Ryan's invasion of the Unholy Hymn was something many across the continent had long anticipated, but the war unfolded in a way that left every onlooker utterly bewildered.
First, the Dragon Tyrant Armament unleashed terrifying power upon the battlefield, reducing numerous Gates of Hell to nothingness.
It was assumed the Unholy Hymn would immediately open the remaining Gates of Hell to fight Ryan to the bitter end, or surrender outright to avoid senseless slaughter.
Yet neither scenario came to pass. The Gates of Hell remained where they were, the Council of Iniquity did not surrender, and it did not even issue a single order to the front line.
This left everyone completely baffled.
When inquisitive observers looked into the matter, they discovered an accident had occurred in the royal capital of the Unholy Hymn.
It was a terrible fire. Half the capital was plunged into a sea of flames, with countless people wailing amid the inferno. A colossal chasm tore across the earth, and countless monsters of Hell surged forth, dragging the souls of those consumed by the blaze straight down into Hell.
It sounded unbelievable, yet as countless reports flooded in, every piece of intelligence told the same story: the royal capital of the Unholy Hymn was destroyed by fire, and smaller blazes had broken out across the kingdom.
The thirteen Unholy Ones and the key figures of their families were all consumed by the flames and dragged into Hell.
When the Ryanites learned of this, the three-day deadline had just arrived. In other words, it was time for Ryan to launch its second offensive.
As long as they dismantled all the remaining Gates of Hell, they could rout the disorganized tiefling army and smoothly conquer the kingdom.
Ryan's young emperor was delighted. Never had he expected his personal campaign to proceed so smoothly, and he promptly delivered a speech.
Though his oratory skills were lacking—his delivery overly agitated, his enunciation garbled, his breath weak—the content was genuinely rousing. Those tieflings had gone to Hell! This was punishment handed down by the Lord of the Dawn, and every enemy who opposed Ryan would fall into Hell!
No matter how shrill and feeble the young emperor's voice sounded, the fact laid bare before them was undeniable.
Before they had even launched a proper assault, the tiefling rulers had been completely wiped out. If this wasn't a miracle, what was?
Just as the Ryanites were howling in fervor to overrun the Unholy Hymn, an unexpected voice came from outside the city.
"This is an unjust war!"
The young yet resolute voice echoed from outside the city, freezing the Ryanite soldiers who were listening to the young emperor's speech in their tracks!
The young emperor roared with fury, "Who is that?! Arrest him!"
The guards rushed to locate this blasphemer, but they soon realized the voice was coming from the sky.
Someone was flying in the air above Liuyan City, using some kind of amplification magic to shout down at the city—and every word he spoke was utter treason.
This person was denying the legitimacy of the war, cataloging the war crimes Ryan had committed over the years, and denouncing the increasingly extreme religious fanaticism consuming the empire.
The young emperor gritted his teeth in fury. This was rebellion!
Not only was the content outrageous, but the speaker's oratorical skill far surpassed his own. Across such a great distance, every word rang out with crystal clarity and potent rhetorical power.
The young emperor ordered furiously, "Shoot him down!"
A guard hurriedly answered, "Your Majesty, he is flying too high—he is beyond the reach of magical attacks."
"Useless trash! I'll do it myself!"
Yanking the blood-red rose necklace at his chest, the young emperor drifted up into the air.
Transforming once more into a colossal time dragon, he surged toward the sky.
A beat of his wings whipped up swirling sand and stones, forcing the Ryanite soldiers on the ground to squint.
The time dragon soared upward. With his draconic vision, he could clearly make out the figure from afar, and the young emperor instantly recognized who this treasonous rebel was.
"Alan Watson! So it's you, traitor!"
The young emperor let out a furious roar, opening his maw to unleash a blast of temporal breath at Alan.
Countless motes of light and shadow, like silver shavings, burst forth to engulf Alan. A single blast of this breath could instantly reduce him to withered bones, as if he had been dead for hundreds of years.
Yet right before it struck Alan's body, a loud buzzing hum erupted behind him, and he shot higher into the sky at unbelievable speed, effortlessly dodging the dragon breath.
The young emperor was taken aback. How could Alan fly so fast?
Though the young emperor was accomplished in neither literature nor martial arts, he still possessed some basic common sense—for instance, the Fly spell could not exceed seventy kilometers per hour. Yet Alan's speed just now was several times faster than Fly, outpacing even dragon breath.
How was that possible?
Hovering high in the sky, Alan was surprised by his own speed as well. He thought in awe, *This flight pack is actually this incredible. That lich really made something extraordinary!*
The flight pack was something Anbaixiu had delivered after tracking him down, saying Alan would find a use for it. Alan had understood Anbaixiu's intention at once: he didn't want him to throw his life away.
Though he had tried his best, he and Frodo hadn't managed to find a single other person willing to join their rebellion over the past few days.
