Chapter 202: Boiling Battle Situation, Legend Enters the Field?

"Hiss, hum, shing!" Scorching beams erupted from the heads of the Destroyer Golems emerging from beneath the walls of Seuwentan. The converging rays, fired by several golems in unison, crisscrossed the battlefield, carving molten furrows into the earth as they swept toward the Alestler battle line.

"Deflect the attack! Mages, support us!"

The chaos of the battlefield had surpassed the limits of command. Every soldier fought in isolation, and only commanders with a bird's-eye view could manage rough judgments and adjustments; otherwise, survival depended entirely on the coordination and resolve of the warriors themselves.

"Bang, crack!" The snowpack erupted as thick layers of hardened earth and stone surged from beneath the ground. Mages swiftly erected several two-meter-thick stone walls in front of the battle line to intercept the path of the melting rays.

Yet, the destructive power of the beams remained terrifying. Within seconds, they had melted through the temporary stone barriers, continuing their crisscrossing path toward the Alestler ranks.

The Seuwentan forces, who had been engaging the Alestler heavy cavalry, had already retreated in anticipation, leaving behind only a few desperate souls to delay the Alestler advance, ensuring the melting rays would inflict maximum carnage.

"Spirit Shield, Body Block, Deflect!..." The voices of several Alestler warriors rang out, followed by the activation of their inner essences. These frontline fighters were all formal knights, and their diverse inner powers transformed the nature of the battle entirely.

The protective inner essences of several knights overlapped, forming a series of visible and invisible shields before the Alestler formation.

When the crisscrossing beams collided with these essences, they were deflected after piercing only a few layers, causing almost no effective damage to the Alestler army.

Seizing the gap created by the shifting beams and the retreating Seuwentan defenders, the Alestler heavy cavalry charged forward at breakneck speed.

Horses neighed as the knights extended their battle aura into their specially bred steeds, reinforcing the strength of both.

Breaking through the wind and snow, the horses paused, their hooves slamming into the frozen ground. Muscles bulged, and they bucked their riders into the air.

These knights, clad in heavy armor forged with magic-inscribed iron, were the true elite of Alestler. Adjusting their posture in mid-air, they drew heavy greatswords from specially designed scabbards that ejected the weapons directly into their hands.

The runic circuits on the greatswords flashed with a fleeting light. The dozens of knights, now airborne, raised their enchanted blades high and brought them down with the full force of their falling bodies.

"Boom, bang, bang, bang..." The power contained within the greatswords was released upon impact with the ground. A massive, rippling shockwave spread in a fan shape, blasting the snow into the air and instantly obscuring the vision of everyone ahead.

Visible shockwaves surged from the landing points of the knights, rushing toward the Seuwentan troops who had retreated to avoid the melting rays. After a few seconds of rapid transmission, the two forces collided.

"Argh, what is this!"

"My leg, watch out!"

"Hold the line, don't let it spread further!"

The Greatsword Enchantment: Force Oscillation. By converting the kinetic energy of the wielder's strike against the first point of contact into a tangible shockwave that rippled across the surface, it served as a powerful tool for breaking enemy lines.

The overlapping shockwaves from dozens of heavy warriors, while not lethal in themselves—mostly shattering leg bones or knocking men over—were merely the prelude to the Alestler charge. The enemy frontline, sent reeling by the impact, and the blinding curtain of snow were exactly what these knights required.

"Bang! Shing!" The glowing greatswords tore through the snow curtain raised by the enchantment. Before anyone knew it, the knights were upon the Seuwentan defenders, their blades sweeping out in wide arcs.

"Crack! Clang!" A heavy, forceful sweep, combining sharpness and weight, cleaved the first unlucky Seuwentan soldier through the neck, armor and all.

The blade continued, colliding with the longsword of a second soldier with a piercing, metallic screech.

