Shadow Slave

The battle in the riverbed was just as vicious and dreadful as Effie had expected, with countless corpses falling into the blood-red mud... more horrible, even, beyond anything her jaded mind could have imagined.

Effie had not expected Azarax to send seven of his Dread Generals forward — having fought these ruthless thralls herself, she knew just how eerie and menacing they were. Behind each, there was a tragic legend of glory, defiance, and eventual downfall. All of them had lost to the King of Kings once, and now, their kingdoms were long forgotten.

Their glory had become submission, and their defiance was now inescapable devotion.

Morgan seemed to be holding her own against the fallen legends of the ancient past, though, moving among them like an unrelenting hurricane of steel. Her gracefully lethal body looked unscathed... but then again, wounds did not show on liquid metal.

In truth, she must have suffered grievously under a storm of devastating Transcendent powers. Morgan was not someone to show weakness in front of an enemy, though, so she endured the onslaught of insidious attacks silently, channeling the pain and fear of being harmed into cold, focused killing intent.

Nightwalker was doing well for himself, as well...

And Effie could not afford to pay their plight any attention.

The battle in the riverbed was horrifically bloody, but the battle for the city wall was nothing short of dire as well. Azarax had sent his elite forces to conquer the battlements, and while Effie and Kai had managed to prevent the Dread Warriors from achieving a swift victory, that pulled their attention away from the colossal, lumbering siege towers.

A few of them had been destroyed by Effie, and a few more had been brought down by the enchanted siege engines she commanded. However, several were already approaching the wall.

If there was one silver lining to this dire situation, it was that nobody was attacking the city from the sky. The nature of warfare in the ancient past was different from how it was in modern times — that was because no one here was a carrier of the Nightmare Spell. As such, the Awakened of this era could not wield entire arsenals of Memories, each granting them unpredictable powers. Most fought with mundane or mystical steel, and while some did possess enchanted weapons and armor, the enchantments were relatively primitive, the majority of them aimed at enhancing the innate quality of the materials. So, only those with Aspects that granted them the ability to fly were capable of attacking the enemy from anywhere except the ground — and Aspects like that were rare.

In the early days of the siege, Kai had prioritized killing those of the Steel Horde Awakened who could threaten the city from above, culling them like the Grim Reaper. Most of them were dead now, and those who remained did not dare to rise into the sky. There was nothing to take cover behind in its azure expanse, after all...

Kai was limited in when he could assume his Transcendent form for the same reason, since Azarax was not going to miss the chance to destroy him otherwise. So, the siege towers posed the greatest threat to the city.

In the past, Effie and her companions had almost always managed to prevent them from reaching the wall... but today, they failed.

With a loud rumble, the drawbridges of the siege towers fell, crashing into the parapet of the battlements and locking in place. Then, like a flood, countless warriors of the Steel Horde flowed onto the wall, their battle cries drowning out the clamor of battle.

Looking down, Effie snarled and was about to rush forward to the nearest one...

But at that moment, a cold chill ran down her spine.

Turning her head, she saw a strange ripple spreading through the steel ocean far in the distance.

It was Azarax, the Plague of Steel, calmly walking across the battlefield toward the city gate.

Effie’s heart fell, and her shield arm flamed with phantom pain.

‘Here... we go again...’

Her presence and Kai’s commands could shield the defenders of the city from the aura of dread emanating from Azarax and his elite warriors.

But who was going to protect Effie and Kai? It would have been good if the Mason could, but his powers had no support to offer in that regard. It would have been even better if the old man could descend upon the battlefield and face the Plague of Steel personally — he was a Supreme, after all. Even if his Aspect had nothing to do with combat, he was still far more powerful than any Saint could be.

And yet, the Mason remained in the depths of his impregnable palace... in fact, Effie herself had insisted that he should stay there, never showing his face on the city wall.

That was because without the Mason, the city would fall in an instant. And if given a chance, Azarax would stop at nothing to eliminate the enemy Supreme — he would go all out, and none of the cohort members would be able to prevent him from slaying the old king.

Bringing the Mason onto the battlefield was no different from offering their fatal weakness to the enemy, and for that reason, he had to stay safely hidden in the palace. Effie inhaled deeply.

Kai was going to have to hold the wall on his own. He had already dismissed his bow, rushing toward the nearest siege tower with a sword in his hand — and the local Saints who had joined the defenders of the city were moving toward the rest.

The situation... did not look good. Even if they managed to drive the Steel Horde back and destroy the towers, the losses among the defenders of the city promised to be staggering.

But Effie could not worry about that now, either.

Exhaling through gritted teeth, she lowered one hand on the rampart... and then leaped over it, landing on the other side of the towering wall with a thunderous boom.

The earth quaked, and countless warriors of the Steel Horde perished beneath her feet, pulverized into puddles of blood.

Effie straightened, gazing at the ocean of steel in somber silence.

And far in the distance, Azarax glanced up, a merry grin twisting his lips.

His voice rose above the battlefield:

”If it isn’t the fearless War Maiden... have you finally decided to kneel before me, priestess? Ah, what a sight for sore eyes!”