Witch, Fireball and Steam Evil God

Chapter 435 Brave

This was a war, and the first war Solan had ever experienced.

Unlike previous battles where both sides would stand in formation and unleash their skills, in this new battle, every time an enemy fell, a new enemy would fill the gap, and their numbers seemed endless.

Their fighting spirit had long since been exhausted. The longsword in their hands was chipped in the fighting, and their shields were riddled with holes from the bombardment of spears and swords. One screaming prisoner after another fell, mingling with the corpses of the Imperial Army. Not far away, a silvery-white light shone, but this time, two familiar faces were in that light.

This time, the healing magic was no longer aimed at Solan, but at the Imperial soldiers who had fallen behind him, those resurrected enemies who had blocked his retreat.

The Holy Mage and the High Priest have both arrived.

The appearance of the two boosted the morale of the Imperial Army, but also became the final straw that broke the back of the prisoner corps.

Solan glanced at his comrades behind him, who were gradually being engulfed by the Imperial Army's human wall, and gritted his teeth as he charged toward Ilya and Sera.

Ilya and Sera, who witnessed this scene, remained silent.

From their perspective, they should have mocked Solan's treasonous act and ridiculed his choice of a path to self-destruction. If Solan had been willing to surrender to the royal family and nobles, he could have enjoyed the fruits of victory in the "game" just like them.

As the mouthpiece of the royal family, he enjoys the people's love and respect.

He could also settle in the capital, join high society, and become a "star" in the eyes of the nobles.

To demonstrate his influence, many nobles would likely be willing to invite Solan to various grand events.

Ilya dared not meet Solan's gaze; it was an expression she had never seen before.

Despite being riddled with wounds, he did not stop. More blades cut his skin, and bullets from muskets pierced his body. She did not know why Solan had not fallen yet, but they could all see Solan's purpose—he was charging backward, in their direction.

Perhaps he wanted to tear down this game set up by royalty and nobility with his own hands at the end of his life.

Even though they were on opposing sides, Ilya could no longer ignore the mockery.

"Ilya, what are you standing there for!"

Sera urged from behind.

The ranks of mages and priests were now blocked not by the shields of heroes and the barriers formed by their battle aura, but by a human wall formed by the Imperial Army.

The sound in her ears became clear again, and Ilya's eyes narrowed.

The chanting is finished.

She held her ruby-encrusted staff aloft, and the magnificent mage remained motionless amidst the swirling winds. The air before her instantly solidified and compressed, and magic transformed into dozens of translucent magical arrows.

As the staff fell, dozens of magical arrows rained down on Solan.

Sera also chanted a spell. As former comrades-in-arms, they had cooperated countless times during their adventures. The Weakness Curse slowed Solan's pace, and it was during this brief gap that more bullets and blades struck his body. The weakness caused by the curse caused the shattered shield to fall to the ground.

Next come the Vulnerability Curse, the Slow Curse, and Amplify Damage...

Puff! Puff puff puff—!
A series of piercing sounds rang out, not the explosive roar of thunder, but a duller, more bloody sound. The magical arrows easily tore through Solan's breastplate and pierced his heart.

The Imperial Army swarmed forward, their blades flashing, completely engulfing the blood-soaked Solan.

Solan closed his eyes, and the roars around him gradually faded away.

This is the end of life.

Without pain or hatred, his heart was filled with peace.

Because he had returned to the most familiar place—a small village with only a dozen or so households, the starting point of all his adventures. As the sun set, he simply lay down on the simple dock, knowing that it would soon become lively again.

Where do you plan to go after everything is over?
During his adventure, he was asked this question more than once, and his answers changed in many ways. After witnessing the various problems of the empire, he and his companions made a pact that after defeating the Demon King, they would return to the capital and urge the empire to make changes.

This is the responsibility of a hero, and also the expectation that countless people on his journey place in his heart.

However, for young Solan, the original answer may never have changed.

—Of course, I'm going home.

That was his unthinking answer when he was first asked that question.

He was feeling a bit hungry at the time, and the image of grilled fish from the village popped into his mind.

