strokinit Chapter 159, let's turn the tide!
Chapter 159, let's turn the tide!
Chapter 159, let's turn the tide!
"Perhaps—perhaps His Highness the Prince—"
The young soldier couldn't help but mutter to himself, as if grasping at the last straw in despair, seeking a sliver of solace.
"Shut up!"
Hawke growled, his face turning even more ashen.
"Didn't you hear what he said? Black wizards—those legendary monsters—how could they possibly genuinely help us?"
He had also heard countless terrifying tales about the Silent Forest and the Black Wizard, horrible beings who traded souls and flesh for power.
The old soldier didn't speak, but his cloudy eyes remained fixed on the distance—the direction Prince Layton had left in, the only direction that might bring hope.
But his brow was furrowed, and his unease outweighed his anticipation.
Seeing the city walls fall silent again, filled only with hateful gazes and powerless silence, Krov couldn't help but laugh triumphantly.
"Looks like you're going to have to suffer the consequences instead of being polite! Fine! It'll be a good opportunity for my men to stretch their muscles!"
Once we breach this ruined city, everything inside—the wealth, the women, and even your lives—will be our spoils! Then, let's see if you stubborn mules can still be so defiant!
He suddenly raised his hand, and the messenger behind him immediately waved the command flag.
Woo-woo-woo—
The deep, terrifying bugle call of attack rang out again from Nar's camp, more urgent and filled with a bloodthirsty killing intent than before.
The massive army formation resembled a war machine finally starting up. The infantry phalanx advanced with heavy, unified steps, while huge battering rams and towering siege towers were slowly pushed out of the camp. Countless archers began to run forward, searching for the best firing positions.
The final offensive, the all-out attack, is about to begin.
The defenders on the city wall instinctively gripped their broken weapons, their breathing becoming heavy and rapid, a chilling fear and a resolute madness intertwined on their faces.
Everyone understood that the final moment had arrived.
With a clang, King Risso drew his sword, a symbol of royal power. Despite several chips on the blade, he raised it high, its tip pointing directly at the surging enemy army below the city.
"Arthur's warriors!"
With all his might, he let out what might be the last shout of his life, and his voice temporarily drowned out the enemy's war drums and horns.
"For our slaughtered loved ones! For our homes that are about to be trampled upon! Fight to the death—we will not retreat!"
"Fight to the death, never retreat!"
Scattered yet poignant echoes resounded from the city walls, coalescing into a faint yet tenacious wave of sound. But before the overwhelming army, it seemed so insignificant, as if it would be completely swallowed up in the next second.
However, just as this atmosphere of despair was about to reach its peak, a sudden change occurred at the very moment when a great battle was about to break out!
"Look! Look over there! What's that?!"
Suddenly, someone on the city wall pointed to the distant horizon and cried out in surprise and uncertainty.
In the distance, a faint, almost imperceptible black line was rapidly approaching the capital.
It didn't come from the direction of Nar's camp, but from a completely different direction, silently, yet carrying an eerie aura that made one's heart tighten and inexplicably oppressed.
On the city wall, both the soldiers of Nar who were about to attack and the Arthurian defenders who were prepared to defend to the death were involuntarily drawn to this sudden change, subconsciously slowing their movements and watching the rapidly approaching black line with tension.
The black line drew closer and gradually became clearer.
Those seemed to be several eerie warhorses shrouded in a faint, swirling black mist. Their hooves trod on the ground without making a sound, galloping like ghosts.
And on that nightmarish warhorse sat a figure that felt both familiar and utterly alien to the city guards, a figure that even sent chills down their spines—
"It's—it's Prince Layton! His Highness is back! His Highness is really back!"
Finally, someone recognized them, their voice carrying a hint of disbelief and distorted joy, but mostly confusion and bewilderment.
Layton Arthur stopped his warhorse, shrouded in black mist, on a hillside not far from the capital, gazing expressionlessly at the city that had given him birth and nurtured him, a city now on the verge of collapse in war.
His face was expressionless; his former gentleness and kindness, as well as his despair and anxiety at the time of his departure, had all vanished, leaving only a bottomless coldness and an unsettling emptiness.
The excruciating pain of signing the soul contract seemed to have subsided.
Instead, he felt a strange, puppet-like connection to some terrifying being in the distance, and a cold, powerful shadow force that did not belong to him flowed within him.
He is back.
But he was no longer the prince who ran around seeking help for the survival of his country.
Instead, he returns as an "agent," carrying a dark pact that will drag the entire nation and all its people into an unknown abyss.
"Hahaha! Is this your hope? A prince like a stray dog? Is this your Duchy of Arthur's last trump card?"
