Mydei lifted his head, gazing at the leaden sky. Raindrops fell into his resolute eyes without making him blink.
"I swear in the name of the King of Kremnos: should the battle line ultimately prove untenable, even at the cost of a thousand scars and a hundred lives—Phainon and I will fight to the last, covering the allied forces' retreat."
...
The curtain of rain fell like iron. The firmament seemed torn by a wound that would never heal, icy, bone-chilling rain pouring down in a frenzy, merging heaven and earth into a blurry, monochrome grey.
Castrum Kremnos trembled violently amidst this despairing deluge and the endless tide of darkness, like the last lone boat in a storm, perpetually on the verge of being utterly swallowed.
Below the walls writhed countless twisted, writhing and ominous creatures.
Their nerve-grating, metal-scraping shrieks converged into a deathly chorus from the deepest pits of hell, continuously battering against the crumbling defences .
Mydei—the Demigod of Strife—was like a beast cornered in a hopeless fight.
He struggled ferociously against the Black Tide below the walls. Each punch, each collision erupted with deafening booms, pulverizing nearby monsters into dust.
Yet, his exquisitely crafted armor was already shattered beyond recognition, revealing the crisscrossing, rapidly healing wounds beneath. Rain mixed with blood streamed down his body unceasingly; every breath was like working a broken bellows—searing and labored.
He didn't even dare to embrace death at this moment. He didn't know if Castorice could bring him back swiftly from the Nether Realm now.
He feared his temporary fall would make his people pay an even heavier price.
With a furious punch, he sent a massive Black Tide spawn flying backward. Seizing the moment, he raised his head. Rain instantly blurred his vision, but in the darkness, he seemed to catch a glimpse of white.
His voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible, yet it still carried an unextinguishable flame: "How long... have we held?!"
Beside him, a Kremnoan soldier with a youthful face but eyes of steel, his hands a mangled, bloody mess, gripped half a shattered shield with all his might. With pride that defied their dire straits, he roared back, his voice piercing the rain and shrieks:
"Reporting, My King! We... we've held for two and a half hours! A full two and a half hours!"
Mydei paused, seemingly surprised by such a brief yet interminable measure of time.
Then, he burst into a raspy, yet utterly exhilarated laugh. The sound, amidst the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, was particularly desolate and heroic: "Hah... hahaha! Good! Well done! All of you! You haven't disgraced yourselves!"
On another front, Phainon moved like a bolt of white lightning across the battlefield.
The greatsword "Dawnmaker" became a storm of destruction in his hands. Wherever it passed, Black Tide spawns fell like wheat before the scythe. Each flash of the blade cleared a small area, only for it to be instantly filled again by more darkness.
His fight was like a drop in the bucket against the ocean; individual valor seemed tragically futile before the endless tide. His breathing grew ragged, his arms trembling slightly from the sustained, intense combat.
Just as he cleared another area with a swing and caught a momentary breath, his gaze suddenly locked—
In the distance, beneath the dark canopy that threatened to swallow everything, a figure appeared abruptly, silently, atop the highest battlement.
A fierce gale whipped his dark robes, making them snap and billow like a standard suddenly raised.
A weary yet genuine smile tugged unconsciously at the corner of Phainon's mouth. He shouted toward that figure with all his might, in a tone of mock complaint:
"Hey! Phaethon! Why don't you learn from the heroes in the legends?"
"We're not even at our last gasp yet! Isn't your entrance... a bit too early?!"
However, the figure on the battlement slowly lifted his head. What was revealed was not a similarly lighthearted smile, but a profound, almost tangible depth of remorse and gravity.
That gaze seemed to bear the weight of the entire world.
"Sorry," his voice was not loud, yet it strangely overwhelmed all the battlefield's clamor, shrieks, and thunder.
It clearly reached the ears of Mydei, Phainon, and every soldier still able to hear outside the walls, resonating as if spoken directly within their very souls.
"I didn't arrive early... I'm late!"
Before his words fully faded, he took a step off the battlement. His figure vanished from the spot like a ghost.
The next moment—
*BOOM!!!*
Like a meteor from the heavens, he descended with indescribable, terrifying momentum, crashing squarely into the very heart of the densest monster tide before Mydei and Phainon!
The shockwave from his landing exploded outward in a ring, pulverizing every Black Tide spawn within a hundred-meter radius, regardless of size!
The earth groaned under his feet, cracking with spider-web fissures.
And what settled with his final word was—centered on his landing point—the sudden expansion of an indescribable domain of Laws!
It wasn't a single power, but the combined invocation of multiple Authorities! The whisper and manifestation of the world's own laws!
The Authority of 「Earth」thundered. Regional gravity instantly multiplied a hundredfold!
All Black Tide spawns within the area jerked to a sudden halt, as if caught in an invisible mire. Their limbs emitted sickening sounds of contortion. Many weaker individuals were directly crushed and flattened by their own weight!
The Authority of「Law」followed immediately, transforming into intangible shackles, forcibly defining this domain—
Edict: "Here, all belonging to the Black Tide are forbidden movement!"
The power of laws forcefully intervened reality. Even the struggling, powerful individuals slowed to a crawl, like frames in slow motion!
And this was just the beginning!
As Phaethon plunged onto the battlefield, the upheaval in heaven and earth escalated further!
*"HUM—!"*
A low-frequency yet soul-shaking hum resonated through the world! The torrential downpour of icy rain, defying all reason, suddenly froze in mid-air, transforming into billions of suspended, crystalline jewels!
In the next instant, they collectively reversed course, defying gravity, soaring upward like countless reversed meteors, crashing toward s the cloud covered sky!
Phaethon. He merely stood there, not even having taken active action yet, and the very "Laws" of the entire battlefield seemed to twist and reconstructed according to his will!
He drew the greatsword Judgment of Shamash. Its blade flowed with blinding crimson light.
Now, Phaethon moved with a strange, almost archaic grace reminiscent of a princess from a lost kingdom, performing a lethal dance amidst the surging ocean of Black Tide spawns.
Wherever the sword's light passed, monsters fell like stalks of wheat. With a single step, ten foes perished; across a thousand-mile campaign, nothing could hinder him.
Having dealt with the shrieking enemies pressing close around him, he did not once turn his gaze back to survey the corpse-strewn battlefield behind.