Vol 3. Chapter 82: Counterattack
The earth-shaking roars of the Abyss Demons echoing throughout the city, together with the flames soaring into the sky outside the walls, immediately awakened the deepest and most genuine fear in the hearts of the citizens.
Although the people of Sky Dome had always lived peaceful and comfortable lives, they had still learned about the horrors of the Abyss Demons from history books.
His Majesty Xue Tianao had once said that as long as he was there, the Abyss Demons would never be able to advance south.
But now?
The Abyss Demon horde had marched directly to the city gates.
That nauseating aura and death-like pressure weighed heavily upon the citizens’ shoulders like an enormous mountain, making everyone feel an almost suffocating sense of oppression.
At the same time, their absolute trust in Xue Tianao began to waver.
If even the citizens outside the Imperial Palace were already like this—
Then the people in Dragon Dance Square, who had personally witnessed the phantom of the Founding Emperor collapse and the crown shatter, were even more shaken.
While feeling deeply uneasy, they could not help casting doubtful gazes toward Xue Tianao.
Those questioning gazes, stabbing into him like sharp blades, greatly irritated Xue Tianao.
At the same time, they also stirred a trace of unease within his heart.
Now that his Epic-Level Mission had failed and he had lost the opportunity to become an Eighth-Tier existence, Xue Tianao was already furious and bitterly disappointed.
If he now also lost the popular support he had worked so hard to cultivate for so long, Xue Tianao felt that he truly might go insane.
Faced with the Abyss Demons’ attack—
He had nowhere to retreat.
He had to restore the people’s trust in him!
He absolutely could not allow his rule to be shaken because of this.
If he wanted to regain the people’s worship, then he had to lead the army and crush those beasts with an overwhelming advantage.
He had to rebuild his image as the hero who saved the nation and make the people realize that the empire’s army was fully capable of defeating the Abyss Demons and protecting their homeland.
As for why the northern border had fallen, he could investigate that afterward and conveniently find someone to take the blame.
At the same time, if he wanted the people of the other factions to willingly cooperate with him in the future, he had to display overwhelming strength right now.
In any case, he had already planned to hold an exhibition of the new weapons a few days after the coronation ceremony.
There was nothing wrong with moving it forward.
Besides, compared with giant rocks, dummies, and the like, actual Abyss Demons were obviously far more suitable targets!
And finally—
Most importantly—
The rage in Xue Tianao’s heart had already become almost impossible to suppress.
He desperately needed something on which to vent his fury.
And when it came to choosing such a target, there was hardly anything more suitable than the Abyss Demons.
‘Heh. You filthy beasts.’
With such thoughts in mind, Xue Tianao issued the order to attack.
--
Meanwhile, atop the northern city wall—
Looking at Toma, who had been sent by His Majesty to replace him as commander, Lingmu, commander of the Second Army, could not help revealing a somewhat astonished expression.
It was not because one of His Majesty’s trusted confidants had °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° appeared here.
Rather, it was because of the countless heavy weapons Toma had brought with him...
As one of the empire’s generals, Lingmu was naturally aware of the existence of these weapons. He could not help hesitating as he asked,
“Commander Toma, His Majesty... said that we’re to use these weapons?”
“Of course. If we don’t use them now, then when? This battlefield is the perfect testing ground to demonstrate these weapons!”
As he spoke—
Toma walked to the edge of the city wall and gazed at the oppressive, pitch-black tide of Abyss Demons ahead.
The Abyss Demons’ aura made him nauseous, but it did not inspire even the slightest trace of fear within him.
Instead, his heart was filled with eager anticipation.
At this moment—
After Lingmu had given the order, the Second Army’s firepower—arrows, artillery, and magical bombardments—was already raining down upon the Abyss Demon horde without the slightest restraint.
Although their destructive power was astonishing and had inflicted considerable damage upon the Abyss Demons, they still could not effectively stop their charging momentum.
After all, there were simply far too many Abyss Demons...
The three outer barrier formations established in northern Sky Dome to prevent the Abyss Demons from advancing south had all been activated, but two had already been forcibly torn apart by the claws of the Abyss Demon horde.
The Abyss Demons were less than a hundred meters away from the final water-element barrier and only a thousand meters away from Sky Dome’s city walls.
In the blink of an eye, the Abyss Demons could reach the foot of the walls.
By relying on the city walls’ sturdiness and the lightning-net magic formations arranged atop them, they could severely injure the Abyss Demon horde and use that as the starting point to gradually grind down and annihilate every Abyss Demon attacking the city.
However, victory achieved through such ancient methods was not what Toma wanted.
Nor was it what Xue Tianao wanted...
What they wanted was to crush the Abyss Demon horde head-on.
They wanted to completely uproot the seed of fear toward Abyss Demons that had long been buried deep within the people’s hearts.
