Chapter 106: The Cage of Light
The surviving knights of the Ivory Legion dropped their weapons immediately!
The heavy clatter of broadswords, halberds, and crossbows hitting the dirt echoed across the trapped section of the plains.
Thousands of heavily armored men fell to their knees and raised their empty hands in absolute surrender.
They had just watched their commander get executed with a single shot! Furthermore, they were trapped between a towering wall of ice and a thousand indestructible Paladin-Mechs.
Lucifer stood on top of the dead War-Behemoth. He did not order the Mechs to slaughter the prisoners.
"Secure them." Lucifer commanded over the comms rune.
"Understood, Grand Marshal." Celeste replied.
The Phantom Rangers and a detachment of Solaris Templars moved quickly from the shadows of the ice wall. They aggressively bound the surrendered knights and stripped them of any remaining magical talismans.
Elara stood beside Lucifer with her Twilight wings folded.
Her void-swirling eyes looked past the massive ice barrier created by the Wyrms and toward the main Royal Army waiting on the plains.
"The Vanguard is crushed." Elara noted quietly. "But the King still has nearly three hundred million conscripts out there. They are watching us."
"They are watching their shield wall die." Lucifer corrected smoothly.
He did not bother interrogating the surrendered troops. He had neutralized the heavy artillery. The main army was now completely exposed!
Lucifer activated his comms rune and connected directly to the Spire of Celestial Convergence high above them on the floating city of Zephyria.
"Sarah." Lucifer said.
"I am here, Lucifer." The Oracle’s voice replied instantly. The connection was crystal clear and completely free of the static that plagued the Umbral Plane.
"The Ivory Legion is neutralized. The main Royal Army is attempting to reorganize behind the ice wall." Lucifer reported.
His void eyes narrowed as they locked onto the distant shimmering ranks of the King’s infantry.
"They are going to try a mass retreat. If they spread out across the plains, it will take weeks to hunt them all down."
"They cannot outrun the city, Warlord." Sarah pointed out. "We can simply follow them."
"I do not want to follow them." Lucifer stated coldly. "I want to cage them."
He looked up at the massive dark underbelly of Zephyria hovering five thousand feet above them.
"Are the Spire’s amplification arrays fully stabilized?" Lucifer asked.
"Yes." Sarah confirmed. "The Void-Core Reactor is feeding maximum power into the conduit. The cosmic alignment is perfect."
"Good." Lucifer said. "Target the perimeter of the Royal Army. I want a complete lockdown. Cast Solaris’s Prison."
There was a brief stunned silence on the comms.
"Solaris’s Prison?" Sarah repeated. Her voice was laced with sudden profound hesitation.
"Lucifer... that is a Divine-tier containment ward. It requires a massive influx of pure holy magic to sustain. I am an Oracle, not a Saintess. My starlight cannot fuel a ward of that magnitude without burning my core."
"I know." Lucifer replied smoothly. "You are not going to fuel it."
He turned to his right. Lyra, the Dawn Saintess, stood near the edge of the crater.
She had just finished organizing the surviving Templars. She wore her pristine silver battle armor and her blue eyes were wide as she heard the command through the open comms channel.
"Saintess." Lucifer called out.
Lyra walked over to the dead Behemoth and looked up at Lucifer.
"You want me to cast the Prison?" Lyra asked, her voice steady but cautious.
"I have the holy capacity, but I am standing on the ground. I cannot project a dome large enough to cover three hundred million men from this elevation. The curvature of the spell will fail."
"You are not casting it from the ground." Lucifer said.
He raised his Gauntlet of the Void King.
"Elara." Lucifer ordered. "Take her up."
The Twilight Sovereign did not hesitate. Elara stepped off the Behemoth. Her dark iridescent armor absorbed the sunlight.
She walked up to Lyra and wrapped her arm firmly around the Saintess’s armored waist.
"Brace yourself, Saintess." Elara warned.
Elara’s massive wings of solid moonlight and deep void energy snapped open!
The sheer physical force of the downdraft kicked up a localized dust storm. She launched into the air and carried Lyra effortlessly.
They shot straight up toward the floating city of Zephyria and became a rapidly shrinking blur of dark and silver light.
Lucifer tracked their ascent with his void eyes.
"Sarah." Lucifer ordered over the comms. "The Saintess is incoming. Link her core directly to the Spire’s amplification matrix."
"Understood." Sarah replied, her voice tightening with concentration.
High above, Elara landed smoothly on the golden observation deck of the Spire and released Lyra.
The Dawn Saintess stumbled slightly. She was adjusting to the sudden altitude shift and the overwhelming magical pressure radiating from the massive violet crystal at the center of the deck.
Sarah stood near the crystal. Her Scepter of Cosmic Alignment glowed fiercely.
"Place your hands on the crystal, Lyra." Sarah instructed rapidly. "The Spire will act as a conduit. It will take your holy aura and project it through the planetary leylines."
Lyra did not hesitate and walked up to the massive violet orb.
She placed both of her bare ungauntleted hands directly onto the smooth surface. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Lyra stopped suppressing her power. She unleashed the absolute blinding totality of her Tier 3 Mythic core!
A massive explosive pillar of pure white holy light erupted from Lyra’s body. It poured directly into the violet crystal.
