"Miss, I will not beg you to spare my life, but please consider the lives of the people of this kingdom."
Marius sincerely hopes to reach the heart of the girl in the red and gold outfit, but when the Miss raises her leg and violently crushes her forehead against the marble of the main square, his illusions fly away as quickly as they have been manifested.
With his eyes directed towards the blood that flows abundantly from his head and comes to form a small pool of blood, Marius regrets that the story of his Kingdom ends so pitifully. Pitiful is indeed what this battle was, not this debacle, this ma.s.sacre, which he and his soldiers experienced this morning.
Come to think of it, Marius can only congratulate his soldiers. They fought valiantly. They resisted as much as they could, but the battle was so unequal that no matter what they did, nothing could change the fate the G.o.ds saw fit to grant them. Their kingdom may be small, but with all the soldiers together? Listening silently to the screams coming from the adjacent streets, Marius laughs silently that naivety proper to youth that has never left him.
A head rolls close to his eyes. The light blue eyes and long brown hair of the most beautiful woman in the Kingdom of Kant has just joined her son. When a foot pushes the decapitated head against his, Marius suffers, yet he will not grant this angel-faced demon the privilege of revealing the contents of his heart to him. Silent, he curses himself just for his inability to defend those who until the end, have kept faith with him.
…
No sooner had this breach created in the dome, the first barbarians having penetrated it, made a game of slaughtering every soul that crossed their path. They hadn't come to fight. Their coming here had nothing in common with the clashes Marius might have encountered on the battlefields. No codes, no prior agreement with the head of the opposing army and no respect for enemy lives. These demons, were here for the sole purpose of satisfying their thirst for b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.
The proud warriors of the Kingdom of Kant, have no reason to pale with their performance. They ignored their fear and, putting their lives aside, ran to their enemies to engage them head-on.
With their swords raised, the first ones quickly encountered the sharp claws of the Fenrirs and as was the case with the houses in the path of these winged giants, Marius felt the anger rise within him when he saw multiple piles of flesh falling to the blood-soaked ground.
They watched their comrades fall one by one, yet his warriors never stopped their desperate charges. Sadly, even when the demons jumped off their mounts and landed on the ground with a bang, the virile attacks of these brave men in armor proved to be as useless as they were demoralizing to those still standing.
The demons, which were increasing in number within the Capital's walls, seized the soldiers before carrying them to their mouths and cutting them in half to eat only their trunks and heads. With a wave of his hand, Marius saw his warriors being sent to ten feet and come crashing into the walls of the houses in their path. The biggests of the monsters didn't even bother to pretend to fight. Too lazy, they simply positioned their feet to crush as many of his men as possible. Far above these heartless creatures who were destroying homes and pulling people out of them like a human picking apples, the smiling blond angel was closely protected by the ten giant red dragons.
On the roofs and high walls of the enclosure, the arrows sent by his archers proved to be as effective as if they were shot against a rock wall, and knowing full well that victory would not come from the ground, although he was well aware that this would create irreversible collateral damage, Marius raised his hand to signal to the mages that the attack had to be launched without further delay.
Marius left ma.s.sacre site for a second to point his royal ring at the center of the central tower of his Castle. He didn't have to concentrate much to eject a small wave of extremely pure mana from his ring towards the imposing jewel inlaid in the center of the tower wall and when it was done, the dome disappeared.
As Kant's gem only distributes its immense energy to the ring bearers chosen by the King himself, the mages who had just broken their defensive spell felt their power reach an unprecedented level.
"For the survival of our kingdom! For our futur! For the children of Kant! For our freedom! Heart and Pride! Destroy the invader."
Absorbing a steady stream of energy himself, Marius didn't hold back. "Serpent of Lightning"
Without taking his enemies lightly, he unleashed one of his attacks which, when he was still only the third Prince of his Kingdom, had made him famous in that small part of the world. The immaterial blue serpent took shape around his body before moving towards a group of demons mounted on wyverns.
The lightning monster snaked until it reached the group of about twenty giants, then it whistled. Its attack became extremely fast. A speed that no human eye could follow. However, before it made contact with the demons, it met the hand of a four-horned t.i.tan mounted on a red dragon. The being, whose considerable size made Marius dizzy, closed his hand on this spell of which he was so proud, and without batting an eyelid, he sent him back to nothingness.
More or less recovered from his shock and more panicked than he had ever been, Marius did not think for a moment of the inhabitants of the Capital, nor did he take the lives of his warriors who were trying to stand upright under his feet, in consideration. Wounded in his pride. Feeling for the first time in his life, tiny and pathetic, he decided to unleash his most powerful offensive spell.
Teeth clenched, unsure of his success, he began to suck in all the surrounding air to concentrate it above him. Within a radius of 1,300 feet of him, on the ground, his already wounded soldiers were collapsing again. The children could no longer breathe and deprived of oxygen, their mothers were fainting.
Frustrated by this humiliation inflicted by the four-horned t.i.tan, Marius saw none of it. Too concentrated in positioning the air particles while avoiding that subjected to the pressure they encountered, explode, his gaze lingered on this only enemy to shoot down.
His spell took a long time to put in place, but now ready to be cast, a small smile, very satisfied with himself, appeared on the lips of this man known for his humility. His heart as a soldier of Kant demanded his revenge, so, without further ado, he clutched his scepter in his right hand and spread his arms.
"Dance with the reaper."
(Swoof) To the eyes of those standing slightly apart, a long white blade seemed to divide the sky.
Marius didn't have time to observe the long blade as it moved in a straight line towards the great red dragon. Still euphoric to have been able to cast this spell that the ancients called one of the lower divine punishments, his only thought was to be able to watch the pieces of the t.i.tan fall to the ground.
(Boom) "I didn't come here to have fun with a weakling. If it was my wish, I could enjoy watching your reactions when I eviscerate you. However, by seeing your clothes, which are of a higher quality than those worn by the c.o.c.kroaches are who near death on the ground, I think you and I need to talk. Legions, I'm sure that Your Little Highness Hera is here, so cease playing. Search every house and slaughter every being you find there."
"Ooooh. Praised be to our Sublime Black G.o.ddess. Praised be our Wonderful Princess Méria. Ooooh."
The blond angel with eyes like two amethysts, had only raised her sword... With that one small action, she had completely broken one of the spell known for its devastating effects. Following the index finger of the beauty whose smile made his heart beat faster, Marius lowered his eyes.
Out of sheer pride, he had just murdered hundreds of civilians and as many of his own soldiers. His head turned by itself towards the tower of the Mages, but where it should have been, there was only a gaping hole in a steaming ground. The streets that were so joyful yesterday, were today only a huge open-air cemetery. As for him...
"Heart and Pride... I see... I'm really tired."
