novelraw Chapter 582 - 581 - No Mercy
Chapter 582 - 581 - No Mercy
Marsh was reeling still as the attacks began. The high stone wall lit up with sigils he hardly knew as lightning, shards of ice, and other powerful combinations of elements slammed into the soldiers.
Blood flew freely in the air as many lost limbs or died outright. The attacks were all peak grade 6! Only Heaven Realms could resist such power.
Marsh was still recalling what that strange barrier of golden Qi had been. It was not karmic Qi as all cultivators could instinctively recognize it, but it was something else. Demonic Qi had no such coloring even in combination and Fiend Qi felt vile even to him.
What was that Qi?!
It had counteracted his Barrier of Life & Death. It was a trick a Soulmancer had discovered but was very soul intensive. It required at least 100 sacrifices to pull off the weakest form but fortunately many soldiers already died.
He then tried to use Wretched Ensnaring but it was useless as well. Such attacks should have devastated their forces but instead the city stood strong. They also somehow repelled the Soulless!
He had never heard of such a barrier at all before. Further, it gave the normal cultivators a chance to attack the normally impossible to detect Soulless.
All of that was shocking enough but the final back breaking revelation was that each and every being inside the Two Rivers City were beyond the reach of a Soulmancer!!!
How had the brand been removed?! It was placed upon birth by the Law Binding itself. It was an Immortal power so how could a Heaven Realm dare to remove it?
The exiles were called such because they intentionally crippled themselves to destabilize the brand and then heal as best they could to recover their cultivation. It led to very short lives but they would technically be free.
Still, the essence of the brand remained to allow a Soulmancer to extract their souls with ease.
He looked on in shock as he felt the pure auras of all the cultivators next to the beasts. How?! How did the damage to those exiles get healed?!
There were no alchemists of such a caliber or even a pill to try to repair such damage yet he saw no sign of any cracked for fractured dantians anywhere. He would feel the leakage of the Qi as any cultivator would.
The reluctance of the army to fight had been resolved but he could see the effect on them. Normally they would be well coordinated and vicious but now the 500,000 strong army was being wiped out because they had no cohesion.
"I want results or you are next!" Marsh glared at the Sun Tier commanders and saw them panic. Before they could have a thought, Marsh saw the one with the fewest remaining troops and took his soul.
The once well muscled man withered instantly as his soul was extracted. The merciless death made them all highly motivated as the chaotic battle was brought under control.
The sigils still blazed but Marsh smiled as weaknesses were found. The attacks within were steady but the numbers were far less than his army.
He had still lost 40 - 60 thousand to casualties so he took their souls as well. He had no patience for dead weight.
He began to create powerful weavings to assault the enemy creations but before he could finish construction, a pillar of emerald light came from within the walls that made him frown.
It was far weaker than the dragon that had appeared before but the aura was similar. Marsh narrowed his eyes but continued his engraving as he sneered.
Even with all the miracles they pulled off, they remained outnumbered so their fate was unchanged, only delayed.
He was about to unleash the Lances of Corruption, a weaving that literally infected people with disease and plague, when he felt 4 Moon Tier auras flare.
Three of them were beasts and not any ordinary aether beasts. The last one was difficult to figure out but then he saw the being on the lip of the wall.
A 7 meter tall sinuous emerald creature loomed over all but there were traces of humanity to Marsh's eyes. It had reptilian eyes and made Marsh shiver before the glow made his blood run cold.
"DEFEND!" Marsh screamed but it did not seem to matter. The formations shattered as if they were paper to that single attack of flame breath! It was not just power, Marsh could see the elemental Qi seemed to resonate until the formations broke on their own!
How was such a thing possible?! The result was devastating but Marsh collected even more souls to fuel his creations. He raged but was still confident until he realized the other 3 beasts had slipped from his senses!
"Lord Soulmancer–" One of the Sun Tier tried to report when a gryphon ripped him apart. A rare aether beast! It easily fought above its tier and proved it by rending a Sun Tier into shreds in a few breaths!
Marsh cast a weaving over the command area but he was a hare too slow. A silvery streak snatched another commander while a blazing ball of fire followed suit by melting 2 more to ash!
