Chapter 189: Chapter 189 - The Battle of Steelgarden (3)
PoV: Aurea
The destruction of their siege engines proceeded smoothly. Gladly, we didn’t need to send reinforcements to help Ingela.
There was a moment in which it seemed that things would turn out badly, but our girl pulled it off very elegantly. Sadly, she ran herself dry of mana in the process, but she’s already safe in her quarters.
Now, time to switch phases.
At my signal, all the fire that was focused on trying to overwhelm the shield that was protecting their priests stopped. At the same moment, the priests finished their chants, enveloping the whole fortress in a holy light.
Everyone that still had a connection to the Adventuring System lost it at that very moment, except for me and Lovelace.
But it wasn’t an issue anymore. Lovelace immediately switched to boosting everyone’s stats, as we had previously agreed.
Mother opens a knowing smile and says, with a voice too clear to be human.
"Aurea, leave Lovelace to me. I’ll feed her the mana she needs to sustain that spell. You will be needed in there."
With a graceful gesture with the head, she points to the place where the three angels are.
Lovelace is holding a massive spell that improves the base stats of every single one of the twenty-three thousand troops defending the castle in proportion to her own level.
It’s the only thing I managed to hack into the system with the limited time we had. It’s a new skill that requires a person to be max level to even appear in the list of skills. Which means Lovelace is the only person able to pull it off.
The downside is that it gobbles up mana like a high-performance car drinks gasoline. The original plan was for me to feed her to keep it up, but a goddess really has even vaster amounts to expend.
And the angels are a real threat in this battlefield.
First of all, because they can walk in the air. As they are doing right now, calmly coming to the top of the wall.
All projectiles and spells hurled at them are simply bouncing off. They are still quite far away, but their destination is clear.
They are looking straight up at me.
Tsk.
Well, there’s this little hack I coded for myself as well... let’s see how you like it.
I chant the aria in silence, making the humidity in the air converge to a point, forming a dark cloud.
The effects of this spell would be incredibly better if it were a clouded night. The fact that it’s clear is a letdown, but I can make it work anyway.
When the moisture is all where I wanted it to be, I activate the skill... then I mess up the cloud to provoke lightning, and empower it over anything I’ve ever cast before.
It’s easier - and more cost-efficient - to empower and extend a natural effect than to create one from scratch. Which means that having a naturally occurring lightning and working on it has better results than my lightning bolt.
As the three of them are floating on the air, I don’t even need to direct the lightning. They are already the perfect lightning rod.
The thunder is deafening, and the light that washed over the battlefield for an instant is blinding. Both armies stop for a moment, their hair standing up, their minds trying to process what just happened.
And the artificial cloud starts to fall down as a gentle rain.
[Level 2192 reached.]
My level rose by a couple hundred.
This is the hack skill I added to myself. I can add the [Level Drain] type to any magical attack, effectively reducing the target’s level by a certain percentage and transferring the XP to me.
It’s so juicy.
You increase your own base stats while lowering the enemy’s. It’s so underhanded, I love it.
:::
PoV: Urraca
The princess surveyed the battlefield after mounting back on her horse. Her officers were admonishing her for charging alone against the enemy’s intruder, but she didn’t even hear them.
She saw when the clouds formed in the sky, out of nothing, and when the lightning descended and hit the angels.
"Aurea... you were hiding your strength at the academy, weren’t you?"
Urraca was always struggling and doing her best efforts to be able to compete with Aurea at the academy. She thought that Aurea’s element was only fire and several times thought of their rivalry as an ’ice versus fire’ contest.
But all the reports she had from this war told about Aurea using lightning as her main element and sometimes an invisible force that forced people onto the ground.
This is the first time she witnesses it. The raw power of the spell made anything Aurea cast at the academy pale in comparison.
Urraca felt cheated. It was like Aurea had been toying with her from the very beginning. Hiding all her cards.
Another annoying thing was the fact that Aurea’s attack came after being excommunicated. That simply shouldn’t be possible.
Also, the magic attacks coming from the walls didn’t waver at all. They should all have lost access to the system now... How are they able to even cast magic?
The angels are visibly injured, but they didn’t slow their advance, healing as they walk up the air.
A second lightning comes at them again, this time launched from the top of the walls, but one of the angels quickly conjures a spire of stone from the ground, stopping the lightning from hitting them.
The same convo happens again and again, with the sky rumbling in thundering fury and the light bathing the field where the dead were starting to pile up.
Urraca watches all that with wonder, like a child watching superheroes on the TV. It all looks so beyond human reach, so unnatural and beautiful.
Then the shouts of her officers finally manage to snap her back to reality.
"All squadrons, give cover for the angels! Strike the walls with all you’ve got! Kill every single rat your arrows and spells can reach!"
She starts barking orders and organizing the formation that’s giving signs that it could crumble at any moment.
Without the siege engines, their best bet is the angels opening the way for them.