CH406 Fanatical Clergy
***
The surge of urgency within Alex peaked the moment he saw the priestâs triumphant grin.
The man had stopped right at the doorwayâbrazenly turning to face him.
Then Alex saw it.
Through Spirit Sight, faith energyâthick, radiant divine energyâflooded toward the priest like a tidal wave.
"You lose, heathen!"
"Holy Lâ"
"You think I will let you?!" Alex roared back, eyes blazing with a cold, manic fury.
[Delayed Spells: Quadruple Cast â Fireball!]
The fire mana Alex had silently gathered while running twisted sharply around him, compressing into four dense fireballs.
They launched simultaneously, streaking toward the priest and locking him into a perfect four-point crossfire.
BOOM!!!
Before the priest could finish his incantationâ
before the divine spell could take shapeâ
âthe explosions detonated, trapping him at the dead centre of the fiery convergence.
The blast tore through the temple.
It didnât stop there. Shockwaves hammered the surrounding facilities, even reaching into the officersâ area where fortress troops were gathered.
Entire buildings collapsed.
The divine energyâreinforced temple cracked...
...and half of it caved in under the force.
"Alex. Alex! Answer me! Alex!!" Zora shouted over comms, her voice edged with panic.
Thankfully, Alex had warned them moments before the detonation.
Because of that, the entire expedition group had retreated and huddled behind Zoraâs hastily erected Ice Wallâthe only thing between them and the blast.
The instant the explosion ended, Zora dismissed the spell, allowing Kavakan and Mogal to rush inside the shattered temple.
But the first ones they encountered were not Alex.
They were the Paladins.
"Donât waste time with them. Kill them."
Udaraâs cold voice echoed as she stepped into the ruin behind them.
A thick darkness surged around her form, cloaking her like a living shadowâ
âakin to the manifestation of a true Dark Being.
She sprinted toward the weakest Paladin âone barely standing after the explosion, his armour cracked due to its divine protections being spent.
He raised his mace in desperation to block Udaraâs strike.
It made no difference.
Udaraâs bladeâoverloaded with internal energy to the point her Tier III shortsword seemed ready to snapâsliced through the metal like soft wax.
The follow-through severed the Paladinâs head cleanly.
Udara didnât spare the corpse a glance. She vanished deeper into the collapsed section of the templeâtoward where Alex had disappeared under the rubble.
Inspired by her... brutality, Mogal and Kavakan also unleashed their full strength.
[Call of the Wild]! [Lycanthropic Transformation]!
[Beast Totem]!
Kavakan exploded into his towering Weretiger form, while Mogalâs body swelled under the spectral force of his Bear Totem.
Both warriors roared and charged into the ruins.
If the Paladins had harboured even a shred of doubt beforeâif some small part of them assumed the scriptures exaggerated the horrors of the Dark Realmâ
âthat doubt died here.
Faced with Mogalâs towering beast-totem form and Kavakanâs monstrous Weretiger frame, the Paladins were convinced.
These invaders were truly the beings of the Dark realm their doctrine warned them about.
Their armour lay shatteredâdivine protections spentâbut they refused to cower in the face of these outerworldly dark beings.
"I offer You my life, MY LORD!" both Paladins roared, voices cracking with fanatic zeal as they charged head-on.
They didnât guard... Nor did they evade.
They burned their lifeforce, entering a suicidal frenzy, determined to drag the invaders into death with them.
But zeal alone was nothing before raw, overwhelming power.
Mogalâs iron-hard fist crashed into the first Paladinâs jaw, snapping his neck sideways and rattling his brain in its skull.
Before the man could collapse, Mogalâs massive palmâcloser to a bear paw nowâswept across his body, slamming him into the temple floor.
Crunch!
The barbarian brought his colossal thigh down in a brutal stomp. The Paladinâs head burst like an overripe melon beneath the pressure.
At the same moment, Kavakanâs twin axes met the second Paladinâs guard.
His crude, heavy axe smashed aside the Paladinâs divine-imbued sword and cleaved into the manâs dominant shoulder.
Flesh tore and bones cracked, leaving the arm hanging limply.
The Paladin never even had the chance to scream. Kavakanâs second axe hacked into the opposite arm, this time, tearing it away in a spray of blood.
A savage front kick caved in the manâs knees, dropping him onto the rubble.
Kavakan could have finished him cleanly with his axe. But the Weretigerâs blood boiled.
The Paladinâs stubborn resistanceâand the cuts inflicted on him by the paladinâignited Kavakanâs fury.
With a guttural snarl, Kavakan dropped one axe, seized the crippled Paladin by the legs, and swung him like a ragdoll.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
Each impact landed on the Paladinâs head or upper torso, shattering bones with each smash.
By the tenth, nothing remained of the upper body that resembled a human being. It was now a hideous mash of flesh and bone.
Only then did Kavakan toss the mangled corpse aside, as if discarding refuse.
ROAR!
His enraged bellow shook the fractured wallsâreminding everyone present that Weretigers, no matter how civilised they acted, were closer to savage apex predators than they were civilised men.
