Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience. Chapter 48: Long Is the Night for the Godless, part XIX It was a tense situation up on the castle's walls. Although the archers had been successful in killing numerous enemies and hindering them from breaking the gate so far, they were slowly losing ground. The enemy's constant bombardment with arrows and rocks shot by catapults had caused them quite some losses. Also, they would run out of arrows sooner or later. But there was one person up here who seemed completely unfazed by anything that happened. Lei kept firing her divine arrows at the enemy army, ignoring any dangers. At one point, she was only barely missed by a catapult's shot. It tore off a big chunk of the battlements right next to her feet. Lei kept shooting her arrows as if nothing had happened. Her courage was an inspiration to all the soldiers up here. With someone like Lei on their side, they felt like they could really defend this castle. "Ladders!" The sudden shout let the archers wince in fear. Siege ladders were a way bigger danger for them than the enemy's shots. Several long ladders were raised by the enemy army and brought to rest against the battlements. They were way too heavy for the soldiers on the walls to push them away. The archers shot their arrows at the Nergranian soldiers who were steadily climbing up the ladders. Since they had no way to evade the arrows, many of them got shot down. Right behind the spot where they would come up, several armed soldiers gathered. They were ready to beat down anyone who would make it up here. But one of the ladders was strange. No one climbed it at first. Was there something wrong with it? The soldiers on the wall who had gotten ready to defend against this ladder were confused. But then someone came up. The woman in the blood-drenched cape climbed so quickly that the soldiers behind the battlements could hardly believe their eyes. Some archers nervously tried to shoot this fast target, but they all missed. The soldiers tightened their grips around their weapons' hilts. But they might have as well jumped to their death. When she had climbed the wall, Fel right away used the Meluthian Nightmare in its purest form. With the sword Aelgoth it happened so smoothly and effortless that even Fel was surprised. Had she really been this strong? It gave her a strange nostalgic feeling, remembering the days when someone had called her greatest child prodigy of the sword in the whole world. Now she was ready to show this world what she had grown into. The effect of Fel's appearance was like that of an explosion. The only difference was that the body parts which hurtled through the air were separated from each other by perfectly clean cuts. The soldiers who had been standing ready in place to fight off the invaders had been completely dismembered. All that was left of them was a heap of various body parts and a whole mass of blood that had been splattered over the battlements in a wide area around. All of this happened within seconds. The archers who witnessed this insane fight were struck with fear. Just what kind of being was this attacker? For a single moment, Fel stood still and they had a chance to marvel at this unbelievable warrior. The maniac with the giant boobs, the red ponytail and the cape which once had been yellow, but was now for the most part blood-red. Then the sword Aelgoth began its crazy movements again and lashed into the next soldiers. It was as if a brutal storm was sweeping across the battlements. No one had any chance to defend themselves against it. As Fel surged forward, she killed the enemies around her in passing. Every move the soldiers made to either attack or evade her was futile. To Fel, they were all just slow and clumsy targets. Her mind was in a trance-like state while she slashed women left and right. Most of the soldiers weren't only hit by a single blow but by several quick strokes that dissected their bodies into bloody chunks. Fel hadn't felt this good in what seemed like an eternity to her. This was better than taking drugs, better than sticking her cock into any kind of asshole. She felt that this was the reason why she was alive. This was her element, her calling. Compared to Fel, the soldiers looked as if they had never touched a sword before in their whole life. They realized that they stood no chance in this ridiculous fight. Some of the archers jumped off the wall in panic and fell to their death. Those who reached a stair hurried down without looking back. Several women got trampled to death on the steps. The Nergranian archers and catapults had stopped shooting. They didn't want to hit Fel by accident. Also, the enemies behind the battlements were quickly diminishing. At this moment, most of the people inside and outside the castle just stared in awe at what happened on top of the castle's front wall. The balance of the battle had changed within a minute. But there was one woman up there who wasn't ready to give up just yet. With a cold look on her face, Lei nocked one of her sacred arrows. Fel just noticed in time that there was someone taking aim at her. There weren't a lot of things up here to protect herself with. She knew for certain that a simple wooden shield wouldn't be enough to protect her against this kind of attack. There was one black-haired warrior right in front of her. The hesitant woman wasn't sure whether she should try to slash Fel or try to block the inevitable attack. She probably knew that either action would only result in the same thing- her own death. The soldier was rather surprised when Fel didn't strike her with her sword, but seized her by the collar. Then Fel went down on her knees and pulled the staggered soldier forwards so that she landed on top of her. A split-second later, several of Lei's white projectiles hit the soldier. She let out a miserable pained cry. Her legs, her ass and her back were all pierced by the shots. One that hit the back of her thigh went all the way through, smashing her thigh bone and still sticking out on the other side. Fel whistled lowly. If she wasn't cautious, this woman could easily shoot her to death. Lei already nocked the next arrow while Fel still remained hidden behind the shot soldier. The archer with the divine powers knew that Fel would have to make a move eventually. And Lei was confident that if Fel would suddenly try to charge her, she would be able to shoot her down in time. The few soldiers that still remained on the wall were casting glances