After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

Suddenly, the image of the divine spell that illuminated the suburbs in the darkness of Kargard Town flashed through Yang Hao's mind—his expression twisted, and he subconsciously gave his command:

"Turn your head around quickly!!"

call--

The entire battlefield was bathed in a stark white light.

The intense golden light bathed everyone in gold, pouring so much heat onto the side of each person receiving the light that the fabric and fur sizzled and dried rapidly, while the shaded areas of each person displayed contrasting, incredibly deep black shadows.

The divine magic of the Church of Light, the magic of illumination—

With the blessing of the divine power of 200,000 believers, the bishop-level illumination spell can not only illuminate the battlefield, but also directly cause temporary blindness and dizziness to the enemy when they are backlit!

Even though Yang Hao had prepared to turn his face to the side and close his eyes to avoid it, he still felt that his eyelids were being illuminated by a golden light.

The idea that a bishop blessed by believers was terrifying was just a thought that hadn't settled in his mind when the sudden sound of gunfire brought him back to reality.

what happened?

Unable to open his eyes, he could only make wild guesses.

As for Bishop Stephen, the mastermind behind the "Sun," his little scheme failed just like that.

"What are those elves doing?! They'd rather risk blindness, rather spend their lives groping in the dark, than not keep aiming at my priest with their eyes open in the light?! What kind of demons are they?! They're simply fearless devils!"

In the instant the illumination spell suddenly burst, Bishop Stephen thought he had won—he was full of confidence, and even opened his eyes wide, ready to watch with the Griffin Knights who had not yet launched their attack from the sky, and the Guardians of the Church beside him, enjoy the wonderful scene of the golems in front of the enemy's position being destroyed by the priest's divine spell, and then countless undead soldiers rushing into the enemy's position to wreak havoc.

But reality slapped him hard in the face, and even spat into his mouth:

The elf in the distance seemed to disregard his own eyes, maintaining his aiming motion even in the bright light, and precisely fired the shot the instant the priest deactivated his shield.

With each clap of thunder, the priests, who had just removed their personal divine barriers, were still preparing their spears of light when bullets, thinner and invisible than arrows, shattered their barriers first. Not only did they turn half of the priests into shattered pieces, but they also wiped out some of the guardian knights protecting them.

In the rush, the deaths of half the priests brought the undead soldiers' movements to a standstill once again. The remaining half of the priests hastily unleashed their Light Spears, not even bothering to check the results before immediately adding several more layers of barriers for themselves.

This truly shocked and infuriated Bishop Stephen: because priests were vital resources! If things continued like this, forget about dealing with the golems! Now, it was a serious question whether the priests could even keep the soldiers from attacking their own people!

Not to mention... on the enemy's position, the intermittently flashing magic circles that could severely damage the undead soldiers were another problem...

...We can't delay any longer.

After finishing his illumination ritual, Bishop Stephen raised his scepter and waved it three times in succession at the Griffin Knights waiting above.

He had to get the Griffin Knights to launch an attack—since the priests couldn't deal with the golems on the ground, he would have the Griffin Knights, who could also cast divine spells but weren't exactly priests, descend from the sky and turn the golems that were blocking the advance of the undead soldiers back into mud!

After all, those are griffins flying in the sky! Even the elves' longbows can't overcome the limitations of gravity to deal with griffins descending from the sky! Although their new weapons seem to have a long range, with their eyes burned by the recent illumination spell, how could they possibly mount an effective counterattack?

Although Bishop Stephen wasn't particularly confident, he was at least filled with awe and anticipation for the objective power of the griffin.

As the griffin riders slowly ascended, the ten invisible elves secretly found their own cover and lay in ambush behind the central infantry regiment of the Northern Expeditionary Force.

They aimed their rifles at Bishop Stephen's head and body from all directions, only to find that they couldn't fire anything other than aim.

The magical barrier surrounding Bishop Stephen was incredibly thick.

An ordinary priest would at most stack a faint golden hue on his protective barrier.

The barrier surrounding Bishop Stephen was so thick that it constantly emitted a dazzling golden light.

He becomes the most conspicuous and brightest target on the battlefield! But what's infuriating is that this target is now almost invincible!

hateful!

The elven assassin gritted his teeth, waiting for his chance to arrive.

On the allied lines, the elves whose eyes had been burned out handed their weapons to the reserves and, with the help of their comrades, walked hand in hand toward the elven mages to receive further treatment before returning to the battlefield.

Their sacrifice had a significant effect: only the golems in front of the left passage gate collapsed due to the attack; the golems in the middle and right passages remained intact. They had done their best; now it was up to the demons and the golem reserves to regain their footing on the left.

For Yang Hao, the precarious situation on the left side did not mean he had the energy to pay attention to things beyond the sky.

