Chapter 67 Battle of Hermes (Part 2)
The expected final battle didn’t happen.
A soldier went to a woman standing in the front line and pressed against her sword to keep her back.
“Stand back.” His voice wasn’t loud, but it was still clear and strong. Alicia noticed that even after the intervention of this unknown person, her side was still holding their positions. Looking closer, she could see a “I” on the man’s sleeve and under it was written “God’s Army of Punishment”
She tilted her head, and not far from them a team of tall warriors rushed out of the North gate. They were all dressed in the same whole body armor, which had a silver sheen under the rain, and their red cloaks waved in the wind. However, all of them had different weapons, some were holding swords and shields while others were holding halberds or Iron Axes. After they crossed the bridge, they didn’t march as a team. Instead, they spread out and went straight against the incoming demonic beasts.
What kind of tactic is this? They are creating a total mess! They faced the demonic beasts with power and speed that exceeded what was humanly possible by far. Do they want to fight the demonic beasts completely alone and without any order? Moreover, how could we let the God’s Army of Punishment fight alone against the demonic beasts?
“We have to support them!”
“No,” the unknown man shook his head, looking somewhat gloomy, “You have to stay back. If you rush into the fight, you will only drag them down.”
Drag them down? Alicia angrily stared at the man, could it be that her impression of the man was wrong? Was this person just a cowardly man? She clenched the hilt of her sword, ready to immediately join the battle – although the future of the New Holy City was unknown, at the moment of their biggest crisis when they had to face the enemy, she was only allowed to stand by as others fought for them.
Before she could even take two steps forward, an incredible scene happened in front of her.
Something came flying down from the sky; its shape was just like a Fallen Angel. Its huge wings were covered in gray feathers, and completely open, it had a wingspan of more than twelve feet. It had a head like a bird, but also a pair of long horns and barbed claws capable of cutting through a warrior’s breastplate like they were butter.
A vertical drop from the sky was the beast’s prefered kind of attack, covert and difficult to defend against. Even when holding a heavy shield, soldiers wouldn’t be able to defend themselves; the huge impact force would shatter their arms and crush their rib cages. Many soldiers had already died from their attack without any chance to retaliate. Their only chance to shake it off was by throwing themselves towards the ground, diving away from the dangerous blow.
But the members of God’s Army of Punishment didn’t think about dodging. A warrior wearing silver armor took a firm stand against the enemy, and at the last moment he reached out with his hands and grasped the incoming claws with his hands. The impact force was so strong that a screeching sound could be heard.
The warrior bent his right foot while straightening his left foot, stretching out his arms and forming so a straight line with his body, creating a counterpart with enough power to repel the impact. When another warrior saw that the demonic beast came to a stop in the air, he threw a javelin. The javelin was so fast that Alicia could only see a silver flash. It precisely went through the beast’s head, directly shattering it at the moment of impact.
The warrior who was still holding the beast’s claws threw the twitching body away. His arms were abnormally bent, it seemed that the bones in his arms had been broken. Apparently, he hadn’t survived the impact without any injuries, but he calmly took his iron ax and began to kill demonic beasts again.
They were only relying on manpower to withstand this herd of monsters. Seeing this, Alicia could not believe her eyes. Hundreds of soldiers of the God’s Army of Punishment poured into the herd of demonic beasts. Due to their red cloaks, it seemed as if they had merged into a powerful flood of blood, abruptly stopping the enemy from moving forward. She now understood what the soldier meant when he said they would “drag” them down. These warriors seemed to have the ability of ten men. Each of them had the strength, agility and reaction time comparable to that of a demonic beast – no, they seemed to be even stronger. In front of them, ordinary demonic beasts seemed to be almost like little children.
“They are too much!” Alicia could feel joy from the bottom of her heart. With such a strong group of warriors, Hermes’ Cathedral would never fall! “Ah, yes, I never asked you for your name, my name is Alicia Quinn, and what is your name, Captain? It appears that you already knew the fighting abilities of the God’s Army of Punishment?”
The Captain looked Alicia directly in the eyes, his look was as freezing cold as the rain. When he finally responded, he didn’t give her his name, he only muttered: “My brother is a member of the God’s Army of Punishment.”
*
“It appears that we will win.” said Bishop Mayne, who stood at the topmost level of the Cathedral, looking out of the window. Here, at the highest point of the New Holy City, he used a telescope to look over more than half of the battlefield. “Let the mangonels stop their attack, our army will soon start an attack to reclaim the city walls.”
“You know that winning wasn’t the main point, right?” Suddenly, another voice could be heard. The possessor of the voice wore the same gold clothes like Bishop Mayne, but the only difference was that his voice was much older, “The important part of this fight was that the armies of the four Kingdoms were destroyed.”
“That’s right. This way, their defensive lines will be rendered useless.” said the last person. She seemed to be the youngest person in this trio, appearing to be around her early thirties and also the only woman within the three archbishops. “Their standing army of more than 5,000 well-equipped and well-trained soldiers and also nearly a thousand knights were immediately taken out of the picture. They will need four to five years to rebuild their troops. Ah …” She let out a moan, and happily continued, “It’s really such a wonderful day.”
“But in order to achieve this purpose, we had to sacrifice many of our own soldiers, they were the backbone of the Church,” Mayne sighed, “If this wasn’t the fastest plan to achieve our desired goal, I really didn’t want to sent all of our soldiers into this purgatory.”
The old man stroked his beard thoughtfully and then said, “We had no other choice, the wild beasts had appeared, which was described in the Holy Book. Following the descriptions in the book, there is not much time left. So, if we do not unify the entire continent and force all the Kingdom under one rule, only death will await us.”
“Destruction is actually nothing bad.” said the woman while laughing frivolously, “Humans are always greedy, have malicious intent, and only see nothing but personal profit. Under the name and banner of righteousness they do much worse things than even the demonic beasts, maybe even the devil from hell would treat us better than we humans each other.”
“Heather!” shouted the man angrily while pulling his beard, “Your comments can be counted as treason and heresy against the will of God, do you want to die?!”
“You don’t need to take it to your heart, Tayfun,” Heather shrugged disregarding, her face full of disapproval, “The person in charge of this tribunal is me, not you. Besides, do you really think that it’s important to God whether we survive or not? How do you know that he is more caring than the devil?”
“You …!”
“Enough! Tayfun! Heather!” shouted Mayne in displeasure, “That is enough for today. I need to report to the Pope, you both will go now and complete the mission.”
……
After they left, Mayne stood in front of the window overlooking the north – with the Mountain of despair in the background, a never ending snow-covered winter land, and in the west, laid the barbarian territory. There laid the beginning of everything.
He knew that Bishop Tayfun was right, the soldiers in the God’s Army of Punishment were too precious. To join, one not only needed to be faithful but also a strong willpower to survive the transformation afterwards. After nearly a century of accumulation, the Church was only able to save one thousand soldiers. If they wanted to fight the demons, this number was not enough.
But the North could only support so many warriors. If they wanted more warriors, they had no other choice than to unify the continent.
Of course, Bishop Heather was also correct. She served as the Church’s judge, holding trials for thousands of witches. Whether they were good or bad witches, they were all gathered and killed with the most savage methods.
The higher your position was within the church, the more you could clearly feel, God wasn’t good but he also wasn’t bad.
“How do you know that he cares more for us than the devil?” When he thought about Heather’s words, Mayne couldn’t help himself from laughing out aloud. I am afraid that only she has the talent to annoy Tayfun until he has nothing left to say. God didn’t bless the world, nor did he show concern and care for the devil.
God will only love the winning party.