LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 25: Recapture Feror Let’s Advance The Plotline!
Fucking hell! She gets stopped on the collar next to an almshouse. This stupid. Frail. Body! She stretches forward to swipe a sword off the table, swinging around,
“Fuck off!” but her wrist is abruptly caught by a hand,
“This is the kind of thank you I get for risking my dick to come save you?” this voice! It takes her a few seconds to register it’s him. She flicks her gaze up to make eye contact. She knows she’s probably smiling like an idiot when she declares,
“Soril!” He’s in Estelian uniform. Full chain helm and everything that he’s completely blending in. The soldiers around him are all dead. Massacred into pieces. It’s sheer instincts that make her dive forward with a pressing kiss, it disarms him. Widening his eyes. She knows it’s neither time nor place, but she couldn’t help herself. He draws back instead to ground her,
“Do it later. We haven’t won yet.”
“You just have no idea how much I wanted to see you! For the past few days there I thought you were dead!” The Astian soldiers have now completely flooded in Feror. Pushing forward. Rushing past them. Driving the Estelians back. The relief is brisk as it comes.
A horn sounds on the other side. The Estelians begin falling back. But something feels off. It’s different from the retreat tune that she recalls hearing at Kanra’s gates. This one’s lower, more aggressive. The Estelians aren’t exactly running away, instead, they are filing towards Feror’s perimeters. She shakes herself back into priority. Soril’s immediately alerted,
“Scatter out,” he yanks the chain helm off his head, shoving her into the safety of the now secured almshouse. She ascends the ladder to the attic. Watching him meander through the crowd from the pulverized ceiling. He fires two green flares into the air towards the edges of the rapidly closing Estelian ring. Yelling his orders out to the Astian troops at the same time,
“Don’t let them surround us!” but only half the soldiers understood him and rush to the rims. Attempting to stop the Estelian circle from closing. The other half look completely lost, just flicking their heads around like they don’t comprehend what’s going on. They’re probably the intercepted former Feror garrison whom Soril didn’t have time to brief.
They're not making it in time! The undrugged Estelian troops that were securing Feror from the outside are also flooding in to reinforce the ring. Golden shields, rampantly distributed to the front liners. Swords armed between the gaps. Even with a weakened force, Estelians have now fully closed them off, like fishes caught in a wide net and it’s shrinking with each horn beat,
“Shield! Wall! Shield! Wall!” squeezing the Astian troops in.
Soril’s finally gotten to circumference at this point, he’s trying to break through. His wires won’t slice the Godorian shields, but he simply disarms them. Yanking it out of the enemy’s hands before downing them with crit strike daggers.
The Estelians bubble away to form a narrow gap, alerting their commander,
“The White Ghost of Astia is here!” making way for Rakgar to charge in at him with his claymore, forcing him into combat before closing the formation again,
“Cowardly to the very end I see, Soril Blaine, you had to bring an entire army just to save one mere girl.”
“Only an idiot will heed the ridiculous demands and show up alone.” But it’s not looking good for them anymore with how the battle is starting to shape out. All the Astian troops are slowly being crammed into tightknit a circle, pressed shoulder to shoulder. Backing into the almshouse where she’s at.
Only the soldiers in the outer most perimeters can combat, but they’re out geared by the defensive wall the opponent’s side has put up and slowly marching inwards. Skewering them down. On top of that, arrows begin raining upon the ones in the middle. Forcing them to helplessly hide beneath an umbrella of wooden shields and unable to retaliate. At this rate, they’re only going to slowly get peeled down like an apple to the core.
It’s getting increasingly dire. Now fire arrows are coming in response. Igniting the wooden shields. It’s starting to spread beneath her. The soldiers in the middle must completely discard their only means of defenses and leaving them vulnerable to chipping attacks. Gradually being downed one after another like sitting ducks being sniped. The outer circle meanwhile can’t break through the Godorian steel with inferior weapons despite their trying their best to push. It’s only going to be a matter of time before they completely lose their advantage. They needed Soril to act as a pressure point to smash through but Rakgar’s keeping him busy midst it all,
“What now?” he taunts him, “All your troops are out of Kanra, if you lose here. Kanra falls.”
There must be something she can do to turn the tides. If she can somehow create a gap in enemy forces for the Astian troops to break out and fight back. With their numbers and sobriety, they can still win this if the battlegrounds are evened out.
She’s quickly flicking her head around to survey her surroundings. What is there, what is there? Beds? Chairs and tables? Blankets and pillows that’re been scattered across the floors? All these things here are completely useless! God fucking dammit!
Then she’s suddenly called out,
“Miss Lumeria, catch!” She flicks her eyes downwards. It’s Theo. He’s hyperventilating, looking as if he’s just rabidly shuffled through the crowd trying to get here. Throwing something towards her,
“Lord Blaine asked me to pass you this if we ever get cornered!” she snatches it out of the air. A bow and an arrow with a single dynamite attached to it and it’s already lit. The cord rapidly fizzingly away! Fuck he’s insane!
Quickly, she draws her aim. Where does he want her to shoot? It won’t be towards the battlefield as the explosion will only get everyone indiscriminately in collateral. That means, it can only be in the air. She flicks her gaze up. That’s right! That structure’s still there! Timing it with the detonation, she screams,
“Everyone get ready to charge!” fires. She launches it straight into the side of the windmill. It’s looming directly over the Estelian troops. Exploding the tall building with a deafening boom. It attracts all their attention up. Slowly, like a tree being toppled, it starts falling. The Estelian soldiers beneath that are now hastily breaking formation to dive out of the way. With that, Soril launches another green flare, into Rakgar’s mid-section. Abruptly pushing him back into the resonating impact. Stirring a huge dust cloud.
The enemy’s cage has been broken. Astian soldiers are now rushing out the gaps and looping around them. Going for the disoriented ones at the back. The Estelian line is getting scattered. Their commander is down. They don’t know to retreat or to engage, so they’re just falling into complete chaos to be mercilessly cut down. With that, she descends from her attic and runs towards them.
Slowly, Soril walks towards the rubble, kicking the debris away to reveal Rakgar buried beneath. He isn’t dead yet. But, that impact of the flare has shattered through the midsection of his armor, impaling into his skin. He drops him a cold glare,
“I didn’t intend to lose here.” he finally replies, “the mere girl also happens to be an Angel that’s very good at bringing victories in a pinch.” Soril bends down, drawing a dagger from his sleeves to raise it overhead, lingering above Rakgar’s heart,
“Any last words?”
Rakgar doesn’t reply immediately. Instead, he spends a moment watching the situation unfold. Funny how a cruel sadistic man almost looks pained by the slaughtering of his comrades. There’s such a despondent expression on his face. Then, it’s completely gone when he matches her gaze,
“Angel?” the blazing anger is back, he laughs, “All I see is a monster in human skin.”
She looks at the blade. She knows how sharp it is, and how frightening death can be. But it’s strange. It’s awfully quiet in her mind. She no longer feels that nagging compulsion to stop Soril from killing him. She closes her eyes.