Chapter 72: Arc 5: Black Blasphemy (12)

The Green Archangel Geneva was a true believer.

She was born and bred in Montgomery under the teaching of Yume. In tune to harmony, unshaken by worldly desire, she offered everything to the Temple of Yume. To other Archangels, she was akin to a quiet wall, filling the air with the melody of her harp. Her steps, her bearing, everything bred of peace, harmony, and the depth of a deep forest.

And Genera was strong, her strength was second only to Archangel Michael, and they were equally trusted by Maximus.

Anybody in the know would feel sad for the horde of rampaging, flaming golem rushing to the barricade. With Geneva slowly making her way to the front line harp in hand, the result was a given.

Green Mana lit with the strum of the harp.

Green Magic Rank 4: Time Cycle.

The essence of Green crept across the battlefield and into the golem. Green Mana was more than the power to control the beast and plant. It represented the cycle of growth, degradation, and rebirth. It was the power most offensive to the concept of civilization and artifact. The force of Green always sought to bring existence back into the embrace of nature and the wild. Time Cycle was the spell to weaponise that process of degradation.

Inside the coming army of flaming golems, the metal gears and joints holding the automaton together turned brown and rusted. The joint no longer fit as the engineering system holding the mechanism together degraded. The army of golems stumbled from mechanical failure and fell to the ground. Hundreds of golems crumbled before reaching the defensive line of the Pure Army. Their fires faded to nothingness.

Geneva flicked the harp’s string.

The air flashed, and an invisible Aura sliced across the flying city barrier.

Geneva frowned. The barrier was quite tough.

“Bruno!” The Green Archangel called. “We need the Execution of Miharl.” 

…

Inside her throne room, Etaceh’s pair of deep, dark eyes browsed the battlefield and frowned.

The Green Archangel had decimated her golem army. That wide usage of Time Cycle was impressive. Etaceh must give Geneva a grudging respect for shielding the entire army on her lonesome.

But she wasn’t the only active Archangel, the camera of Hecate informed Etaceh that Apolline had hitched a ride on one of the flying Pegasus, and wasted no time to pepper her shield with a barrage of Flares.

Etaceh glanced at the shield’s reading, and frown the shield's durability was dropping at a concerning rate. However, it would still be enough for her to ignore this engagement.

…

Bruno glanced at the anchor-shape stone being set by his men.

Oleg-Regina. It was an artifact captured in one of Montgomery’s early campaigns. Bruno didn’t recall its story, but he heard it was taken from an island chain around the Southern Continent. Micheal and Geneva could have told him about it, but Bruno didn’t care much. The only thing this weapon interested him was its pinning ability. In this case, Bruno made sure to remember the instructions.

Tracing his finger on the artifact;s grooves, Bruno observed the sleeping artifact woke, flowing up with ghostly eldritch light. He moved behind the anchor, aligning his sight and the artifact to the flying city, and pressed the rune on the artifact.

Guided by Bruno’s sight, the Oleg-Regina fired. Three bolts of light flew in a circle around the battlefield of golem and soldiers in white. They shot in three different directions, positioning itself in a circumference around the flying city as a trio of flying stars.

From those stars anchoring the battlefield, chains shot out and impaled the city of Hecate, binding it in place.

…

Etaceh’s throne room shook as the Hecate came to a sudden stop.

The Prime Intelligentsia grimaced. This might be a problem. Those chains had restrained the North, South East and South West portion of the flying city. Worse, those weren't normal chains. They were conceptual to construct. High-grand mystical craft that toy directly with natural law. Etaceh wouldn’t admit it, but even she wasn’t an expert on it. That meta-mystic was something more in Anastasia’s warehouse.

Etaceh zoomed in to the origin point of the binding. She looked at the anchor beside the Black Archangel and recalled what it was.

“Oleg-Regina, the divine anchor,” Etaceh said, feeling jealousy. “That thing could bind a supernatural phenomenon, and that idiot used it for something this lame.”

Etaceh was so outraged at the act akin to using the latest game console engine to pave the road, she threw away her original plan.

“Switch power into carpet-firing,” Etaceh groaned. “I am going to wipe these morons out in a blaze of fire.”

…

Cannons and artillery of Hecate trained toward the army hidden beneath the canopy of the forest. They glow with power—ready to reduce the Pure Army of Montgomery into paste.

But Apolline won’t let that happen.

Red Magic Rank 1: Haste

Red Magic Rank 5: Mana Burst 

Red Magic Rank 2: Bolt

Clad in crimson light, Apolline rode behind one of the Pegasus and unleashed her attack in retaliation to stop the rain of ammunition from Hecate. Crimson projectiles, too many to count, glittered in the skies, colliding with the raining barrages. While much weaker, in power, the density of the Red Mana packed within those Bolts was enough to disrupt the attack.

Explosions locked the air for a hundred of meters. The chorus from the exchange was deafening, but Apolline succeeded. While some attacks did sneak past the net of Bolts, the majority of the damage from the maximum output of over thirty Mana generators were nullified.

On the Pegasus, Apolline sank, exhausted. Impressive as it was, the maneuver tapped her out. Countering the Etaceh’s full power carpet bombing on her lonesome was an exhausting task even for an Archangel.

…

Etaceh was pissed that a mere mortal managed to stop her attack.

In her anger, Etaceh slipped. Had she launched another barrage, it would be possible for her to do significant damage to the Pure Army with Apolline overheating. However, she didn’t.

Instead, in her need to prove her superiority, Etaceh switched tactics. The weapon was barely repaired from its clash with Borbonsi, but it would be enough to remove the eye-sore.

“Refocus all generator’s output on the Prime Artillery!” Etaceh yelled, opting to squash the army of Aat beneath her with the weapon that killed the Lord of Commerce. “On Prime Intelligentsia’s  authority, unlock all safety and fire the Prime Flash!”

