"Do you even have to ask?" Deacon asked as he gave him a bloodied grin.
Before Bonehead could respond, the toll of the System rang out across the arrow-and corpse-strewn battlefield, cutting through the chaos like a hammer to the skull as a translucent blue panel blinked into existence before them.
*Holy Lieutenant Varos has been slain by the combined efforts of the Ashen Fangs, Ironlight Company, and Silverfang Marauders*
After reading the System Panel, Deacon's head snapped toward the far ridge where the fighting was thickest, a couple of kilometers away from where he currently stood, catching glimpses of cheering and shouting around a massively armored knight that had various blades, arrows, and the like sunk into its body.
"Crap," Deacon muttered, his previously bloodthirsty attitude had now dried up and left him sobered up. "That leaves only one for us to get… and I don't like those odds, seeing that we don't even know where Holy Knight Elira is."
"True…" Bonehead muttered as he took the empty potion bottle from Deacon and tucked it into his Spatial Satchel while warily eyeing the arrow-ridden battlefield as it slowly started to fill in with surrounding soldiers and knights. "But it's not that bad of a thing that those three groups got it, so the most we have to contend with is one other Party from the Undead Kingdom's side."
"What do you-?" Deacon asked him before stopping himself from finishing as he realized what Bonehead meant. "Never mind, I'm a dumbass. You're right."
… Yeah, the contribution points divided between three parties would be a third of ours, considering it was just us who killed the Lieutenant. Deacon noted as his eyes wandered to Jass, Sam, and Esmerelda, who were shielded by a sphere of wind and making their way towards Bonehead and himself. So, at most, we just have to worry about one other Party if they killed the last remaining Holy Lieutenant before we do.
However, just as he finished that thought, the chimes of the System rang once again, and a pair of System Panels appeared before him.
*Undead Lieutenant Morn has been slain by the Elven Coalition*
*Undead Lieutenant Rakesh has been slain by the Stormblades and the West Dominion*
Only one Lieutenant remained on each side, Deacon's stomach knotted at the realization that there was a single Lieutenant left on both sides, as it meant one thing:
"This is gonna turn this battlefield into more of a bloodbath than what it already is now," Sam complained as he, Jass, and Esmerelda were able to group back together with Deacon and Bonehead.
All around them, soldiers and knights from both sides lost what little order remained. Units scattered, men abandoning their commanders as they broke formation and fled in packs, each desperate to chase down whatever Lieutenant might still be breathing.
Bonehead spat a clot of dark sludge into the mud. "Idiots are gonna trample each other before they find anything."
"Where do you think we should start looking?" Esmerelda asked as she scoured their East side, searching for a heavily armored person in gold and white, and who was also atop a horse that was not really a horse, but a centaur in disguise.
"Not fucking again!" Jass shouted in exasperation as yet another chime of the System echoed across the battlefield, a few seconds before an explosion of flame erupted off in the distance, and a System Panel appeared in front of them all.
*Holy Lieutenant Elira has been slain by the Noblesse Dignity Party*
*With the death of the final Holy Lieutenant, the Generals of both Kingdoms have been released from their strongholds. By order of the Pontiffs, they will descend onto the battlefield to lead the final charge.*
"Fuck," Bonehead muttered from behind Deacon, who was now heading towards the center of the battlefield with everyone beginning to follow him.
"Yeah, looks like now it's a race to see who can kill the general first and snag the biggest share of points here on Floor Six," Jass said, not missing a beat as she bisected a desperate soldier who lunged at Sam as they entered the arrow-ridden battlefield, as it filled once more with the soldiers of both kingdoms.
The five of them pressed forward in a diamond formation with Deacon at the spearhead with his broadsword and shield combo, Bonehead protected in the middle, Jass covering the rear with her glaive, Sam holding the left flank with his earthen spikes, and Esmerelda keeping the right clear with gusts of razor-edged wind.
"Phalanx formation!" Deacon barely heard through the chaotic cacophony of soldiers and knights that were swarming them.
