Chapter 50: Hail the King
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"Boom!"
More close combat fights erupted, and blood and limbs began to fly everywhere.
The armoured strongmen charged into the chaotic sea of enemies and the massive weapons danced in their hands. The enemies were sent flying off of the bridge like kites; they fell into the river like dumplings and were washed away by the fast currents...
Fei didn't slow down, either. His axe returned back to being the Grim Reaper's sickle; it wiped out everything that it touched, like a broom sweeping up the dust. After every strike, there were fewer people on the bridge.
Fei intentionally increased his charging speed this time. To increase his speed, he paid less attention to the strongmen behind him. He only killed the enemies that were directly in his line of sight after he had broken into the enemy's formations. The enemies that slipped through Fei's axe were left for the strongmen to handle.
This way, their pushing speed would be much faster. However, the strongmen were facing more pressure. The enemies were all well-trained soldiers. Most of them were veterans and some of them even had tiny amounts of energy. In combat, their attacks were somewhat threatening to the strongmen. Although their armour protected the strongmen from the blades, the shocks that came with the attacks numbed their body parts. Soon, some of the strongmen became lightly injured, but they knew that there was no way Rather than hoping to kill more enemies, they didn't want to become a burden on their king. No matter how severe their injuries were, they bit their teeth to endure the pain and followed their king closely.
Fei had discovered this was well. He spun his huge axe and created another blade storm. He turned the approaching enemies into 'dusts of blood' and filled the battlefield with sounds of cracking weapons and bones. He then quickly switched modes again.
Barbarian Mode disappeared
Paladin Mode was initiated.
Suddenly, a divine and pure energy came out of Fei's body and surrounded the 'iron men' behind him. Fei stomped his feet, and a golden ring expanded from his body. All the strongmen felt that the injuries in their bodies were healing quickly as soon as the ring covered them. Their waning strength was recovering at an insane rate, and even their confidence and courage were boosted.
It was Paladin's Aura [Prayer]
"Hail the King!"
Pierce yelled as he sensed it. He felt his blood burning and really wanted to kill more enemies. His war hammer was like an extension of the God of War's arm. After a horizontal strike, the cracking sound of metal breaking was as dense as putting cold water into a pot of boiling oil. Four or five enemies screamed as they were blown away by the hammer and flew off of the bridge into the river...
"Hail King Alexander!"
Drogba followed. He gripped the sword that an enemy was striking him with using his left arm, and chopped at the enemy with the axe in the right hand. "Snip", the head of the owner of the sword was sent flying to the sky.
"Hail the King!!!!"
The rest of the strongmen roared together. Their damage output skyrocketed, as if they had transformed into wild tigers. Even Warden Oleg who was timid and at the very back seemed to be influenced by the atmosphere. He was finally able to properly use his one star warrior's strength and chopped the three enemies in front of him.
"Shit, that man is a holy knight!"
"Wow, battle ring, that's a battle ring... God! It's the [Ode of Life] battle ring..."
"Fall back! Retreat!... Ask the commander to send star ranked warriors to kill this holy knight... Damn, since they have a high class holy knight who has acquired the [Ode of Life] battle ring, we won't have a number advantage at all..."
After the gold ring appeared under Fei's foot, gasps and shouts sounded from the enemies.
...
As professional soldiers, the enemies knew exactly what having a high level holy knight in battle meant– holy knights were super healing machines. As long as a holy knight could continue the [Ode of Life] battle ring, the opponents would never run out of strength and stamina. Especially on a thin bridge like this, with a bunch of strong beasts and a high class holy knight, there was only one outcome– a one sided massacre.
After they thought about it, some enemies who were brave enough to plan to gain back control by using their number advantage began to doubt themselves again; their courage was like a thin layer of snow in a hot summer day. It quickly melted and disappeared as it turned into vapour.
However, Fei didn't give these enemies time to retreat.
"Roar—–!!!
Fei stomped his feet again and the miracle reappeared.
A green ring expanded from his body and had a radius about 5 to 6 yards (m); all the strongmen were empowered as well. Suddenly, Pierce, Drogba and the other strongmen felt like their strength had more than doubled. The enemies were way weaker, like fragile ceramics. They would fall off of the bridge or 'fly' to the sky after they were just barely touched by the strongmen's weapons.
