City Of Sin

41-50

Faith

Just the fact that it could withstand so much damage made this page a valuable artifact, but the church had closed up to secretly perform a ritual centering around it. Whatever that ritual was, the magic had to be related to the page.

Richard snatched the page off the altar without hesitation, hastily folding it before keeping it on his person. However, when he released his grip the page bounced open and reverted to its original position, without an inkling of a mark upon it.

This page was twice the size of the pages in Flowsand’s Book of Time, and was in fact bigger and wider even than the pages of the Codex of Alucia that he’d seen in his younger days. It would be difficult to carry it around without folding it up, so Richard had no choice but to roll it up like a scroll before he could stow it away.

By the time Richard made it out of the church, the paladins were almost completely exterminated. Gangdor’s trademark roars sounded out from afar, and his hungry axe scared the paladins like insects. It was needless to say that the squires’ morale was depleted even further.

Richard glanced up, and the first thing he could see was the brute weaving through the cold and cheerless battlefield as he destroyed everything in his path. His abilities seemed to have grown since the past battles, and the sheen of his popping muscles indicated that he was using the full strength his body could muster. It was obvious that both his offensive and defensive capabilities had improved— even the heavy weapons of the paladins could only leave small superficial cuts on his body. On the other hand, each swing of his axe was so strong that nobody seemed able to withstand more than three hits.

This was Gangdor’s true might in battle. During the battle at the reconnaissance base, he’d been stuck fighting Sir Menta who was much stronger than him, and after that his enemies hadn’t been powerful enough to bring out his full strength. He hadn’t had many chances to display his skill.

The two trolls were killing machines in their own right as well. They didn’t use any special abilities, crushing their opponents’ morale with their raw strength alone. This was especially true for Medium Rare, who was dressed up in armour so strong he was like an immovable steel fort. On the other hand, the paladins hadn’t been prepared and had armed themselves hastily as they jumped out of bed. None of them had armour, while some didn’t even have weapons.

Faced with these three killing machines, the unprepared knights were massacred by the big axe and heavy hammers. It was a thorough feast of blood and meat, every movement of the big weapons letting loose chunks of bodies and big spurts of crimson.

The remaining paladins knew that outside the base was a death trap, so they retreated to camp and tried to put on their armour behind cover. However, Waterflower and Olar had already made their way over. The elven bard was not skilled at melee, but the chaos proved to be a haven for the young lady who never wore armour herself.

As for the squires, they were equally unprepared and none could face a single raptor on their own. Still, however, final victory remained difficult. The paladins were much stronger than the Baron’s army in battle, a product of their unyielding spirit even when faced with certain defeat. Even in their dying moments, they still found ways to injure their enemies one last time.

By the time the battle ended, Gangdor and Tiramisu had sustained considerable injuries. Even Waterflower had a deep wound on her thigh, and although Flowsand had been present one of the infantry was still heavily wounded. What’s more, two raptors had perished in battle.