Liam? Deacon thought to himself in confusion as he cleaved through the midsections of three soldiers in his path before bashing his shield into the path of a sword aimed at his gut on the left.
His eyes, traveled towards the direction where he heard his voice come from and saw him not 15 feet away from him, wearing a black bandana with a grey skull on his right arm, and almost entirely surrounded by undead soldiers and cadets carrying massive spears and shields while in a Macedonian Phalanx formation, while he held a staff in hand and kept his bow and quiver on his back.
What the fuck? You could get them to help you? Deacon thought to himself in confusion.
"Fuck! I didn't even think you could do that," Deacon cursed as he mentally berated himself for not even attempting to do that.
Taking out his annoyance and self-anger onto the soldiers in front of him and picking up speed, Deacon propelled the Ravenlight Party forward.
"Halt!" Liam shouted as he slammed the butt of his staff onto the ground beneath him and amplified his voice – causing his Party and the massive battalion of soldiers that followed his orders to stop. "Mages, cast your flames and combine them to create a sea of flames! Shield bearers, protect the mages!"
Barely being able to hear Liam's orders, Deacon shouted his own orders to the mages of the Ravenlight Party as he cast Ignis and sent out a massive arc of flame that ate through the flesh and leather armor of the human soldiers in front of him.
"Sam, Esme! Take us up! High up!"
Without hesitation, the two mages halted the incantations they were chanting and focused on raising the earth beneath them, and that they did as Deacon and Jass focused on protecting Sam and Esmerelda while Bonehead covered them in a dome made of Manashields.
By the time they had risen fifteen feet into the air, half a kilometer in every direction around Liam's massive battalion had become a sea of flames, incinerating everything in its reach—and if Deacon hadn't caught Liam's commands through the chaos of the battlefield, the entire Ravenlight Party would have been swallowed by the inferno.
Twin beams of light erupted almost side by side: One, a blazing column of molten gold formed out of concentrated holy power that instantly incinerated all the undead soldiers within a 500-meter radius, and the other, a seething pillar of purple, undead miasma that transformed any holy soldiers within a 500-meter radius into undead soldiers.
The ground trembled beneath their feet as shockwaves ripped outward, scattering warriors, mages, corpses, and siege machines as though they were feathers in the wind.
The reaction of holy power and undead miasma colliding with one another hit Deacon's chest like a hammer, forcing the air from his lungs and beginning to push him back, while soldiers from both armies that were nearby, the two generals were flung screaming into the mud.
"Shit—hold!" Deacon barked, bracing himself and planting his sword tip into the ground to keep steady as he raised the heater shield he was using to block the harsh gusts of wind that threatened to push them off the earth column they were on.
Deacon's quick reaction in blocking the shockwave from the Generals' opening strikes gave Sam and Esmerelda the cover they needed to raise a dense barrier of wind. It protected the Ravenlight Party from the aftershocks, as well as any arrows or spells that would be fired their way, which was very likely to occur as they were pretty exposed due to their raised elevation, and gave them a moment to catch their breath.
When the bright columns of light finally began to fade, two figures no longer remained standing at the epicenter and instead were locked in a clash of blades that, with every clash, sent out shockwaves that traveled across the battlefield.
The Human General, General Obi, wrapped in resplendent gold-etched armor that gleamed despite the filth of the battlefield, bore a massive halberd whose blade shone like a piece of the sun itself. From his back unfurled a banner of white and gold, displaying a full sun, snapping violently in the corrupted wind, each fold radiating authority and unyielding command.
[Human – General Lv 20]
Opposite him and dodging the cleave of the golden halberd, the Undead General, General Kaius, jeered at General Obi at his miss, his armor a grotesque fusion of iron, bone, and stretched, agonized faces. His banner displayed the symbol of a throne atop a mound of graves. The spear he carried was jagged, serrated, and dripping a tar-like ichor that hissed when it touched the ground and turned the mud gray.
[Zombie – General Lv 20]
A silence fell, an unnatural one that should not have belonged in a war with all the chaos happening, but it happened, and every knight, soldier, mercenary, and creature alike froze, staring at the two generals that descended upon them and began fighting each other.
