Chapter 370: Battle Beneath the Shard
"Attack!"
Commander Barron’s battle cry split the skies, his wyvern leading the rest of the Death Wings in a reckless dive toward us. Similar shouts joined with the earthshaking charge of the church’s infantry, whose leveled spears and shields advance through the outer courtyard. Bethiv led the majority of our troops to the gate and headed them, the neat and orderly lines collapsing in a pitched battle.
With the gates secure with their vigilante presence, I turned my attention to the sky. The few mages and archers we had launched a volley skyward, picking off several wyverns and their riders. But most screamed right through the onslaught, relying on their rapidly accelerating velocity and enchanted armor to keep them alive long enough to make it to the ground.
The first wyvern landed with the force of a meteor, barely bothering to flare its wings to catch its fall. The cobblestone courtyard ruptured beneath the impact, throwing fist-sized bits of earth and stone in all directions. The Blade Ward deflected the shrapnel with ease, but the ensuing dust cloud gave them enough time to shake off the impact. The party of riders leaped free of the stunned beast and charged the nearest group of soldiers, clearing room for more of their monstrous allies to land.
Some of the wyverns took a far different approach, deliberately aiming for large clusters of soldiers. The force of their titanic bodies was no different than that of a meteor, possessing more than enough power to shatter the Blade Ward and devastate entire squads of soldiers. The wyverns fared no better than those they crushed and were forced to absorb the impact with their own bodies, often perishing in the process.
I grimaced as more living projectiles rained from the sky and the number of souls in the Nexus dwindled. My fingers itched to renew the protective spells shielding my allies, but the strain of maintaining the artificial gate above the city had worn my soul to exhaustion. Even attempting to muster my mana for anything more than a simple spell wracked my soul with pain, the semi-healed scars burning with a vengeance.
As a fresh wave of pain rolled through me, Luxxa’s hand rested on my shoulder, and I looked up into her warm, green eyes.
"Take it easy, my Lady" She murmured, smoothing a stray, crimson strand of hair behind my pointed ear. "You don’t have to win this fight by yourself, you know. You can rely on us."
I hesitated, but eventually gave in and nodded. "I’m sorry...it just hurts too much."