The enemy's griffin riders have been deployed. Yang Hao's only air force consists of a squadron of forty griffin riders.

There is a clear difference in the food chain between the eagle and the griffin—the most direct point of view is that the griffins of the Roman Empire prey on the eagle. Although the two have some similarities, there is a very obvious difference in strength between the eagle and the griffin.

After all, one is practically a herbivore, and the other is practically a carnivore. As a carnivore, the griffin can even single-handedly escape from an attack by three eagles, and simultaneously snatch a cub from the eagles' nest as a trophy!

In this situation, 40 Falcon Knights would definitely be at a disadvantage against 20 Griffin Knights from the parish... but fortunately, they are, after all, knights.

In knighthood, not only do the animals beneath the riders need to fight each other, but more importantly, the riders on those animals must also demonstrate superb fighting skills.

While the elven eagles are indeed inferior to the griffins, conversely, the griffin riders cannot be compared to the elves riding the eagles.

Overall, the situation isn't as hopeless as a 1:9 split, but it's still a worrying 4:6 split.

We can only hope that the Eagle Knights will perform well—Yang Hao raised his command sword high, and the next moment, the Eagle Knights who had been waiting and resting in the forest took flight at his command.

They were gaining altitude. Previously, to avoid becoming targets of the enemy's divine magic, they had been hiding in the forest. But now, Yang Hao needed them, so naturally they needed to fly high into the sky to fight the griffins.

The griffins' forward speed is not as fast as the eagles' ascent speed. However, if the eagle riders insist on ascending to a high altitude to gain a height advantage before attacking the griffins, then the golems and melee units below are likely to be utterly crushed and collapse.

Faced with the choice between gaining altitude and protecting the lives of his comrades, the captain of the Eagle Knights chose the latter.

"Let's stop their magic and dives!" He drew his longbow on the hawk. "Hopefully we can survive until the day when rifles suitable for the hawk are produced!"

"I'll definitely snatch the gun from you and use it myself!"

"I never imagined I'd be protecting a bunch of dirt clods! But speaking of which, is that griffin in heat? I think his thing looks hard!"

"My girl is still reserved."

Elves are not as ancient as humans imagine—especially not the eagle riders. These elves, accustomed to flying freely in the sky, possess the freest souls in the world.

They ascended from below to meet the griffin riders' descent, their bows drawn taut. The elves at the front even threw down their longbows, took out halberds or scimitars for aerial combat from the saddles of their eagles, and charged towards the griffins with howling cries.

Whoosh whoosh—

The crossbows fired by the griffin riders and the arrows fired by the eagle riders flew towards their respective enemies simultaneously. Feathers and flesh were torn apart in the air. The eagles might not be able to gain an advantage over the griffins in one-on-one combat, but they would group together to surround the griffins so that their masters could jump directly onto the griffins' heads.

At this point, the knight riding the griffin would drop his crossbow and draw his sword to engage the elves in hand-to-hand combat. Although the elves possessed superb fighting skills, fighting their masters atop the back of a griffin, which was more difficult to tame than the wildest steed, was, for them, a life-or-death struggle.

Not to mention, the Eagle Knights and Griffin Knights have different equipment. If the Eagle Knights are agile rangers clad in leather armor, then the Griffin Knights are like solid metal cans, plate-armored knights flying through the air.

This makes it difficult for the elves' scimitars to pose a fatal threat to the griffin riders—but as the saying goes…

Wearing such a heavy load while flying high in the sky, one would surely die a particularly gruesome death upon crashing to the ground.

Let's fly together! Let's fly!

Knowing that the scimitars could not effectively harm these tin cans, and that the elves could not use their proud agility on the narrow and chaotic backs of the griffins.

The elves chose to shout things they didn't even understand, and then drag the griffin rider down from the sky with them.

One after another, elves who managed to climb onto the backs of griffins were pierced through the chest by the knights' weapons and dragged off into the abyss. Corpses locked in combat in the air fell from the sky—elf bodies, knight bodies, griffin bodies, and even eagle bodies.

Sometimes, griffins will go to great lengths to save their masters. But those eagles that know their masters are doomed will entangle themselves around the griffin's wings and kill themselves to stop it from doing anything further.

If a griffin can easily break free from the control of a hawk, what about two or three?

Especially since some of the griffin riders circling outside were carrying longbows. Under the threat of the longbows, the surrounded griffin riders were gradually wiped out.

In the end, only four eagles remained circling in the sky, and only two rangers remained atop them. They eliminated the aerial threat to their comrades with the heaviest casualties, leaving Bishop Stephen in the distance ashen-faced, and greatly inspiring their comrades.

