begin to clear.

Zayd swept his gaze across the commanding officers and raised his voice.

"Yes! That man is an avatar of the Evil God! He’s a demon trying to stand in the way of Allah's strong will! But why do you think he was placed directly in our path? This is none other than a test from Allah to us! This means the true Jihad begins from here on out!"

Jihad.

The moment the Holy War was mentioned, flames were ignited in the generals' eyes.

"That avatar borrowing the power of the Evil God must be exhausted now!! Now is the time to crush this demonic trial and carve Allah's will into this world!!"

"Allahu Akbar!!"

Their shaken faith completely reforged and Zayd’s rallying cry soon rode the rhythm of the war drums.

But no matter how much energy he had infused into his voice, his speech couldn’t magically fix everything.

The enemy soldiers near the wall were still terrified, and the soldiers on the flanks were no different.

Knowing they had to break the wave of terror immediately, the generals drew their weapons and willingly stepped out onto the battlefield.

"Kill the avatar of the Evil God and establish the will of Allah!!"

"This is a Holy War!! We must overcome this demonic trial!!"

"The pagan monster is exhausted!! Strike now while he's weak!!"

They imbued aether into their shouts to encourage the soldiers, and willingly severed the heads of any men who remained paralyzed by fear. Not long after that, the war drums began to pound fiercely from every corner of the battlefield.

"Charge!!!"

"Kill the demon!!!"

Drunk on religious fervor, the remaining infantry and rear guards surged toward the city walls all over again.

Watching the enemy completely ignore their own casualties and charge right back into the slaughterhouse, Il-mok let out a weary sigh.

Back in the Central Plains, dropping a nuke like that was usually enough to send every martial artist to cry for their mothers.

‘Haa. These crazy zealots.’

It was a mystery to him as to why all these zealots seemed so hell-bent on dying.