Chereads / Earthly Knight in a Fantastical Realm / Chapter 13 - Bloodbath under the Stars

Chapter 13 - Bloodbath under the Stars

When the horde clashed with Sargon they were the ones run through. With his shield in front of the horde charge could not even slow him down. He pushed through and his body to make a horizontal slash that carried his astra beyond the tip of his sword. In that instant, tens of orcs went down. The defenders on the wall were in awe of the display of strength and went still. One man, one knight broke the charge, destroying the horde's momentum. After their clash, the horde decided to go around the knight and continue going towards the weak city wall, letting other orcs deal with him. The three leaders of the defenders immediately gave the order to do ranged attacks when the orcs went past Sargon. Arrows and spells flew from the wall. Pharis started loosing arrows quickly after the order, not wanting to leave all the glory to her master. She had trained up a knight's mentality by now.

Sargon was in the middle of the horde by then, no friendly fire could reach him. If you looked from the top of the wall, all you would see is violently twinkling vibrant starlight. A light being religiously assaulted by droves of roaring orcs. Sargon was striking away using his sword and shield arts. Nothing could touch him and nothing could escape his strikes.

Meanwhile, the orcs had reached the wall and started banging on it and piling themselves to reach the top. The old wall couldn't withstand the banging for long and breaches were made. All the civilians retreated to the center of Kesh. Defenders made of city forces and adventurers were behind the wall. The many orcs were equipped with low-quality iron weapons and armor, but not all. This still raised their battle prowess by a bit. The defenders were in a strong formation with shield-bearers blocking the breaches and others behind them with ranged abilities, bows, and long weapons. The orc dead started to fill the breach. This allowed orcs to reach the top of the wall though.

Shield-bearers started to climb the pile of dead and push for a defensive on the other side of the breaches. The orcs made it to the top first. Pharis quickly decided to help pave the way for them. There were three breaches when she looked around. She used her explosive arrows to clear the rushing orcs best she could to allow the breach defenders to form an external defense line around it. She did this while also clearing the wall top of any orcs that made it up with others wall defenders. The orcs aren't the smartest, so instead of making new breaches to stretch the defender's forces, they focused on going through the ones already made. They had stabilized their defense for now.

Sargon was still cutting through the seemingly endless horde. He was on the verge of breaking through to malachite before the battle started. With all the fighting he had done, his astral body connection grew much stronger and made him break through to malachite level. A pulse of astral came from him mid-battle signifying his increased strength. He broke into a grin and then went much faster in his pig slaughter. even covered in blood he still radiated starlight. Looking back, he could that the defense was about to break. the shield-bearers could not hold off the thousands for long.

Dexaril, finally decided to act. Using area-of-effect fire spells, flame walls, and multiple fires broke out from his spells. Fireballs, flame whips, flame current, firewall, he used them all. Now the field was burning and the smell of burned flesh filled the air. Orc roars and screams rang out. The horde became enraged their assault became unbelievably more ferocious. They had broken through the breaches once more by pushing back the shield-bearers and killing many of them in their stampede. They poured into the city, now it was a bloody melee. The guild master and guard captain both left the wall to join the melee. The guild master was peak-steel as was the guard captain. They were the average strength for their positions in a small city like Kesh. Orcs were just among the strongest of monster tribes. The battle started to become a desperate fight.

Sargon was charging like a bright cannonball through the horde towards the orc lord now. He could recognize its astral body signature from a distance and knew exactly where it was. Now he stood before the orc lord and gauged its strength. It was 4 meters tall of orc that definitely wasn't titanium-level. The report was either wrong or the lord made it outdated because it was malachite-level. Now it had become more of an even fight for Sargon. He wasn't expecting it, but he wasn't complaining. The orc lord began to speak human language, " You are a knight, a knight as strong as me. My guard will stay out of our battle. Humans may be noting more but food to me, but you are not human, nor elf, or any other race I have feasted upon. You exude a unique brilliance they do not possess. I will fight a being such as yourself one on one, let us test our might! There can only be one left standing!"

Sargon responded readily, "Hath at thee then swine!" the orc lord took stance as did Sargon. They began their duel after a breath. The orc lord wielded a serrated greatsword and wore bone armor from some strong beast as it was harder than steel. The orc lord fought instinctively, but his moves were refined by battle experience rather than any martial art. This Sargon takes the orc lord much more seriously as its fighting style was refined through battle. However, it could not match Sargon's knight training that was also refined through battle. Their battle lasted a long time, the sun would soon grace the sky again. As they continued to exchange blows, it could be seen that Sargon was getting the upper hand and landing some flesh wounds. Astra and pressurized air ripped apart the ground and anything surrounding them as they fought. To make a deciding blow, Sargon charged his astral to make a blinding flash from his eyes. He then burst his astra in his astra to make him extraordinarily faster during that split-second. there was a flash of starlight, then the orc lord's head was detached and Sargon had passed it, all in that flash.

Back at Kesh, Pharis had joined the fight in the city to protect the civilians. She fought through the city for a long time that she could not measure. Despite her best efforts, civilians still died to the orcs. she was too busy fighting to do more than acknowledge their deaths as she had her own group she was defending and could not leave them. Sargon used "burst" to jump halfway back to Kesh, then another jump, making back to kesh in about 10 seconds. He then poured as much astra into his sword as he could and let out a massive horizontal slash. He killed most of the orc horde outside kesh since they were dwindled by him and everyone else beforehand. Pharis saw the starlight and smiled, "Master has succeeded. Now, this battle can be finished."

The strike drained Sargon of a lot of astra. He had expended lot fighting through the horde and battling the orc lord. Now he only had twenty percent of his astra left to use. Other times, he didn't have to full-body empowerment, so he could regain astra while he fought. He had used it continuously throughout the whole battle though. this gave no chance to refill even a little. He wasn't about to slack off now though. Most of the defenders had turned their attention to the orcs in the city now. They were the last ones, and everyone went after them now. Sargon then took off into the city.

If you could see the city from above, you'll see a small dot of twinkling starlight that belongs to Pharis. then you would a bright dot of twinkling starlight dashing through Kesh which would be Sargon. When the fighting was, the city had scattered fires and the smell of death. The defenders were tired, many dead, more injured, all worn-out in many ways. When the sun rose on the horizon, no one cheered. They just stared at the light and felt a great weight lifted from their shoulders. They had achieved victory and killed off the entire horde, but there was very little to celebrate.

Kesh was in ruins and nearly completely destroyed.