Tyrant of the Ruined Sun - Chapter 225

Chapter 225: The Taste of War 2

My guard descend with the fury of fallen fiends, their wide array of weapons turn from shining streaks of silver to mirages of sweeping crimson within an instant of their landfall, their auras pulsing with controlled voracity, fully showcasing their unquestionable skill that took the duration of several ordinary men’s lifetimes to attain, all the while their golden armour mocks each and everyone of their vanquishes foes with it’s pristine purity, as though their cruel butchers were not men honed to weapons of blind obedience, but tools of righteous justice wreathed heroically in a halo of gold.

One hundred guards are now upon the wall with me and Abraham, and we do not waste time with perfunctory words, but instead we act simultaneously, wordlessly, as each of us take hold of half of the men, and lead each in opposite directions.

Our targets, the high towers scattered at consistent intervals along the straight white walls, and the weapons they hide in their tight embrace.

Yet our quest is almost immediately obstructed and delayed, not due to our foes’ stalwart defences, but due to the opposite, for they immediately broke rank, and began to flee for their lives, congesting the narrow walls in a way, that even if they stood facing us with their valour unshaking, they would not have been able to.

It is a twisted trick of the Gods, dousing them in such a toxic mix of desperation for survival and mind melting fear, that the fools made walls of their own writhing flesh before us.

But I do not waver, for even if a bastion of breathing, crying meat is what stands before me and my goals, then I must simply cut through it, and Fallen Nemesis is more than happy to assist me by becoming my demolition tool, as I bathe it’s once pure white surface in a fresh coat of slick scarlet paste, all while my bone white aura sticks to it’s edges like the eerie shadow of it’s original colour, creating a monstrously ghostly air to it all, as it is clutched in my spiked, ebony black hand.

Yet with each sanguine step I take I only grow in speed, in power, in efficiency; not in the expected fatigue and weariness, for the last time I fought, I truly fought, was four years ago, during the Battle of the Melting Mist Plains, but now I am different.

No longer am I in the midst of this bloodshed because I had no other choice, and nor are my skills only capable of the meagre power of inspiring my men to simply fight harder and hold out for longer.

No, I am even stronger than most of my guards now. An irrefutable truth made all the more clear as all fifty of them who followed me try as best as they can to keep up with me, but are utterly unable to, as though a great chasm now separates us.

For like a long silent stream of water slowly eroding the obscuring stones that has held it back for what felt like eons, my old instincts and habits come back to me with an energizing sensation, as though my very blood that had grown languid and slow, like a viscous mud in my veins, had once again learned how to be liquid again, remembering how to once again race their way through my veins, empowering my body with a forgotten strength.

The cold stone becomes my canvas, my halberd the brush, and their blood, bone and sinew the paint, as I flow through them, turning their unwilling selves into materials for my macabre portrait.

I reach the first tower within seconds, the ground behind me is decorated black with blood and broken bodies, but my way forward is barred, not by more fleeing backs, but by stern faces, and a shield wall of across the decorative archway that could allow a carriage unimpeded access, and I understand why the tide of routing people was formed in the first place.

Those who stand before me now are all fifth ranks, lead by sixth ranks, my halberd martial artist had skyrocketed to seventh rank since three years ago, and my aura can chew through theirs with little effort, but these men are not like the others, they are elites not common rabble, they will not flee before me and permit me to easily destroy the sole forbidding the rest of men from joining the battle.

They understand this, and they will die standing in my way.

But they have overlooked one simple thing, I don’t need to enter the tower to cripple their ballistae.

I swing Fallen Nemesis in a wide, destructive cleave, one meant to crush indiscriminately, they instinctively brace and the sound is deafening, but the blow never arrives, they stand without a hair’s strand disturbed. They timidly raise their heads, trying to understand and see that I had not aimed at them, but at the stone pillars around them.

The tower’s foundations.

They scattered like mouse from a flooding burrow, as the tower began to lean, yet it didn’t fully collapse, an insult I would not leave unanswered, as I blew past them, cutting down those who were too unfortunate to remain in my path, and into the confines of the tower before I recklessly twisted in flashing arcs of shooting aura in the centre of the massive structure, as I then immediately took my leave through the other end.

I heard the loud creak and crack of splintering timber, followed shortly by the snaping of iron and then the crashing booms of stone breaking upon stone, as the howls of horror of those still inside echoed out in a sickening crescendo of agony.

