Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The sleeping Avalon suddenly shook when the scepter appeared. With infinite power surging from the deepest darkness, the city that had been destroyed seemed to be in operation again. Huge waves of aether burst out from the king’s palace towering above the city, which was enveloped by black mist, devouring everything in the city. The scene was like a dark sun giving off light and fire.
Numerous buildings that had been floating in the air cracked, exploded, and shattered. Tortured by the scepter’s power, the moans of numerous people came from everywhere, filling the whole space.
Even at a time when it was at its most vulnerable, a scepter was still incredibly powerful, not to mention that he was the Dark Sovereign, the most powerful one among the dark chancellors. For centuries, before Hyakume became personified, he had been showing himself as an abyss, conveying the god’s will to the world.
The key elements of the scepter were the essence of the abyss, the final destination of all sins, the real hell. When he was in his prime, once the scepter was deployed in the aether world, it would pierce through the nine layers of the aether sea and smash the physical world. It would twist the physical world, destroying more than half a country, leaving nothing but hell on the earth.
Last time Maxwell, under all favorable conditions, managed to defeat him only by ambushing him before his scepter was fully deployed, with the full support of Saint Haydn and betting on the hundreds of years of wealth and resources.
Now, it was Ye Qingxuan’s turn to fight against him.
“Fight against him? How?” Raising his head, Ye Qingxuan looked at the scepter that had penetrated the whole shadow of Avalon and couldn’t help but heave a sigh. “It’s impossible to defeat him.” Now that the scepter was fully deployed, the shadow of Avalon became Dark Sovereign’s “home court.” With the Stone Sword, Ye Qingxuan had no chance to win at all.
In the Clothes of the Original Sins, Ye Qingxuan’s Symphony of Predestination surged, accumulating power with numerous music theory changes to combine the Stone of the Sage, the Seal of Moonlight and Catastrophe Resonance.
A glint of ruthlessness shone in his eyes. Run if I cannot defeat him. If that is not possible, I will drill a hole through his scepter with my Wyrmrest enchantment!
At that moment, a hoarse voice was heard from the end of empty street in the north, “Protect the princess, Christine.”
Ye Qingxuan looked back in surprise and saw Lancelot standing there.
Lancelot? Ignoring the stare full of surprise from Ye Qingxuan, Lancelot undid his buttons and tossed his coat on the ground, revealing his black gown. In his hand was a big bow which was as tall as a man. The bow was made by the Third National Arsenal of Anglo. Composed of hundreds of iron and steel parts, it was called ‘Bagpipe’ by the engineers as the vibration of the bowstring would generate a rhythm that sounds like the melody of home town.
In the three trial fires, the bow proved to be amazingly accurate and powerful. Lancelot raised his bow, which shone coldly in the air. His half-kneeling servant gave him the arrow with both hands. Lancelot took the arrow and targeted it on Flute.
With the creaking sound of the string when it was pulled tight, the muscle on Lancelot’s chest suddenly bulked up under his shirt, revealing the shape of his masculine figure. The thumbwheel on the bow was adjusted by his thumb to allow the maximum power.
30 years ago, before Lancelot was wounded when he was trying to protect the queen, he was the best knight of Anglo. Yet now, he had to gave up his bow and arrow due to his illness in his lung and turned to politics. But his skill in archery was never lost. The posture he took when he was shooting the arrow was just perfect.
He aimed at the hell that was hovering over the city, the head of the first-generation royal musician divisions and the scepter summoned by the Dark Sovereign. He drew the bow to its limit and took his aim, the arrow shining coldly with intention to kill.
Then, the arrow whizzed forward. The sound of the arrow flying in the air was thrilling, piercing through the space like a cannon. However, Ye Qingxuan couldn’t help but turn his head to the side. The arrow went in the wrong direction! Lancelot was old and had been suffering from his wound for many years. Ye Qingxuan thought it was a miracle that he could draw the bow, considering his illness in his lung.
After the arrow was shot, the wound on Lancelot’s chest burst open and blood stained his black shirt. The arrow flied in the air along a deflected trajectory and pierced through a rock far away into the ground, its tail shaking as if it didn’t want to end up like this.
It was so far away from its target.
Seeing this, other people might have laugh out loud, yet Ye Qingxuan only felt pity for Lancelot. Shooting only one arrow, Lancelot seemed to have used all his strength. He supported himself with the bow and bent down, coughing and spitting up blood.
