Steel and Mana

Chapter 263 – Magical Showdown (1)

Chapter 263 – Magical Showdown (1)

Otto was immersed within his spell, no longer in full view of his army, missing the fact that something had broken through their ranks, heading straight for the city. Maybe, even if he saw the second train arrive, he wouldn't have paid too much attention to it either. But, he would have picked up on the fact that someone other than him had used magic...

From his elevated vantage, the city of Lothlia stood like a dying beast, its stone walls battered and scorched, but the city was still holding its ground and the opening on its walls. Plumes of smoke rose from multiple breaches where Otto's forces had managed to hammer through, following his lightning bolts from the sky. What annoyed him the most were the two machines his enemies wielded. Especially that bastardly pink one. The hunkier, black, staying in the middle of the city was a pain, yes. It was sending multiple spells towards the Lawbringer, forcing the ship to raise its altitude numerous times because its shields could no longer fully block incoming attacks with its powers siphoned away by Otto's formation. But that other one... It kept slaughtering his warriors, resisting his lightning, still standing, even after Otto's last attack blasted off its shield-bearing arm.

Around that accursed pink beast, the battlefield stretched out like a hellish nightmare. The ground before the wall it guarded was a swamp of blood and muddied snow, churned and overturned a hundred times by thousands of feet and the weighty stomp of the devilish machine. Corpses—some already frozen in grotesque shapes by the biting cold—littered the ground right until they were caught in a blast or got smushed when its heavy feet stomped on them. Men groaned in the darkness, under rubble and their comrades' bodies, pleading for aid that would never come. The air stank of death and sweat mingled with the faint odor of burning flesh where magic had seared the fallen. A loud horn blared, suffocating the cries of warriors, bursting their eardrums; the Princess's angry roar rose above the clamor before the walls, coming from its headpiece as it continued fighting, being an enraged terror on the battlefield. Yuri was now fighting purely on instinct, locking on enemy troops nearest her, consumed by her bloodlust, and wanting to kill as many as she could before falling.

...

....

......

The battle on the walls and streets of Lothlia was a hard-fought one. The trained and freshly recruited soldiers of Elliot fought in tight formations, spears and shields raised against the coming tide, pouring through the openings. They had fought off multiple attacks already but knew they were still far from finishing. From the parapets, they could see the columns of enemy soldiers advancing through the snow-covered lands like a never-ending tide.

"Here they come again!" someone shouted further down the line.

Lothlia's defenders braced for impact, tightening their grips on their weapons as the mercenaries surged forward, a wave of bodies screaming in bloodlust and fury. The city's archers let loose their arrows, raining death down on the attackers, but there were so many of them—far too many. Bodies tumbled and fell as arrows pierced throats and eyes, but the wave kept coming. Even if the defenders' cannons fired, they couldn't hit everybody.

Then, those who reached the walls without openings were clawing their way up with ladders and ropes. The first to reach the top was met with immediate death—skewered on spears, hacked down by swords—but more followed, trampling over the dead and dying just the same. Lothlian soldiers shouted curses, thrusting their weapons into the mass of screaming bodies, feeling the dull resistance of flesh and bone as they cut down the invaders. The walls, by now, stank worse than a slaughterhouse.

An Avalonian captain of his group, his armor covered in blood, swung his sword in wide arcs, severing limbs and heads with one stroke. He had fought for what felt like hours, his muscles burning with exhaustion, but there was no time to rest, nor did he think about it. A conscript, barely older than a boy, lunged at him with a rusted pike. The captain sidestepped without effort, driving his blade through the boy's chest. There was no hesitation or remorse in his eyes behind his helmet. Their only reward was death as long as they wielded a weapon and continued attacking them. He twisted the blade viciously and kicked the body off the battlements, shouting orders into his headset and calling upon two of his men to reinforce his position.

"Hold the line!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. "Lumet, Karvok to me! Don't let them—"

A thunderous roar cut him off as a section of the wall to his left exploded in a shower of stone and dust. A lightning bolt... The soldiers, no matter from which side, recoiled as a blinding blue light seared through their ranks. Screams echoed across the battlements as men writhed, their skin bubbling and melting under the magical onslaught caught. Dozens died, caught in the immediate vicinity of the blast.

"Yes!" Oleg saluted, carving a pathway for them, knowing it was not the time to ask questions. Not when another lightning bolt crashed down from the sky, hitting the Rook. It shuddered, cracked, and groaned, going down on one knee while two of the cannons on its shoulders were nothing but deformed, molten metal after the strike.

Still, it stood back up with a metallic moan, continuing to stand in front of the attacking squads of warriors. Seeing it survive such a destructive force, more and more conscripts felt that this whole assault was pointless. They were dying in the thousands, and even if they won, how many of them would remain? Their choice was simple. They began dropping their weapons where they could or switching sides where they knew the mercenaries would strike them down.

As for what it would mean after the battle ended? Nobody thought about it in the heat of the moment. There was a bigger issue to deal with.

Arriving at the western side of the walls, facing the Lawbringer. Seeing the flying ship, Merlin's eyes could also perceive the magic reaching up the sky from it, seeing what others couldn't.

"No wonder our hijacking spell didn't work... It can't adapt to a multi-layered formation of such complexity by itself! This is not a spell that can be influenced by our current variants without proper control..."

“...”

Nobody said anything, as besides their Prime Minister, they knew nothing about magic. They just used what they were given...

"Good thing I came prepared." He mumbled, his fingers closing, twitching, opening randomly as his mind was doing a multitude of different calculations at once.

Oleg wanted to ask something, know what they should do, but before a word could leave his mouth, a lightning bolt came down from the sky, aiming at where the Princess kept fighting. Yet, before it could connect, a formation appeared right above the body of the pink mech, dissipating the spell before it could cause any damage.

"He's good..." Merlin mumbled, licking his lips, an unknown yet familiar feeling awakening within him. "But not as good as he thinks he is!"

With a clap, his body began shimmering, his eyes moving back and forth with incredible speed as a giant, magical sphere appeared around Lothlia, one that was even visible to the regular eyes of magicless people. Standing behind him, Oleg could swear the young-looking boy had transformed, just for a fleeting moment. Yet... He saw it... Merlin looked like an ancient being, one with a tall, straight back and a crown on his head... wearing a royal robe and a long cape fluttering in the wind. In that brief second, he could see someone who was once called the Emperor of Magic.