In the space of 2 breaths 4 commanders were wiped out. Further, their souls were lost! How?!
He also realized he was not getting the souls he should be from where the emerald flame broke the formations. Only the living that were injured gave him souls. The dead gave nothing!
"Fall back, now!" He gave the order and bright white energy began to coalesce above Marsh as he pulled on Suzen's Seal for more power. The Law Binding leant him power to touch on grade 7 weaving.
The dead souls took the brunt of the cost for stepping up a grade but Marsh felt his heart bleed at the inefficiency yet sneered at the boldness of their enemies.
Surprise attacks only worked once and while devastating, it should be clear all that mattered was Marsh. The dead eyes around him told him the army grasped the truth but there was no choice.
They could not run nor could they hide. They could only fight and die.
The sigils blazed as a beam of pure Immortal Lightning blasted outward. Unlike last time, no dragon or other defense flared and the wall exploded into vapor!
Screams told him people died but he did not bother checking for souls as they were without a brand already. He would kill them all and reap what he could later.
He had exhausted over ⅔ of his reserve souls but now the defenses were breached!
"ADVANCE!" His simple order made the army shiver but they did not dally as they moved forward. As Marsh hoped, more beasts appeared but now he was the one with a surprise!
Sigils flared like gold around the army and the bridge he created that killed the beasts stone dead.
Stone drals were again the only survivors. They were tenacious beasts but he could see blood coming from their eyes and mouths. They no longer posed a threat but the 3 Moon Tiers were still an issue.
Black spikes snapped up out of the ground like death incarnate but Marsh only seared the silver roc and the gryphon. The Fire Hawk was too agile to get caught by an attack from the ground.
The roc clearly did not have much experience or it too could have avoided such an attack. The gryphon was the slowest among the 3.
He had hoped to do more but they were simple darkness and earth attacks caused by a weaving triggered by their presence.
Marsh suddenly realized he had not seen the small dragon but then the breach flared with emerald light!
Sigils blazed as well, which made Marsh narrow his eyes.
Before he could analyze them, screams came from his army as they fell over dead! What was happening?
No souls were available but he got close enough to finally sense what was happening. The brand was being ripped apart! It killed the cultivator and prevented the soul being taken. It was a brutal but effective death.
A pair of incensed emerald eyes stared out at him but Marsh cared little for that. The seal glowed in his hands and he finally smiled.
"Time is up." He pointed up and the glowing sky revealed the doom of his enemies.
The dragon desperately began to engrave but Marsh felt his soul shiver. What was going on?! Why did he feel threatened just by the engravings?
Before the blast of Immortal power came down, the pressure in the air changed.
A tear was torn open above the Two Rivers by Qi that Marsh did not recognize once more. It felt awe inspiring and repulsed by his very existence.
He noted bright crimson blood flowed from the dragon as it revered to a human form. Still, the effect could not be denied.
The lethal attack was swallowed into the void before it burnt out the weaving once it was over. Twice! Twice the impossible to defy attack had been neutralized.
"KILL THAT MAN AT ALL COST!" The army's morale was nearly shattered but it was clear the man that used such power was currently vulnerable.
Just as Marsh was about to celebrate the death of a leader, 10 gray cloaked people appeared between the leading edge of the army and their target. The blood drained from Marsh as he recognized those cloaks.
Any hope of impersonators was shattered as they efficiently sliced and diced people like hunks of meat! The skills were of the Soulless but they were clear eyed and enraged! The reputation of the Soulless in Dar caused the soldiers to panic once more and even the commanders did not know what to do.
Before they could rally, a massively muscled woman that was bleeding from deep cuts and injuries picked up the slim man that defied Xing twice. Her fierce glare was backed up by the bloodbath currently ripping apart the army's momentum.
Marsh was pulling his hair out as she whisked the target away and more people came screaming out of the city with powerful Arts and sigils flared in the buildings to create a barrier once more!
Marsh began to carve the air viciously as he had grown tired of the defiance of the ants in front of him. He would kill everyone but himself if that was what it took. Xing could not use that attack again and would not even if she could.
It was time to end the battle!