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…

Archangel Geneva looked at the purple sun burning into existence using the runes carved all over the city of Eleanor. She heard about the ether cannon that killed the Lord of Eleanor and knew stopping it would be a high-order.

Not that she couldn’t do it for a while. The fact said weapon had suffered damage from its battle in Eleanor put things in Geneva’s favor. Hopefully, Bruno could prime their secret weapon in time.

Green Magic Rank 2: Life Growth

Behind her, the canopy of wood created with her Nature Wonder shimmered with Green Mana. Green was the Mana of harmony. Life Growth draws power to strengthen and amplify life. The Green Mana generated by this process correlated with the bio-density in the caster control.

It was the easiest to use among the three Mana amplification spells. Unlike Mana Burst, which drained the stamina of the user, or Offering which required a trade of life force, Life Growth was the least troublesome and reusable in any situation.

With Green Mana flooding the area, Geneva cast another spell.

Green Magic Rank 3: Beast Contract

From the bundle of Green Mana, a mystical white Ox the size of a small café emerged.

“Taurus,” Geneva ordered her familiar, offering it every piece of Green Mana she created. “Destroy.”

The familiar mooed to the sky. Green energy gathered above its horns into a miniature orb of volatile bio-energy.

From the city of Hecate, the Prime Flash was fired. The light was paler than the time in Elanor, but its strength couldn’t be underestimated.

To meet it, Taurus unleashed the emerald death ball. Behind the Ox was the might of Green Magic and Geneva’s Strengthen.

The two energy attacks collided with the force of the gale storm. The cloud split from the explosion. The earth shook from the force of rampaging air as Geneva and Etaceh fought for supremacy. Purple and green light painted the sky.

But the winning party was transparent.

Slowly but surely, the green light from Geneva was pushed backward by Etaceh’s purple. Powerful as she was, Geneva couldn’t match the raw output of a Lord backed by thirty-four Mana generators and the faith supplied from Curtis. The uneven intensity in the beam from its recent damage allowed her to find some purchase, but said handicap only turned a quick-defeat into a losing stalemate. The only thing she could do was hold her ground and delay her defeat.

That was under the assumption Geneva wanted to win. The reality was quite different.

…

Bruno used the time Geneva bought him to set up a certain artifact. It was a glass coffin filled with black opaque liquid—the Execution of Miharl.

Bruno let some of his Black Mana seeped into the artifact.

Ominous winds flowed, and the light dimmed. An alien emotion surged inside Bruno as the coffin awakened to perform its duty. The inky liquid inside the sealed case bubbled. Shadow spilled from the coffin and churned into a whirlpool of inky black syrup.

From the swirl rose a spear of obsidian.

Knowing Geneva wouldn’t last forever, Bruno picked the ice-cold black spear glimmering with a sinister undertone. The very air seemed to freeze as he took aim and flung the weapon at the city flying in the sky.

The black spear, created by the accumulation of the dark art held by the prestigious clan, sailed through the air, leaving the trail of darkness in its wake, and impaled the golden barrier of Hecate. The spear sank into the barrier and infected it with the function of the Execution of Miharl.

Like Oleg-Regina, the coffin beside Bruno was a conceptual weapon, symbolizing the concept of collapse. The black fluid was a special conceptual ether solution lost to history. It was a liquid concoction of enchanted blood meant to resonate with the eldritch runes inside the coffin of meteoric glass. Execution of Miharl condensed a projectile loaded with the conceptual effect from the lake of the netherworld. With the right catalyst, this artifact could reduce anything physical or mystical to ash.

Etaceh’s prized barrier wasn't an exception.

…

The Lord of Mechanical Magic’s heart sank when the shield protecting Hecate rotted away in the spread of darkness.

It was time for her to panic.

Without the barrier, the flying cavalry of Montgomery finally had the clear shop. Pegasi swept in with its rider, dropping magic and explosives, damaging a major portion of Hecate. One particular MVP on the flying knight swooped in close to the Magic Tower, and blew up the modulator, controlling the Prime Flash, causing the Prime Artillery to explode for the second time in its lifespan.

Etaceh growled as her palace shook. The conquered home of Curtis’ ruling family quaked from the explosion. Scanner indicated that a wing of her palace had crumbled from the assault. Several anti-air weapons had been destroyed by the skilled unit.

She gritted her teeth. This operation was a failure. She had to retreat, but first she must pull out before the Archangel recovered their stamina and started doing some permanent damage. This meant deploying 'that' against the binding of Oleg-Regina.

Etaceh couldn’t believe she needed to use the trick she prepared against Anastasia on Maximus. This thing cost a fortune, and it would take her years to replace.

“Deploy the Null Bomb,” Etaceh yelled with a pain of regret.

…

A silo hidden beneath the shadow of Hecate emerged, and a cylinder projectile blasted up into the atmosphere. At a certain height, the bomb exploded with blue shock-wave.

It was a Null Bomb. A counter weapon meant to deal with conceptual effect. The single explosion represented a year worth of Magic Tower net income. It was a weapon Etaceh never meant to use in this conflict. In an ideal world, she would miniaturize this tech and mass-produce it once the entire Eastern Continent was under her control. It was her long-term goal to combat Anastasia.

Sadly for Etaceh, reality was often disappointing.

The pulse of the Null Bomb reached the chain of Oleg-Regina binding Curtis, causing it to fade out of existence.

With its binding gone, the flying city retreated on full-throttle. Behind it, the force of Montgomery reorganized in a pursuit.

…

Fast-forward a few days later, the House of Lord now needed this unexpected curveball.

Ciel and his harem had one question on their mind.

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