Chapter 461: Bishop Medallion [I]
Cadets were flying. Everywhere.
Anyone who got too close to that tentacled monster was swiped aside like a dead leaf in an autumn breeze.
An Ivory Brawler charged at Reiner with his body coated in hardened crystal. He was a massive dude who looked like he probably spent his weekends wrestling bears.
But Riener barely registered him as a threat. One of the thick, slick appendages lashed out with the crack of a sonic boom and slammed into the Brawler’s chest.
The crystal-armor shattered immediately.
And the impact sent the boy skipping backward across the muddy clearing like a stone over a pond before a shadowy blur — an Instructor — intercepted his trajectory, whisking him out of the warzone before his spine could snap against a boulder.
Eliminated.
From his spot slumped against the mossy tree, Ivan watched the absolute carnage with wide, horrified eyes.
Damn that Samael! Couldn’t he have stationed someone a little less terrifying to guard this Sector?
No, actually, e to think of it… the possibility was that Samael didn’t even know that Riener was in his faction.
In fact, Ivan was willing to bet his life’s savings on the fact that Samael didn’t have a damn clue who half the people in his own army were.
The guy barely remembered the names of his own inner circle. A brooding moner like Riener Tovak, even if he had been on Samael’s team before, was probably just another forgettable face for him.
“Deploy a heavy hitter to the Western Bishop Sector,” That was probably the full extent of the Tyrant’s thought process.
For heaven’s sake, how could a person so petent be so inpetent at the same time!?
A second appendage whipped through the air, snapping a nearby pine tree clean in half.
The falling trunk nearly came crashing down onto two more Ivory Cadets, forcing them to roll through the thick mud to avoid being squashed flat.
Ivan winced, nursing his throbbing ribs as he scrambled back to his feet behind the safety of the foliage.
This wasn’t good.
Reiner was too powerful. Just one strike from him all but snapped Ivan in half like a twig. If the moner kept thrashing around with those massive tentacles, this battle would be lost.
He would flatten the entire clearing and then move to help his Bishop. These past few days, from what Ivan had seen of Casey, he could tell she was strong.
But was she strong enough to take on this eldritch horror while gunning for the Bishop’s Medallion? Not a chance.
Ivan bit back a curse and forced his legs to stabilize under him. Then he dashed forward.
He didn’t charge in. He wasn’t suicidal, and his ribs felt like a bag of loose marbles. Instead, Ivan stayed just outside the reach, keeping the burning tree trunks and thick gray smoke between himself and Riener’s terrifying periphery.
He needed to draw the monster’s focus without getting turned into red paste in the first three seconds.
Thankfully, this was a war. There were other Cadets around. Someone could help Ivan. Namely, one of his friends. And they did.
From somewhere high in the dark sky, two thin streaks of searing red light speared down. The laser beams hit the mud at Riener’s feet and instantly swept across, cauterizing three of his thick tentacles on the spot.
The dark, slick appendages severed, dropping into the churned earth where they kept on writhing like dying snakes.
As the acrid stench of burnt flesh filled the air, Riener threw his head back and let out a guttural roar of pain. Then his gaze snapped eyes upward.
High above, hovering in the air without any wings, was a young man. Tall, lean, dark hair, handsome as Ivan ever remembered even in the middle of this war, and eyes glowing a shade of crimson so intense that heat was humming from them like an open furnace.
Viktor, like the knight in shining armor he had always been, came to save the day just in time.
Only the day wasn’t yet saved.
The cauterized stumps on Riener’s abdomen pulsated wildly. Then, four more tentacles burst forth from his flesh, these slicker and thicker and dripping a dark, viscous liquid that hissed the second it splashed onto the muddy grass.
Could this guy get any more gross?
Two of the new tentacles lashed out to swat away at Viktor.
Viktor, however, very casually tilted his head to the side to let the first massive appendage whistle past his cheek, then he flew up to make the other one miss his legs by mere inches.
The sheer air pressure from the missed swings sliced through a cluster of tall pine trees behind the flying boy, felling them like matchsticks.
Once Viktor was done climbing to a safe distance, he began shooting more concentrated, pinpoint beams of red-hot plasma down into the clearing like an orbital bombardment.
Each high-temperature laser burned the dark canopy, scorched flesh, exploded boulders, and forced Riener to cross two of his fleshy appendages over his chest to shield himself from a fatal strike.
The heat was so intense that the muddy ground around the moner began to bake and crack into dry, steam-belching clay.
While it was still not enough to put Riener down, Viktor was doing a brilliant job keeping him busy.
Ivan made use of that distraction by willing Essence into his legs and breaking into a sprint. He had almost closed distance between himself and the tentacled abomination when a sharp glint caught the side of his vision.
He threw his trident around to block whatever attack was ing his way, the metal-on-metal impact ringing like a struck anvil the very next second.
Cling—!!
Ivan felt the force of the blow in his teeth as he was driven back two paces, his boots gouging deep furrows into the damp ground.
When he looked back up, he found a hostile girl blocking his path to Riener’s exposed flank. She was short, dainty… and had curved blades for legs.
Yeah, everything below her knees were replaced by gleaming, crescent-shaped scythes of some kind of polished bluish-bronze metal that ended in needle-sharp points.
She stood balanced effortlessly on those thin metal tips, her cold, yellow eyes locked onto Ivan’s.
“Noble scum,” she spat. “You’re not touching Tovak.”
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