Chapter 461 The People’s Resolve

Pouring out of the city and onto the battlefield, nearly every able-bodied citizen in the city of Valenhart came to the aid of their duchess.

Most of them had armed themselves with the surplus spell wands that had been delivered by the kingdom of Borealia, and had taken up position on top of the city walls or were charging towards where Lyra had crashed into the ground.

They began shooting thousands of spells towards the executioners that were looming over Lyra and Roxene.

And even thought none of these spells were above tier three, no one could ignore thousands of spells coming at them.

Seeing that they were coming under fire and being pushed back, the executioners made a final dash towards Lyra, intent on ending her life even if it cost their own.

Yet before they could reach her, Knox, leading the rest of the strongest fighters from Lyra’s unit came back to fight with their leader who had given them the opportunity to retreat.

With their intervention they were able to drive back the executioners, and picked up both Lyra and Roxene before running back towards the center.

Gritting their teeth and steeling themselves, the executioners charged through a rain of spells towards Knox who was carrying Lyra.

Failure meant death, so they had no fear of dying to complete their objective.

Still, their unshakable will to kill their target did not give them the absolute power to do so, and even they were soon blasted down by the unending barrage of spells from the people that wished to protect their ruler.

Unfortunately, as the thousands of people swarmed out to help Lyra, they painted a target on to themselves, and the kingdom’s forces began opening fire on them.

Immediately the unprotected citizens were being hit by spells and mana blasts that tore them apart by the thousands.

Moving as fast as they could the highest leveled fighters of the liberation army began shielding the retreating citizens, while also opening fire on the kingdom’s army that was approaching.

“Fire the main batteries.”.

With a loud humming sound, a dozen mana cannons that were easily ten time larger than the standard model, began glowing with power as it sucked up a large amount of mana before sending out a powerful blast.

Each one of these blasts held the destructive force of a tier five spell, and taking this bombardment the kingdom’s army had to back down and focus on defense.

Of course, using these cannons came at quite the cost as even just one shot from them burned through around a hundred magic cores from level twenty plus beasts and monsters.

Also, they were prone to overheating, and firing them all at a rapid pace could permanently damage them.

However, the defenders of Valenhart did not have the luxury to slow down their bombardment, as these powerful blasts were the only thing keeping them from being overrun.

…

“Jadzia wake up!”

Hearing her named called loudly by a familiar voice, Lyra who had passed out earlier woke up to see Knox, and a healer standing over her.

Coughing up a mouth full of blood Lyra felt the second worst she ever had, only trumped by the time when she first died.

“Captain are you okay?” Knox asked with worry on his face.

Sitting up Lyra looked around and saw that they were in the medical building, and all around her were injured soldiers and even common citizens that had picked up arms to defend their home.

“I am fine Knox. Now what the hell are you doing here fussing over me? Get the hell back out there, your strength is needed on the battlefield.”

Gulping Knox quickly realized he had made a mistake and upset his captain, and hastily left the medical ward and did as he was ordered, returning to the front line.

Lyra then looked around for Roxene who had been even more injured than her, but found that she was not here.

“There was a half white, half black young wolf beast companion with me. Where has she been taken?” Lyra asked with a raspy voice to the healer that was treating her wounds with magic and potions.

“Duchess Augustyn, the beast that was brough in with you was horribly injured and worn out. There was little we could do for it, so it was put aside. But after just a few minutes, it got back up fully healed and began drinking a stash of potions that it pulled out from what I believe to be an item box. It then headed out on its own, and I have no idea where it is now.”

Hearing her healer’s account of what happened to Roxene, Lyra let out a breath of relief to hear that she was alive. Before standing up shakily, much to her healer’s dismay.

“Your grace, please do not be hasty. You are badly wounded, and your mana and stamina have practically run out.” The healer said while trying to get Lyra to lay back down.

Yet Lyra just waved her off, and pulled out three potions from her own item box.

Quickly she downed all three at once, drinking her strongest healing, mana recovery, and stamina restoring potions.

As the potions’ contents entered her system, she felt her strength returning and the terribly injuries outside and inside her body began to mend themselves.

Still, she could tell this was not yet enough and pulled out the elixir Marcus had taken from Teivel and given to her.

Drinking this potion, Lyra soon felt revitalized as along with the other three potions she had drank, the elixir brought her back up to full strength.

Of course, drinking so many potions at once was not with out its downsides, and the more she drank the less effective they would be and eventually it would make her sick.

Though as long as she did not have much more, she would be fine for now.

Fully recovered and ready to get back into the action, Lyra left the medical building at a breakneck speed, and quickly made her way up to the top of the wall to join the defenses there.

However, when she arrived, she saw something that caused her heart to stop for a moment, as the wall had been breached by Elvind and his army.

Even as strong as the city’s walls were with their protective formations, if hit hard enough in a concentrated area, they would crumble.

Except what truly made Lyra’s heart feel cold was not that the city was being invaded, but that tens of thousands of the citizens of Valenhart were throwing themselves at Elvind’s army.

