Monarch Chapter 187 (Patreon)

Chapter 187

General Raul looked back at the injured men behind him and couldn't help but frown, his brows creasing together as he wondered, not for the first time, whether he had brought the wrong men with him on such an important expedition.

Yet when he thought about it more carefully, these were the best men available to him.

More than seventy percent of them were capable of using mana, while the remaining thirty percent at least possessed rare classes, and almost every one of them carried an enchanted weapon.

On paper, they should have been just as useful here as the spellswords and mages fighting alongside them.

Yet so far, all of them had disappointed him.

Raul couldn't deny that the Godless Ruins were simply the kind of place where injuries and death were to be expected. Even experienced soldiers could make a mistake here, and there were countless monsters capable of killing an ordinary man in an instant.

Still, that wasn't an excuse he was willing to accept.

He had always held his soldiers to a higher standard, and perhaps that was why, for a brief moment, he even considered ordering the healers to provide them with nothing more than basic treatment.

If they were forced to endure the pain of their wounds instead of having them immediately treated, perhaps they would learn to endure more and become stronger. Pain was simply the price one had to pay for growth, after all.

Before he could dwell on the thought any longer, Aengus, his second-in-command, spoke from beside him.

"General, the shield is going to give away in a minute. We need to take out more wraiths and clear a path for us to advance."

Raul immediately turned his attention forward.

A dark circular shield covered the soldiers, stretching wide enough to protect the entire formation beneath it.

Its surface was constantly trembling as wave after wave of attacks struck it, while behind the barrier, the empire's mages and spellswords continued raining down spells and skills upon the army of wraiths gathered before them.

The creatures were unlike the ghouls they had encountered in the outer ruins.

Their bodies were still vaguely humanoid, but that was where the resemblance ended. Green flames covered their bodies, burning from their empty eye sockets, their mouths, and even the gaps between their fingers. Long claws extended from their arms, each one engulfed in the same unnatural fire.

The flames were said to have come from Hathras himself.

Even the wraiths' bites carried that same cursed fire. Whenever one of them managed to sink its teeth into the dark barrier, green flames would spread across its surface, causing it to tremble violently.

There were far too many of them.

Raul's soldiers had already killed hundreds, perhaps even more, but it barely seemed to matter. The remaining wraiths continued advancing without fear, crawling over the bodies of their fallen kind as they desperately tried to reach the soldiers behind the barrier.

The rumors had not exaggerated their numbers.

There really were thousands of them gathered around the entrance to the inner walls.

Raul's gaze moved past the horde, and for the first time, the magnificent structure behind them became fully visible.

The inner wall.

It stretched across the ruins like an enormous barrier between the outer city and whatever remained hidden beyond it. Even from this distance, its ancient construction was imposing, its massive stones still standing after centuries of abandonment.

Beyond that wall lay the prize Raul had come all this way to claim.

The discovery would place his empire and his queen on the world map. And once they had secured what was hidden inside the Lost Sanctum, the queen would finally have the power and prestige to begin what she had always intended.

The conquest of the world.

But first, they had to get past these wraiths.

Raul watched them for another moment, and an entirely different thought crossed his mind. Perhaps he should simply allow his soldiers to continue fighting.

There were thousands of wraiths here, after all, and every one of them was a potential source of experience. A few levels could do his men a great deal of good, especially before they entered whatever waited beyond the inner walls.

But the thought didn't last long.

If too many soldiers died, the losses could become a problem later.

More importantly, if the recent reports from his scouts were accurate, they were already working against a limited amount of time.

Enemies had entered the ruins as well. That fact bothered Raul more than he was willing to admit.

They had appeared at almost exactly the same time his forces had begun their expedition, and he found it difficult to believe that such timing was nothing more than coincidence.

Raul had never believed much in coincidences. In his experience, events were connected even when the connection wasn't immediately visible.

Everything was connected.

If another force had entered the ruins now, then there had to be a reason.

For the moment, however, there was no point wasting time.

Raul raised his hand. The soldiers who noticed the movement immediately understood what their general intended.

Their attacks stopped one after another, and the formation began pulling back from the front lines as quickly as possible while maintaining order.

The mages ceased their spells, the spellswords withdrew their weapons, and the entire formation created a little more distance between themselves and the advancing wraiths.

