Yet the coalition army outside the walls refused to be outdone. They had long anticipated this assault from Cassander's forces.
After all, they had been through this countless times before. Even the Holy City's walls were riddled with holes; their soldiers had once fought their way atop the battlements, only to be driven back down by Cassander's defenders.
The Kingdom of Thrace's Arcane Legion raised their staves, and sheets of golden energy barriers—identical to those along the walls—snapped into place, warding off the barrage raining from the fortifications.
They were, after all, scions of the very same empire, sharing nearly identical techniques.
Even so, these solar shields could not deflect everything. When the golden arrows hurled by the massive ballistas pierced the barriers, soldiers in the ranks behind them were still impaled one after another.
Death unfolded endlessly upon this soil, almost without pause.
"Eli, you're courting death!"
Tirena glared fiercely. Flapping her wings and gripping her greatsword with both hands, she unleashed the bursting divine power stored within the blade.
Boom!
Two bursts of energy from the same divine origin collided in the sky, producing an explosion that rattled the heavens.
A scorching energy shockwave blasted outward, sending a searing gust sweeping across everyone on the field.
"Tirena, it seems you've completely forgotten how to respect your elders!"
Eli leapt from the city walls, vaulting hundreds of meters into the sky as his blade flashed brilliantly against the heavens.
A moment later, he brought it crashing down.
A terrifying torrent of energy plunged from above, his fury so immense it whipped up howling gales.
"To rebels against the Empire like you, there is no respect to speak of!"
Tirena stood her ground without the slightest fear, raising her greatsword once more to unleash another burst of divine power into the sky.
Boom!
Another thunderous blast erupted.
Several angelic godblood fell from the air, trailing fire like dying meteors.
Under cover of the exploding light, Eli had already closed the distance, slicing his blade straight toward Tirena's fair neck.
Yet with a swift beat of her wings, Tirena surged upward a dozen meters and cast down another beam of radiant light at Eli below.
Eli held his long blade horizontally, bracing against the beam of terrifying heat as he fought and yielded ground in equal measure.
As a Titan godblood, Eli could also hover in midair, but he was far from being as agile as an angelic godblood.
Tirena circled and glided above him, wheeling continuously around Eli in an effort to uncover the veteran warrior's weakness.
"Marshal Eli!"
"Defend the Holy City to the death!"
One after another, Titan godblood warriors leapt down from the battlements to reinforce Eli, though many were struck down and pierced midair by stray bolts of light.
They clashed violently with the angelic godblood fighters. Angels plummeted from the sky one by one, while Titan godblood fell in their relentless charge.
Blasts and flames tore across every corner.
Beams of light cascaded from above, easily melting solid rock.
Beneath the savagery of both armies, deep fissures and yawning craters opened once more across the already ravaged earth.
Eli landed back on the ground, squaring off against Tirena from afar as he let out a furious war cry.
"Tirena!"
"His Majesty Aragorn once declared that whoever holds the Holy City holds the imperial throne!"
"His Majesty Otis is the true Emperor! And Wilhelm, the one you serve, is nothing more than a selfish, greedy man who refuses to let go of power!"
"His Majesty Otis is the true Emperor!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Titan godblood roared in assent, slamming their massive warhammers against the earth until the ground trembled and groaned in agony.
Such was the might of the god-blooded nobility. They had once been the pillars of the Fadlan Empire, and they remained the ultimate trump cards of the three kingdoms today.
Every godblood possessed strength comparable to an extraordinary being, and the mightiest god-blooded dukes could even reach the pinnacle of legendary.
Seeing the godblood clash, the mortal units on both sides pulled back in haste.
This was a battle like a natural disaster.
Mortals could scarcely take part.
The light beams of the angelic godblood and the ground-shaking stomps of the Titan godblood could snuff out mortal lives with effortless ease.
This was one of the defining traits of Holy Fadlan's old military hierarchy—the godblood legions, serving as the army's elite echelon, were overwhelmingly powerful, capable of battling celestials and demons alike, while the mortal conscripts at the bottom were thoroughly inept.
Only the Arcane Legion could be considered moderately formidable.
Because of this disparity, once the godblood gradually lost their divine favor, the fractured kingdoms left in Holy Fadlan's wake proved incapable of governing their own territories.
The Holy Fadlan Empire had once used Amaunator's power to expand across countless planes, but without the sun's brilliance, they could not even protect their own homeland.
"You're twisting His Majesty's words!"
"The Holy City has always been closest to our Kingdom of Thrace, yet you shameless dogs of Cassander occupied it!"
"You traitors will never truly possess it!"
Tirena beat her wings again. Her slender, fair arms swung the three-meter greatsword with effortless grace, producing barrage after barrage of exploding beams.
Behind her, more angelic godblood took to the air, unleashing sweeping arcs of fiery light.
And behind them, tens of thousands of mortal troops marched forward under the lash of their overseers, steadily advancing toward Teotihuacan as their supply wagons creaked with heavy, muffled groans.
Eli sneered. Slicing through the incoming beam of light with a one-handed swing, he glanced at the massive host of mortal soldiers behind them and burst into hearty laughter.
"Hahahahaha!"
"Are all your Thracian godblood dead, then? You actually sent mortals to die in their place!"
"Wilhelm must be on his last legs! Do you really think these feeble wretches can stop Cassander?"
Yet this time, the Thracian mortal soldiers behind the angelic godblood were not merely there to watch. Pulling away the tarpaulins covering the wagons, they wheeled out black metal cannons, one by one.
Those were Thunder Hammers from the Cinder Empire!
Tirena pointed her greatsword toward the Holy City.
"Destroy them! Fire!"
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
Amidst thunderous roars and billowing clouds of acrid smoke, cannonballs traced graceful arcs through the sky before crashing into Cassander's battle lines.
These pieces were merely obsolete models discarded by the Cinder Empire, firing solid shot rather than modern explosive shells.
Even so, when solid iron slammed into packed ranks, it wreaked terrible carnage. Caught entirely off guard, many Titan godblood were battered and wounded by the impacts.
Though a cannon's destructive power could not match the spells of the Arcane Legion, their sheer number made up the difference.
The Kingdom of Thrace had purchased no fewer than thirty-five thousand Thunder Hammer Mark II cannons, and several thousand had been brought to this very battlefield.
To man all this artillery, Wilhelm had mustered more than seventy thousand mortal troops—an army that the nations of the Northlands could only field by straining every last resource, but which amounted to little for the Kingdom of Thrace.
Watching the cannonballs rain down from the sky, Eli casually reached out his hand—
Thud!
A dull impact sounded.
The cannonball was caught dead in Eli's grip. Glowing red-hot, it gave off plumes of white smoke.
Hiss... Crack!
Applying steady force, he crushed the iron sphere to pieces in his bare hand.
"Such things..."
"Their power is immense—enough to allow mortals to harm godblood. And there are so many of them."
Eli stared at the dark, gaping muzzles lined up in the distance, his expression suddenly turning grim.
Even the solar ballistas along the city walls required thoroughly trained veterans to operate, to say nothing of their exorbitant cost and limited numbers.
Looking closer at the mortal ranks, he noticed they were also armed with strange, short staves that continuously fired high-velocity projectiles with far greater punch than ordinary arrows.
"Those weapons... what in the world are they?"
Eli's frown deepened, the contempt in his eyes giving way to stunned disbelief.
Chapter 416