Wandering Storm

Boom! Boom!

With every step, Zergish shook the world violently, together with the raging thunderstorm above, the mighty Unholy Beast had brought a cacophony of doom towards the city as welcoming gift.

Having predicted this beforehand, layers of noise-mitigating magic circles rapidly formed one by one.

“Mages! Activate the circles and charge the orbs! Archer took aim on the marked spots! Warriors and knights, be ready for the horde! Assassins, be ready to be transport!” Consecutive orders were given out loudly by the chief commander of the raid, Lord Brutus, the ruler of Derenal.

A hundred of huge orbs, which were stationed at various spots along the inner wall, started to glow brightly in the shade of electric blue. At the same time, countless magic circles with both large and small sizes also glowed vividly, there were various colors, but no electric blue.

Knights and warriors had finished the formation in the vast area between the outer and inner wall. Just like the various magic circles, each of them glowed in different colors, yet all shared a dim golden light of divine magic.

Archers had already refilled their arrows with enhanced ones, they were too divided into multiple groups who would take care of each marked spot.

Assassins, all armed with similar large needle-like rods. These rods were pointy at one end and in black colors, vicious green and purple goo could be seen on them. The assassins all grouped in magic circles with illusory gray glow.

BOOM!

The shock-wave that was far louder than all the previous ones echoed through the entire world. Zergish, who had arrived at the wall which was as tall as its powerful legs, came to a halt.

Without a single warning, its coiled beautiful horn started to glow brilliantly, like a condensed ray of light on its forehead. Thick bolts of lightning whirled around the horn fiercely. Then, the gigantic beast unleash its first attack.

At the same time, half of the glowing blue orbs shone even brighter, projected a huge bright-blue cage which was made of pure lightning in front of the wall.

The brilliant beam that seemed to illuminate the sky shot from the beast’s horn, hitting the cage with an unimaginable force.

Pzzt! BOOM!

Even with all the enchantments, the protective dome force field and the powerful electric cage, the shock-wave from the impact could still be felt by the warriors, knights and paladins on the ground. However, the ones stationed on the inner wall only heard it with a normal volume. The first round of attack was successfully defended!

‘So this is the power of quantity…’ Damian thought.

“Now!” The commander roared on top of his lung. Seizing the chance of the beast’s recharging state after its first attack, the entire army moved forward with the plan.

All the magic circle erupted, unleashing countless powerful spells and mercilessly bombarded the mighty beast. Poison clouds, gravity bombs, fire columns and balls, freezing rays, etc,… All aimed at Zergish’s vital spots such as its eyes and nostrils and some even targets its thunderous legs with a hope to somewhat halt the beast’s movement.

After the bombardment of magic, torrents of arrows immediately shot straight from the wall towards the exact same spots. Charged with explosive and poison or weakening spells, and augmented by speed-preserving enchantment, the arrows rained down onto Zergish.

The first rows of the warriors and knights, which were consisted of the strongest, also launched their ranged attacks. They all aimed at one leg to deal as much damage as possible to hinder the beast’s motility, and also because the head was too high above.

Assassins, who had swiftly disappeared inside the magic circles popped out again on the beast’s back! Each group quickly approached the neck of the titan and pierced it once they’d arrived. As planned ahead, each group had 20 assassins, they all tried to stab the beast’s skin with the pike one after the other. Some groups succeed after 16 to 18 tries and dipped the pike shallowly to Zergish’s skin, while many others failed with all the 20 pikes even when striking the same spot.

The reasons why the assassins were chosen to do this was simple. Despite their inferior strength to the warriors and knights, they could move stealthy and nimbly on the unholy beast’s body. Furthermore, they all wore special clothes which only had one single but potent defensive spell of lightning-endurance.

Afterwards, the assassins didn’t stop there and retreated immediately, but pulled out various flasks of with the same colors as the goo on the pikes. They started to regroup and poured the poison into the shallow holes on the beast’s neck.

Activating the magic circles again, groups of assassins disappeared from the beasts and transported to the ground.Their task was done, and their role was now to support the warriors and knights army on the ground.

All of these barrages and “assassination” happened in only 10 seconds! This could only be achieved with meticulous planning, unison and countless preparation.

“Mages and Archers, recharge for the next round! Ground force, prepare for impact!” The loud voice of Lord Brutus echoed throughout the battlefield again.

Raaarhg!!

The beast unleashed another devastating roar. Clearly it was unfazed by all of the attacks, but somehow taken aback because of its failure of its own strike.

Zergish switched to brute force this time, it raised a front leg backwards highly. Seeing that Brutus screamed again “Mages, focus on barricading the area of the impact on the wall and the army! Sir Cain, stop the kick!”

As soon as the command reverberated, the beast’s mighty leg swung down, creating a strong gust of wind before it. Suddenly, protective spells in the forms of aegis popped up one by one, layered upon each other, some stood in front of the outer wall, some guarded the army. A weird bright purple magic circle materialized in front of all the aegis, its center was a dark orb with swirling magenta tendrils.

Sir Cain, after chanting from the arrival of Zergish, had finally unleashed his spell, Artificial Black Hole!