The creatures didn't understand what was happening.

They simply continued forward.

The dark barrier trembled violently as hundreds of burning claws struck against it at once. Cracks began spreading across its surface, branching outward like fractures in glass as the wraiths pressed themselves against the shield.

Then reality itself seemed to bend. Right in front of Raul, a small black circle appeared in the air.

At first, it looked like nothing more than a hole.

But as it expanded, the edges distorted the space around it, making it seem as though someone had taken a piece of reality and punctured straight through it.

Darkness gathered within the opening, swirling silently as an oppressive force began spreading through the battlefield.

The wraiths became even more frantic.

Their claws struck the barrier harder, their green flames burning brighter as the cracks continued spreading. The dark shield was seconds away from collapsing, and the creatures seemed to sense it.

Then the black hole opened completely.

Dark lightning erupted from within.

It didn't travel like ordinary lightning. It tore through the air in jagged black streaks, striking the nearest wraith before immediately jumping to another. From there it chained to another, and another, spreading through the entire horde in a single violent wave.

The battlefield erupted with screams.

Thousands of green flames flickered wildly as the wraiths convulsed beneath the dark lightning, their bodies being chained together by Raul's attack as the black bolts continued jumping from one cursed spirit to another.

It was as if divine retribution had descended upon the ruins.

And General Raul simply stood at the center of it all, watching in silence.

Some of the soldiers at the back cheered when the last of the wraiths caught in the dark lightning finally collapsed, their green flames fading into the air. But there was no reason to celebrate just yet. The path ahead was still blocked, and Raul had no intention of wasting another moment.

As the lightning gradually disappeared, Raul raised his hand again and created another fracture in space. The black distortion opened before him like a wound in reality, and the next second, a large amount of mana hit the ground around them.

At once, the barrier around them also shattered into fragments before vanishing completely.

Then, Raul looked toward the enormous walls in the distance and pointed directly at them.

At once, the ground around him began to shift.

Huge hammers made from dark soil rose from the earth, each one formed from layers of compressed black dirt that twisted together until they resembled enormous weapons. With a violent motion, they launched themselves toward the distant wall, crashing against a cracked section of the wall.

The first impact sent pieces of stone flying. Then another hammer struck.

The ancient wall shook beneath every blow as cracks slowly began spreading around the damaged section. The hammers continued smashing into it without pause, breaking away chunks of stone and widening the opening little by little.

Raul watched the process with an increasingly impatient expression.

The wall was far more durable than he had expected. Even with his spell constantly hammering the same location, it was taking far too long to break through.

Every few seconds, another section collapsed, but the opening remained too narrow for his men to pass through comfortably.

Then movement appeared along the side.

More wraiths emerged from behind the ruined structures and rushed toward them, their green flames flickering wildly as they descended upon the soldiers.

This time, however, there weren't enough of them for Raul to bother moving personally.

Aengus immediately led the response.

"Hold them back!"

The soldiers raised their weapons while the mages behind them began casting. Spells flew through the air in rapid succession, striking the advancing wraiths before they could reach the formation. Mana arrows followed almost immediately, streaking through the air and piercing the burning bodies one after another.

The wraiths tried to push forward regardless.

Some were torn apart by spells before they could even reach the soldiers, while others staggered through the attacks only to be struck by several mana arrows at once. The soldiers maintained their formation, refusing to allow the creatures to close the distance.

For a while, the battlefield became a constant exchange between green flames and brilliant mana. Every time another wraith attempted to break through, another spell or arrow met it in the air.

Behind them, Raul's dark hammers continued their relentless assault on the wall.

Another section broke and then another.

Finally, the opening became large enough for a single man to squeeze through.

Raul didn't stop. He dismissed the spell and moved toward the damaged wall himself, reaching into his spatial storage and pulling out his enormous axe.

The weapon landed heavily in his hands, and without wasting a word, he swung it against the edge of the opening.

The impact shook the stone, and he kept swinging.

Each strike shattered another piece of the ancient wall, widening the passage until there was finally enough room for his soldiers to begin moving through.

Raul looked back at them. "Get here and start moving through it!" His voice echoed across the battlefield. "If you get stuck, I'll simply burn you away to make space!"

The soldiers didn't need to be told twice. They immediately began moving toward the opening.

