The skies littered the dark skies, their light shining bright above, but the earth below was drowned in darkness, broken only by the flickering flames of torches.
The moons hid their light tonight as if they were unwilling to witness the bloodshed that was about to happen on the walls of Winter Stronghold.
A thousand men, clad in armour made up of patches of steel and leather, manned the towering walls, gazing down at the army of 7,000 Dothanites!
The shortest among them stood at seven feet, while the tallest stood at eleven! These beings, though they bore some resemblance to humans, were direct descendants of the giants of old.
Draped in armour made from beast skins, with horns of different kinds adorning their heads like prideful trophies, they were true predators of men.
Their swords, daggers, axes, and hammers looked archaic, yet no knight hoped to be on the receiving end of their strike.
Out there in the field, they had no discernible order. They swarmed the fields like a group of densely packed ants.
Before them stood their commander, a woman! She had a bushy tail swaying behind her and red fox ears that twitch atop her head. She leaned on a massive axe as tall as her!
None of the knights on the wall could imagine just how a woman could swing such an absurd axe.
Her attire left little concealed, revealing her toned abs, bulging biceps and contours. A body that was the perfect fusion of beauty and muscle!
“Commander Isaa,” she said, her voice carrying across the battlefield. “I’ve heard much about your bravery. Come, face me, Zilphah Sier, in a one-on-one battle. If you win, this city gets to see the sunlight once more.”
Isaac lifted up his hand, and archers drew their bows.
“Tsk! Coward!” Zilphah spat. Explore stories on My Virtual Library Empire
At that very moment, arrows shot into the sky and made a parabolic curve as they headed towards her troops.
“Onwards!”
Lifting her axe, she charged towards the wall with thousands of her kind following her. Unfortunately, some were hit in critical spots and fell, but the rest jumped over their corpses, roaring as they closed in on the wall.
“Fire breathers!” Zilphah bellowed.
A dozen warriors ran past their comrades, creating a great distance between themselves and the main troop before they opened their mouths and tilted their heads upwards.
Flames erupted from their mouths, soaring so high in the air that they reached the top of the wall!
Isaac unfurled his huge wings, flapping them without reserve. The gust he generated was enough to keep the flames at bay!
“That’s him,” Zilphah murmured, a smile creeping onto her lips.
She shot forward at a great speed and flung her axe into the air. It tore through the air while burning with orange and blue flames!
Unsheathing his sword, Isaac clashed with the axe, causing a massive shockwave to rip through the battlefield. The force not only blew him backwards but also destroyed the formation of the soldiers along the wall.
“Ice wall!”
Anderson’s voice rang out bellowed as the barbarians reached the wall. Some soldiers pressed their hands against the wall, and ice spread out until it covered the wall in a frozen barrier.
“Shoot!”
Ice spikes shot from the wall, killing barbarians in droves by impaling them. Some tried to break the spikes—only to be skewered by another before they could react.
Seeing this, the 12 flame breathers blew their flames in unison, converging their flames into forming a massive flameball and then allowed it to fall on the wall.
Isaac noticed this and flapped his wings, generating a massive cyclone, but it was barely able to nudge the fireball before it erupted in a blinding explosion.
The blast sent hundreds of barbarians flying away. Smoke rose, blurring the battlefield, making it hard for those on the wall and those on the field to see.
“What happened?!” Anderson squinted through the haze.
“The wall!”
Shouts came from behind, making him and other soldiers rush to the other side and look down.
Anderson’s eyes widened. A gaping hole had been blasted through the wall!
“We’re doomed.” His face turned ashen.
The soldiers on the wall were their last line of defence. With the wall now breached, they would be forced to fight in an open field, which was a disadvantageous position for them.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t about to give up.
“Move down now! No barbarian should cross that wall!” Anderson roared.
Then, he turned to Isaac, who was single-handedly holding back Zilphah and the barbarian’s large-scale attack.
Unfortunately, his heart sank, that turn allowed him to see the Edomites racing out of their camp in the number of thousands!
He could see thousands of black order knights, scarlet order knights and gray order knights!
Gray order knights donned armour that was famed for being the most durable amongst the powers of the Depths.
These soldiers were imperial-ranked knights, all of them!
The best of the best in Edom. These rats had been trained in darkness, tortured to do the impossible for them to survive.
To don that armor, they had to be worthy of it and to be worthy of it, they had to embrace their monstrous side.
Two hundred of them were now marching onto the battlefield!
Anderso swallowed hard. He was just a saint. He wouldn’t even last three strikes from them!
“Activate the ice mines!”
He roared. Ice spikes suddenly shot from the ground, killing hundreds of barbarians, yet it wasn’t enough to dampen their morale, barely slowing them down.
By the time Anderson descended from the wall, the battlefield was chaotic. Soldiers were facing barbarians fiercely, but the barbarians were pushing through relentlessly!
Step. Step. Another step.
A woman appeared at the entrance of the desolate street.
His eyes brightened. “Naomi. Where have you been?!”
“Preparing potions,” she said hastily. But as soon as she arrived, flames burst out of her staff in the form of a bird.
Without any warning, the flames consumed Anderson instantly.
He screamed, struggling against the inferno. But when Naomi saw that he was trying to subdue the flames, she unleashed another surge of flames at him.
The soldiers froze, stunned. Some couldn’t believe their eyes as they watched their commander burn. Anderson wasn’t the strongest warrior, but his mind had won them battle after battle. And now… he was burning before their eyes.
No one had suspected the true danger lay among them.
By the time Naomi stopped, all that remained was a blackened figure of a man.
“You fool… you have the blessings of I Am.” The blackened man said before he collapsed.
Naomi was perplexed, but she raised her staff toward the soldiers.
“Burn!”
This time, no matter how many times she muttered the spell, it didn’t work.
Clack! Clack!
The rhythmic tapping of a staff fell into her ears, prompting her to turn.
The soldiers took that opportunity to close the gap, but Lord Winter raised his hand.
“Interfere, and you shall face God’s wrath,” he said. “You should have incurred the wrath of men, Naomi.”
Dread fell on the magician. She had no idea what was wrong, but something felt odd.
Something was out of place.
Could it be that…?
Had her lust for greater power, which led her to side with the Edomites, sealed her fate with doom?