Unlike his first attack, Captain Sebastian's second charge came loaded with uncontrollable anger as he felt his knightly pride trampled. Delivering a two-handed overhead attack, the blow of his sword was so intense that I barely had time to bend my knees slightly to distribute the load.
The ground under my feet began to crack, while my body sank a little from the pressure exerted. Coming from the left and right flanks, waves of soldiers joined in an escalation of attacks, barely giving me time to cast my spells to repel them.
That was the overwhelming force of the glorious order of the temple, the so-called holy knights of the holy seat. Children of noble families from all kingdoms and empires, they were meticulously selected from an early age in order to join that army that did not obey any power other than the representative of the goddess, the Supreme Pontiff Benedict.
- "I admit it petty heretic, you are the first person who can stand despite my attacks. I give you my appreciation for that, but don't think that you will be able to get rid of the judgment of the goddess" – Increasing his attack speed while his white skin turned red, Sebastian's blows became more overwhelming, at the same time that he felt light cuts on the face and arms produced by the gusts of wind from the fanning of his sword.
- "Master, there are twelve minutes left before the physical body deteriorates. The mana supply is rapidly declining. We need to make up for the lack of magical power" – Escaping the last attack by a hair's breadth, I began to roll on the ground between the soldiers while printing small magic circles on the stones under their bodies, invoking my mana drain spell in order to recover from the exhausting consumption to which I am forced to confront Sebastián.
- Gentlemen, fall back! Search for any surviving temple maidens and bring them immediately to the battlefield. This witch uses demonic arts!" – Surprised to see that his men fell with their mummified bodies, the captain had never seen the use of that spell coming from the arcane elves. For him, my magical arts were a practice from the evil of the world, reaffirming in his heart his intention to annihilate me.
- "Amelia! How much longer are you going to keep playing with that asshole? I'm almost out of mana and the barrier is starting to weaken."
- "Oh please Sandra, didn't you say you were the most powerful alchemist in the world?"
- "Of course I'm crazy! But it is not the same to be the most powerful than to have an unlimited mana source. Amelia, watch out!" – Turning my eyes to the front, a huge hand similar to a dragon's claw held me tightly, compressing my body in the air.
As their captain had ordered, the soldiers returned with the few maidens who were still alive after the collapse of the barracks facilities. Led by Sister Nohemí, the priestesses held their staffs in front with their eyes closed, invoking magical arts in sacred chants.
Barely holding my breath from that fierce grip, Sebastian looked ecstatic as he received the power of the maidens' prayers. Manifesting a dragon-like beast-like aura.
As part of the initiation into the order, those knights who were promoted to high-ranking positions such as legion captain, were endowed with an amulet that connected directly to the mana core of their hearts. Amplifying their draconic blood at significant cost to their bodies.
The maidens who were gathered there had the mission of reducing the stress load on the captain's body. While he manifested that exoskeleton that allowed him to master the power of an ancient dragon.
- "Why don't you give up now heretic? If you do, I can show you the mercy of the goddess and end your life painlessly."
- "Master, there are ten minutes left before reaching the critical condition" - With every second that it took me to answer his offer, Sebastian tightened that claw with more force, little by little breaking my bones. Suffocating me for brief moments until I was able to free my battered arm into the air.
- "Captain, you can stick your mercy up your ass!" – Changing my weapon into the shape of a staff, I invoked a spell of thunder that reached more than half of the maidens, burning their bodies. Making the claw weaken as my body fell to the ground hitting my back.
- "Ophelia! Use that same shit as your other sisters and heal me."
- "But what blasphemy! How can you call the holy arts that way?" – Angry at the maid's refusal, Sandra took her by the ear dragging her to the edge of the barrier amid complaints and throbbing pain in her lobe.
- "Listen busty! Either you do as my friend says or you can go kiss the feet of the idiot in the golden armor." – Seeing the captain's face, the maid trembled with fear as she agreed to Sandra's orders.
Covered by a golden halo, I felt my body begin to heal as I continued to chant to project earth magic in the form of stakes, impaling the soldiers who came looking for an opportunity to attack me while I was lying on the ground.
- "Gentlemen, diamond position! Magic artillery unit, take up positions on high ground and fire cover shots. It is an order" – Reorganizing his troops, Sebastián understood that the situation in which he found himself could not be conquered by the mere act of using brute force.
Before his eyes, the short-lived woman he despised as a heretic gradually gained recognition as a formidable enemy. Giving me less space to mobilize and make use of my magical arts.
