Chapter 442: Trap [Today’s Eid al-Fitr, right?]
"Aravae!"
"Arthur? Where were y-"
"That’s not important, we need to get the fuck out of here now."
"?!"
Aravae was utterly bewildered when Arthur suddenly flew up to her and said this. He didn’t shout, and his voice was as calm as always, yet one could not miss the serious undertone it had.
Her subordinate Generals who were near her heard his words and also showed expressions of confusion.
"What do you mean retreat?! We’re on a track to completely uprooting the Aramisians in this place!"
"Besides, what about the demons trapped in this formation? We can’t leave them behind!"
Two of the mid-ranked demons spoke up one after another but Arthur ignored them and focused on Aravae alone.
"The Aramisian Sovereigns. 70% of the Sovereigns who’ve attacked so far were normal humans, elves, flugels and dragonkin.
Their numbers do not correlate with that that was in our report.
We’ve already pushed the Aramisians this far, yet why are they not deploying all their Divines?"
"What do you mean 70% are normal? There are Divines everywhere!"
"Artifacts! They’re deceiving you all with Divine Artifacts filled with so much Divinity it masks their aura and makes them appear like Divines.
However, such things cannot fool me."
Arthur took off his mask and grabbed Aravae’s shoulders, his eyes glowing with light as he spoke.
"We need to get out of here NOW."
The woman instinctively took a step back under the intensity of Arthur’s gaze. Meeting his heterochromatic eyes, she remembered what Alvey had told her about Arthur.
’He has a Pseudo-Authority in the law of Time...and his eye...that’s blood, right?
Could it be...?!’
She instantly figured out the reason why Arthur was suddenly telling her to order a retreat.
’Future Sight! He saw something happen in the future!’
With the thought speed of a Transcendent, it barely took her five seconds to come to that conclusion and she acted on his words immediately.
Infusing magic power into her tongue, she shouted out at the top of her voice.
[DEMON ARMY, FULL RETREAT!!!! NO DEMON IS TO ENTER THE DIVINE MAGIC FORMATION ANYMORE!!
COMMANDERS, HELP THE RETREAT AND COVER THE BACK!! DO IT NOWW!!!!!]
It went without saying that everyone was taken aback by this sudden order. The Demons felt they had an overwhelming advantage, so how come Aravae sounded a retreat now?
For a moment, everyone stopped in place, not knowing what to do.
|¬DID YOU NOT HEAR YOUR ORDERS?! FULL RETREAT, NOW!!!!¬|
Arthur shouted out with his Faux True Voice and the law energy infused within it snapped the Demons out of their dazes and they quickly turned on their heels and began running.
"General Ar-"
"You lot go and cover their backs! Any Insubordination would be punished by death at my hands!"
Aravae shouted out to her subordinate Generals who still had questions about her decisions. She flared her powerful demonic energy and the burst of power made them feel like she was holding a blade at their necks.
Without hesitation, they dashed towards the Divine Magic Formation, almost as if they were running from Aravae.
Arthur cleaned the blood under his eye and put his mask back on, before unfurling his wings and dashing right after them.
◇ ◇ ◇
[DEMON ARMY, FULL RETREAT!!!!]
"What?"
The moment the Sovereigns hiding within Cheigh heard Aravae’s sudden call for retreat, they were just as dumbfounded as the Demons.
"Why?! Why are they suddenly retreating?!"
"How many have entered the Divine Magic Formation?!"
"Just a bit over a quarter of their forces!"
"That’s still too small!!"
"Did they figure something out? How did they figure anything out?!"
The Superior Stage Sovereign Realm Divine Humans and Dragons all scrambled around trying to understand why the Demons were suddenly retreating.
Everything had been going so well.
The Demons had broken through the Aramisian Army lines and had entered the Divine Magic formation to rescue the captured demons.
All their analysts had concluded that the Demons would continue to press forward deeper into the formation—exactly what the Aramisians wanted.
The Divine Elf and Flugels had been scattered across the multiple Sub-Cores of the Divine Magic Formation, and while the Humans and Dragons stayed at the Main Core where they watched the overall situation of the battle.
"Should some of us go out and try to force the demons to stay within the formation?!"
"We can’t! If one of us leaves then the formation would not be able to function at full power!"
"We should activate it immediately before they can retreat further!"
"No, let’s have those outside try to draw more of them inside!"
Their argument was taking time and, during that time, more of the Demon soldiers were retreating, worsening the situation for them.
It was then that a figure suddenly appeared from the darkness behind them, startling the Sovereigns as they had not noticed when the person entered.
"Who are...?!"
The Dragon who was about to attack suddenly stopped speaking when he saw the face of this ’intruder’, while the Divine Humans all dropped down on one knee and bowed their heads.