"Arghhh!" The Alestler knight poured his strength into the greatsword. The Seuwentan soldier, struggling to parry, turned crimson, veins bulging on his neck as he let out a strained, guttural roar.

The Alestler knight, his gaze cold beneath his helmet, caught a sound from the snow-shrouded distance.

"Bang! Thud! Ah!" With a ruthless kick to the stomach, he sent the struggling Seuwentan soldier flying into the snow curtain, where he collided with another soldier attempting a sneak attack. Both men tumbled to the ground.

"Cough, hack!" The soldier kicked in the stomach coughed violently, spitting blood, while his comrade, pinned beneath him, struggled to rise. They were merely apprentice knights, no match for the formal knights of Alestler.

"Squish, ah!" Before they could recover, the Alestler warrior charged again, driving his greatsword downward and impaling both men, snuffing out their lives.

"Hm?" The keen senses of the formal knight, amidst the cacophony of explosions, roars, and screams, caught a sound directed at him: a whistling through the air that was growing louder.

Something was approaching at high speed, and it was massive! Without hesitation, he yanked his sword from the corpses, gripping the hilt with one hand and bracing the blade with the other. No time to dodge—block!

"Clang!" A massive bolt, fired from a ballista on the city walls, collided with his greatsword the moment it pierced the snow. The shaft, thick as a man's wrist, carried terrifying force.

"Hrah!" With a roar, the knight lowered his center of gravity, absorbing the impact while stepping backward to dissipate the momentum. After sliding ten meters, he finally brought the bolt to a halt.

"Huff, huff..." Feeling the pain and soreness in his arms, the Alestler warrior realized his combat effectiveness had waned.

He circulated his battle aura through his hands to flush out the fatigue and stepped forward to charge again. The battle was far from over.

The next moment, a scorching beam abruptly cut through the snow, sweeping across. The knight happened to be directly in the path of the Destroyer Golem’s melting ray.

His heavy armor could not withstand the terrifying power of the beam. Red, dripping molten iron and a gruesome wound—where the remaining energy of the ray had burned through the armor to reveal charred bone and viscera—appeared on the knight's body.

"Ah!" With survival clearly impossible, the formal knight gathered the last ounce of his formidable life force, hurled his greatsword, and collapsed, his broken body hitting the ground with a thud.

"Crack, bang!" The greatsword flew through the snow, decapitating an unlucky Seuwentan soldier before slamming into the walls of the Seuwentan capital, embedding itself deep into the stone.

"That was close!" Beneath the wall, a mage responsible for operating the Destroyer Golem wiped cold sweat from his forehead. The sword, flying out of nowhere, had nearly split his skull in two.

After a two-second pause, the mage resumed control of the golem, using his Mage Eye to peer through the snow and fire into the densest clusters of Alestler soldiers.

He claimed the lives of several Seuwentan men who couldn't dodge in time, while inflicting further casualties on the Alestler army.

"Ah, what is that?" Several Mage Eyes floating in the air suddenly went black. In their final seconds, they captured something flickering with blue light flying through the air, destroying the fragile lenses.

"Watch out..." The mage muttered to himself. He needed to be cautious; he retreated slightly behind the Destroyer Golem, trusting that the defensive power of such a mighty war machine would protect him.

It was a fatal mistake. From the sky, inconspicuous spheres of dim, flickering light descended, barely visible amidst the swirling snow.

Upon closer inspection, one would see they were low-quality magic crystals, yet they held a high concentration of mana.

Fragile Mage Eyes were easily destroyed, and the mere touch of these mana-infused crystals was enough to shatter their delicate structures.

"Pop, pop, pop, pop..." A flurry of crystal spheres rained down, landing around the Destroyer Golem or striking its hard chassis before shattering on the ground.

"Hm?" The mage stared at the strange spheres with confusion, unable to fathom what they were.

But caution made him instinctively back away, and he sent a mana signal to the golem, ordering it to reposition.