Space weirdly distorted by the orb as nearly everything started to be sucked into it. The moment Zergish’s kick contact the spell, no noise could be heard, as even sound was absorbed!

However, Quooom… a weird noise was heard right after.

The purple black hole-like orb was shattered and shimmered into nothingness. The multiple aegis layers met the same fate, as each of them were broken like glass with the kick.

Then the wall, which had enhanced by a stunning amount of defensive spells, met the impact.

Bang!

The area of the impact shook violently, and large cracks started to form on the wall like a spiderweb.

“...” Stunned by the insane power of a single kick of the Wandering Storm, Brutus lost his composure for a tiny bit of a second, but then reformed himself instantly.

‘Never skip legs-day, huh big guy?’ Damian felt amused upon the devastating situation. However, his face grimaced just like all of the others. Though it was just a facade anyway.

“Plan B! We’ll move to plan B! Sir Cain, please charge your spell, Dame Elveth too. The rest of you, prepare for battle!” Brutus regained his levelheadedness and suppressed his fear.

Even before the order, Sir Cain had already started chanting, Dame Elveth stepped up and helped the mages recharge the orbs since she had already done charging her spell. The army on the group held their weapons tightly and readily for the incoming attack of the horde and Zergish.

Crack! Crack!

The broken part of the outer wall crumbled down as countless monsters rammed into it. Then they broke through it a flooded into the area between 2 walls. Since the protective dome was mostly used for tanking against Zergish’s lightning attacks, the beasts below got through it too.

The army of knights, warriors, paladins and assassins, with pure determination, charged head-on towards the raging tide of monsters. Archers on the inner wall too joined the battle, as some stayed on the wall the rain down, some got to the ground to get better aim. Soon, a bloodbath commenced.

At the same time as the monsters broke in, Zergish’s horn had started to gather bolts again and this time even faster and stronger.

“Now!” Brutus ordered the mages

The rest of the orbs and the few recharged ones shone again and formed an even denser cage of lightning. Zergish once again shot a beam of pure lightning, but this one was incomparably stronger than the first!

The dense cage shook violently, wavered between illusory and reality. Then, it broken. However, it had mitigated the beam’s energy by half!

Immediately, an equally brilliant electric-blue beam shot from the wall, clashing directly with the beam of Zergish. It was Lightning Cannon! An extremely powerful lightning spell that could be only used by the best lightning mages!

Bang!

The two beams met mid-air and exploded at each other, creating a huge shock-wave containing electricity. Thankfully, the shock-wave was blocked by the protective dome, along with many other guarding spells.

Exhausted by the Lightning Cannon, the Ligtning Fairy, Madame Elveth gasped for air as beads of sweat started to trickled down on her face. Clearly she didn’t expect that Zegish’s lightning attacks would be this devastating, as she herself had reached the pinnacle of lightning magic. But now, she had experienced the bottomless pit of the gap in power between a mortal and an ancient sentinel disaster.

“I shouldn’t have accepted this, my desired for fame blinded me once again…” Elveth showed signs of regrets. “But it is too late now. Either die gloriously or nothing! That is how I, the best and youngest genius who had reached purple robe in only the age of 52, should live and leave her legendary imprint in the history!”

'Youngest genius… Ma’am, you will only be replaced by another genius in the future…' Damian inwardly mocked Elveth despite clearly saw her resolve…

Elveth straightened herself up and started casting again. Damian glanced at her once more and got back at recharging the orbs, as that was the only task he was assigned. Madame Elveth now could only help recharging the orbs, but as her superior mana, she filled them up quickly.

Enraged again by its second failure, Zergish didn’t even roar but instead charged straight to the wall. Both of its front legs shattered the wall mercilessly. It’s adamantine hooves trampled everything below, regardless they were monsters or man.

“It's ready! Everyone fall back!” Lord Brutus commanded loudly again.

Soldiers on the ground quickly but carefully retreated to the inner wall while fending off the monsters. The beasts chasing them blindly were met with even more magic circles hidden on the ground, countless of them were decimated before they could even reach the middle of the field.

For once, the horde of the beasts had shown signs of decrease!

After the army had retreated to the inner wall, a large portion of the the middle tower split, then the outline of an insidious weapon slowly appeared in daylight. It was a long, large, hollow tube, a cannon, the inside of it was glowing with crimson red light, waves of energy danced around the mouth. In 3 seconds, the whole device was revealed.

Wooom!

Loud humming sound could be heard reverberating from high above, and following that was a deafening noise of pure destruction. A thick bright crimson beam shot from the cannon and immediately reached Zergish’s head, drowning its entire head and horn in the brilliant stream of red light!

That was the power of Cannon of The End! The most powerful weapon of the Hatosh Empire! It was built based on the characteristics of Margus’, the strongest human, energy of pure destruction.

The red beam contained nothing but sole destructive properties flooded over the unholy beast’s head. For the first time, the beast had finally flinched!

