King Noah stood on the ramparts as his gaze eyed the battlefield. The Ant Army was now crawling up the fortress walls while the defenders fought bravely to repel them.
Rain was falling from the sky, but this was not ordinary rain. It was the blood of the tens of thousands of Humans, Beasts and Flying Ants that waged war across the skies.
Although King Noah was worried about the disappearance of his son, Prince Rufus, they were currently at war and he could only assign a small number of men to look for his whereabouts.
Lawrence, and the other Archmages of the Hellan Kingdom, threw spell after spell after spell in order to repel the invaders from the Fortress. The Sword Saint, Aramis, was currently thinning out the Ants that were trying to overcome the fortress defenders as well.
His disciples, Cid and Aerith, were also fighting side by side as their swords claimed the lives of their enemies.
As the battle was nearing its peak, a man, wearing a red robe, stood on a mountain overlooking the battlefield. Several men wearing black robes stood behind his back as they waited for his signal.
“It’s time,” the red-robed man said softly. “We have gathered more than enough sacrifices. Tell them all to activate the altars.”
“Yes, My Lord!” a black-robed man replied.
He then threw a red orb towards the sky where it exploded, revealing a red skull. A few seconds later, the red skull started laughing as it grew in size, until its visage overshadowed the entire battlefield.
Suddenly, hundreds of pillars of light shot out towards the sky from different locations across the Southern Continent.
The Hellan Kingdom and the Aenasha Dynasty momentarily paused their battle as the screams and shrieks from the souls of the dead sounded through the sky.
The millions of souls that The Organization had collected from the ongoing war, flew from the altars that they had built towards the red skull that was laughing in the sky of the battlefield. It was as if the skull was mocking the warriors for their stupidity of fighting against each other.
The laughter of the skull was heard all over the Southern Continent. Everyone who heard it felt the hairs on the back of their necks stand on end and a tingling sensation passed through their spines.
When the skull stopped laughing, it opened its mouth wide to swallow all the souls that were being sent to it by the altars that The Organization had built.
Its eyes glowed with a crimson light as it devoured the power of the souls it had ingested. Soon it shot a beam of red light into the Heavens.
This was the Pseudo-Eleventh-Circle Spell that The Organization had prepared for this day. A spell that would allow them to conquer the entire Southern Continent with ease, without anyone to stop them.
At that exact moment, a golden beam of light shot out from the West and collided with the red light that shot towards the sky.
The golden light came from the statue of the Goddess Astrid which stood on top of the temple that William and Est had visited in order to clear the Trial of Courage.
The two spells collided. After that, a purple Aurora Borealis descended upon the entirety of the Southern Continent.
James looked at this marvelous sight from within the fortress he was defending and sighed.
“Jekyll, Ezio, I’ll leave everything in your hands,” James said.
“Understood,” Jekyll replied.
“Yes, My Liege,” Ezio turned into a black mist and hid in Jekyll’s shadow. “Rest assured. We will not fail.”
James nodded and looked towards the West where Lont was located. “Watch over them for me…”
As soon as these words left his lips, James’ body was engulfed by the light of the purple Aurora Borealis. Within the blink of an eye, his body, along with the rest of the people inside the fortress who were above the age of twenty, turned into crystal statues.
Jekyll opened his mouth and swallowed the statues of James, Damian, and Gideon.
The smile of the Dentist of Lont disappeared as he scanned the entire battlefield that was littered with crystal statues. The Human armies of the Zelan kingdom were not spared and all of them had turned into statues as well.
The Minotaurs and the other beasts of the Zelan army were unaffected by the effects of the spell, but all of them were greatly weakened.
Jekyll transformed into his true form and opened his mouth wide. Soon, all of these beasts were helplessly sucked into his gaping mouth, which was akin to a blackhole. He only stopped when no survivors of the Beast Army were left on the scene.
Half a minute later, Jekyll returned to his human form and gazed in the direction of Ravenlord Citadel.
“Such a devious plan.” Jekyll grinned evilly. “Well then, I guess it’s time to go back to Lont. Let’s go, Ezio.”
A red portal appeared behind Jekyll and Ezio’s Blood Wyvern screeched in greeting. The Dentist of Lont jumped on its back as Ezio’s mount flew towards the West.
—–
“W-What happened?!” Aerith gasped as she looked at the crystal statues around her. The Ant Beasts had become paralyzed, but they didn’t turn into statues like the Humans.
“Master!” Cid shouted as he ran towards the Sword Saint, who had also turned to Crystal, while killing a Centennial Ant that had managed to climb over the wall.
Loud thudding sounds resounded across the battlefield as the flying magical beasts crashed to the ground. Their riders had turned into crystals and the beasts did their best to land in their weakened states.
Some of these statues fell off from their mounts and crashed into the ground. Cid didn’t have the time to check the fates of these statues that had fallen from thousands of meters above ground. His mind was still reeling from the shock that his Master had ended up in this manner.
Aerith stood beside her brother and examined her master’s current form. She had never heard of a spell that could turn someone into a crystal statue.
“Your Majesty!” Est shouted as he hurried towards King Noah’s side. Isaac ran beside him as they made their way to the ramparts where King Noah stood, frozen in place.
All the adults inside the fortress had been turned into crystals, while the students, and young Knights that had taken part in the war, were spared from the effects of the Eleventh-Circle Spell. Pandemonium ensued as the survivors tried to understand the situation they were currently facing.
—–
Meanwhile in Lont…
“Mama?”
“Papa?”
Eve looked up at her parents who were standing side by side. They were currently outside the Ainsworth Residence and looking in the direction where the Red Skull had appeared in the sky.
“Mama! Papa!” Eve cried out as she hugged her parents’ bodies. She didn’t understand what was happening. All she knew was that his parents had stopped moving and weren’t paying attention to her.
“Waaaaaaaaaaaaah! Mama! Papa!”
Tears started to stream down the side of Eve’s face as she called out for her Mama and Papa. It was quite unfortunate that, no matter how much Mordred and Anna loved their little girl, they were unable to hear her call because they had turned into crystal statues.
They were unable to wipe away the tears on their daughter’s face, and tell her that everything was going to be alright.
Eve’s sad wailing echoed within the Ainsworth Residence. Her pained cries didn’t stop as she firmly held onto Anna’s statue. This also marked the beginning of the darkest days that the Southern Continent had seen for the past thousand years.
Takam glanced at the land from the peak of the Kyrintor Mountains. He sat on his throne as he surveyed his domain. His thoughts returned to the time when he met the Half-Elf and shared a few words with him.
“Survive the war first,” the Demigod muttered the words that he had told William several weeks ago. “Let’s meet again when the Sky Falls.”
The Sky had already fallen.
Now, all he had to do… was wait.
—–
End of Volume 2: When The Sky Falls