Before long, he heard familiar footsteps behind him. Solan opened his eyes a crack and saw the unshaven old man passing by. The old man just glanced down at him, then carried a small chair to the dock and sat down to prepare the bait and hooks.

An unkempt old fisherman lives alone in the village.

Yet he was also the strongest person in Solan's eyes.

That was his master, the one who taught him all the fighting skills.

"Master, I'm back."

Solan spoke up.

In that instant, countless conversations with his master flooded his mind, including the thing he was most curious about when he was a child.

Master, why don't you become a hero?
In Solan's mind, his master was far more skilled than him and was more suited to the role of a hero.

They are respected and loved.

Every time he asked this question, his master would chuckle and give the same answer.

Kid, being a hero isn't so easy.

Solan now understands completely.

Even a fleeting vision on his deathbed made him cherish the scene that lingered before his eyes.

"But I lied to you."

The old man, with his back to Solan, seemed to see right through him. He faced the calm lake, watching the ripples created as the fishing hook entered the water. The village was completely silent that night, and the old man seemed to be enjoying his last moments of peace.

lie?

Solan propped himself up and looked at the old man with a puzzled expression, only to see the old man slowly rise and walk solemnly toward him.

"My identity, and the secret of the hero and the demon king."

The calloused hand grasped Solan's wrist once more. The familiar touch always reminded him of the time when the old man taught him to wield a sword, but this time what met his eyes was a silvery-white light, and magic was flowing into his body along with the light.

Along with this, the scenes flashed before his eyes incessantly. The world before him began to twist, and time seemed to be accelerated countless times, allowing Solan to be immersed in the scene for a short time and witness the deeds of those "predecessors." Then, he returned to the beginning.

That happened before the first hero grasped the Hero's Sword.

His enemy is no longer the Demon King, but a silver-white "sun" that has fallen into this world.

A kingdom was destroyed by a falling sun, and from that pure radiance emerged terrifying monsters. They had human outlines, but their bodies were constructed of metal and machinery. Solan vaguely thought of the Empire's proud golden fleet and the war weapons that the Empire called "ancient technology".

His gaze followed the first hero as they ventured into the pristine light, battling countless mechanical creations that emerged from the deep pit.

They finally found the source of their destruction.

A ball of light suspended in the deep pit.

Under the pure, radiant light, some of the kingdom's creatures mutated; their blood turned blue, their bones became metal, and beneath their skin lay not muscle tissue, but intricate gears.

Only two people witnessed the secret hidden deep within the Kingdom of Destruction.

The first hero, and a red-haired girl never seen before.

Solan overheard the conversation.

"Scarlet."

This seems to be the name of the red-haired girl, whose class appears to be Hunter, and a white baby dragon always accompanies her.

"We found it..." The first hero's voice trembled slightly, but his raised hands were blocked by the radiance emanating from the orb.

"God of Truth".

This is the name that the first hero gave to the orb of light.

The first great adventure came to an end. The first hero and the red-haired girl parted ways. The white dragon seemed to have carried Crimson to another world, while the hero remained on this land. He began to study and decipher the power within the sphere, which once ushered in an era of great prosperity for people.

Later, people rebuilt a new kingdom on this land, and the existence of the "God of Truth" permeated their daily lives.

This peaceful and prosperous era lasted for hundreds of years, until one day, the sleeping "god" opened his eyes.

It has completed the calculation.

The number of people, their faith, and the soil have reached their most perfect state.

This is enough to move the experiment to the next stage.

The first hero sensed something was wrong and immediately rushed to the capital of the empire.

He was ultimately too late; by the time he arrived in the capital, the final stage of the experiment had already begun.

He was greeted by streets in disarray, the entire city scattered like broken building blocks. As the apocalypse approached, the city was silent, everyone was asleep, and their bodies floated in mid-air like those building blocks, surrounding the arrival of the "new god".

The final step in the experiment is transformation.

The God of Truth has calculated all the conditions for transformation, and all the steps have been completed.

This time, the hero failed.

Faced with that overwhelming power, his resistance was futile.

His body was burned to ashes by the scorching light, and as his life was about to perish, he used magic to preserve a sliver of his consciousness.