The Spire of Celestial Convergence groaned! The golden rings spun frantically as they processed the unimaginable volume of divine energy.
Down on the plains, Lucifer watched the sky. The golden rings of the Spire aligned.
[System: Divine Wonder Activated.]
[Spell Cast: Solaris’s Prison.]
[Source: Dawn Saintess Lyra (Amplified 1000x by Celestial Spire).]
A blinding solid beam of pure white light shot down from the floating city.
It did not hit the Royal Army. It hit the ground exactly five miles behind their rear guard!
The moment the light touched the earth, it exploded outward. It did not form a shockwave, it formed a wall!
A massive towering barrier of solid hard-light erupted from the dirt. The barrier raced in a perfect flawless circle. It completely surrounded the three-hundred-million-strong Royal Army.
The wall of light shot thousands of feet into the air and curved inward until it fused perfectly at the apex. This created a colossal impenetrable glowing white dome.
The entire human army was caged!
"It is sealed." Sarah reported. Her voice was completely breathless from the strain of managing the magical flow.
"The perimeter is locked. The barrier is sustained entirely by the Saintess’s aura and the Void-Core Reactor."
"Excellent." Lucifer said softly.
He did not stay on the dead Behemoth. He jumped down and landed heavily on the cracked dirt.
He walked slowly toward the towering wall of jagged blue ice the Wyrms had created earlier.
The Royal Army was trapped inside the dome. They could not retreat and they could not scatter.
Panic immediately consumed the ranks!
Through the transparent blue ice, Lucifer could see the chaos. Millions of conscripted soldiers dropped their weapons and rushed the glowing white barrier behind them.
They slammed their fists, their swords, and their shields against the hard-light wall.
It was utterly useless! The divine barrier did not even ripple.
Several Royal mages attempted to cast teleportation spells to escape. But the holy magic instantly crushed their weak portals.
This caused violent magical backlashes that left the mages bleeding and unconscious.
King Carlos’s massive gilded command carriage sat near the center of the trapped army. The King’s personal Royal Guard surrounded the carriage with their shields raised. However, they were looking at the glowing dome in absolute paralyzed terror.
Lucifer did not order an attack. He wanted them to understand exactly what was happening.
He raised his right hand and tapped the Platinum Medallion of the Grand Marshal on his chest. He used its magical resonance to project his voice directly into the minds of the trapped soldiers.
"You are caged." Lucifer’s voice thundered and echoed off the inside of the massive light dome. It was a cold absolute and terrifying sound.
"The King marched you out here to die. He promised you victory. He delivered you into a slaughterhouse."
The panicked screaming of the army died down. Millions of terrified eyes turned toward the massive ice wall to find the source of the voice.
"I am the Grand Marshal." Lucifer declared smoothly. "I control the sky. I control the ground. The Ivory Legion is dead. Your Vanguard is broken. You have no heavy artillery, and your magic is completely neutralized."
He paused and let the reality of their situation sink in.
"You wanted a war." Lucifer stated coldly. "I am giving you a massacre."
The absolute cold finality of the statement shattered whatever fragile morale the Royal Army had left.
Entire battalions of conscripted militiamen threw their weapons into the dirt and fell to their knees. They wept uncontrollably. They knew they were trapped in a killing jar!
But the King’s high generals were not ready to surrender.
"Do not listen to the traitor!" A high-ranking Duke screamed as he rode his destrier through the chaotic ranks. He raised his glowing enchanted longsword.
"The barrier is a trick! It cannot hold forever! Mages, focus your fire on the ice wall! Break the barricade! We outnumber his machines a thousand to one! Charge!"
The remaining Royal siege mages were terrified of execution by their own commanders and frantically began chanting.
Hundreds of massive fiery meteors and crackling lightning bolts materialized in the air. They aimed directly at the jagged blue ice wall separating them from Lucifer.
Lucifer did not flinch. He did not activate Gravity Crush.
"Isolde." Lucifer commanded quietly.
High on the battlements of Zephyria, the Winter Sovereign smirked.
She did not shift into her colossal dragon form. She did not need to. The ice wall was her creation and was born from the breath of her brood.
Isolde raised her pale hand and snapped her fingers!
The massive fifty-foot-high wall of jagged blue ice did not shatter under the magical barrage. It absorbed the spells!
The intense heat of the meteors and the raw energy of the lightning were instantly consumed by the absolute zero magic of the ice.
Then, the wall shifted.
It did not break down, it reconfigured! The solid barrier of ice aggressively melted and instantly refroze.
It formed a massive smooth ramp that led directly up and over the obstruction. This created a perfect icy path leading straight down into the trapped Royal Army.
The Royal mages stared at the ramp in absolute horror. Their spells had done nothing but open the door for the Warlord!
"The gate is open." Lucifer announced. His void eyes locked onto the panicked Duke.
He drew his ruby-red longsword.
Lucifer did not order the Dragoons to fire. He did not call the Wyrms.
"Titans." Lucifer roared, his voice cracking the cold air.
The Titans raised their massive twenty-foot Star-Metal broadswords. The heavy blades hummed with blinding holy light.
"March." Lucifer commanded.
The ground shook. The indestructible giants stepped forward in perfect unison.
They marched slowly and deliberately up the massive ice ramp with their heavy iron boots cracking the surface.
Lucifer walked directly behind them, ready to clear the cage.