They might have been able to find a larger gap somewhere else along the wall, one that would have allowed them to pass through easily, but Raul had no intention of wasting the time required to search for one.

The wraiths were everywhere, and nobody knew what other beasts might descend upon them if they remained exposed for too long.

For now, moving through the narrow opening was their only option.

Because of how thick the ancient wall was, the passage felt less like a hole and more like a small tunnel carved through solid stone. The smaller soldiers entered first, rushing through one after another while the larger men waited behind them.

Above them, more wraiths began jumping down from the walls.

Their green flames illuminated the ancient stones as they fell, and the soldiers hurried even faster.

General Raul waited patiently, continuing to launch more attacks whenever another group of wraiths approached while his soldiers made their way through the opening in the wall.

As their leader, it was his duty to let them move ahead first, and he had no intention of entering the inner city before every one of his men was safely on the other side.

More fractures appeared around him as he continued fighting, each one tearing open a small portion of space before releasing another wave of dark lightning. The black bolts tore through the approaching wraiths, giving the soldiers enough time to keep moving through the narrow passage without being overwhelmed.

One by one, the number of soldiers on his side of the wall decreased.

Eventually, Aengus was the last person remaining beside him.

"General, I'm going."

Raul gave a small nod, and Aengus immediately squeezed himself through the opening. The moment his second-in-command disappeared to the other side, Raul turned his attention toward the wraith horde once more.

A large amount of mana gathered around him. The next second, dark lightning erupted across the battlefield.

It spread outward in a violent wave, tearing through the wraiths closest to the opening and creating a brief gap between Raul and the creatures. He didn't wait to see how many had been killed before turning around and stepping toward the passage.

Then he stopped for a moment.

The opening was narrow. Far narrower than he would have liked.

Raul was a large man, and squeezing through a passage barely wide enough for one person was considerably more difficult for him than it had been for his smaller soldiers.

The stone scraped against his armor as he pushed himself inside, while the edges of the broken wall repeatedly poked against his sides.

It took considerable effort. Yet Raul didn't complain.

He simply continued forcing himself forward, pushing his shoulders through the narrow tunnel while using his hands against the stone to drag himself along. Behind him, the sounds of the wraiths could still be heard, their shrieks echoing through the passage as they rushed toward the opening.

Finally, Raul's shoulders cleared the other side.

He pushed himself forward one last time and squeezed out of the tunnel before landing heavily on the ground.

The moment his feet touched the ground, however, a powerful pressure descended upon him.

Raul's body stiffened.

For an instant, he almost felt as though his knees were about to give way beneath him. The pressure wasn't physical in the normal sense, yet it felt as though an enormous weight had been placed directly upon his body.

So the rumors had been true.

Raul immediately pushed mana into one of the rings covering the fingers of his left hand.

The response was instantaneous.

A translucent barrier spread across his body, enveloping him completely over his armor. The moment it formed, the oppressive pressure became considerably easier to endure.

Raul released a quiet sigh.

Looking around, he saw that his soldiers had already done the same, barriers reflecting around their armour.

Raul nodded once before turning around briefly. Behind them stood the enormous inner wall they had just crossed.

It looked even more imposing from this side, its ancient stones stretching upward and disappearing into the skyline.

But Raul didn't spend long looking at it.

His gaze slowly moved beyond the wall. The central area of the Godless Ruins spread before him.

Buildings that had once stood proudly across the ancient city had collapsed into enormous piles of stone, while others remained standing in broken and twisted forms. Streets disappeared beneath layers of rubble and overgrown vegetation, and the silence of the place made it feel as though an attack could come at any moment.

No army had properly entered this place for centuries. No one had truly touched it. And somewhere in those ruins was the Lost Sanctum of the Sage.

Raul stared toward the distant city before finally speaking.

"We move." His voice carried through the formation. "Our enemies have come to the ruins as well, but we are going to find the Lost Sanctum of the Sage and leave them behind."

He raised his axe slightly. "All for the Queen!"

"For the Queen!"

The response erupted from the soldiers.

Their voices echoed across the ancient ruins as the entire formation finally began moving forward, taking their first steps deeper into the forgotten heart of the Godless Ruins.

They had finally entered the central city. And with every step they took, they moved closer to the Lost Sanctum.