Chapter 501: Among Monsters (1)
Time to act. Time to fulfill the commandments.
The Ultras, the Royal Family, and the Starlight Family ..
These were the three powers chosen by the Lord of Light to be erased from existence.
The Church hadn’t chosen just one of them—it had chosen them all.
"By the end of this war, the enemies of the Lord of Light shall vanish from this world."
The Church’s followers did not know why their so-called god had named those three factions in particular.
The Ultras were understandable ..they were demon worshippers, their very antithesis.
But the Royal Family and the Starlights... were something else entirely.
The situation was shrouded in mystery, but who were they to question the will of the god they had sworn to follow?
He gave the order.
And they would obey.
For the first time in 300 years, the Church was preparing to unleash its full might.
Against all of its enemies... and the chaos the world would witness would be of a scale never seen before.
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—The other side of the world—
The Continent of the Ultras—
Day one of the war had finally resumed.
On the side of humanity, forces were divided into numerous units, all sent as forward vanguards. The main army followed from behind.
The Ultras, too, deployed many of their own .. both of the lower and higher bloodlines, and even nightmare creatures.
As a result, dozens of battles erupted simultaneously, with soldiers and monsters clashing across countless fronts.
The situation grew so complex that reports began pouring into the central command in a steady stream.
In just a few hours, twenty-one full-scale skirmishes had erupted along the front lines.
Scattered battles ..each with different outcomes.
The vanguards were merely probing forces ..sent to assess the enemy’s strength and tactics.
The deeper they could go, the better.
But in many cases, those forces would retreat the moment they encountered a true threat.
Among those 21 engagements, the Empire won some, lost others, and withdrew from a few.
The squads had limited manpower, so venturing too far into enemy territory with such small numbers was sheer madness.
Among the commanders deployed by the Empire, many performed remarkably well.
Especially those under Phoenix Sunlight and the hero, Snow Lionheart.
They did their jobs to perfection ..facing the enemy, securing victories, and clearing the path for the main force, which remained intact and ready for the true clash.
But... among the twenty-one squads...
There was one unit that left the old man Iris Sunlight sitting in stunned silence at the command center.
Fury marked his face, and his fiery beard flared more intensely than ever before.
The people around him were anxious, while the reports continued to arrive one after another.
"Sir... they are still sending us regular reports and updates... but they’re ignoring all orders. Also, their leader is threatening to stop communicating altogether if we keep ’nagging’ him."
As soon as he heard the latest report, Iris Sunlight shot up from his seat, slamming his desk into splinters.
"What the hell are those fools thinking?! Do they think this is a game?!"
He was truly furious this time. Iris had never been fond of chaos and deviation on the battlefield—especially when it came from their own side.
"That damn bastard... Frey Starlight..."
Naturally, the subject was none other than Frey Starlight and his band of lunatics, the elite unit that had ventured so deep into enemy territory that they were now completely unreachable.
"He was given a thousand men... yet hundreds returned, fleeing in terror after spending just one day fighting by his side..."
Frey wasn’t stupid...of that, Iris was certain.
He wasn’t the reckless type who would throw himself into death blindly.
No matter how strong he was, he couldn’t possibly survive alone in enemy territory. Even a fool would understand that.
"He knows what he’s doing is irrational..."
Iris muttered, as his fiery beard blazed even more furiously.
"Then why the hell is he still going deeper into enemy lands?!"
He roared once more, the floor trembling beneath his feet.
Frey Starlight had become a force beyond control—unpredictable and wild.
He ignored all orders and acted completely on his own.
His actions were on the verge of ruining the Empire’s strategy entirely, which left Iris with only one option: to pretend he didn’t exist.
"We’ll stick to the original plan."
As for Frey and those who followed him ..they would bear the consequences of their choices.
That was the conclusion Iris reached after enduring Frey’s madness for several days.
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—Empire Vanguard, Frey Starlight’s Unit—
The unit that went further than anyone else.
The team of lunatics that pierced deep into enemy territory, now completely surrounded by Ultras from all sides.
For the eighth day in a row, they were still fighting.
The magic cannons hadn’t stopped firing, and most soldiers had long since run out of strength and stamina.
But a particular group of fighters kept pushing forward, just as ferocious ..if not more so than before.
An old witch rained down lightning without pause. A terrifying assassin slipped through shadows, ending lives silently.
A demonic princess veiled the battlefield in her shadows... and many others.
But the most terrifying of them all ..without a doubt ..was the man who led them.
The man soaked head to toe in blood.
So much blood that he looked monstrous—except none of it was his. It was all from his enemies.
The exhausted soldiers watching from afar saw that the battle still raged on.
At the forefront, a specific man charged madly, swinging his massive sword.
Each strike turned dozens of enemies into mangled remains, while a crazed grin stretched across his blood-covered face.
Morval cried out in sheer exhilaration,
"Ahaha! You’re insane! Lord Starlight!"
Panting heavily, Morval kept running, struggling to keep up with that cursed man’s back.
In Morval’s sharp eyes, only two colors remained ..the glowing violet aura of Frey Starlight, and the crimson blood pouring from his victims.
He could never understand how that young man could handle such a terrifying number of enemies with such ease.
"Just how many have you killed by now, damn it?"
—Slash!—
Even as he shouted, his voice was drowned by the thunderous blasts and destruction caused by Frey’s blade.
That blade—soaked in blood—moved with terrifying precision, while a deranged smile stretched across Frey’s face.
He kept slashing, decapitating his foes with random, brutal swings that left most of their corpses too mutilated to identify.
In many cases, his deadliest strikes didn’t even leave a corpse behind.
Frey turned to Morval, who had been chasing after him.
"Pardon me. I didn’t quite catch that."
His hand moved again on its own, slaughtering more and more, staining the battlefield red.
"Would you mind repeating it?"