Chapter 191: Chapter 191 - The Battle of Steelgarden (5)
PoV: Urraca
Huh? This is not how things should end...
The princess of Castro looked, astonished, at the place where the angels fell to. She could feel the wavering of the will to fight of the soldiers under her command.
She knew that the fall wouldn’t be nearly enough to defeat the angels. In fact, as she lunged her horse forward, she could see them already standing up again, their lost feet fully healed.
The three of them are with their backs turned to the princess, looking up at the wall, where their enemy is.
She sighed in relief, but as she looked around her, she saw the true strength of the blow they were dealt.
In several points, the army has started to rout, with soldiers fleeing, some even cursing the goddess.
She knew she needed to do something, and quickly. Otherwise, this battle would turn into a calamitous loss.
:::
PoV: ???
"Let’s do this, then."
"Yes, Flavia!"
The three girls held each other’s hands, and the one in the middle, Flavia, started to shine.
Few people from the army that was on the ground could see them, as they didn’t bother with going back to a visible place. But everyone on the walls stopped to watch, dazzled.
Flavia then stomped the ground, which trembled like an earthquake.
The crusader army also stopped its advance, startled by the tremors. As they looked at each other quizzically, Flavia stomped again.
A new tremor wobbled over the landscape, making cracks appear on the walls.
Shouts came from the top of the walls, and then several spells, but those were stopped by barriers on top of the three girls.
Flavia started to sing as she continued with her rhythmical stomping. The song was immediately caught up by the other two, who sang along.
A very traditional song for stomping grapes to make wine, sung by women since the times before the Republic was installed in Rome.
And with each stomp of Flavia’s feet, again the ground trembled, and more the walls cracked.
Until it all fell down at once, and Urraca could again smile.
:::
(A few moments before...)
PoV: Aurea
FUCK!
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUUUCK!!!
"Yaci! Shalia! Order all the normal troops to retreat from the wall! NOW!"
"Yes!"
"Portal officers, you know where to send them!"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
We had planned for the eventuality of having to give up on the outer wall and retreat inside the castle, but I was expecting us to avoid it.
This is bad. After all the hassle Ingela had to go through to destroy their siege engines...
I can see some cracks beginning to appear, but at this rate they’ll bring this all down sooner rather than later.
"Everyone! Stop the spells against them! Conserve your mana! Soon we’ll be on the ground against one hundred thousand! You’ll need every ounce of mana you can get!"
"Yes, Your Highness!"
I turn to a wolf girl who had been doing some calculations on a notebook.
"Officer. Any estimate of how many of them are still in the fight?"
"Approximately seventy thousand, Your Highness!"
We’re down thirty percent, huh? That’s including the people who fled. It’s not bad, but if you are going to be on ground level against the remainder now, it will become really hard.
And there’s no retreating behind another wall, because they would just pull this off again. Our best bet is to stop them here.
I turn to another officer.
"Send the normal troops the order to keep firing from the castle. They will lose the buff from Lovelace, but they should still be able to fire crossbows and activate them."
"Yes, Your Highness!"
"And us, Your Highness?"
"We’ll fight on the ground, Yawarete. Lovelace, focus the buff on only the three thousand here. I’ll make..."
My words are cut by a rumbling, as it seems that the wall has reached its limit and will start crumbling at any moment.
Everyone is waiting on me. Even though they don’t know what I’m thinking, they know what I’m capable of pulling off, and they have full faith in me and in Mother.
A brief look at Mom’s face is enough for me to have faith as well.
The second the wall starts falling is the second I finish my aria. All the stones fall to the ground, but the three thousand soldiers of the hidden army don’t.
I manipulate the gravity field to make us descend to the ground very gently.
"Aurea. Everyone’s mana is replenished. I’m counting on you, my daughter."
The gentle voice from my mother is a pleasure to hear, as well as the meaning of her words.
Immediate full healing, Lovelace’s buffs, and full mana. That’s what we have on our side.
But it’s still three thousand against seventy thousand. And healing can’t overcome a fatal wound. The immediate healing makes any less-than-fatal wound harmless, but you’ll still die if someone cuts your head off or something.
As we firm our feet on the ground, we can see the seventy thousand men charging at us and the volleys flying above, hitting them.
:::
PoV: Lillian
"Do you think that what you’re doing is fair???"
In the sea of godly statues, two women bicker. Saint Lily, goddess of compassion, and Juno, goddess of tyranny.
"No. But compassion has nothing to do with fairness. Actually, oftentimes compassion is pretty unfair, for it also applies to the guilty."
"Don’t mock me with your wordplay!"
"I wouldn’t dare to mock your holy person, ever... goodness, no."
Juno growls as she paces around like a caged predator that smells the prey just outside the bars. Lillian simply stands there, eyeing her with a provocative smile on her lips.
"You will pay for this!"
"I beg your pardon, but I don’t know what that ’this’ you’re talking about entails."
"You know pretty well! You’re directly interfering in the battle while I’m barred from doing so!"
"Oh, that..."
Lily giggles, as if trying hard to suppress a fit of laughter.
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry. But I’m just doing my duty as the goddess of compassion. About you being barred from doing the same... you should blame it on yourself, not me. Now, if you excuse me, I have work to do. Bye."