Chapter 44: The Sky-Shattering Axe
Chapter 44: The Sky-Shattering Axe
“Alexander…”
Tears flew as the young woman finally reached the battlements and witnessed the sight from afar.
Alexander’s last glance, those bright, midnight-star eyes beneath his helmet visor, were deeply etched into her heart in that moment. The figure turning away, broad-shouldered and immense, became unforgettable for the rest of her life.
“Alexander… You have to come back… You will become a brave king, you will be the pride of Shampoo City, you will be… a legend… of the Azeroth Continent… I’ll wait for you!”
Angela leaned, lost and heartbroken, against the parapet.
Her jewel-like eyes didn’t blink as she watched him. He slid down from the city wall, already merged with the soldiers, resolutely forming up and leading their charge against the massive black serpent-like enemy horde. She stared unblinkingly, her gaze clinging to his figure.
“Come back alive!”
……
South bank of Shampoo City.
The autumn wind tousled the slightly yellowed leaves, making them dance lazily in the air. A fluffy little squirrel stood upright on its hind legs, cautiously looking around, then relaxed. Grabbing a pinecone with its front paws, it began happily nibbling. High above in the azure sky, birds soared freely.
It was a captivatingly beautiful autumn scene blending movement and tranquility.
But suddenly—
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
A rapid burst of hoofbeats shook the earth, carrying a sharp killing intent. Leaves scattered wildly. The squirrel squealed in fright, dropping its half-chewed pinecone as it scrambled up a distant tree. The birds vanished beyond the horizon.
A harsh warhorse whinny sliced through the air.
As the hoofbeats slowed, the Silver Masked Man and his personal escort of Black Knights reined their horses in by the banks of the Zuli River.
The Silver Masked Man glanced up at the sky, then pulled out an eagle-eye scope to observe the enemy forces atop Shampoo City’s walls opposite him. This scope was a delicate magic device; thin crystal lenses enchanted with Eagle Eye Sight by a Mage allowed one to see even the antennae of an ant clearly a kilometer away.
Through the scope, the faces on the battlements were twisted with fatigue and fear. Their defenses were lax: soldiers resting out of their armor, scattered defensive positions… just as he had predicted. A vicious grin spread across the half-face beneath his silver mask.
“Order the forces to prepare to advan—”
He stopped abruptly. The word “Advance” died on his tongue. In the oval field of the scope, he suddenly saw over twenty large figures encased head-to-toe in metal armor, sliding down ropes let down from the distant battlements.
“What’s this…?” The Silver Masked Man paused for a split second.
But when he saw the heavily armored figures land and immediately form a standard wedge formation for a frontal charge, he understood his opponents’ intent instantly. After a brief flicker of disbelief, a smirk full of contempt and mockery tugged at his lips. He almost found it laughable. “Ha! King of Shampoo City, it seems I overestimated you. Such a fool! An interesting idea, perhaps, but attacking with just twenty men to break my formation?”
“Heh. Well then,” he sneered coldly, flicking his whip sharply, “Order the Second and Third Phalanxes. Tower Shields shift to defense! Let those clumsy pigs, armored like statues, get close. Take ten breaths and bring me their heads!”
Whooooooooo—!
A strident bugle call ripped through the sky, shattering the heavy tension blanketing the land.
Like a command from the heavens, the Black-Armored Soldier formations shifted like well-oiled machinery.
Thud, thud, thud, thud—!
To the rhythmically terrifying sound of their marching feet, the formations moved. The closest Tower Shield Phalanx slowly adjusted, its middle slightly hollowed inward, its flanks advancing, forming a cup-shaped defensive barrier.
Clank, clank, clank—!
The screech of heavy metal grinding rose from the phalanx. From behind the three-meter-tall black Tower Shields, five-meter-long Dragon Lances suddenly thrust forward! Made of solid iron, polished to a shine, the entire forest of gleaming lance-tips glittered malevolently under the scorching sun like the grin of the God of Death. The points aimed forward. Behind the shields, the Black Armored Soldiers stood silent. The entire phalanx instantly transformed into a suddenly enraged, colossal steel porcupine—utterly impenetrable. Even a giant elephant charging into it would be skewered like meat on a stick.
Across the way, the twenty-odd heavily armored soldiers were charging fearlessly.
It was an impossibly lopsided matchup.
From a bird’s eye view, it looked like a dozen ants foolishly provoking an elephant. A single stomp of the elephant’s foot could crush them to paste.
The cold gleam off the Dragon Lances seemed to chill the blazing sun itself.
Nobody doubted these vicious, bowl-thick lances could pierce any armor. Even three-centimeter-thick steel plates would be ripped apart like flimsy parchment before their sharp points.
Yet, the ‘ants’ charging in a tight V-shaped wedge formation didn’t hesitate. They plunged forward, accelerating, as if determined to smash against the icy forest of steel with nothing but flesh and bone.
A deathly silence fell over the battlefield.
The air itself seemed to freeze solid.
Everyone could almost hear their own heartbeat.