He realized his mistake too late. The mana signal emitted a faint ripple—a tiny, limited pulse.

Yet, that tiny ripple was enough to trigger a transformation in the crystals.

"Crack, hum." Sensing the mana fluctuations and absorbing the external energy, the mana stored within the crystals was activated.

Alestler had long known that Seuwentan possessed war machines like the Destroyer Golems—golems acquired years ago from the goblins. How could Alestler not prepare? These crystal spheres were designed specifically for them.

The internal mana was activated, the circuits inscribed on the crystals overloaded and shattered, creating a unique mana oscillation. The sheer number of these sources caused the oscillations to overlap, intensify, and transform into a piercing mana echo.

The echo rippled through the air, quickly making contact with the Destroyer Golem. The powerful metal plating offered no resistance; the echo penetrated the surface, reached the interior, and struck the mana core.

Disruption. The sudden mana echo shattered the sequence of the golem's internal mana flow, causing the power core to instantly overload, burst, and melt.

Professors from the Stevenson Academy of Magic, having deconstructed a Destroyer Golem, had found the method to neutralize these heavily armored machines: detonate the core, turning these monsters into super-bombs for their own side.

"Boom!" The internal mana collapse caused the Destroyer Golem to explode. The mage standing closest was vaporized instantly, his very ashes melted into nothingness.

A large number of nearby defenders suffered the same fate, caught in the sudden blast from behind. Some were obliterated, leaving only charred remains; others were struck by the shockwave, suffering internal hemorrhaging and losing the ability to fight; the luckiest were merely left deafened and dizzy.

"What happened? Ah, huff, hiss..."

A Seuwentan soldier, unlucky enough to be struck by a piece of shrapnel from the exploding golem, felt the metal embed itself in his thigh, severing muscle and biting into bone, rendering him immobile.

Clutching his leg, he looked back in terror at the site of the explosion. There had been no Alestler spells—how could there be such a massive blast? The wall—would it hold?

He looked toward the city wall with dread. Though thick, it was hard to say if stone could withstand such power.

Rock shattered and peeled away. The outer layer of the wall had indeed been blasted into a massive crater, revealing what lay beneath: twisted, white, hardened matter. Bone.

Necromancers had embedded bones into the masonry, giving the Seuwentan walls resilience and a degree of self-repair.

What might have collapsed from the shock of the blast was now merely a gaping hole, not a total ruin.

"Thank goodness..." He let out a sigh of relief and turned his gaze back to the battlefield. His pupils constricted, and the terror in his heart surpassed even the moment of the explosion.

The curtain of snow had fallen, revealing the true face of the battlefield.

The Alestran host had crept closer than anyone dared imagine, their heavy infantry bolstered by mages into a force of unnatural ferocity, driving the defenders of Seventan back until the very foot of the ramparts.

How could this be, when Seventan’s soldiers were supposed to be far superior to those of Alestran?

The soldier murmured, unable to fathom the carnage unfolding before him, yet the battlefield owes no mercy to those who linger in a stupor.

Whoosh, boom! A searing fireball descended from the heavens, detonating beside the dazed man and obliterating him entirely, leaving behind nothing but melting slush and dying embers.

Charge! Break through! The Alestran ranks, enchanted by sorcery, fought with a savagery that defied reason; their sheer numbers, combined with the elite veterans drawn from the capital, finally eclipsed the martial prowess that had long been Seventan’s pride.

Awoo! Just as the Alestran tide threatened to crest the walls, a bestial roar erupted from the heart of their formation, shaking the very foundations of the earth.

Dozens of soldiers near the epicenter were reduced to gore and scattered fragments by claws so swift they defied the eye.

It was a momentary blur, an invisible beast carving a path of slaughter through the Alestran lines, paving a road of ruin with flesh and bone.

And with that primal cry came a sight to herald the end: a black sun rising above the unseen predator.

The legend of Seventan had finally descended.

The perfect beast, the obsidian sun.