Chapter 639 — The Last Wall

The fifth day.

The crystal-cluster giants still surged in like a tide, the monsters from the Spirit Plain seeming inexhaustible, while the strength of men... was on the verge of its limit.

Arcane energy gathered into one lightning storm after another, its destructive power ceaselessly lapping at the tottering energy barrier of the Saint Sunil Great Shield. A low, deeply unsettling howl echoed through the interior of the shield, as though thousands upon thousands of people were screaming at once, or as though a rift to the abyss were being torn ever wider in the depths of the earth. The barrier that had once been whole and seamless was now riddled with holes; great swaths of shattered noise-spots covered the sky above the city, and those spots, together with the howling that filled the shield, reminded the city's defenders of one thing: the shield was about to collapse.

The overactive magical power accumulating above the plain had begun to affect the weather. Though it should have been summer, the entire city was swept by bursts of cold, sinister gales. The royal banner of Ansul, blue field and gold border, snapped and cracked above the wall, whipping wildly in the wind, and beneath that banner, scarred and exhausted knights and soldiers kept their vigil beside the catapults and great ballistae, behind the battlements, watching the plain below with a kind of numb tenacity.

Stone shot and giant bolts for the defense of the city still lay piled on the wall, yet fewer than a third of the ballistae and catapults were still in action—for the mages who imbued the ammunition with magical effects had drained their mana dry.

Mana was a thing more easily exhausted than physical strength, and more easily influenced by the environment. A mage could only recover power quickly in a relatively stable setting, yet at this moment the whole of Saint Frostrest was shrouded in a turbulent field of magic. A person's mind was not a machine, after all; meditation under such magical conditions was simply impossible. The royal mages were doing all they could to sustain the fire of the defense line, but as this ferocious battle—beyond anything human imagination could contain—dragged on day after day, more and more low- and mid-ranked mages temporarily lost the ability to control their mana. And the departure of those mages from the field was the beginning of the defense line's inevitable march toward collapse.

Without combat mages to lend their support, ordinary stone shot and bolts had almost no effect on the crystal-cluster giants.

Wales, wearing ornate armor now stained with much blood and scored with many fresh wounds, the King's Sword in hand, walked slowly along the southern wall. The cold wind coursed endlessly between the shield and the wall, stirring the cloak behind him and the hair on his brow.

He passed a stretch of wall that had just endured fierce fighting—the shield over this section had been breached once, powerful arcane arcs had shattered great swaths of stone brick and left clusters of charred scars upon the ground. Artisans and mages had urgently reinforced the ground here and repaired the catapults, and new soldiers had replaced the squad that had perished to the last man, and held their post still.

A knight in battered armor leaned against a nearby battlement; the insignia of the Royal Knightly Order could still faintly be made out on his breastplate. His head was tilted slightly back, his face covered in blood and grime, and he did not move, as though long dead.

Wales had indeed taken the knight for dead—but when the distant horn sounded and the monsters hurled themselves at the barrier once more, the blood-smeared knight sprang up in an instant, rushed to the nearest catapult, and began directing the soldiers in their counterattack.

The new king watched all of this and said nothing. He walked on, inspecting the wall he had sworn to hold.

Another terrifying shriek rang out from the shield, and the whole of Saint Frostrest shuddered violently, as though enclosed within a great bell.

A moment later came the sound of wind, and Bai Yu Franklin, clad in the robe of the Arcane Eye, rode the wind down beside Wales and said swiftly, "Your Majesty, the southern district shield node has just burned out."

"I heard that shriek..." Wales said calmly. "How much longer can it hold?"

Duke Bai Yu raised a hand and pointed at the noise-spots spreading swiftly across the sky above the royal capital: "...It has already begun to collapse."

The Saint Sunil Great Shield was collapsing—over the past several days it had borne pressure far beyond its designed threshold; by now all its nodes were half-destroyed or wholly destroyed, and more fatally still, the magical focal points beneath the royal capital could no longer supply sufficient energy. The lack of energy was triggering a chain reaction of shield decomposition, causing its nodes to be devoured and melted down one after another by the backlash of magic.

Others on the wall had noticed the collapsing Great Shield as well, yet no one left the defense line. Wales, too, merely watched calmly as the Great Shield gradually came apart; only after several seconds did he say softly, "We should have heeded Grand Duchess Victoria's advice—expanded the scale of the magic net and connected it to the Great Shield."

"Too many people harbored doubts about Cecil's technology. Now it is time to accept the cost."

Wales did not speak. He raised his head and looked toward the Yaoxiao Cathedral.

A vast radiance was pouring forth from the summit of that ancient cathedral, brimming with an air of endless solemnity and immensity.

The Great Shield would not hold until reinforcements arrived—that had been expected. But after the shield collapsed, before human lives could be poured into the breach, Saint Sunil still had one last wall for its defense.

"The theocracy has entrenched itself in this royal capital for so many years. It is time they fulfilled their duty."

The descent rite had reached its final, critical stage; the Great Hall of Light had become a sea of holy light.

The cloud of holy light that had floated year-round at the ceiling of the hall descended to the floor, like the sacred portent of heaven's descent told of in legend. Steeped in that holy cloud, every pillar and every statue of the Great Hall of Light seemed encased in a shell of crystal, bringing the "City Forged of Light" described in the sacred texts down into the mortal world. Within this sea brimming with holy light, the bishops, robed in sumptuous vestments and crowned with diadems, were devoutly extolling the power of the God of Holy Light. Layer upon layer of prayer surged together with the sea of holy cloud in the hall, ceaselessly gathering toward the pontiff standing at the center of the hall—

Saint Ivan III stood there, the platinum scepter symbolizing divine authority in his grasp. He raised high the hand that held it and, for the first time, struck the scepter heavily against the ground.

"Praise the name of the Lord. May Your will be done upon the earth, that the earth be bathed in grace, and all living things find shelter and absolution!"

Radiance poured from the apertures of the pontiff's face, as though a mighty source of light were filling him from within and striving to break free of this prison of flesh and blood.

Amid the bishops' unison of praise, he struck the scepter against the ground a second time.

"Praise the name of the Lord. May Your will be done in the heavens, that the world be lit by radiance, that evil find nowhere to hide, and darkness nowhere to conceal itself!"

Light flowed over the pontiff, coalescing into a taller, vaster phantom image. The phantom still faintly bore the pontiff's features, yet behind it rose more phantoms, overlapping and unreal, as though countless faces and forms had merged into one, forming a luminous, resplendent figure of a giant.