On the walls of Shampoo City, everyone crowded atop the parapets, leaning out as far as they dared to see the unfolding scene clearly below. Angela’s beautiful, large eyes brimmed with nothing but worry. Her delicate, jade-white fingers clenched the hem of her skirt, twisting it out of shape. Little blonde Gemma pressed her hands against the tiny, undeveloped ‘Mongolian yurt’ on her chest, holding her breath.
Across the Zuli River, the Silver Masked Man had lowered his eagle-sight scope, a cold smile playing on his lips as he watched the doomed fools below.
A mutt, challenging the dignity of a Dragon?
Behind him, the dozen or so Black Knights wore expressions mingling cruelty and excitement, like wolves spotting sweet prey in the night, licking their lips with bloodthirsty grins.
The stone bridge.
The gap between the ‘ants’ and the ‘steel porcupine’ rapidly closed.
Twenty meters…
Sixteen meters…
Thirteen meters…
Ten meters…
The Silver Masked Man sat slightly taller in his saddle. The curve of his sneer deepened. He seemed to already see the spray of blood, hear the enemy’s shrieks.
In his eyes, the outcome was simplicity itself: the cup-shaped Tower Shield Phalanx just needed to clamp shut smoothly, sandwiching the enemy like stuffing in a pastry. Then, a few simple thrusts and retractions of the Dragon Lances would turn those metal-clad fools, who thought themselves invincible, into shish kebabs.
He had no fear that these ants could disrupt his Tower Shield Phalanx.
Each three-meter-tall, massive Tower Shield was triple-layered with thick black steel, weighing well over a hundred pounds each. Behind them, elite soldiers braced the shields against the ground with countless steel spikes, locking them into place. Even a furious charge by heavy cavalry could be held back by such a defense for over ten minutes.
Utter contempt didn’t even try to hide in the Silver Masked Man’s eyes.
But the next instant, he froze. It was as if an invisible bolt of lightning had struck him from the heavens. His body stiffened; his eyes bulged, nearly popping out of his head.
Gasping breaths hissed from his Black Knights behind him.
Their warhorses, veterans of countless battles that could hold formation even when grievously wounded, now stamped nervously, lowered their heads with frantic whinnies, and backed up step after step…
Because just two or three seconds earlier, at the far end of the stone bridge, a roar like a thunderclap on a clear day had shattered the quiet:
“God of War above!”
Then! From the midst of that pitifully small group of charging ‘ants’ in their wedge formation, the soldier at the spearhead, the very tip of the ‘wedge’, abruptly hurled the huge black axe he held!
Wooo-ooh-ooooooo—!
The Great Axe became a blur of dark lightning, spinning savagely through the air with an ear-splitting shriek. It seemed to cut through the air itself, tear space apart, making the very heavens and earth shudder.
KRA-BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Screams exploded instantly. A rain of blood sprayed up.
The inky black axe slammed like dark thunder into the black steel Tower Shields.
Then—it was like a sharp knife slicing easily through burned steak, or like a god or demon tearing apart a flimsy piece of parchment. The shields designed to withstand the frontal charge of heavy cavalry folded like tin before the axe’s impact. Metal shrieked and groaned, bending grotesquely. For a split-second, the shields held… then the terrifying power erupted.
BOOOOOOOM!
Shields flew. A dozen three-meter-tall slabs of black steel were ripped from their anchors and tossed aside like dry leaves in a typhoon…
Unable to resist!
Utterly incapable!
That axe felt less like a weapon, and more like a bolt of divine fury cast down by an enraged God of War. The sheer, thunderous might behind it felt like it could smash even the tallest, most majestic mountains of the Azeroth Continent into dust.
The deafening crash faded. The once impenetrable steel wall of the Tower Shield Phalanx was ripped open—a gruesome, meter-wide gap filled with a shower of blood. Severed limbs rained down. The brutal force sent the entire formation into chaotic disarray.
The Black-Armored Soldiers behind the shields never dreamed such power could exist, that their iron-strong defenses could be breached this way. The cruel reality plunged them into stunned disbelief. They forgot their iron discipline; they forgot their soldierly instincts. They just stood helpless as twenty terrifying figures surged through the gaping hole in their wall, stepping over the flowing river of blood.
One second ago, these Black-Armored Soldiers had been sneering mentally at the twenty foolish pigs charging their doom across the bridge. Now, in the blink of an eye, those twenty ‘pigs’ ripped off the mask of their perceived weakness. They entered the broken phalanx like Demon Gods incarnate. The weapons in their hands gleamed like the God of Death’s own Scythe. They were death manifest on the mortal plane. Where they passed, waves of blood rose; agonized shrieks shook the sky. The front ranks of Black-Armored Soldiers, stripped of their Tower Shield bulwarks, fell like wheat before a farmer’s scythe. Not a single soul resisted for even a second.
The fight between Ant and Elephant had transformed. It was now a massacre by Ants of Elephants.
In that single, impossible second, the roles reversed.