After an endlessly long 5 seconds, the bright beam dimmed and disappeared, revealing the damages it brought upon Zergish. The beast’ milk white fur and skin, its glorious rainbow-electric-blue mane, and even its ivory coiled horn was charred!

However, that was it… Only the outer layers were slightly damaged, despite all those damages, all those charging, and all those prices dumped into the building of such weapon.

All of the sudden, before even the beast could come back to its sense, a faint golden trace shot up from the wall and flew even higher than its’ towering height.

Then, a small figure could be seen on the air, and from him, space started distorting around as a giant ivory circle shimmered into reality. The circle got smaller and smaller and finally settled inside the floating figure, his long gray hair blew in the breeze, now glowed in radiating sparkles, his golden armor also radiated blinding light of justice, and finally his giant sword engulfed in layers of angelic wings with burning flames of devil-cleansing.

The Feathered Blade, Lord Hidain had joined the battle! Right from the start, he had decided to use everything, every specks of divine energy he could summon, to unleash his most powerful attack, The Angel’s Dive!

Having seasoned through countless battles, Lord Hidain’s action might look hasty, but it was made by his pure calculation after seeing the insufficient damage of the Cannon of The End. He had decided to use up everything to ensure the slaying of the beast, as right now is the best chance to attack.

He shone so brightly in the air that even Zergish slowly dilated its huge blue eyes towards him. With an air-splitting sound, Lord Hidain dived vertically downwards onto the beast’s head.

The world shook again as Angel’s Dive descended upon Zergish. Faint angelic wings and brilliant ivory lights could be seen exploding on top of the colossus’s neck. The beast’s whole head was once again engulfed in a sea of light, but this time it was golden ivory instead of bright crimson.

The light slowly died down, and Lord Hidain and Zergish could be seen again. There was no more brilliance on Feathered Sword’s body, he just naturally dropped down to the ground, from the height of kilometers.

Zergish, on the other hand, was now injured! Its nose and frontal jaws had been split! Dense black-blue blood gushed out of the hideous wounds constantly, and electric currents could be seen vaguely arching from the dripping blood. Shocked, the titan creature lowered its body.

But then, no one but Damian, felt something just clicked, it was that click which brought him a wave of awe and amusement ‘So that’s why it’s called an unholy beast…’

Suddenly, Zergish’s eyes lost its blue color, and turned black and white just like those of normal creatures. The eyes, now freed from the hazy fog of the millenniums-long slumber, dilated as quickly as a human’s could. They looked at the falling figure of Lord Hidain as if it realized something.

Out of no where, its front leg sprung backwards, readied for a kick, but this time it was unbelievably fast, like a seasoned warrior’s speed of retracting the leg to prepare for a swift kick. Then Zergish, unleashed its vengeful onto the small figure of Lord Hidain with a kick. It all happened too fast that even the leader of the paladins didn’t have time to react.

Boom!

With a loud but muffled boom, a small speck could be seen launched from the kick, its speed was too great that no one could follow the trace with their eyes. The “speck” collided with the middle tower and Cannon of The End, destroyed all of it. Still, the the figure of Lord Hidain continued to fly back even further away.

It was safe to assume that Lord Hidain was dead… The strongest paladin, who was ranked as the 10th strongest human on this planet, killed just by a single kick…

Moreover, the damage spread to the middle tower and the Cannon of The End, eliminating both the offense and defense of the protective dome stemmed from the top of the tower.

“No…” Brutus muttered in disbelief, as now everything had come into ruined. All of this was caused by just a simple kick of the colossal beast.

All of the soldiers, who had trusted the plan, bewildered by how it had crumbled so easily and quickly. They were all lost, and hopelessness enshrouded the whole city.

Ignoring the ants below and its grievous wound, Zergish again charged lightnings on its horn. The charging duration barely existed this time. Then it shot the bright beam onto the unprotected city. Nearly all of the soldier and monsters were charred black. The mages were unable to activate the orbs as they were lost in the daze. All this resulted in total disaster.

Thousands of causality emerged, Madame Elveth tried to flew to the beast and sacrificed herself to protect the city. But it was no use, she had already exhausted her mana, and Zergish’s beam indifferently pulverized her.

Sir Cain, whose chanting sequence was interrupted by the mighty kick, also couldn’t do anything but setting up a shield for himself.

The continuous ray of lightning swept through the wall, fried every single living creatures and weapons to crisp. Only a few were left, excluding Damian…

He had died, right there on the wall, next to the orb that he was in charge of.

Sonia, the blue robed mage who was Damian’s group’s mentor, was on the brink of death, she saw his corpse and muttered “I guess all of us are disposable pawns after all…”. After that final musing, her body slowly turned colder and colder until the liveliness left her eyes.

Just like that, after all the effort, a single kick ruined it all. Zergish trampled on Derenal and continued on its way of destruction.

Above the city, a faint illusory figure of a young man appeared, he was draped in a simple brown robe, his black hair was messy and his eyes contained a mysterious glint of purple.

Damian amused on the result of the raid “So it was bound to fail from the start huh? Well, let’s see what would happen if I change things up a bit, shall we?”

With a low chuckle, he disappeared from the sky.