But the crisis didn't just come from the sky. The passage on the left side of the camp was already in grave danger, and the wooden fence and city gate were about to be breached by the undead soldiers. Yang Hao had no choice but to order the ancient tree of the elves to create an opportunity for him, so that the golems who were acting as reserves could have a chance to walk out from behind the wooden gate.

The ancient tree responded to Yang Hao's call, but before the ancient tree could unleash its power, Yang Hao saw that the demons guarding the left passage were already showing signs of collapse and fleeing.

"I always said that these ordinary villagers, who aren't even soldiers, shouldn't have gone to the battlefield at all!"

Yang Hao gritted his teeth, gripping his command sword, preparing to head to the left passage to personally oversee the troops. Just then, he suddenly felt a gentle force welling up from the depths of his heart, causing his anger to vanish without a trace, replaced by peace and tranquility.

It's Theresa's tranquilizing magic!

Yang Hao was stunned for a moment, then turned around and found that Theresa, who had appeared behind him at some point, was panting as she cast a divine spell while handing a few enchanted bullets from her palm to a waiting rifleman.

"Yang Hao—listen to me! I can take back their divine power!"

Faced with Yang Hao's gaze and the thousand words stuck in her throat, the nun only gave a weary smile.

She pointed to the corpse of the griffin rider who had fallen into the camp during the earlier aerial battle. The corpse emitted a faint golden light, which, guided by a line, gradually flew towards Theresa's body.

The closer one gets to Theresa, the purer the golden light becomes, eventually turning into a soft white light instead of a golden one.

Yang Hao immediately understood Teresa's meaning—she wanted to create an advantage for her side by seizing the divine power of the Church of Light.

“I’ll have someone retrieve the bodies hanging in the camp! Theresa, will you stay here? I need to supervise this myself—”

"No! You can't leave! You have to stay here and command! Finn has already personally led the team to suppress the rebellion!"

"Wh...I understand."

Is Fen gone?

Yang Hao glanced at the passage on the left and found that the demons there had indeed calmed down under the influence of the Tranquility spell, and that some of Fen's elven rangers were also providing support from the rear. He was temporarily relieved.

He returned to his rightful place. He stood tall and proud, watching the bishop carrying the palanquin in the distance. The Northern Expeditionary Force was still using undead soldiers to wear down their own forces. The bishop himself and the elite Knights of the Faith had not yet made any moves, and even the regular army, which was still advancing slowly but not in a hurry to join the battle, was watching from the sidelines.

This decisive battle is not over yet, and may not even be halfway through—just as Yang Hao was thinking this and pondering countermeasures.

He suddenly saw the Knights of the Holy See split in two in the distance. A larger group stayed behind to protect the bishop's palanquin, while a smaller group jogged towards the passage to their left.

Are they planning to take advantage of the fact that the Golems on the left side of the passage have been defeated and that they don't have the strength to launch an assault and seize the position, so that they can break through our defenses?

Just as Yang Hao was hesitating whether to risk having the reserve howitzer Gorem dismantle the left camp gate and palisade to rush forward and seize a strategic position to stop the Knights' charge, the ground began to tremble.

The ancient tree of spirits has begun to display its power in war.

Chapter Eleven: The God of Light Betrayed Me!

The Knights of the Holy See's charge spurred the main force of the Northern Expeditionary Force, who had been watching from the sidelines. They began to swarm towards the gap in the allied forces' left flank, which was about to be breached by the undead.

Within the diocese's organization, the Knights Apostolic were the best-equipped land unit among the regular troops. They were clad in heavy armor, and even their horses were covered with metal harnesses.

It was precisely because of the weight of this armor that the knights failed to notice the unnatural deployment of the elven allied forces when they launched their charge. They didn't even notice the tremors on the ground caused by anything other than their own hooves when their iron hooves trampled directly on the backs of their own undead soldiers.

They held their lances level, their bodies gleaming with the light of various divine spells they had prepared beforehand. They were not afraid even when they witnessed their comrades being shot down by elven riflemen; they had only one goal—to break through the weakest left flank of the allied forces, to let the expendable undead soldiers serve their last purpose, and then let the energetic regular troops rush in and wreak havoc.

Then, completely unaware of elven magic, they stepped into a trap.

This was also the first time Yang Hao had truly witnessed the power of elven magic.

There is no record of elven magic in any of the Roman Empire's records—the Romans believed that elven magic was essentially the same as human magic, only that due to their lifespan, they had a more refined casting process and greater casting power, nothing more.

They believed elves were natural enchanting masters, but also needed time to enchant their weapons. They thought elves were essentially throwing fireballs just like humans, since that was indeed how magic was perceived by humans—in fact, even when Yang Hao lived in Gaparia, he didn't find anything particularly special about elven magic.

Now he understands.