2176 Strike at Dawn (Part 2)

"There no time for pleasantries in war. Just tell me what's going on and why you have still to heal yourself properly." It wasn't the first time that the Mad Queen took part in a battle.

Even with her Divine Beast Generals, there were few of them against hundreds of old monsters and Liches. If not for the power of her deep white core and the Arthan set, they would have lost ground at every battle.

Yet it was the first time that one of her aides called her in desperation to keep one of their best strongholds from falling. Defending from a siege was supposed to be easy, especially in a city like Belius.

Its enchanted walls were several meters thick and over thirty meters (100') high. Its arrays could scour the battlefield like a living being, targeting the enemy even from a great distance from the city.

Last, but not least, the City Gate allowed her soldiers to take the injured back to the Golden Griffon to be treated immediately and replace them with fresh troops.

Thrud usually fought solely on the frontlines, making sure that the tide of the battle wouldn't force her troops to retreat too much or leading the charge when they broke through the enemy lines.

She was supposed to be the spear and the shield that protected the weakest units of her army, not a baby sitter for Divine Beasts.

"It's easier if I show you." Iata placed her right index and ring fingers on the Queen's forehead, activating a mind link.

Thrud saw the troops of the Council, the Kingdom, and even the Empire strike at Belius at the same time. Iata and the rest of the Generals deployed there had done wonders, keeping the three-pronged attack at bay by sharing their bloodline abilities with the defending army.

Yet even they had proved to be incapable to stop the fourth player they had no contingency plan against.

The Bright Day had appeared out of nowhere, leading a regiment of undead who, unlike Thrud's allies in the Undead Courts, had no problem moving under the sun. The number of unexpected reinforcements was little, but their strength was great.

Most undead could climb the vertical walls of Belius with the same grace of a spider and the speed of a cheetah. Even the enchanted protections and arrays could do nothing to stop them since they only used bloodline abilities.

Despite all this, it would have taken any of Thrud's Generals a single tier five Spirit Spell to wipe them out of the walls if not for Dawn. The vision of the Horseman riding her steed made the Mad Queen swear enough to put a sailor to shame.

'I thought that Baba Yaga had taken back the steeds and grounded Dawn or something! What is she doing here?'

'That's not all, my Queen. Keep watching.' Instead of answering, Iata showed her an image of the Bright Day high in the sky, emitting such a blinding radiance that two suns seemed to shine over Belius.

In the memory, the Sekhmet charged at the Horseman after infusing herself and her equipment with abundant Life Maelstrom. Thanks to the silver lightning, her physical and magical prowess was increased tenfold.

The power cores of her equipment had been Forgemastered by Thrud so that not an ounce of Life Maelstrom would be lost. All the artifacts of her Generals had been designed to not be just overcharged by the silver lightning, but to reach their full potential because of it.

Thrud was not only a Master Forgemaster, she was also a Golden Griffon. She had taken her time studying her bloodline ability before consuming the hundreds of kilos of Adamant necessary to craft an armor big enough to cover a Divine Beast.

Iata's equipment had almost reached the hardness of Adamant and its power cores had become as strong as those of a small city. Yet the blades coming out of her pawns had been blocked like toys and the Sekhmet had been shot down the sky with a single lunge.

'Fuck!' Despite the clash having lasted a fraction of a second, Thrud could still see how Dawn wasn't wearing her usual crystal armor.

The Horseman was covered in Davross that turned black when it had to help her absorb sunlight and silvery when it amplified her powers. Her sword, Twilight, was made of the same metal and had elemental crystals of eight colors on its surface.

White crystals had been embedded on either side of the hilt and the pommel while the rest were arranged in a single line along the blade. A red elemental crystal was close to the guard, followed by an orange, a yellow, an emerald green, a blue, a silvery, and a black crystal.

Thrud could feel from the memory like Iata had put everything she had behind the blow whereas Dawn's was the equivalent of swatting an insect.

'This doesn't make sense! If she's this strong how can Belius still stand? Most importantly, why is she here?' The Mad Queen was so frustrated that she failed to realize how painful her words were to her loyal servants.

'We kept her at bay at a great personal sacrifice.' Iata lowered her gaze in humiliation. 'I have no clue about her presence, but I can tell you that her main focus is keeping the undead alive.

'The Horseman keeps herself out of the fray, using her constructs to protect our enemies and striking at our arrays from a distance. The damn Ranger is still by her side.'

Most people tended to forget about Acala, the traitorous Ranger who had bonded with Dawn. He had worked in the Kellar region for over a decade and knew the weak spots of every city like the back of his hand.

After conquering Belius, Thrud had rebuilt it in a rush so she had had no time to change its layout. The arrays' control center was still in the old place where Dawn had destroyed them during her previous assault on the city.

'Thanks, Iata. You did a great job holding the line until my arrival. Now rest.' The Mad Queen gave the Sekhmet a powerful tonic and healed her with a single breath of Regal Flow.

She did the same with all of her Generals, to not let them waste another use of their own breathing technique.

'What about you, Your Majesty?' Orsac had once been a Roc but had now evolved into a Storm Phoenix.

'I'm a white-cored Golden Griffon, remember?' She replied with the warm motherly smile for which her Generals would lay their lives. 'I heal so fast that I never use it except that for refining my core.'

'Please, be careful.' Ufyl the Seven Headed Dragon said. 'You may be a white core, but she's a Horseman with her mage tower. This is nothing like that idiot of Night.'

Thrud nodded and took flight, reaching Dawn in the blink of an eye.

'I could take my Griffon form, but against an opponent so small, I'd just offer her a bigger target. On top of that, I trained as a human woman for over 700 years whereas I became a Divine Beast barely a year ago.' She thought.