The time had finally come.
Today was the day where the fate of the knight's plane would be decided, and all the important parties were present, even though a few chose to hide themselves.
Hidden at a vantage point in the forest, Greem observed the massive witcher knight army, finding their sheer numbers a sight to behold. Six thousand men, all of them ready to throw their lives away for what many would consider a noble cause.
Greem didn't see it that way. In fact, he didn't see it anyway. Whether the knights laid down their arms and surrendered themselves to the clan or fought tooth and nail until they had no more of those, it would make no difference.
They needed to go, and they would go.
They were too powerful and too plentiful. The Sarubo clan would never allow them to keep their presence and power in the plane after things settled down. That was simply asking for rebellion.
Whatever plan the clan had in place to solve this issue for them, they were going to deploy it soon, seeing as Willis just ordered the knight army to start advancing towards the tower.
They were less than five kilometers away, the stretch of forest between the two points filled to the brim with the many, many nasty surprises prepared for them.
While they charged with their mounts and let out battlecries that went far and wide, Fügen, who also hidden himself after sending one of the more impulsive dragons away whimpering, caressed a ring on his finger and sent forth a message.
"Begin the operation."
His order was executed immediately, invisible ripples appearing out of thin air and engulfing the entire knight army in their collective radiuses. The effects took root instantly.
Magic colts jumped around randomly, bucking and whinnying loudly, their wild and erratic movements sending more than a few knights flying from their backs. As for the knights, they had hands so they could somewhat address what was happening to them.
More than half of them wrapped their armored hands around their necks, the silvery glints of their polished gauntlets unable to help them with their clogged throats and strained breathing.
Their insides burned like they'd swallowed the flame crystals they normally used, and many of them began to fall, the throes of their life fading away with agonizing slowness.
Willis' expression had practically defaulted to frustration at this point. He couldn't catch a break. First one of the dragons he'd convinced to follow him had gotten injured and now this.
The Adepts had somehow poisoned his righteous followers. They must've done it through their food and water. He was mostly right, Mary and her thrall's efforts these past three weeks having played a huge role in this.
Still though, it didn't make him any less angry. He turned to look at the Radiant knights, his scowl perfectly conveying to them what he thought about their performance.
How useless were they if they couldn't keep something as mundane as poison from affecting their men?
Fortunately for them and unfortunately for the Adepts, he was a Fourth Grade being. A demigod. One with thousands of followers. Dealing with this wouldn't even require significant effort from him.
Unsheathing his sword and raising it above his head, its tip pointed up at an angle, he stood on Aufreyr's back, his golden armor and hair glinting in the sun. "Eliminating the darkness, protector of the weak, fearless!
"This is the day we die in battle for our conviction and glory as knights! Charge!"
Greem had to exercise the method control to stop himself from cringing. With all he knew about the knights, the dragons, and the reality of this plane, hearing such impassioned words from one of the people responsible for the twisted development here made him want to pull out his insides and wash them.
"Ugh…"
The effect of Willis' declaration couldn't be denied though. The burst of golden light that escaped his body and washed over the entire knight population cleared away the improved plague virus from their systems, any negative effects it wrought also gone.
The ripples increased in size and intensity with every chant of that ridiculous motto by the knights, feeding the golden radiance and transforming it into armor that encased each and every one of them.
Of course, the spectating Adepts were at a loss for words. As individuals who chased every new advance in power with ruthlessness and determination, their unaligned brains short-circuited a bit at the display.
'What is this? How can saying some stupid sentences prevent the viruses from working? How are we supposed to fight them now?'
Anticipating the reactions of his juniors, Fügen didn't wait long and sent out a broadcast explaining what was happening, the rapidly enlarging radiance that had ballooned into a large golden sea becoming not so strange to them.
All of sudden, they all understood why Willis had always been referred to as a Holy Knight. He could tap into and use faith. Faith his loyal knights and the general populace generated from their belief in him and the witcher knights as a whole.
While normal spells came from the interaction between elementium and Spirit, this faith energy came from the soul. It came about when a large group of people devoted their all to an idea for extended periods of time.
This made the idea tangible and capable of affecting reality. The notion of Willis being the perfect, undefeatable leader of the knights had made him the focal point of the faith energies in the souls of his followers.
That's why his chant lit a special kind of fire within them and burned away the faith energy accumulated for decades to make his will reality.
Apart from the healing and suppression of the plague virus, it also had an unintended side effect.
The knights could feel the source of the miracle; Willis and the fire burning in their souls. The latter made them feel invincible. That no matter what injury or harm befell them this battle, they would recover and keep on fighting.
And even if they were so unlucky as to die before the miracle could do its work, the sensation deep in their soul alone confirmed that their righteousness wasn't unfounded. It would definitely be rewarded.