Deacon's throat tightened as his gaze locked on the sight. "...Well, fuck me sideways."
"Instructor Bjorn wasn't kidding when he said the Tower was amping up the difficulty," Sam muttered, tightening his grip on his staff, his knuckles white. "Why did our generation have to be the cornerstone one?"
The Ravenlight Party leapt from the raised platform, the wind barrier wrapping around them as Esmerelda and Sam forced the wind around them to slow their descent, and without hesitation, as their boots landed on the mud, they pushed forward, cutting straight into the chaos between them and the Human General – with Deacon leading their diamond formation once again.
As a knight lunged at him with his steel sword raised high above his helmet, Deacon's Echoform Reliquary elongated from its Crowbar form, after having bashed a soldier's head in after wrenching out his shield, and into its Broadsword form, cleaving the man from shoulder to hip before Deacon's shield smashed into the face of another coming at his side.
Before the corpse even hit the mud, Echoform shifted again as he made move to free his other hand. Without pause, Deacon clasped his heater shield onto his back and freed up his left hand as Echoform Reliquary split into dual short swords, which tore through three lightly armored soldiers in a blur of cuts – slitting throats and shearing joints – before reforming into a crowbar.
Deacon swung it sideways, the blunt iron head crushing a helm flat against its skull with a wet crunch, then snapped it back around and drove it into a spearman's chest hard enough to crack his sternum.
Every step, every swing, every swap of the weapon, and every fired spell carried them closer to the heart of the battlefield where the two Generals were clashing.
Jass's glaive swept behind him, clearing out the rear. Sam raised walls of jagged stone spikes to break enemy lines on their left, while Esmerelda cut through arrows with arcs of wind on their right. Bonehead stayed in the center, casting Manashield in the gaps of the formation.
And then they reached the edge of the crater.
General Obi's gold and white armor was dented and splattered with blood; his halberd and massive tower shield were painted red, his bald head and dark skin shone with sweat and grime, his face set in grim determination as cadets who sided with the Undead Kingdom swarmed him.
He stood against at least thirty at once.
Fire spells slammed into his shield, curses clung to his armor like chains and attempted to lock him in place, but Obi shook them off with a roar as he swung his halberd in a wide arc, cleaving through the bodies of those closest to him and spraying blood in every direction.
Even though he was surrounded on all sides, General Obi showed no sign of exhaustion. Every second, more cadets hurled themselves at him and attacked him from every angle, but the man was relentless. His halberd cleaved through armor and flesh with ease, his shield caught curses, spells, and arrows head-on, and still he pressed forward, moving with a stamina that seemed inhuman as the bodies piled at his feet.
The Ravenlight Party didn't waste time staring. Deacon barked the order, and his team leapt as one, dropping into the crater to join the clash – all except him.
Just as he was about to leap with his team and join in the fray, Deacon found himself frozen as he felt a disgusting and horrifying chill flood his gut. His body locked up as every instinct screamed at him over the din of battle, louder than the clash of steel and shouting chants of spells.
"Wait!" he shouted at his Party, his hand outstretched as he stared at their backs as they rushed towards General Obi – entirely unaware of the shout of warning and that he was not rushing alongside them.
Clicking his tongue in anxious anger, Deacon's head moved as though it were on a swivel as he tried to figure out the cause of the sudden chill that went through his stomach.
However, his search quickly came to an end as the feeling of pain blossomed in his side.
Steel punched through beneath his armor, sliding in with sickening ease as it curved between the metal plates of his Chestpiece of the Barbarian and pierced through its leather.
Before he could even grunt, something yanked him backward, ripping him off his feet and dragging him into the swarm of bodies behind that remained fighting on the edge of the combined arena both Generals made upon their arrival.
In the chaos, he caught a glimpse of his attacker's face, buried beneath the cowl he wore. And just before his skull hit the ground, he saw a lavender feather tucked in the side of the man's neck.