- "Sister Nohemi, increase the amount of mana imbued in my talisman"
- "Captain, that is impossible! We have lost more than half of the maidens and the few that are left standing will not be able to resist it."
- "Herman, I think you have misunderstood me. What I said wasn't a request, it's a fucking order. We cannot allow these abominable creatures to leave Litho alive" – Grinding her teeth with the impotence of not being able to resist the captain's orders, the priestess ordered the maidens to proceed as commanded.
- "Please sister, we beg you! We don't want to die, don't force us to do it" – Without listening to the words of pleas from her subordinates, the maiden raised her right hand from which a ring emanated a dark red sinister aura, causing the priestesses' eyes to turn red. dark and their expressions changed into a pale corpse-like emptiness.
Moving their bodies like puppets, the unfortunate maidens raised their arms in the direction of Captain Sebastian sending the little that was left of mana added to their life force, falling to the ground dying spitting blood.
The moment that overflowing flow of energy came into contact with the talisman on Sebastian's armor, the golden appearance turned obsidian black and his head was covered by a helmet that covered his entire face, only leaving a small slit visible. at the level of the eyes, from which a slight scarlet glow was visible.
- "You are cursed. Is that the salvation and mercy that the gospel of your goddess brings?"
- "Shut up foolish! Until now you have done and blasphemed what you wanted, but this will be your end"- Stabbing his heavy sword into the ground, Sebastian invoked a series of magic circles over him, raising a pillar of violet light.
- "Children of Artemis! You who have died in the grace of the goddess, get up once more and fight" – With a roar on the earth, the energy that remained on the captain spread through the ground reaching the corpses of the soldiers and maidens. Wrapping them in cocoons that hatched one by one, releasing semi-human creatures without a single iota of reasoning.
- "Security warning, creatures of unknown nature detected in the perimeter. Impossible to run vulnerability scans on individuals"
- "What do you mean Faust?"
- "Master, creatures have no vital flow. They cannot be killed" – Surprisingly, one of those beings that still wore remains of his maiden's robe pounced on me, chattering my teeth as if he wanted to devour my meat.
- "Amelia, don't let those things bite you!"
- "Sandra, I'm afraid to ask, but tell me anyway. Are they zombies?
- "Zombies? Idiot those things are not just walking dead! They are holy ghouls"
- "What the hell difference is there between them? They're both rotten" – Kicking my enemies away while I scuttled between jumps and sweeps, the monsters' teeth brushed dangerously against my body, causing me to shudder.
- "The zombie that we commonly know is enough to purify it with sacred magic to erase it from the physical plane, but a sacred ghoul is an invocation from the power of the goddess, it is impossible to eliminate it. These bloody bastards have hundreds of these fucking dead locked up in the catacombs of the Holy See, precisely because they can't get rid of their mistakes." – Severing a head from one of the ghoul soldiers, I realized the weight of the alchemist's words, seeing with my own eyes how the severed limb reunited with the main body as if the edge of my weapon had never passed. about him.
- "Master, there are seven minutes left before the critical failure"
- "Fausto please stop telling me how much time I have left! I need to come up with a plan or we're screwed" – Like an avalanche of rotting meat, the bodies of the sacred ghouls rushed at me just giving me time to summon a rotating wind barrier to repel them.
- "Gehennam Ignis" – Invoking a spell of fire that turned the ground under the corpses into boiling lava, for a moment I felt a deep relief watching the flesh burn until leaving mere bones that broke sinking into that sea of incandescent material.
But as soon as I took a few steps to throw myself directly at Sebastian, the lava exploded through the air, releasing countless corpses that regenerated once more as if they had received no damage.
- "I told you pathetic woman! This land will be your grave along with the other two heretics that accompany you" – With only five minutes remaining before my body entered the critical phase and destroyed itself, my flesh was already experiencing the ravages of incompletely assimilating my first form with the new one. power granted by Freya. Lines of jagged cracks across my legs and my only remaining arm, letting some of my tissue crumble away as cells dehydrated and turned to dust.
- "Hey Amelia, you can't go on like this! Even with this prude's spiritual power, it's almost impossible for her to keep regenerating you. Enough, you tried! Please, just stop once" – The expression on Sandra's face reflected a deep sorrow when contemplating my battered body. As if he was taking pity on me, faced with what seemed like a challenging move in a battle that was destined to be lost.
- "Faust! Give me a reading on underlying heat sources."