Paladin's Aura– [Might] appeared in the real world for the very first time.
"Ohhhhhhhhh shit! It's the [Double Damage] battle ring..."
"God, a double ring... That man acquired a second type of battle ring? Da fuck?"
"Retreat... We're no match... Archers! Shit, where are the fucking archers? Shoot them! Quickly!"
The enemies' eyeballs almost popped out of their eye sockets again; they were almost having a mental breakdown.
The situation on the bridge was even more chaotic. If the first golden aura had only forced the enemies to think about giving up and retreat and shake their confidence, then the second green aura had definitely crushed them. They had no courage to fight back anymore.
On Azeroth Continent, holy knights had way more deterring effects due to the existence of the influential Holy Church. Many formal holy knight groups had taken important seats among all the other powerful and deeply-rooted forces on Azeroth Continent. Holy knights could be assembled into formations and sweep their enemies easily, and they could also fight individually. Their insane endurance, along with all the mysterious supportive battle rings that granted abilities such as healing, damage, and curses were the worst nightmare for any army. Holy knights were the star players in any battlefield.
Therefore, after Fei used the Paladin's auras, the whole Tower Shield-Dragon Lance formation gave up their defense and started retreating as fast as they could.
There were many similarities between the Paladin in the Diablo World and the Holy Knight on Azeroth Continent. Some Paladin's skills and auras looked a lot like the battle rings of the Holy Knight. This caused the enemies to believe that Fei was a holy knight and acquired battle rings, so they had no courage to fight at all.
Under the deterrence of a Holy knight as well as the death of [Two], the commander of the formation, the enemy soldiers escaped as if they were mice that had seen some big cats. The level of chaos was getting worse and worse. Some of the enemies were bumped into the river by others, and some even ran in the opposite direction and were made into porcupines by Chambord's archers.
Most of the enemies turned around and tried to rush back to their base. But due to the chaos, they ran and pushed against the formation that was guarding the siege ladders.
"Great opportunity! Charge!"
Fei saw the enemies retreating as fast as they could after he used the auras– [Prayer] and [Might]. Although he didn't know why, he knew it was a splendid opportunity to charge forward. He shouted as he charged with the strongmen and soon dismantled the Tower Shield-Dragon Lance formation.
The formation that could block off heavy cavalry charges only lasted less than two minutes under the crazy charge of Fei and the strongmen and was turned into piles of limbs and shattered metal.
The thin bridge turned into a road of death and blood.
"Pierce, Drogba, push those siege ladders into the river, quick!"
Fei made a path to the next formation with his axe and finally approached the siege ladder. At that point, they had pushed about 60 yards (m) into the bridge. Fei blocked off the flooding enemies on his own and commanded Pierce and Drogba to organize the strongmen and destroy the siege ladders.
"As you wish, Your Majesty!"
The two answered, and their weapons were like windmills in their hands and smashed a number of enemies away. Then, they roared as they targeted the siege ladders.
"Boom! Boom!"
Although the enemies who were guarding the siege ladders fought back aggressively, they were no match. The two siege ladders were soon pushed into the river by the strongmen. It created a huge splash of water as if a huge creature was billowing below the river.
Their morale was high; after they destroyed two siege ladders, like a pack of hungry wolves, they roared as they charged towards the remaining four siege ladders. Once they destroyed all the siege ladder, they would have completed half of the mission.
At this moment–
"Moo-moo-moo!!!"
Clear and crisp bugles sounded from the south bank of the Zuli River.
Many commands were communicated to the enemies who were battling on the bridge through different melodies and lengths of the bugle sounds. However, the enemies stared at each other and couldn't execute the commands. The series of commands were for the Tower Shield-Dragon Lance formation, but the formation that was once honored as the number one defense in the army had been wiped out by the group of 'beasts' under their desperate charges.
No one could have guessed that only twenty-ish men could destroy more than a hundred well trained tower shield dragon lance soldiers. Although the time gap between the deliveries of two sets of commands was only two minutes, it was useless now.
It was too late!