[Activate the formation as is. Kill them all.]
The figure gave an order and all the Sovereigns who were arguing amongst themselves barely a minute ago instantly complied.
They channelled their Divinities into the Formation Core, sending messages to the other Sovereigns at the Sub-Cores to begin doing the same.
Watching them begin the activation process, the figure who had ordered them silently slipped back into the darkness, their eyes gleaming with an eerie murky gold light.
◇ ◇ ◇
Aravae and Arthur zapped through the Demon army, using their energy to grab and slow soldiers and toss them forward.
The scene of tens of thousands of demons all unfurling their wings to retreat while the Aramisians still attacked was what played out after her order.
Naturally, there was disorder as some Demons who were attacked by the Aramisians turned around in rage to fight back, only to collide with another demon trying to retreat and causing both to fall to the ground.
’Shit, I should have had them retreat slowly...!’
Such a thought came to Aravae’s mind but she quickly banished it as a slow retreat would have been noticed by the Aramisians.
The closer she got to the Divine Magic Formation, the worse the feeling of ’Danger’ she got.
Noticing this, the Transcendent Elf showed up and tried to stop her from getting close, inadvertently confirming that there was something up.
This time, she unleashed the full force of her demonic energy, and with Arthur serving as a distraction, she was able to kill the elf quickly.
However, the elf had served to delay her long enough that the Divine Magic Formation had completed its activation.
**RUMBLE!
Suddenly, the world around them began to tremble as a huge amount of divinity surged from the centre of the formation and spread over hundreds of kilometres in an instant.
At the same time, the entire Formation shone with a bright white aura, turning the environment even more hostile for Demons than it already was.
The sheer amount of light law energy and divinity astounded Aravae, and she didn’t waste time in using her magic power to grab Arthur and charge out of the Formation’s range.
The Sovereign Demons and thousands of legendaries ran for their lives, leaving behind countless sonic booms as they sped through the air.
Yet, a lot of them and a good part of the army didn’t make it in time.
Out of nowhere, a powerful gravitational force held down every one within the formation, preventing them from moving. Next, the light law energy and divinity within the Divine Magic formation rapidly converged at the centre, compressing to the extreme.
Finally, all that powerful energy reached a critical point with the destruction law energy hidden underground and it ignited.
***KAAAABOOOOMMM!!!!!!
An explosion of unbelievable proportions took place, generating a burst of divine and destructive energy that spread outwards as fast as lightning.
Aravae’s face paled rapidly as she immediately ordered everyone who wasn’t dragged in with the formation.
[EVERYONE GET DOWN! USE ALL YOUR DEMONIC ENERGY TO PROTECT YOUR BODIES! DO IT NOW!]
The thunderous noise of the explosion drowned out her magic amplified voice and a great majority of the army did not hear her words.
Arthur who was beside her, activated his Pseudo-Authority of Destruction and used it to dominate the wave of destruction energy surging towards them, forcing it to ignore him and everyone within a kilometre radius of his position.
Thankfully, they had retreated far out so the force of the blast was not as heavy as it was at the centre where the Divine Magic Formation was, so Arthur could make the destruction energy go around them with some effort.
Seeing him do this, Aravae placed her hands on Arthur’s back and began transferring her magic power to support him, not caring for the energy lost in the process.
She ordered the Sovereigns who were protected by Arthur’s Pseudo-Authority to focus their powers on protecting the soldiers who were outside of the range of Arthur’s influence.
However, they were limited in what they could do.
All the demons fully focused on defence, but the blast of divinity and destruction energy that swept over the entire remaining army was far too much.
Thousands of demons could not protect themselves and were completely incinerated by the powerful energy of the explosion that decimated everything within over 500,000 square kilometres.
Not a single tree, rock or building remained in place by the time the blast finally died down ten minutes later.
"...fucking hell."
Aravae cursed with a horrible expression on her face as she looked at the scene of devastation around her. She quickly ordered a status report as she spread her aura out to blow away the smoke and expand their field of view.
’To think they sacrificed tens of thousands of soldiers for this...’
The Demon was shocked at the Aramisians’ ruthlessness, but before that, she was grateful that Arthur was present; since if it wasn’t for him, she may have not noticed until it was too late.
Although the Aramisians planned to wipe out her whole army with this, thanks to Arthur, only a third had been taken out.
Another third of the soldiers were not in fighting condition and it was only the last portion who could still hold themselves up.
Still, even that ’third’ was around 25,000 soldiers.
’I need to know how many Mid-Ranked Demons died in that blast!’
The woman momentarily glanced at Arthur who was drinking an energy potion, before turning towards the supply unit demons who were behind her and dishing out orders.
