Chapter 22: The Sorrow of Hilos (1)

Chaos had broken out. 

Everything was in chaos.

From the moment that giant whale flew above Hilos City, the seaside capital of the kingdom had sunk into a quagmire of panic and disorder in just a few short minutes.

People scattered in all directions. 

Bamboo stalls and signs were knocked over carelessly, goods of every kind rolled across the ground, and the air filled with the cries of children and the roars of adults.

“Get out of the way! All of you, get out of my way! Let me through first!”

“Mom! Mom! Where are you? Waaah…”

“Damn it, where are the guards? What the hell are you all doing? Hurry up and shoot that monster out of the sky!”

Ed pulled Bailis along as he sprinted madly toward the city gates through the pandemonium.

“Ed… Ed!”

Bailis’s physical condition was far from good. After only this short distance, the girl was already panting heavily.

“Aren’t… aren’t we going to buy a carriage anymore?”

“Idiot!”

Ed snapped without turning his head.

“The demons in the sky won’t politely wait for us to buy a carriage and then leisurely drive out of the city! Since it showed up here, it’s most likely here to slaughter every human in sight!”

The relationship between demons and humans was that terrible.

The Nolan Empire sat at the border between the northern and southern continents—the very line separating human and demon territory. 

As a native of the empire, Ed had personally killed no fewer than dozens of demon scouts. 

He knew very well that once demons and humans met, it was almost always a fight to the death with no possibility of peace.

“Then… then where are we going now?”

“The city gates! Only by getting out of the city will we have any chance of survival!”

The pair raced toward the gates, but Hilos itself was enormous and their current location was quite far from the exit. 

For the time being, they could not even see the gates in the distance.

“Damn it!”

Ed cursed angrily.

He hated himself right now for not having two extra legs, because at a time like this even the chance to survive seemed extremely slim.

As for fighting that giant whale?

Ed cautiously glanced upward. 

The giant whale in the sky seemed to have no immediate intention of attacking. 

It simply circled slowly above the city, apparently calculating the best place to strike.

Just looking at its size, even if it simply crashed straight into the city, the shockwave from that instant alone would probably kill most ordinary people in the entire city.

If they wanted to kill the giant whale without damaging the city, they could only hope the mages in the Mages’ Tower would step up. 

But Ed had no idea how many mages were still stationed in this city or what their strength truly was.

So fighting it was out of the question. Right now, escaping with their lives was the only priority.

“Ed!”

The girl suddenly cried out in alarm.

“It looks like it’s about to attack!”

The giant whale demon had finally found the right angle. It aimed at the city below and opened its abyss-like maw.

A massive amount of mana evaporated as ominous energy rapidly gathered inside that mouth.

Even just watching the charging process, it was clear this would be an incredibly terrifying spell. With Ed’s own ability, he would probably find it very hard to survive it.

Ed ground his teeth in hatred, but he could only keep pulling Bailis along, speeding up as he ran toward where he remembered the city gates to be.

But at that very moment, he suddenly sensed an extremely vast mana fluctuation rising from somewhere within the city. In just a few breaths, it swept across the entire city.

That direction…

While still running, Ed’s pupils shrank.

The Mages’ Tower?

He dared not stop, but he tilted his head slightly and used his peripheral vision to glance at the tall tower standing in the upper district. 

Compared to what Ed had seen before, it now looked completely different. 

Unknown patterns all over the tower’s surface had begun to glow with a faint, holy white light, giving it an almost sacred aura for a moment.

Ed recognized those patterns.

The Mages’ Tower was called the Mages’ Tower for a reason. It naturally provided special benefits to the mages inside it.

Normally, those benefits manifested as faster mana channeling, quicker casting, and greater power.

But when the mages needed to defend against external enemies, the tower could use the special patterns on its body and the ones spreading underground throughout the entire city to rapidly gather the mana of every mage inside. 

The tower itself would then act as the highest-grade mana medium to complete a large-scale spell far more powerful and ferocious than anything possible in normal times!

In the few seconds Ed spent thinking, the light on the Mages’ Tower grew especially dazzling. 

Then a pale-blue hemispherical barrier rose from the edge of Hilos and shot straight up, positioning itself between the giant whale and the city.

It was a high-tier defensive spell Ed had never seen before.

Its defensive performance aside, the approach was quite solid—build the defense first, then counterattack. 

This was a common strategy among mages when facing unknown enemies, and using it in this situation was perfectly normal.

Ed kept running without slowing down and nodded inwardly. 

Judging by the scale of the defensive spell, there were probably at least several high-tier mages stationed in that tower.

The spell formed quickly. 

In no more than ten seconds, the barrier had completely separated the giant whale from the city.

“Ed, are we safe now?”

Bailis asked, gasping for breath.