Mogal and Kavakan rushed after Udara, who was already tearing through the collapsed structure.
"Master! Master!!" Udara shouted, voice sharp with urgency as she tried to clear the rubble to reach him.
â...Hmm.â
A dull, throbbing ache pulsed through Alexâs skull as consciousness dragged him back.
Urgent voicesâZoraâs, Eleanorâs, Udaraâsâechoed faintly through the comms, tugging him awake.
He tried to shift, but something heavy pressed against his back.
When the haze finally cleared, he realised heâd been buried beneath the collapsed rear section of the temple.
He exhaled a strained sigh.
Heâd known the risk the moment heâd unleashed his spell.
He hadnât fired a simple volley of [Fireballs].
He had casted and held four successive fireball spells, held them mid-cast, then exploded them all simultaneously.
The force produced by the four spells, and subsequently the damaged they caused, far surpassed anything four single fireballs could achieve.
Which, of course, had been the entire point.
He needed raw powerâoverwhelming and instantaneousâto break through the Priestâs passive divine shield. His higher-tier spells required too much chant time at his current proficiency; and he couldnât afford even a second of delay.
So he chose the dangerous path.
[Quadruple Fireball].
A spell only barely under his control...
But it had worked.
The blast not only covered the Priest but also crippled the entire templeâthe conduit for Jurorâs faith in this region.
With the structure shattered, the consecration anchoring the fortress should have broken as well. Jurorâs interference would be drastically limited, and the suppressive field constraining Eleanorâs healing would fade.
âThankfully... I still had enough mana left for Dragon Kumite.â
Alex felt a fleeting rush of relief.
He survived only because heâd thrown up a crude overhead barrier at the last instant, shaping energy using the Dragon Kumite method while the Happenstance Chestplate absorbed the rest.
His mana usage, however, had been atrocious.
Between the delayed [Triple Fireball] earlier and the reckless mana dump into the quadruple cast variant, he must have used five times the necessary manaâperhaps more. Even with his massive reserves, heâd nearly emptied himself dry.
But fateâor rather, Providence(?)âfavoured him.
He had just enough mana remaining to shield himself from the falling rubble.
While heâd been unconscious, both his Everspring Rune Tattoo and OmniRuneâs passive absorption had slowly siphoned ambient mana into his core, restoring a shallow pool of energy.
Boom!!
A burst of mana flared around him.
Alex braced his palms against the cracked stone, gritting his teeth as he forced the debris upward. The pressure on his back eased and, piece by piece, he pushed himself free and staggered upright.
He inhaled sharply against the pain, and forcibly said into the Comms,
"Donât worry about me. Focus on the battle."
Eleanor, riding on Fenâs back for protection and speed, arrived at the fractured front entrance of the temple.
"Iâm coming over to you. My healingâs working again," she replied.
"Save them for the others. I can handle myself," Alex replied.
He pushed the last slab of rubble aside and stepped out into view. Udara and the others finally saw himârobes torn and dirt-smeared, several bleeding cuts along his head, arms, and backâbut standing.
Only bruised by his own catastrophic spell.
Yet even in that moment, Alex felt something elseâa faint pull from within the half-collapsed temple.
A whisper... a tug on his instincts... a calling.
Something of import to him laid within the temple.
But Alex ignored it entirely.
There was no time for mysteries.
Instead, he headed straight âwhile limping a bitâ for the Priest.
Blown clear out the back of the temple, the man lay half-buried under shattered stone. His lower body was crushed, but his torso was somehow still intact.
And, infuriatingly...
He was still alive.
âA Navi priest is indeed like a cockroach. His vitality is absurd,â Alex thought grimly.
Heâd read about itâhow Navi clergy became harder to kill the more divine energy they accumulatedâbut experiencing it first-hand was another matter entirely.
Any ordinary Pangean warrior of similar rank, even one whoâd tempered their body to the peak, would have been vapourised by a delayed [Quadruple Fireball] to the face.
But this priest had survived, only to fortunately by crushed by blasted debris.
Alex channelled mana into his Beta Bracer.
A gleaming, mana-coated wristblade snapped out with a metallic click.
He approached to finish the jobâ
Only to find the priest smiling.
Not only didnât he breakdown at the dread of impeding death, but he was actually grinning.
"I curse you to ultimate damnation, you hellspawn!" he spat, eyes ablaze with fanatic hatred.
Before Alex could pierce his skull, the man shoved his palms together and formed a final hand seal.
"Pious Devotion!"
His lifeforce ignited.
A burst of divine radiance erupted from his broken frame, sweeping across the fortress grounds as threads of light shot outâeach one latching onto the surviving fortress troops.
Alexâs wristblade plunged down, splitting the priestâs skullâ
But the deed was already done.
The "miracle" had activated.
The divine spell completed.
Alex stared at the priestâs corpse, jaw clenched as the glow spread across the fortress grounds.
He exhaled heavily.
"Come on... give me a break."
***