Krov's laughter grew even more unrestrained, and the generals behind him, including Nar, erupted in even louder mockery.
"I thought he went to the Silent Forest to bring back some reinforcements, but it turns out he only brought himself?"
"You think riding a horse billowing black smoke can scare away our tens of thousands of troops? Risso, has your Arthurian family all gone mad?"
"How ridiculous! How pathetic!"
The faint hope that had just risen among the defenders on the city wall was instantly shattered by the overwhelming ridicule.
The young soldier's face turned deathly pale again, and even King Risso's hand gripping his sword trembled slightly. A barely perceptible look of despair and pain flashed in his eyes. Had his son truly only made a futile trip?
A greater despair, like a cold tide, completely engulfed the entire city of Arthur, and the eyes of all the remaining defenders became dull and lifeless, losing their last spark of hope.
"Everyone! Continue the attack!"
Krov brandished his sword, his voice filled with contempt and cruelty.
"Since their beloved prince wants to stand on the hillside and watch his country's destruction like a spectator, then so be it! Let him see it clearly!"
My first objective is to crush that pretentious, useless prince!
The bugle call to attack rang out once more, and the massive army regrouped, like a torrent of steel, surging toward the capital—and the small hill where Layton was located—with an aura of utter destruction!
Several cavalry units broke away from the main force, grinning maliciously as they charged straight at Leighton, who was isolated on the hillside, their horses kicking up clouds of dust.
However, Layton Arthur remained expressionless in the face of this overwhelming offensive.
He didn't even look at the cavalry charging towards him; he simply raised his right hand slowly, extremely slowly.
This action seemed to drain all sound from his surroundings, even the wind seemed to freeze.
The empty air behind him began to twist and fluctuate violently.
"I never said I was a person!"
Layton's voice wasn't loud, but it carried a cold, inhuman quality, clearly piercing through the noise of the battlefield and reaching everyone's ears, causing all who heard it to involuntarily shiver.
As his words fell, the violently distorted and fluctuating air behind him seemed to be completely torn apart by an invisible hand—a temporary, unstable shadow portal suddenly opened!
First to emerge were shadow puppets, like a tidal wave!
They have no physical form, but are humanoid silhouettes made of pure shadow energy. They have no facial features, no details, only black edges that constantly crackle with electricity and solid shadow blades in their hands.
They appeared silently, numbering in the hundreds and thousands, instantly covering a large area of the hillside.
Immediately afterwards, a deep, bloodthirsty roar came from inside the door!
One after another, burly and ferocious wolf-headed men swarmed out!
They are covered in coarse, dark fur, with protruding fangs dripping corrosive saliva, their eyes burning with a ferocious red light, and their claws like poisoned hooks.
Between them, squads of shadow warriors clad in jet-black bone armor or dark metal armor marched out in orderly formation.
They appeared to have once been human or humanoid beings, but now their skin was pale and bluish, their eyes were empty, and they were surrounded by a faint black mist, holding weapons that shimmered with ominous runes.
They are disciplined and silent, more like an army forged by death itself than living beings.
The shadow portal rippled violently once more, and several headless knights riding ghostly warhorses slowly stepped out!
They were clad in ancient, tattered armor, with eerie blue flames burning at the severed necks, and wielded enormous...
A decapitating sword haunted by vengeful spirits.
Their presence caused the surrounding temperature to plummet, filling the air with an atmosphere of despair and death that froze one's mind.
Finally, slowly emerging from the door were a smaller number of cyborgs with even more eerie and terrifying auras, and black wizard apprentices dressed in gray-black apprentice robes!
The forms of modified humans are incredibly diverse.
Some arms were replaced with huge bone blades or tentacles.
Some of them grow additional compound eyes or multiple limbs.
His skin was covered with stitches and twisted runes, and it emitted a strange stench of blood and decay.
Meanwhile, the black wizard apprentices held bone staffs or magical artifacts inlaid with black crystals, surrounded by faint negative energy fluctuations, their eyes filled with a thirst for power and awe for the "predecessors" ahead of them.
In the blink of an eye, the small hill that originally housed only Layton was occupied by a mixed army of monsters and dark wizards exuding a strong aura of negative energy and death!
Their appearance is as if a small piece of hell has been projected directly onto the battlefield of the human world!
The Nar cavalrymen charging toward the hillside suddenly tightened their reins, and their warhorses reared up in terror, neighing desperately. No matter how their masters whipped them, they dared not take another step forward!
The cavalrymen's ferocious smiles had long been replaced by extreme horror and fear. Their faces were ashen, and as they looked at the terrifying army that had suddenly appeared in front of them, an army that was not of this world, their courage vanished in an instant!
"Black—black magic! It's the dark magic of the Silent Forest!"