Two people could not stop this war, so Alan had decided to have Frodo hide for the time being while he took the risk alone.
Anbaixiu's flight pack was timely help in his hour of need, giving Alan a fighting chance to survive.
Alan was no longer the naive boy he once was. Having experienced the war firsthand and survived countless battles, he understood all too well just how formidable this flight pack was.
Nothing in the world today could fly this fast. Equipping a paladin with it might not be of great consequence, but what if a ranger or a wizard wore it?
A ranged combatant who couldn't be caught—what a terrifying adversary that would be.
Still, realizing that would be rather difficult.
That sudden burst of acceleration had sent a jolt of pain through Alan's shoulders. A few more bursts like that, and he would likely injure himself.
How could an ordinary ranger or wizard withstand such terrifying g-forces? A single burst would probably snap their bones. Even if the pack were mounted on heavy armor, that brutal acceleration would make the blood rush from their heads, knocking out anyone with a weaker constitution.
Thinking it over, this thing seemed best suited for the undead!
The thought of tens of thousands of undead soldiers outfitted with these flight packs conducting aerial strikes against ground troops made him shudder at how horrifying that spectacle would be.
*Fortunately, that lich doesn't seem overly evil.*
Though his mind wandered, Alan knew full well what he had come to do. Even as he evaded the time dragon's attacks, he continued to project his beliefs at the top of his lungs.
Regardless of how many people agreed, he had to say everything on his mind, serving as a spark that might awaken more people of Ryan.
Controlling the time dragon's body, the young emperor strained with all his might to catch up to Alan.
Yet no matter how hard he flapped his wings, he could only eat Alan's exhaust.
The air compressed by the magic array carried a faint scorched smell. A dragon's sense of smell was far keener than a human's, and being forced to trail behind inhaling exhaust fumes drove the young emperor nearly mad with rage.
He desperately wanted to use the power of time to turn Alan into a pile of bones, but while stationary targets were simple enough, a tiny target darting erratically all across the sky was impossible for his senses to lock onto.
Ultimately, he was just a frail, untrained boy; even granted the body of a dragon, he could hardly bring out its full power.
The young emperor could only watch helplessly as Alan spoke with impassioned eloquence, relentlessly denouncing Ryan's crimes over the years—crimes that were overwhelmingly the fault of the Ryan royal family.
Every general of the royalist faction was a staunch fanatic. Taking the Iron-Blood General, Rachel Angelo, as an example, they had committed grave atrocities more than once, with massacres of other races being a routine occurrence.
These were well-documented crimes. When no one spoke of them before, people simply pretended not to see. But as Alan recited each heinous act one after another, some of the Ryanites below began to fall into deep thought.
Not everyone could stomach the slaughter of women and children, and quite a few of these Ryanites had themselves been criticized for not being extreme enough.
Perhaps it was just lacking focus during prayer, being unenthusiastic about enlisting, or seemingly not training hard enough—if you hadn't trained until your bones cracked, you weren't trying hard enough. When others nobly chose to donate their wages to the Church of the Lord of the Dawn, how could you have the gall to buy yourself new clothes?
Such things—details Alan recounted that everyone had witnessed—all stemmed from the Ryan imperial family. Almost every day, they pushed Ryan's faith deeper into an extreme abyss. They ostentatiously rewarded citizens who gave unlimited devotion and incited the populace to despise and condemn those who dared to think for themselves.
A man who donated money meant for medical treatment for his wife and child, leaving his family to die of illness, would be granted a personal audience with royalty and showered with supreme honor, which in turn pressured his neighbors into emptying their fortunes as well.
Although the Tribunal would step in to provide aid as soon as they learned of such cases, more often than not it was too late. And no one could criticize the actions of the Ryan royal family, for they carried out their extremism in the name of faith; oppose them, and you were a heretic.
Fanaticism was poisoning their faith, turning beauty into ugliness and glory into sin. It was only because Ryan had such a solid foundation that it could endure being torn apart like this.
Yet now, the turning point was near at hand.
When Alan first began his speech, the Ryanite soldiers had been filled with righteous fury, wishing they could fly into the sky and tear him to pieces. But as Alan shared what he had seen and heard, many began to empathize.
Their once-proud heads sank low, as though they could no longer bear to look at the sun in the sky.
In the entirety of Liuyan City, not a soul would speak a kind word for the traitor Alan, nor would anyone answer his call; this war was bound to continue.
Yet these Ryanites now knew one thing: someone already believed Ryan was on the wrong path, and that person had chosen another way.
After chasing for quite some time, the young emperor realized he truly couldn't catch him and could only return to Liuyan City.
Refusing to pay any more mind to the traitor Alan, he simply shouted his command, "All forces, attack! We march to bring down the Unholy Hymn!"
Chapter 344