He was so pale, but there was no disappointment or upset in his eyes. He raised his arm and wiped the blood off his lips.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Another three shrieking arrows were shot from the west, the east, and the south. The arrows were the same as the one shot by Lancelot. Surprised, Ye Qingxuan noticed that the four arrows formed a rectangular. The arrows pierced deep into the ground, their tails left shaking in the air, giving off scarlet light. At that moment, Christine suddenly understood the situation.
“This is…” Christine wanted to explain what this was but there was no time. She threw herself at Ye Qingxuan and pressed the Galahad armor to activate the remaining power. Then a barrier was generated to envelop them and the iron coffin in a protective space.
“Carpet saturation strike.” Christine finally found time to finish what she had wanted to say.
Coughing, Lancelot said, “Three rounds.” At that moment, hundreds of pairs blue eyes began to shine in the darkness behind him. Those were the masks of the cavaliers! Those eyes were lit up by the aether stoves of the power armor.
With the clattering of iron and steel, numerous armored knights turned off their cloaking mode and got into action. Under the command of Lancelot, they all raised the giant bow toward the sky. Then, they took the heavy arrows from their quivers and put it on the string of the bow. After that, they all drew their bows, generating a buzzing sound like that of a swarm of bees flying. A split second later, there came a deafening boom as if the sky was torn apart. Numerous arrows flew high into the sky, whizzing through the long distance. They landed precisely in the square designated by the four arrows.
The earth shook and wild wind blew. Against the protective shield of the 11 masters, the huge arrows smashed into the ground. Most of the arrows’ coatings peeled off in midair, revealing the alchemy metrics in them; as hot as the core of the earth.
In the heat, the stress in the arrows was activated. The arrows then disintegrated and disassembled into numerous red-hot iron plates. They were so thin they were almost transparent. They rained down like fire storms with their horribly high temperature. And the iron plates gave off a horrible shrieking sound when they ruptured.
Every ruptured iron plate would generate explosive impact on the aether movement. With tens of thousands of them exploding at the same time, they caused terrible whirls in the air. Such was the aether application in the level of armies.
Very soon, the defense of the 13 masters were breached by the “Scrubbing Noise” of the iron plates. Then, under the massive physical attacks, the cracked defense was shattered completely.
Three rounds of storms of iron and fire!
After the three rounds of attacks, Ye Qingxuan, within the Galahad defense looked around and saw only the earth liquefied and the rocks smashed by the terrible power of the attack, and the 11 masters who were so miserable.
The ground had sunk several meters, full of holes and ditches. Even the scepter of the hell was trembling.
The Dark Sovereign stared at the man at the center of the protective circle of armored knights, his face distorted by anger and cruelty. “Lancelot!”
Lancelot said nothing but waved his hand again. Hundreds of Archangel armors took off, giving off hot light. Among them, seven horrible aether movements spread out.
Round table knights! Those were the war machines created by King Arthur to defend his country when he ascended to the throne. The armors cost a huge fortune.
In the later years of King Arthur, due to the ruthlessness of King Arthur and the wars lasting for so many years, only nine sets of armor were still intact. And all of them, except Lancelot and Galahad, who were protecting Mary and Ye Qingxuan, were on the battlefield to fight against the heads of the first-generation royal musician divisions and the Dark Sovereign.
The enemies were right in front of them. Led by the seven round table armors, the round table knights charged to the battlefield.
The war began! Since the very beginning, warriors all over the world had been thinking about how to kill the musicians. Indeed, compared to the almost infinite aether powers, the strength of the flesh was so little that it was not even worth a speck of dust. However, the power armor had given new hope to the warriors.
There had been many combat theories against musicians, the most popular of which was surprise attack: kill the musician with just one strike before the musician even knew what had happened. The warrior had to tear up all of the musician’s defense with brutal force and behead the musician with one blow. However, for the musicians who had infinite means to protect themselves, it would not work if the musician was on guard. Then, the armor designed against musicians would upgrade the adaptability to the environment and defense.
This was to try by any and all means to protect the knights and the armor against all sorts of adverse circumstances, like high temperature, cold, and drastic and abrupt changes in the environment. As long as the knight and the armor were intact, there would be some chance to kill the musician.
And finally, there was the most effective way, which was far beyond the reach of most warriors and engineers: to equip the armor with powers greater than the musicians so that it could defeat the musicians at any cost.
The round table armor was one of the best achievements following this philosophy. They, created by Arthur with the Chapter of the Golden Victory, were born with powers beyond ordinary musicians and were able to strike the fatal blow to the enemy.
