Chapter 323: And so it begins...
"Undine, can you please help us delete this thing from existence? We can’t do it without making a fuss, and that’s the last thing we need right now."
The Great Spirit understood and decided to offer her help this once, extending one of her slender arms in the direction of the barrier.
The Benevolent gods who hadn’t seen Undine before were shocked shitless at the sheer amount of law energies they could sense from the tiny spirit’s body.
’What kind of being...?!’
Idall’s eyes widened as he felt more light elemental law power than he had ever sensed in his life, emerging and cascading forth as a small torrent of pristine white water.
It converged into an orb that enveloped the creature restrained by Esna’s spell.
Undine then curled her delicate fingers into a fist, shrinking the orb of water and exerting immense pressure on the captured monster.
Its bones creaked and its muscles strained against the inescapable force, while the water mercilessly compressed its form, finally collapsing and pulverizing its body into fine particles that dispersed into the air like fleeting mist.
They didn’t know this, but Undine did not just destroy it physically, but its soul was also extinguished as well.
After this little display that showed the Benevolent god of Light what may have happened to him if he had succeeded in suppressing the quartet as he intended, they carried on with their march.
They were ambushed by a few more monsters, but these were easily dealt with without any of the Epic Realms having to make a move.
Eventually, they arrived at the broken and depilated gates of the Capital City.
"This..."
"Impossible."
"...The grand capital has been reduced to this..."
As if it was a zombie apocalypse, all of the residents in the city who had been unable to evacuate on time had been turned into more of these mish-mashed monstrosities that roamed the streets.
However, their strengths were nothing praiseworthy, with the highest being an Inferior Stage Master.
The once bustling city was now quiet as the only sound they could hear was the occasional grunting from the monsters.
And then, above the towering castle at the heart of the city, was a swirling vortex of darkness that cast an eerie shadow over the surroundings.
From the depths of this portal, tendrils of obsidian energy crept outward, snaking through the air like serpents.
"This ain’t the Capital of the Empire, it’s now the Capital of the Dead."
Edward joked as he looked around, glancing at the portal in the skies that gave him chills just by looking at it.
He had expected Esna to throw in a quip for him his bad joke at this serious moment, but even after a few seconds passed, she was still silent.
Turning towards her, he now saw that the girl had her jewel-red eyes locked onto the portal, a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"...huh?!"
She snapped out of her daze a moment after Edward called out to her, but just before she could speak, Undine’s voice rang out.
[I’d suggest you guys get started soon, from what I can tell, you don’t have much longer until that thing breaks open.]
Idall looked at the swirling portal with sceptical eyes as he was not completely sure about the portal’s current state if it was really closed up or not.
’I have a feeling something’s not right.’
The man thought to himself as his instincts were screaming at him that something was horribly wrong with the current situation, however, he could not see or sense anything wrong.
As for Esna, she turned towards Undine just in time to see the Great Spirit hold up a finger in front of her lips, gesturing for her to remain silent.
She remained silent for a moment, before taking a deep breath and sending a telepathic message to the other three.
’We have to deal with the other Malevolent gods fast. And they’d not be as weakened as you’d expect.
I’m going to be diverting 50% of my power towards that portal to weaken the entity inside of it.’
The godslayer girl then went on to inform them about the reality of the situation they had just discovered, causing the expressions on their faces to tense up.
"What’s wrong?"
Ayaan who was about to ask Layla something noticed her changing expression and asked, prompting the other Benevolent gods to turn in her direction.
Faced with the gazes of the multiple gods and now armed with knowledge that could send their currently high morale to rock bottom, Layla sighed and controlled her expression before replying.
"Nothing much.
I’m just disgusted at this sight, thinking of how many people had been sacrificed to create these monstrosities."
She wasn’t lying as she was indeed disgusted at this sight, but that was naturally not the main reason for her expression darkening.
That was something none of the Benevolent gods except Idall noticed, as he was paying attention to both Edward and Nicole, and he noticed that even the expressionless Nicole showed a light frown at the same instant Layla and Edward did.
’They’ve discovered something wrong, but they aren’t saying what it is...’
The man easily figured out the reason for this, and he racked his brain trying to think about possible reasons that could prompt such reactions from the four of them.
And it didn’t take him long to arrive at the answer.
’Fuck.’
The conclusion he arrived at, made him curse internally as he realised why Layla remained silent about the matter.
"Although we managed to evacuate more than 60% of the citizens, there were still a lot of who were unable to evacuate in time."
Ady spoke with a grim tone, knowing fully well that those who were unable to evacuate in time had been turned into the monstrosities he was now looking at.
Just before Layla could reply, she and all the other Epic realm existences all sensed something and turned their gazes in the direction of the castle, her eyes narrowing as she gave out an order.
"Rally up all the soldiers.
It’s time for battle."
The Military Commanders and generals nearby all reacted appropriately, rushing to rouse their men for the fight that was at hand.
Tendrils of lightning darted around the darkened clouds as the figure of a golden-haired man whom Edward recognized appeared in the skies, the essence of lightning wrapping around him in the form of battle armour and a large warm hammer floating in the air behind him.
Silently gazing at them, he held up his left hand and snapped his fingers, the sound being amplified with magic that let it reverberate across the entirety of the capital.
"...That’s clearly not a good sign."
"No shit."
As if on cue, the movements of all the mish-mashed monstrosities ceased, and then they all simultaneously turned their heads in the direction of Layla’s group and the allied armies.
And then—
"GROOOAARRRR!!!!!!"
It was unknown which one of them let out this loud roar, but immediately after, all the monstrosities kicked off the ground and began a mad wild charge towards the allied armies.
[Mages! Ready your spells!]
Layla’s commanding voice rang out across the area, followed by the simultaneous appearance of countless tier-two magic circles in various groups.
Fire elemental spells were close by with lightning elementals, Earth elementals were close to water, wind was also close to another round of fire and so on.
This was done to reduce the chances of the spells cancelling each other out mid-flight.
**BOOM!!
Buildings exploded and giant monsters that had been hiding inside them burst out, roaring wildly and flaring their peak grandmaster auras, before joining the mad dash.
At a glance, Layla could see varieties of monsters, ones she knew of beforehand and some unique to the planet Gade.
Googling that had hunched, elongated bodies covered in slimy, pulsating flesh that dripped with acidic liquids, raced with their long multiple sharp-clawed limbs. Shadow harriers, monsters reminiscent of a twisted fusion of bats and moths, with skeletal faces and glowing red eyes and shadow membranes that rippled as they glided through the air.
Frostfeinds leapt above the buildings with their tall frames encased in crystalline armour, leaving trails of icy mist where they passed. Marwoots stretched out their twisted vines and thorny tendrils, their gaping maws opening and closing repeatedly while dripping with corrosive saliva.
There were even a few Behemoth class monsters, beating their chests wildly as they joined the wave of monsters charging forward.
The moment they arrived within a certain distance of where the allied armies stood ready, Layla’s order rang out across the battlefield.
[FIRE!!!]
The Hundreds of Magic circles all glowed brightly, the air crackling with power as the allied army unleashed a torrent of elemental magic upon the incoming hordes.
Fire engulfed the Gorglings, incinerating their slimy bodies. Lightning crackled through the air, striking down the Shadow Harriers with deadly precision. Water surged forth, drowning the Frostfeinds in its icy depths. Earth trembled beneath the onslaught, burying the Marwoots beneath collapsing terrain.