“Not yet.”

Ed shook his head while still running.

“I don’t think that demon is so simple. It’s unlikely to be stopped by a single defensive spell.”

Before he finished speaking, the giant whale’s attack finally finished charging.

An extremely thick black beam of light suddenly erupted from its mouth!

It was dark-type magic!

As for the target, judging by the direction, it was most likely aimed at the Mages’ Tower!

The next instant, the black beam slammed viciously into the barrier. 

Ed thought he faintly heard a teeth-grinding creak rising from the point of impact.

It won’t hold.

He made that judgment.

The mages inside the tower clearly had no intention of simply watching the barrier shatter. Once again, dazzling light burst from the tall tower’s body.

An arrow of terrifying length and size suddenly appeared at the top of the Mages’ Tower, pointing straight at the open-mouthed giant whale in the sky!

At least they’re not just taking hits.

Ed breathed a sigh of relief.

He recognized this spell.

Eighth-tier attack spell—Arrow of Destruction. It was one of the more lethal high-tier light spells. 

Now cast by multiple high-tier mages working together and amplified by the Mages’ Tower, its power would only be greater.

In a place the black beam was not attacking, the barrier silently opened a small gap. 

Then the light arrow tore through the air and shot straight through that opening toward the giant whale!

Will it win?

Ed stared at the clash of spell and magic in the sky and could not help breaking into a nervous sweat.

But there was no explosion, no earth-shaking noise.

There was only silent annihilation.

Under the erosion of the black beam, the light arrow vanished in midair before it could even touch the giant whale’s body.

Although the black beam had dimmed slightly, it was ultimately the victor of this confrontation. It even retained enough strength to continue eroding the defensive barrier.

The mages inside the tower finally seemed to panic.

Ed watched as the variety of spells flying out from the tower suddenly increased. 

That meant they had begun fighting individually. 

Yet even their combined strike had failed to work, so what chance did scattered, weaker spells have?

Sure enough, all kinds of spells plunged into the black beam and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Fools.

Ed cursed inwardly.

He knew the mages had pitifully little real combat experience, but being unable to maintain even the most basic combined assault was still rather disgraceful.

And at this moment, the battle seemed to take another turn.

After more than a minute of continuous erosion, the barrier could no longer hold. 

A tiny crack slowly appeared on its surface, then spread rapidly like a spiderweb.

“We’re finished.”

Ed muttered.

The barrier shattered with a boom.

The hand Bailis was using to grip Ed suddenly tightened. 

Her fingernails seemed to dig through his clothes and into his skin.

She was nervous.

But Ed was even more nervous, to the point that he completely ignored the pain from his hand. 

In his vision there was only the black beam in the sky.

What happened next was unexpected. After completely destroying the barrier, the black beam simply dissipated into the air instead of smashing down onto the Mages’ Tower as Ed had imagined.

Not enough mana? Or some other reason?

Ed could not figure it out, and the giant whale’s next action left him feeling even stranger.

Instead of casting another spell, it endured the frenzied magical attacks from the tower and slowly descended, stopping at a position not far above Hilos City.

Ed was now close enough that he could clearly see the mysterious patterns on the giant whale’s body and the swollen bulge of its belly…

A swollen belly?

Ed stared fixedly at the giant whale’s stomach. It was bulging high, as if it contained an enormous boulder inside.

But that could not possibly be just a rock.

The giant whale opened its mouth again. Countless black dots poured out from that huge maw, forming a black waterfall in midair.

No, those were not black dots, and it was not a waterfall.

As the black dots grew larger in his vision, Ed’s face filled with astonishment.

They were actually individual demons with ferocious expressions!

That whale had been carrying an entire stomach full of demons! And upon closer look, they were all winged flying demons!

And it was not over yet.

After the last “black dot” fell, mana surged once more inside that giant mouth.

Then an even thicker, even more spectacular black beam erupted!

Under this strike, every defensive spell was pierced straight through, every attack spell was completely annihilated, and the destructive black beam met no further resistance. 

In Ed’s shocked gaze, it slammed directly onto the tall tower with a deafening crash.

The ground seemed to buzz and shake at that moment. Together with the sounds of weeping, roaring, and shouting, it formed a chaotic symphony in their ears.

A moment later, the tall tower had completely vanished from sight.

They had lost. The mages inside the Mages’ Tower had been defeated.

While Ed pulled Bailis along and ran for his life, he clearly recognized this despairing reality.

Struck directly by magic of that power, the mages inside would be lucky to organize another attack. How many could even survive was unknown.

The flying demons in the sky no longer faced any obstruction from the mages. 

They rained down into Hilos City like drops of water.

The cries and chaotic footsteps grew louder in their ears.

Ed’s face grew paler and paler.

The demon invasion had now truly begun.