civilwarnovels Chapter 230: Slaughter
Chapter 230: Slaughter
It took Alice only a fraction of a second to identify which spell the wizard was trying to cast.
In the next second, as she watched the barrier rise into a trembling dome of bluish mana, she had already mapped out fifteen weak points in its structure.
In the third second, her own mana extended like translucent arms, gliding silently through the air toward the fifteen targets.
In the fourth second, upon reaching each point, she forced the mana to condense into small, dense cores and detonated them.
In the fifth second, the barrier collapsed completely, shattering into a shower of sparkling fragments that dissipated in the wind.
"Now, Veronica!" Alice commanded, raising both hands above her head as dozens of ice spears materialized in the air, glistening like sharpened crystals beneath the sun.
Behind her, a huge magical rune spun slowly, pulsing with a strong glow that amplified the spell’s power.
Veronica didn’t hesitate either.
Her eyes burned with determination as she summoned a powerful fireball between her hands, the heat radiating from the spell warping the air around her.
Beside them, the bows of the three hundred archers creaked in unison as their owners channeled aura through the taut strings, infusing each arrow with energy.
When the strings snapped free, the arrows sliced through the air with an ominous whine, briefly darkening the sky above the river.
Alistair, sensing what was coming, clenched his teeth.
"Shields!" he roared, and his army moved in chaos, raising their shields toward the riverbank from which the deadly rain was descending upon them.
The arrows struck the shields with a deafening metallic clang, mowing down only a few poorly armed militiamen who failed to protect themselves in time, their bodies collapsing amid muffled groans.
It was at that very moment that Alice unleashed her spell.
Twelve spears of ice tore through the air with a high-pitched shriek, covering the little more than a hundred meters separating the armies in a single second.
They crashed down upon Alistair’s ranks in violent, icy explosions, freezing the ground instantly beneath the survivors’ feet and sending a frigid mist drifting across the battlefield.
At the same time, Veronica fired fireballs without respite, each one bursting in the midst of the enemy ranks with a brilliant orange flash, hurling bodies into the air and dragging dozens of men to a fiery death.
"Damn it, do something!" Alistair shouted at his mage, turning just in time to see an ice spear pierce the lustful pig’s body.
The explosion that followed claimed not only his life, but also those of ten other soldiers around him, riddling them with shards of ice before they could even scream.
"Shit...!" Alistair covered his face with both arms as the explosion sent icy shards flying in all directions, ripping through dozens of men around him.
The pain of the shards sinking into his forearm, freezing armor and flesh with a single touch, was terrible.
But none of that compared to the rage boiling in his chest.
"We have to kill that damned mage!" Alistair roared at his captain, who leaped to the other side of the river in a single powerful bound, accompanied by three other third-stage warriors.
The four advanced in long strides toward the archers, but were quickly intercepted by five third-stage warriors from Goldenveil who emerged to block their path.
Outnumbered, they could only fight to hold their ground, locked in a bitter and exhausting clash, steel ringing against steel at a frantic pace.
"Argh, useless sons of bitches! Why do I have to do everything here?"
Alistair was about to send two more third-stage warriors to turn the tide of that clash when, suddenly, he felt the ground shake beneath his feet.
As he looked back, while his officers desperately tried to reorganize the panicking army, he saw seventeen hundred men rise up behind a hill, shields at the ready and swords in hand, lined up in tight formation.
Among those men was Ethan Goldenveil, staring at him as if he were nothing more than a rat trapped in a mousetrap.
Ethan raised his sword slowly, letting the steel gleam in the sunlight before lowering it in a decisive motion.
It was the signal, and his army surged forward like an unstoppable tide.
The sight of seventeen hundred soldiers advancing in a cohesive line, shields raised and forming an impenetrable wall, was, without a doubt, terrifying.
Alistair, however, still confident in his overwhelming numerical advantage, did not allow that image to shake his resolve.
Ignoring the archers and mages, he rushed to reorganize his front line, barely managing to form a cohesive vanguard before Goldenveil’s lines collided with his own.
At the moment of impact, all five hundred guards on Goldenveil’s front line activated the first forms of the golden dragon emperor’s fencing.
A faint image of a golden dragon formed above the army, accompanied by a golden barrier that enveloped their bodies like a translucent veil.
It didn’t take long for the soldiers of the Whitefall Guard to notice something: whenever they found a gap in the Goldenveil soldiers’ defense, their swords struck that golden barrier.
Goldenveil could attack, but Whitefall couldn’t strike back!
It was only when the third-stage warriors, Alistair among them, entered the battle that they finally managed to force that barrier to collapse.
And then, the two armies found themselves locked in carnage, pressed against one another as corpses piled up beneath their feet and officers struggled to maintain the cohesion of their own ranks.
The Whitefall army was, without a doubt, in the most desperate situation.
Its elite faced Goldenveil’s elite at a clear disadvantage, its third-stage warriors unable to cope with the superior numbers of enemy specialists.
And the poorly trained militia, right in the center of the formation, was already beginning to crumble in panic.
Men were thrown into the river, many sinking under the weight of their own armor, their screams muffled by the murky waters as they struggled in vain.
Those who were "lucky" were struck directly by a spell from Alice or Veronica, dying instantly, without even having time to feel pain.
It didn’t take long before that militia fell into total despair and tried to flee.
But there was a problem.
They could only retreat against the backs of Whitefall’s own elite, who were locked in a bloody battle against Goldenveil’s vanguard, or throw themselves into the river and try their luck in the current.
Many threw themselves into the water, but others simply charged in desperation against the very rear of their own vanguard, crushing countless men in their frantic attempt to break through and escape.
It was at that moment that Alistair, finally realizing the situation he was in, let out a roar full of rage, his eyes brimming with murderous intent as they fixed on Ethan.