Battle of the Fort (3)

The battle at Fort Kesta lasted over four days. Nidhogg's screen of light didn't show the whole battle chronologically. He controlled it so that only the highlights were featured, such as the attack of the corpses, Alissanda's defeat of a gigantic mutant, the magi joining in and so on.

In the screen, they all saw Angelista, Innilis and the others. There were even multiple angles and scenes, some showing other priests of Pyro supporting Eirinn in a divine formation. She was in the center of the formation and praying nonstop with her hands together and eyes closed. Thanks to her, the formation let out a strong sacred power nonstop. If not for the formation, the battle would've ended in two days.

Seeing Eirinn and Innilis, Annelotte felt her heart tighten. It wasn't that she was worried about their safety; she had pestered Angelista many times about it before. While the dark elf was a little odd, to say the least, Annelotte did trust her for serious matters. Instead, she was worried about Leguna, who was in hiding. She could be certain that he saw the screen and worried that he would charge in recklessly.

Fortunately, his self-control had gotten much better lately. Even after the screen showed quite a number of scenes of Innilis fighting, Annelotte didn't feel anything in the house change. That meant Leguna and the others were still holding themselves back and didn't turn reckless because of the screen.

She calmed down and continued watching. The screen now showed Angelista and Alissanda taking on the bone dragon. When Angelista was struck by the dragon's breath, Annelotte felt a little worried, not just for Innilis's safety but for the dark elf's as well. She only breathed a sigh of relief after seeing Angelista recover and stand back up energetically once she was recovered.

The screen turned back to Alissanda fighting the bone dragon. Lisana felt tense the whole time. After that, they saw him in his pure light form. Even though it was all within the screen, they could feel the power that surged through him. They knew that Alissanda had broken through at the crucial moment into the saint realm.

"Congratulations to him and you," Annelotte said to Lisana.

However, the latter didn't seem the slightest bit relieved. She shook her head and whispered, "I don't care if he's a saint or not, so long as he's alive."

Annelotte held her hand and said, "It'll be fine."

"The little bastard of the eagle family," Nidhogg muttered as he cut his steak, "I had wanted to kill him with the bone dragon. Too bad."

Lisana turned to glare at him but didn't say much. After she calmed down, she knew how large the gap between his and her power was. Rather than arguing or getting into a fight, it would be better to just calm down and finish watching the battle. And based on his tone, Alissanda did seem to have survived.

They saw from the screen how Alissanda slowly gained more ground after his breakthrough. They didn't know whether it was a new power he got, but they saw him use his own power to open a dimensional doorway to an upper plane and summoning five angels to fight for him. Perhaps the beings from the higher plane hated the undead far too much; they didn't need Alissanda to order them to start fighting the bone dragon off.

The angels were not to be underestimated. Not only were they all as capable as high-order warriors in close combat, they could also use powerful divine miracles and could even fly. With their help, Alissanda and Angelista quickly exterminated the bone dragon. However, just as Angelista was about to claim the remains, she got into conflict with one of the angels.

The angel believed that bone dragons were evil and dangerous existences and it was plain to see why a high-order magus would want its remains. It didn't help that she was an evil dark elf, so the angel got into a fight immediately without even saying a word. Angelista didn't hold back against the one that tried to stop her from claiming her spoils either. Her silver eyes flashed and she launched a mental shock against the angel. She then immediately dictated Death's Finger to kill the poor angel.

Seeing her go so wild over the remains of a bone dragon, the rest broke out in cold sweat. Fortunately, it was rather chaotic during the battle and she used the swiftest methods to dispatch that angel, so she didn't draw the attention of the other four.

"This female dark elf is rather capable," Nidhogg praised, "Nowadays, soulgraspers are even rarer than the gifted."

The others kept quiet and watched the battle unfold.

Even after the bone dragon was eliminated, the state of the battlefield didn't change for the better. The corpses swarmed into the valley like an unrelenting tide and one warrior after another fell. Even Alissanda and Angelista's full might wasn't able to stop the tide in its entirety.

The screen changed angles nonstop and flashed to the day and the next. To conserve energy, everyone, Alissanda included, took turns to rest up. After she finished her meditation, it was his turn to sleep, and when he woke up, she would return to meditating.

On the morning of the fourth day, which was present day, the corpses had completely breached Fort Kesta. The whole of Goldeagle, the brigade that was famous across the continent, including their leader, Jast, had perished. There were only sparks of futile resistance remaining in Fort Kesta.

When Angelista concluded that the battle was over, she didn't hesitate to get Eirinn, Innilis, Sasha and some two to three students of the academy that managed to survive back to the magic academy. She used the last traces of her mana to use a transference spell. Before she left, she didn't even bother to let Alissanda know. During that time, he was still fighting the sea of corpses alone with Host of Radiance and his other gifts.

"This can't be happening…" Lisana began to despair.

Annelotte clutched her hand even tighter in hopes of giving her some warmth and support.

In the screen, Alissanda fought on tiresomely. He got fresh wounds just as his old ones were healing up. Anyone could see that he was being pushed to his limits.

But then, he roared as if he was giving some kind of signal. The screen turned to show the command tower of Fort Kesta. The beams of light that spilt out of it grew brighter and brighter before finally, the whole screen was filled with the light.

Myr and the rest suddenly turned around and readied himself. If Nidhogg was going to catch them by surprise, that moment would be it, but he continued to eat away at his steak without making any other movements.

The light slowly subsided. When all returned to normal, they were completely speechless. All the undead surrounding the fort had vanished, even those in the valley. At the last moment, either Alissanda or the priests of the church used their last resort, a never-before-seen super divine miracle, to wipe out all the undead creatures there. By then, Alissanda was the only one who survived. Even the priests in the tower had all died off.

The sight of that caused Lisana to slump in her chair weakly.

"While I'm not too happy with the result, I have to admit that the bastard from the eagle family did manage to survive," Nidhogg muttered as he ate the last of his food.

"It's fine! He's fine! It's okay now!" Annelotte said, hugging the tearful Lisana tightly.

"Thank… thank goodness!" she muttered.

"Goodness? Even though Alissanda survived, did you know what he did to drive off all the undead?!" Nidhogg raised his voice after finishing off the last piece of steak.

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