They were all armed with surplus gear that Lyra had no idea how that got ahold of, but they were doing everything they could to fight back against Elvind’s forces.

And while they were certainly horribly outmatched, they were at least keeping Elvind at bay for the moment. For even if they had to sacrifice twenty people to take out one of those in Elvind’s army, that was what they were willing to do.

‘There he is.’

Keying in on Elvind who was currently fighting with a half dozen people who were all over level forty, Lyra shot forwards towards him, as she entered her awakened form again.

‘Flashfire Clap.’

Using her movement technique and going invisible, Lyra moved like a blur and caught Elvind off guard, stabbing her kukris into the gap in his armor under his arm.

Wincing in pain, Elvind had no idea what had happened until the molecule magic device he was wearing to specifically counter her identified Lyra’s mana signature.

Swinging his spear around rapidly, Elvind sent out multiple wide slashes of mana to force everyone away from him, holding no regard for ally and enemy alike as he cut through everyone around him.

And in doing this he actually killed more of his own soldiers, as they had not been wary off friendly fire from their commander.

“Jadzia you bastard. To think that you would even arm the common citizens and send them against us like fodder. You must be mad to do this.” Elvind said his rage growing as things continued to spiral out of control for him.

He figured that once he breached the city, he would be able to set up a strong defensible position and receive the glory of retaking the city.

Yet, unlike what he expected the citizens to do, they did not hide away meekly in face of their overwhelming power, and began launching suicide attacks against them fighting with more resolve than most of the kingdom’s army.

They had already had their home occupied by the kingdom’s army before, and being freed from them had allowed them to once again taste the lives they had before when Jadzia’s parents ruled, and they refused to lose this again.

Still, this did not mean that they could win, as Elvind and his troops were still far stronger, better armed, and higher leveled overall.

Fighting as hard as she could Lyra, clashed against Elvind using every trick she had.

Using her illusions, she may not have been able to hide herself from Elvind who had locked on to her, but that did not mean she could not assist her allies by turning them invisible, or even creating fakes.

Getting fed up with Jadzia’s antics and annoying attacks Elvind became Frustrated an went in for an all-out attack.

“Die!”

Elvind yelled as he spun his spear like a twister and stabbed towards Lyra using his skill unique skill overwhelming strike.

It was something he could only use once a week, but it tripled the power of one attack, and was his ultimate trump card.

He had planned to save it for use against someone stronger, but Lyra was making things difficult for him, so he was going to finish her off here and now.

Yet before his attack could hit Lyra, it was blown back into himself, and a large hole was bored through his armor and torso.

His eyes going wide, Elvind looked at the diamond tortoise shell shield that had appeared in front of Lyra with disbelief.

Unfortunately, he did not know about Lyra’s reflector shield unique skill, which she had not obtained until after joining the rebellion.

It was one of her trump cards and she had been saving it for the right moment, which Elvind’s full power attack was perfect for.

In fact, his powerful attack did not just blow through himself, as the spiraling blast of mana that he had built up into his spear, blew back into his troops and shredded over five hundred of them.

Collapsing onto his knees, his stomach completely blown apart and torn to pieces, blood poured out of Elvind at an alarming rate, but this wound still was not enough to kill him.

Pushing his spear into the ground like a walking stick and activating the protective amulet he had. Elvind pulled himself up and took out the emergency lesser elixir he kept on him.

‘Not happening.’

Launching herself forward, Lyra moved in for the kill, and slashing with both her kukris broke into the barrier protecting Elvind.

Pulling her weapons back she aimed to take his head off, but one of the elite mages that were working with Elvin interfered, and cast a defensive spell around Elvind giving him time to heal.

After drinking the lesser elixir, the horrible wound in his stomach began to seal up and Elvind regained enough strength to stand up and glare towards Lyra.

“What the hell took you so long?” Elvind said with fury in his voice towards the elite mage that had just come to his rescue.

With an aggrieved tone obviously not caring for Elvind’s anger, the elite mage said, “You are not the only who is dealing with difficult opponents. Now, we need to retreat. Our position will not hold much longer and there are just too many of them.”

The elite mage who had surrounded himself and Elvind in a sphere of water, took to the sky, carrying the weakened Elvind with him not waiting for any disagreement.

However, before he got far, his protective spell was slammed against by a powerful attack, and he and Elvind were sent crashing back into the ground.

“Looks like you could use some help cleaning up around here Jadzia.” Francis said as he floated above the battlefield.

Soon the roars of the soldiers under Francis’ command echoed through the area, as they began flooding in through the breach in the wall and pincering the kingdom’s troops.

Quickly the tide turned even greater in the liberation army’s favor as with Francis’ intervention, they began massacring the kingdom’s solders.

Even Elvind and the elite mage with him, were unable to withstand the combined might of the forces led by Lyra and Francis. And in the end Lyra sliced Elvind’s head clean off as he tried one last desperate time to flee.