To warn his former comrades, and to warn the world of the changes that were taking place.

The remaining consciousness transformed into a bird, flying towards the place where Crimson had disappeared. However, from the moment of its birth, the "New God" had already woven a cage. Soran witnessed the bird violently crashing into the "wall of air." Ripples appeared in that place where nothing had ever existed before, and after the impact, several rows of dense numbers and runes were displayed.

At the same time, a strange concept came to Solan's mind.

This is the edge of the world.

The world, due to the arrival of the "new god," has become an isolated island.

Finally, the dying bird crashed into a familiar village. The splash caught the attention of an old fisherman, who hesitated for a moment before jumping into the water.

A simple man-made dock, a loosely arranged house layout, and a continuous mountain range to the west—a secluded place.

It is also a village that has given birth to countless heroes.

They had all encountered the old fisherman, learned the same skills from him, picked up the sword and shield of heroes, and embarked on their adventures.

However, the reasons for taking the risk have long since become unclear.

They were born different from others, only vaguely sensing that they had been given an important mission.

Until one day, a thousand years later, during the final battle between the young hero Solan and the Demon King, the Holy Mage Ilya in his party used a teleportation spell that she had seen in the Imperial Collection, intending to teleport Solan and the Demon King to a place she herself did not know, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Thus, the first variable since the birth of the "new god" arrived.

The sounds from the birdcage traveled to places beyond the edge of the world.

"Perhaps it would be easier for you to end it like this."

The old man sighed deeply. As the silvery-white magic was injected, his body became increasingly faint, almost to the point of disappearing.

"But unfortunately, this adventure is not over yet."

The old man's murmurs echoed in Solan's ears. At this moment, the smell of blood appeared again. He heard roars filling his ears. The wielding swords were blocked on the other side by a barrier made of silver magic. The broken body regained its strength.

Or more accurately, it was a power he had never possessed before.

He can use it with ease without having to explore or learn.

The fighting skills belonging to the first hero, along with the memories from just now, were injected into his body.

With a simple swing of his sword, he swept away the imperial army that had surrounded him. The sword wind formed a hurricane, lifting all those who stood in his way into the air. Their silver-white armor shattered under the sweep of the sword wind.

Meanwhile, standing atop the golden warship, Henry VI, witnessing all of this, had bloodshot eyes.

He witnessed his son being beheaded by the hero in front of everyone. However, the hero, who should have been torn to pieces and minced into mincemeat by the imperial army, rose up from the pile of corpses once again, radiating a chilling silver-white light.

He sensed a power within it that was entirely different from, yet equally powerful, that was "the spark."

There is another side...

The red-haired woman, who came from the same race as Cedric and moved across the battlefield like a golden streak, fought a battle that had long surpassed the realm of human comprehension. The well-trained Imperial Army and their well-equipped firearms were simply unable to intervene in the battle between the two.

This force, and the pernicious influence of these traitors, must be nipped in the bud!
There is no doubt that the negative impact of this rebellion has far exceeded that of the Violet Commune movement.

"Launch artillery fire."

Henry VI gave the order with a grim expression.

"But, Your Majesty..."

The fleet commander was sweating profusely; in fact, he had a premonition of something bad when he witnessed the death of the eldest prince at the hands of the rebels.

In his view, the deployment of the gold fleet was an impulsive order.

This is not a town under attack by the Empire, but the capital of the Empire. If the magical weapons on the warships were used, most of the city could be razed to the ground in an instant, which would be a devastating blow to the Empire.

Moreover, the Imperial Army outside the prison far outnumbers the rebels. If they were to launch an artillery barrage, they would lose thousands of elite Imperial troops, not to mention the Imperial nobles who might also suffer as a result.

However, before the commander could continue to persuade him, a tearing pain shot through his chest.

An incomprehensible force tore open his chest.

He could even see the cut-open heart through the wound.

The dull thud of the body falling to the ground struck the hearts of every crew member.

Henry VI raised his voice and repeated the order, "Fire!"

..............................

The first to sense the anomaly were those on the other side, at the heart of the battlefield, atop the Golden Fleet, where the energy gathered by magical weapons distorted the entire sky.