They wanted everyone to understand that completely exterminating the Abyss Demons was not some impossible fantasy.
So what if these Abyss Demons had broken through the northern border?
The strength and quantity of equipment possessed by their Imperial Guard Army were absolutely incomparable to those of the Fourth Army.
The difference between the two was like heaven and earth.
Thinking this—
Toma abruptly drew the sword at his waist, pointed its blade directly at the roaring Abyss Demon horde ahead, and shouted toward the countless Imperial Guard soldiers behind him,
“According to the original plan! Blast the fuckers!”
The next moment—
As Toma issued his order, the Imperial Guard’s mage corps simultaneously mobilized the mana within their bodies.
Through the combined efforts of fifty or sixty Fifth-Tier and Sixth-Tier mages, an enormous azure amplification magic formation suddenly appeared, floating in midair.
At the same time, under the operation of the Imperial Guard soldiers, hundreds of uniquely designed heavy cannons began charging with tremendous momentum.
A destructive power started gathering within them.
At Toma’s command—
The heavy cannons fired simultaneously!
Furious tongues of flame suddenly erupted from the pitch-black muzzles as hundreds of shells saturated with dense mana shot straight into the sky!
After being fired, the shells glowing with blue light rapidly began to split apart.
A single shell directly transformed into more than a dozen missiles, and the densely packed projectiles flew through the amplification magic formation created by the mages.
Within the formation, they were imbued with the power of lightning.
In an instant, the sky was completely covered in dazzling blue points of light.
The terrifying energy fluctuations were so intense that even the nearby Abyss Demons instinctively felt a trace of fear and raised their heads toward the sky in confusion.
The next instant—
The missiles enhanced by the magic formation poured down like a torrential storm, densely packed and carrying overwhelming momentum as they descended upon the sea of Abyss Demons ahead!
“Boom~~”
Accompanied by explosion after explosion, under the excited gazes of Toma and the others, the storm formed from blue missiles violently collided with the sea of Abyss Demons.
In an instant, heaven and earth seemed to collapse!
Every missile that plunged into the Abyss Demon horde immediately erupted with terrifying flames, directly swallowing several nearby Abyss Demons.
At the same time, when the enchanted missiles exploded, they directly triggered the effect of ‘Chain Lightning,’ spreading the destructive force of each explosion even farther.
In merely an instant, the Abyss Demons at the front of the horde were completely swallowed by flames and lightning.
The Abyss Demons being scorched by the raging fire instinctively released miserable howls.
After their lives were completely burned away, the Abyss Demons that had just broken through the third barrier collapsed to the ground one after another, becoming charred, nauseating corpses.
“Hahahahaha! They’re actually this vulnerable!”
Seeing His Majesty’s weapons prove so effective, breaking through the Abyss Demons’ defenses and killing them with such ease, Toma could no longer conceal the wild delight on his face.
Immediately afterward, at Toma’s instruction, dozens of other types of weapons were brought onto the city walls one after another.
These weapons, which were originally supposed to be displayed two days later, now directly revealed their terrifying might, unleashing the fury of Sky Dome’s people upon the Abyss Demon army ahead.
For a time—
All kinds of heavy artillery, various deathly beams filled with terrifying destructive power, and vast clouds of spreading poisonous mist were unleashed upon the Abyss Demon horde all at once.
And that was not all.
At the same time—
High in the sky, escorted by hundreds of griffin knights, an enormous aerial airship surrounded by magic formations suddenly appeared overhead beneath the shocked gazes of all the citizens.
The instant its gigantic form, vast enough to seemingly blot out the sky, appeared, it immediately attracted the attention of Sky Dome’s citizens.
Even Archbishop Nick and the numerous envoys from other factions could not help looking at it curiously.
Such an enormous flying object was truly astonishing.
After all, in this world, aside from the small number of knights who could fly by riding griffins, only powerhouses of the Seventh Tier or above were capable of taking to the skies.
Yet Xue Tianao had somehow managed to make something so enormous—and even constructed from steel—float in the air?!
It was simply unbelievable...
Immediately afterward, under the expectant gazes of countless people, the cargo doors beneath the airship abruptly opened.
Countless spheres of light glowing crimson-red poured directly from the airship, unleashing an unprecedented wave of indiscriminate bombardment upon the charging Abyss Demons below.
Amid wave after wave of deafening explosions, every Abyss Demon within Toma’s field of vision, without exception, was swallowed by the violent blast waves.
The vast snowy plain ahead ceased to exist.
All that remained was a terrifying inferno of flames...
At this moment—
In Dragon Dance Square, Xue Tianao watched the projection screen displaying the Abyss Demon horde being swallowed by raging flames.
Then, looking at the countless citizens and foreign envoys around him whose faces were filled with shock, the corners of Xue Tianao’s lips slowly curved upward...