I do not pause to behold my handywork, as I continue my charge towards the second tower, while a repeat of the last time’s riotous route is unfolded before me yet again.

But then I notice my guards surge to me with renewed vigour, their voices calling out to me in panicked, begging shouts, trying desperately to reach me, yet I can not make out what it is they are trying to tell me, my mind too enraptured by the current sensations coursing through my body, and my ears too full of the other’s whining weeps and wails, as I tear bloody trenches through them.

But then I see it, what has caused my stoic, stalwart men to show such a frantic side to them, a conclave of mages dressed in bright red and orange robes not too far away, perched atop the tower I am almost upon. Then a massive globe of burning light dominates my eyes, boiling the blood coalescing at my feet, turning the frigid air around me scorching, and the bodies around me to ash.

They have chosen to forsaken their men in a drastic attempt to halt me.

I simply laugh.

‘How dare they use mortal fire before me?!’ I think in amused mockery, my divine power erupting in enraged ferocity, my very blood distaining the slight, as a flame the size of a torch’s light appears in my open palm.

The burning ball the size of a small house splits like a river around a stone before me, spilling into nothingness behind me, the once blistering heat around me tripling in an instant, yet everyone still feels as though their bones have been doused in ice water, while the wind wails from the flame’s presence, abandoning it’s usual whistling melody and billowing dance, to silent torture and unnatural squirming, convulsive movements.

The tower topples a blink’s time later, the mages’ heads decorating it’s fallen wreckage like handful of rubies lining a rough platinum accessory.

I again resume my mad assault, leaving the dread of a black demon in my wake, before I then feel a burning sensation on the side of ribs as I am flung back.

“My emperor!” My guards yell out in fright again, as I am hurled back a few paces by a man a head taller than me, clad in shimmering steal, so polished it reflects light like mirrors in the sun, carrying a Messer in one hand and a larger than average, spiked buckler in the other.

He is undoubtedly one of the highest ranking officers responsible for holding the wall and the city, the crest on his chest and armour tell me he is the son of some great house, born to love and great expectation, trained since youth by the best masters his parents could afford him, and strengthened by decades of merciless duty.

His aura pulses proudly with the might of a seventh rank martial artist, as he loudly smashes his blade against his shield in clear provocation, like a gorilla beating it’s chest.

He does well to last a full seven seconds, before my halberd’s axe head catches him on the side of his jaw as I follow through on my upward cleave, adding him too to my tapestry of gore upon the city’s battlements.

My guard are upon me then, clearing all else beside me, allowing me passage to return to my path of carnage, but before I do, I take a moment to gaze back into the escalating battle, and check up upon those most dear to me.

The walls and defences are in such a disarray, that my Chimera Knights had joined us at some point before I noticed.

The first I behold is Bellerophon, gliding down in swooping arcs of carnage, every part of him a devastating weapon. His claws shred limbs, his horns gore stomachs, his fangs impale brains, his serpentine tail snap with venomous bites at all who dare approach, all the while his ashen hide shrug off most blows aimed towards him.

The second I find is Cyrus, his brilliant golden, and large sword and accompanying Palace Guard hard to miss among the melee already beginning in the streets of the burning city, as he duels another of similar strength, and then I see it, my brother takes his opponent’s hand with a quick slash, before his foot shoots up, knocking him down, and then instantly is pinning his bested foe down on the floor, as his blade rests on the man’s throat, yet he doesn’t deliver the finishing blow.

I continue watching him, as my guards keep swarming around me, and then it happens, my brother’s hands clench tighter around his blade’s handle, and his sword’s tip sinks out of sight into the man’s throat.

He doesn’t move for several seconds, and none disturb him, before he then slowly lifts his sword back up, and marches deeper into the blazing streets, his guards on either side of him.

Knowing that Cyrus had already done the difficult part, I turn my attention to locate my other brother, but I could not find him, I continue to search, but I catch sight of neither he nor his guards among the throngs of battling hordes all around me.

But then I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder, as a guard gestures upwards, allowing me to finally see him, perched high above where I left him.

‘What is he doing?’ I wonder, looking at him, surrounded by his deep blue aura, not understanding why he still hasn’t joined the battle, when it suddenly struck me.

‘My clever little brother!’ I internally exclaim in genuine surprise and awe.