Chapter 216 : Chapter 216
Chapter 216. Occupation, Marching Out
Nine hundred and ninety-eight Gold Mages began to chant. Soon, a Super-Tier Spell took shape and hurtled toward the heavy Palace Gate of the Royal Palace with a shrieking howl.
Amid flying splinters, the Palace Gate gradually warped. The Protective Barrier over the Royal Capital also rose at that moment, but it was of no use. At last, beneath the fifth Super-Tier Spell, it collapsed with a thunderous crash.
“Charge in.”
Kroll soldiers surged into the Royal Palace like a tide, clashing with the Kadiya soldiers guarding the courtyard.
The crisp sound of long swords cleaving armor, the humming vibration of bowstrings, the gasps of the dying… within this palace that had once symbolized royal authority, they composed the kingdom’s final elegy.
Feir IV stood on the steps of the Throne Hall, his dragon robe already soaked through with blood.
He gripped the sword engraved with “Defend the Land” and looked at the Kroll soldiers rushing in. Then, suddenly, he smiled. There was no fear in that smile, only a bleak desolation that seemed almost like release.
“Kadiya… will never surrender.”
He roared and charged down the steps. His sword light bloomed among the enemy troops like the last spark of starlight, before it was swallowed by the golden tide.
When Xilan stepped into the Throne Hall, all he saw was Feir IV lying in a pool of blood, and the sword still clenched tightly in his hand.
Sunlight shone through the shattered window lattice, casting mottled light and shadow across the floor, as though laying a faded shroud over the fall of this kingdom.
“Occupy the Royal Palace.” Xilan’s voice echoed through the empty hall. “Count the casualties and prepare to welcome the Dragon Mother.”
The soldiers began clearing the battlefield, while he walked to the throne and brushed the dust from its armrest.
The Royal Territory was already in his grasp, but sooner or later, he would take back every inch of land the Orcs had seized.
Outside the window, Kroll’s banner was planted atop the tower of the Royal Palace, snapping fiercely amid the smoke of war.
The struggle for the Royal Capital had come to an end, but a new war had only just begun.
After the Dragon Mother arrived at the Royal Palace to take command, Dragon Mother Daenerys’s Red-Gold Dragon coiled atop the palace tower, its scales gleaming like molten gold beneath the sunlight.
She looked down at the fully assembled Kroll Legions below. Her silver-white robe unfurled in the wind, and her voice spread throughout the entire army through Dragon Might.
“The Orcs of the Southern Frontier murdered the people of Kroll and seized Kroll’s lands. This vengeance must be repaid. In two days, we march out. Flatten their camps. Leave not one alive.”
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Nearly a hundred thousand men roared in unison, the sound wave shaking the glazed tiles of the Royal Palace until they rustled.
The soldiers, rested for two days, had battle intent burning in their eyes. Horse hooves thundered over the stone-paved roads of the Royal Capital, raising billowing clouds of dust as they advanced toward the Southern Frontier.
Along the border, an Orc patrol was chewing on beast bones while wiping the bloodstains from their battle axes with rough fingers.
They had just plundered the nearby villages, and the savagery on their faces had yet to fade. Yet they failed to notice the dark shadows sweeping across the sky.
“Is that a human Knight Order?”
An Orc sentry had only just shouted his warning when a knight’s sword tore through his throat.
The Sky Knight Order descended like divine soldiers from the heavens. The knights’ Dou Qi condensed into golden blades of light beneath the sun, and the fierce wind from their dive carried the stench of blood with it.
The Wolf Riders the Orcs took such pride in were like children before the Sky Knights. They were cleaved in half by the knights’ long swords before they could even let out a scream.
The slaughter, as effortless as “chopping melons and slicing vegetables,” lasted less than a quarter of an hour before the Orc Battalion along the border was wiped out.
On the ground, wolf corpses and Orc corpses lay piled together, and blood flowed into small streams. The Sky Knight Order merely shook the beads of blood from their armor and continued flying deeper into the Southern Frontier.
The Gold Legion advanced over the corpses of the Orcs. Yet the farther south they went, the more horrifying the sights before them became.
Villages that had once stood there had been reduced to charred ruins. Dried heads hung from broken walls, their hollow eye sockets staring up at the sky.
A castle’s drawbridge lay broken over the moat, while several flayed corpses hung from the flagpole atop the walls. Their skin flapped in the wind, and one could vaguely make out the forms of Kadiya civilians.
A young Kroll soldier could not stop himself from retching. The hand gripping his spear trembled.
He had seen slaughter on the battlefield, but he had never seen butchery so utterly deranged.
“These beasts…”
Xilan reined in his horse and stared at the children’s toys scattered through the ruins, his eyes as cold as ice. He swung his sword and cut down a wooden pole from which a head was hanging.
“Pick up the pace! Find their main force, and make them pay the price in blood!”
The Legions advanced even faster. The pity on the soldiers’ faces was replaced by fury.
The heads hanging from the walls and the burned villages pierced their hearts like thorns.
Whether Kadiya had once been enemy or ally, the civilians on this land should never have suffered such cruelty.
The Sky Knight Order sent back word that the main Orc camp had been discovered fifty li ahead. The Orc cavalry of three clans were dividing up the wealth they had plundered, and several hundred Kadiya women and children were being held prisoner in the camp.
“Prepare for battle.”
Xilan drew his sword, and Golden Dou Qi soared into the sky.
“Tell everyone that today, we will not only reclaim this land. We will also demand justice for these dead humans.”
The battle cry of the Gold Legion rose again. This time, there was a heavier, more resolute edge to the roar.
The palisade around the outer edge of the camp was filled with sharpened wooden stakes, and corpses hung from them as well. The smell of blood mingled with the scorched stench of roasting meat, spreading through the wind in a nauseating wave.
The Orcs of the three clans were reveling around bonfires. Inferior ale in clay jars was drained in one gulp after another, and the gold, silver, and jewels they had stolen were casually tossed across the ground. Several Kadiya women chained in iron shackles curled up in the corner, their eyes hollow as cold ashes.
“The First and Second Gold Legions will outflank them from the left. The Third Legion will advance from the front. The Fourth and Fifth Legions will outflank them from the right. The Sky Knight Order will suppress their aerial units, though these beasts do not have any decent flying troops to speak of.”
Xilan’s voice spread across the formation through Amplification Magic, and his long sword pointed toward the Wolf-Head Banner at the center of the camp.
“Put the camp to the sword.”
“Yes.”
The Gold Legion advanced like a moving city wall.
At the front, the Third Legion raised their Massive Shields and formed an airtight shield formation. Spears extended through the gaps between the shields, their cold gleam aimed straight at the Orcs within the camp.
The four Legions on the left and right used the cover of the forest to circle silently toward the rear of the camp. Their horse hooves stepped across fallen leaves, making only faint, fragmented sounds.
The Orcs in the camp finally sensed that something was wrong. The drunken Wolf Riders scrambled onto their wolves in a panic, waving their battle axes as they let out crude roars.
But their reaction was too slow. The shield formation had already smashed through the palisade, and spears thrust out like a forest. The Orcs in the front row were instantly pierced full of holes.
“Kill…”