This group of people has gone mad.

Bi'an never expected that Henry VI would actually issue an order to bombard the capital. She had also boarded the Golden Fleet and witnessed the power of the magic cannons. In fact, the beginning of this "journey to another world" was when they launched a bombardment on the open ground outside the empire in order to witness the power of magic weapons and ancient technology.

She could imagine the consequences if so many ships opened fire on the ground at once.

The entire capital was instantly turned into a sea of ​​fire. Imperial soldiers, nobles, and commoners alike would be reduced to ashes in the bombardment. This was the reason why it was so hard to believe, because for Henry VI and the entire empire, this was an act that would cause a hundred casualties to the enemy and twelve thousand casualties to oneself.

The only explanation is that Henry VI went mad after witnessing the death of his eldest son.

"Why!"

While I was pondering this, Cedric, like a persistent plaster, stuck to me again.

He fell again and again, only to rise again from the piles of corpses and ruins. He used everything he could touch as a weapon, exhausting all his efforts, yet he could never reach the other side.

An insurmountable mountain.

Each time he got up, it only deepened this thought in his mind.

Just like now, his swung bayonet missed its mark. Before he could make his next move, he was struck hard in the chest and his body flew backward, crashing through several houses before finally coming to a stop.

This is the change brought about by the "spark".

If it weren't for the transformation brought about by the "fire seed," his body would have fallen apart in the first few rounds of their fight.

Now, after a brief period of pain, Cedric has once again straightened up.

After facing the "War Lord" in the dream, he encountered another puzzle. He used hundreds of "resurrection" opportunities to end the battle in the dream, and the oppressive feeling of this battle was even greater than that in the dream.

"Why haven't you drawn your sword yet!"

Cedric knew that the other side had not yet used her full power, because she had never used the knight's sword from beginning to end.

This made him feel extremely humiliated.

Showing mercy on the battlefield is the greatest humiliation for the weak.

The fist that had been thrown was caught in the other side's hand. This time, his body was not sent flying by the immense force as before.

"I didn't hold back."

In this battle, the other side responded to his question for the first time, saying, "Your vitality is quite tenacious."

She stated truthfully that this was evident from the damage caused when Cedric was thrown into the air.

With that kind of force, any other person would have had every bone in their body shattered long ago.

With the vigorous vitality of a cockroach, no matter how many times it falls, it will always return to the battlefield.

But these were the only things that impressed her. She could tell that Cedric hadn't undergone systematic training and relied more on his physical instincts during the stalemate.

Once emotions fluctuate, actions will also become distorted.

By now, it was clear that Cedric's attack had fallen into a state of self-abandonment, meaninglessly repeating the process of knocking down and getting back up, perhaps without even knowing why he was doing it.

"Logically speaking, there is no deep-seated hatred between us."

The other hand, which was free on the other side, hovered over the hilt of the sword at his waist.

She didn't necessarily have a reason to kill Cedric; her initial thought was simply to beat him so badly he couldn't get up. She believed Cedric would realize the gap between them, a gap that couldn't be bridged by mere passion or short-term opportunism.

Her gaze passed over Cedric and fell upon the golden fleet that was gradually illuminating the night.

"Get ready, I'm about to draw my sword."

Upon hearing this, Cedric's eyes narrowed, and he instinctively assumed a defensive stance, but he was still blown away by the soaring energy.

Golden light streaked across the sky, sweeping over every ship in an instant.

The explosions echoed across the night sky, and the flames ignited the entire heavens.

The golden sword mark, undiminished in its momentum, pierced through the fleet and then cut a wound above the clouds.

In an instant, everyone outside the prison stopped what they were doing.

They all looked up at the night sky.

Looking at the fleet that had turned into wreckage and fell into the flames, and the "wounds" on the fleet.

The expression on the other side became more serious.

She also saw the part hidden behind the wound.

Countless numbers, countless codes, so many that they could trigger trypophobia.

Above that code was a pure white sphere, suspended in the sky above this world like a "sun".

At this very moment, that "sun" opened its eyes and quietly looked down upon the world.

(End of this chapter)