You can imagine the kind of zeal with which someone with these thoughts running in his mind would fight. They would give it their all and would not stop until their last breath.
A multitude of sword blades went above the heads of their owners, bright orange and blue runic energies surging to wreathe them completely. The eardrum bursting roars resumed as the emboldened knights resumed their charge towards the tower.
Making contact with just a single Adept through his snake-eye ring, Fügen sent a message he didn't know had been expected this entire time.
"Do whatever you can to take away their momentum. Any losses you suffer will be shouldered by the clan. Do it!"
Greem held the communication talisman with a calm expression and waited for a few seconds to pass. "...Yes sir."
He tossed it back into his storage ring and pulled out his mask and slipped it on, summoning as many golem cores that could fit into his hand right after and tossing them, emptying his ring of them.
More than ninety percent of them were earth related; Rock Snakes, Stone Monsters, Alligator Kings, regular clay golems, you name it. The rest consisted of poison, wind, water and fire element ones.
Greem didn't let the earthen ones take shape, he directed them to remain underground and swim into the path of the knights. As for others, he sent them to face the knights head on, knowing full well they'd be destroyed.
It didn't matter, they were distractions, only meant to buy a few seconds. Those few seconds were enough for the First Grade Molten giant golem to come to life and cast its first spell of the day, Meteor Crash.
Swirls of red gathered in the sky and grew into a lump shaped mass that streaked towards the knights like an actual rock from space, the air warping in front of it and dark smoke trailing behind.
Greem smiled underneath his mask when he saw the bright crescent streaks surge up to meet the attack. He focused on his connection to the earth golems and checked their positions, giving them one simple mental image as a command.
Right as the attacks of the Radiant knights collided with the meteor and blew it to red flaming, smoking, and sparking smithereens, the ground beneath them began to act up.
For kilometers, all the observers saw the ground behave in ways that would suggest it had gone mad or it had been possessed. Rock pillars rose up at random points and threw knights off their mounts, the colts left with broken bones.
Instead of pillars, sometimes it would be spikes, impaling the colt as well as its rider all the way through. Some fell into holes that opened out of nowhere and closed up right after swallowing them. Others too fell and got stuck in ponds of thick, suctioning mud that appeared right in their path.
It was pure chaos. The Radiant knights didn't even have the time to defend their weaker compatriots from the molten giant's Magma balls and Fire Core explosions, they too focused on avoiding the sudden perils.
Naturally, the Adepts saw this chaos for what it was and surged into it with hidden glee, most of them eager to rack up their kill counts and earn greater rewards.
As the one responsible for this all you can eat buffet, how could Greem himself not participate? He left the control of the molten giant to the control system in his mask and cloaked himself, navigating the chaos to find a suitable location where he could add to it.
He didn't have to look far or for long. He found a group, nearly 300 strong, engaged in a battle with some of his lower ranked fire golems and hundreds of voodoo beasts.
'Keoghan and the others finished them that quickly? I guess everyone wants to excel.'
He dropped down and uncloaked, his presence only noticed by a few and completely ignored by the beasts and the golems. He held Allerdyce in its shortened form and released some of the flame elementium stored in it.
Like the knights always did, he swung the sword in wide arcs and sent bright red lines of compressed flame and life force out, cutting down tens of men with each attack.
Only the low level witcher knights fell to these attacks, the Spellbreakers weathering them with their shields. Two of them broke off from the intense battle, trusting their backs to their comrades and charged him.
He broke into a sprint and met them head on, cutting through the first one's sword and sending him flying back with a backhand that should have twisted his neck and battering the second one's shield with Allerdyce, the energy construct flickering and fading with each strike.
When the shield flickered for the last time and disappeared, the knight brought his arm higher, intending to defend himself with the tiny metal projector on his left arm, only for no attack to come.
No, it did come. Just not from where he expected. He felt something that could only be a log smash into his left knee and bend it the wrong way, reducing him to a screaming banshee and bringing his entire body low.
His screams cut off immediately when the sword he'd been expecting appeared right in his face—and then darkness.
Flinging his hand lightly, Greem dislodged the knight from Allerdyce and strode towards the knight he smacked, the latter struggling to find his feet. He'd only gotten onto one knee when a massive shadow loomed over him.
He tightened his grip on his sword and swung it around. It hit something. Something hard and adhesive at the same time because try as he might, he couldn't pull his blade back.
Forcing himself up and turning around brought him face to face with Greem, but it seemed the latter hit him too hard, because he wobbled and fell on one knee again, his grip still tight on his sword.
Noticing the other Spellbreaker knights bring their battle to its conclusion, Greem simply let go of the sword and palm-striked its sharp edge with his gloved hand, burying it into the concussed knight's face.
****
Author's note:
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