- "Initiating underground reading...impossible to detect thermal sources in a radius of ten kilometers. But there are still living beings available to cast drain spell…"
- "No way, those are the citizens of this town! Leaving out the bloody nobles, everyone else is an innocent person. Think of something else!" – Moving at full speed trying to attract the attention of the sacred ghouls, I rushed towards Sebastian, conjuring an ice chant in order to immobilize him long enough to prevent him from continuing to manipulate the corpses.
- "Master, we have passed the critical barrier. We are three minutes from the main body going into terminal failure."
- "Shit!" – Feeling that everything was moving slowly in front of me, among the bestial ghouls that gathered one by one without giving me any respite, my eyes did not take their gaze from Sandra, who lowered her face, collapsed on her knees in that dome of energy that was already breaking completely. Holding on to the maiden, who had a look of resignation on her face as the ghouls closed in on them.
- "Faust, how many readings of living beings do you have leaving out the members of the order and me?"
- "We have exactly two hundred living beings within a radius of five kilometers"
- "Sandra! Throw me that one way ticket to hell"
- "No! What are you thinking to do?"
- "Please, just do it!" – Projecting an arm of mana on the stump on my right side, I took my cane with it while I extended my left hand catching the gem in the air that the alchemist threw me.
- "Master, the coordinates have been set for the displacement."
- "Very well, then only this path remains. Mass Obsessio!" – The citizens and nobles that remained within the limits of the city, saw how their bodies began to shine in a white light, vanishing in the air in front of their astonished gazes. To the right and to the left, fearful of that event, friends and relatives embraced while they were taken violently by the spell.
- "Amelia don't do it!" – With the barrier disappearing and the monsters throwing themselves into it, both the priestess and Sandra vanished into thin air, leaving us completely alone on that cruel battlefield.
- "Silly, you have only delayed the inevitable! When I'm done with you, I'll go for your friends and I'll show them your severed head as a farewell gift" – Taking off that ominous helmet, the captain's face had a gloomy appearance like rock. With graying hair and a wrinkled face, the man was wasting away from the unstable flow of mana that came with maintaining his control over the sacred ghouls.
- "Look at you Sebastian! You who were a proud knight of the order now have the true appearance of what you carry in your heart. You are no different from these willless monsters under your command. You disgust me!" – Changing the shape of my weapon to that of a bow, I projected a mana arrow onto the rope and placed the gem that Sandra had thrown at me before leaving.
- "Master, the fused object is a relic known as the Eye of Abadon. An item that condenses mana with a high explosive level."
- "Fausto, give me the calculation of critical mass at the moment of detonation shielding it."
- "Calculated catastrophic scenario, the devastation can be contained with the current mana . The average temperature will rise to two thousand degrees Celsius evaporating all life within the containment field."
- "So it's enough to erase these ghouls?"
- "There is a 90% chance of meeting the objective"
- "Well, let's pray that we are within that 90%" - Extending my hand to tighten the rope, I set my sights on the earring that maintained the power of Captain Sebastian. Manifesting my draconic armor in the hope that I could withstand the searing heat of the explosion.
- "Faithful followers of the goddess, kill her!" – The instant that all the sacred ghouls rushed at me, I released my arrow aiming at Sebastian's mana core. Who, trying to cover him with his arms, saw how that arrow pierced his armor and flesh.
- "Goodbye, Captain" - A slight whistle broke the tension in the air, followed by a small source of heat from inside Sebastián's body, who in a fraction of a second consumed himself from the inside, evaporating his body into a ball of fire that was growing to encompass the entire perimeter cordoned off by my mana barrier. Incredulous at what her eyes were seeing, Nohemí threw herself on her knees on the ground with her hands together praying to the goddess, being devoured by the tide of fire that soon reached me too.
- "Master, there is only one minute left for critical failure" - Feeling how the seconds flowed slowly on the system counter in front of me, the tide of fire raised the temperature rapidly escalating to two thousand degrees. Making the scales of my protective armor crunch in an apple-like manner.
- "Warning, forty seconds remaining to critical failure. Master, you must abandon your transformation. The mana level of the barrier is unstable."
- "Damn Fausto, if I do that now I will evaporate with the explosion!"
- "Thirty seconds"
- "Fuck!" – Distant from the epicenter of the impact, the people evacuated by my teleportation spell observed a strange mushroom cloud on the horizon, illuminating the sky with a purplish glow that was soon followed by a gust of wind that ripped the foliage from the trees .