A cavalryman screamed in a broken voice, almost collapsing.
The deathly silence atop the city walls was broken, but not with cheers; instead, it was with countless gasps of astonishment.
The clanging sound of weapons falling and the suppressed screams of fear!
"Goddesses...what kind of monsters are those?!"
The young soldier's legs went weak, and he almost collapsed to the ground.
Veteran Hawke stared in disbelief, oblivious to the clatter of his spear falling to the ground, muttering to himself.
"Shadow monsters—wolf beasts—death knights—and those—stitched-together—what on earth did His Highness the Prince do? Did he bring Hell here?!"
The despair and pain on King Risso's face had long been replaced by indescribable shock and a deeper, chilling fear.
Looking at his son on the hillside, now utterly unfamiliar and cold, and the terrifying army behind him whose mere existence terrified anyone, he felt no joy of salvation, only the chilling despair of falling into an abyss.
This is not salvation; it's a deal with the devil! What will the price be? He almost dared not think about it!
The contempt and cruelty on Krov's face froze completely, transforming into immense astonishment and barely concealed fear.
He too felt that suffocating atmosphere of terror, a mixture of death, shadows, savagery, and eerie witchcraft.
This was far beyond his comprehension!
"Stay calm! Don't panic!"
He roared at the top of his lungs, trying to quell the panic spreading through the army, but his own voice trembled noticeably.
"They're just illusions and deformed monsters! Not many of them! All troops, charge! Stomp them! Archers! Covert fire!"
""
Although the archers of the Nar army were equally terrified, under the strict military orders and the false sense of security brought by their numbers, they still reluctantly raised their longbows, and a denser rain of arrows, accompanied by a piercing sound, covered the dark army on the hillside!
However, what happened next almost froze everyone's blood!
Despite the whistling rain of arrows, Layton remained expressionless and gave no instructions.
The dark army behind him, however, acted on its own!
The black wizard apprentices chanted short, piercing incantations in unison, and a semi-transparent shield of negative energy, shimmering with filthy runes, instantly appeared in front of the army!
Most of the arrows struck the shield as if they had entered viscous sludge, their speed decreasing drastically before being corroded, shattered, and turned into black powder that scattered into the air!
At the same time, some of the shadow puppets raised their "arms," and the shadows in front of them became even thicker, directly freezing, swallowing, and reflecting the few arrows that slipped through the shield!
Some of the cyborgs let out inhuman roars. Some of them wielded huge bone shields to easily deflect the arrows, while others did not dodge or evade, letting the arrows hit their twisted bodies, making a "clanging" sound like hitting metal, or being bounced off by their tough, mutated skin, as if they felt nothing!
After a volley of arrows, the dark army on the hillside was almost completely unharmed!
Instead, a wave of reflected black arrows and several shadow arrows and curses of pain, casually thrown by several black wizard apprentices and exuding a putrid aura, landed in the formation of the Nar army, causing small-scale chaos and mournful screams!
Krov's heart sank completely.
This is not an illusion. This is not a war he can comprehend.
This is—a pure, overwhelming power from the depths of darkness!
Just then, Layton Arthur, the prince of the Duchy of Arthur and now the "Agent," slowly raised his hand and gently waved it forward.
"Now—the situation—has reversed—"
It's just a simple action, a simple sentence.
And so the killing began.
The wolf-headed men let out a deafening roar of rage, like wild beasts unleashed, and charged down the hillside at astonishing speed, rushing straight towards the already chaotic Nar army formation!
The Shadow Warriors marched in orderly, chilling steps, like a black tide of death, following closely behind.
The headless horsemen spurred their ghostly warhorses into a silent charge, leaving withered vegetation and plundering all life in their wake.
The shadow puppet blended into the shadows of the ground like a ghost, and the next second it emerged from the shadow of the soldier Nar himself, wielding a deadly blade!
The cyborgs let out excited screams and pounced into the crowd, using their horrific mutated limbs to carry out a brutal massacre.
Meanwhile, the black wizard apprentices calmly and efficiently cast various black spells that weaken, inflict pain, instill fear, and cause direct harm from the rear!
This was a one-sided massacre.
The courage, discipline, and numbers of Nar's army appeared so laughable and fragile in the face of this dark army that defied all reason.
The battle lines collapsed instantly, and screams, wails, the sound of bones breaking, and the tearing of flesh replaced the war drums and horns, becoming the main theme of the battlefield!
On the city walls, Arthur's garrison stared in disbelief at the scene that resembled a painting of hell.
There were no cheers, no celebrations, only boundless shock and—a bone-deep, extreme fear of the savior himself.
They were saved. But—by what kind of power?
What exactly is the price?