at Lei and Fel nervously. Was there a chance for them to survive this? At this moment, all of them prayed for Lei's victory. A few of them shot arrows at Fel, but they all only hit the soldier behind which Fel had taken cover. The woman's backside looked more and more like a porcupine's. Fel grinned as she grabbed the blue bottle from her belt and unplugged it. She had no intention to play this fairly. Azu was quite surprised to be summoned in the middle of a battlefield, with arrows flying past her. She stared at Fel with big eyes. The shouted commands came within a heartbeat. "Snow storm, all the way up to the green-haired bitch! Go!" Azu realized from the tension in Fel's voice that there was no time to lose. She quickly gathered her powers and then blew a huge white cloud all over the wall's top. Not only was this white fog ice-cold and full of tiny snow flakes. It also completely blocked everyone's vision. The many people who were standing on the ground and watching the spectacle on top of the castle's wall had no idea anymore what was going on up there. An explosion? The whole scene was covered in one big white cloud that was dissipating only slowly. The people on the wall shared the same fate. They couldn't even see another if they stood right next to each other. Also, the cold stung in their eyes and made them instinctively close them. For the first time, the archers could hear Lei's voice. "Don't stop! Keep shooting!" Quite contrary to her usual cool behavior, she sounded quite agitated. Both the archers and Lei herself kept shooting their arrows in Fel's general direction, hoping to hit her by chance. Of course, they often hit each other with their blind shots. One could hear many cries of pain as the archers found their backs penetrated by each other's arrows. Especially Lei's multi-shots had a devastating effect on the women in front of her. After a few of her shots, everything on the front wall fell silent for a while. She had certainly killed all the archers who had been standing between herself and Fel. But had she gotten Fel as well? Finally, the white mist became thinner. Lei looked over all the dead bodies who had been shot in the back by her. She still had an arrow nocked to kill her red-haired enemy as soon as she caught sight of her. "Are you still alive, heathen?" she asked with a low voice. "Fuck yes, I am!" The voice came from behind Lei. She didn't even have time to turn around and face the enemy who had managed to sneak behind her. Fel's sword went right into her back, pierced her spine and came out of her stomach. Lei looked at the blood-smeared blade. She didn't feel anything in her lower body. With closed eyes, she whispered: "Forgive me, my goddesses for not being strong enough..." Fel snarled. "How about you tell them in person?" Then she pulled her blade upwards, cleaving through Lei's chest and splitting her head in half. The people inside the inner ward were still staring at the confusing and terrifying scene up there. Archers were already getting ready to shoot Fel down as soon as the cloud would dissipate. But they entirely forgot about another thing. Now that the Nergranian recruits on the battering rams were undisturbed by the archers, they doubled their efforts. When they hit the gate with all four rams at the same time, the bolt cracked into two halves and the castle's gate flew open. Now the battle would really begin. The first to rush inside were the recruits themselves. After such a long siege with heavy losses, they were eager to pay the enemies back. So far they had only been taking hits, but now they finally had the chance to return some of them. To their surprise, the Loogranian army wasn't standing right behind the gate. On the contrary, there was only a single woman awaiting them. She wore a long red cloak and didn't move at all when the recruits approached her. "Get out of the way, lass, or we'll take you down!" one of the recruits shouted. They all had their weapons ready to finally strike an enemy. The red cloak flew up into the air and revealed what was underneath. It was a young woman with dark curls and eyes that could only be described as maniacal. The only thing she wore underneath the cloak was scanty underwear made of black leather. She had a nice toned body, but her dark skin was covered by scars. They seemed to stem from many cuts. No one could ever receive so many injuries in battle. These seemed to be self-inflicted. The weapon that she had in her hands consisted of a long chain with heavy steel balls on each end. The balls had long spikes all over them. It was a weird weapon that probably required a high amount of training to be used effectively. But Narusha, the war priestess, enjoyed harsh training. All alone, she started to fight against the hundreds of recruits that came in through the gate. It was an insane battle. Narusha constantly let the spiked balls rotate at an extreme speed. Whenever one of the black-haired recruits came too close to her, she was hit by one of the balls. They easily had enough force to batter a woman's skull in, to shatter her ribcage or maul her guts. Most hits killed their target immediately and the others still caused so severe injuries that the hit woman couldn't get on her feet again. The recruits had no way of coming close to Narusha. Even when several of them tried to charge her at the same time, they all got beaten down by the rotating balls in quick succession. After a few minutes, Narusha was entirely surrounded by maimed corpses. The recruits could hardly evade her. Those who were still outside had no idea what was going on inside, so they kept pushing the others forward. Eventually, they had to step inside the radius of Narusha's chain and found a violent death. The war priestess kept swinging her weapon constantly, without the smallest break. The slightest carelessness could have killed her. Narusha's skin was completely covered with sweat and the blood of those she had slain. But her concentration didn't weaken. It were the goddesses themselves that granted her the power to keep up this insane mass murder. So far, the Loogranian soldiers weren't too busy yet. Most of the Nergranian recruits who came through the gate were beaten down by Narusha. The remaining women who managed to evade her were easily surrounded by the Loogranian soldiers and killed without fail. This fatal situation continued until a woman came through the gate who refused to be defeated by Narusha. Wearing scanty leather armor and a short black skirt, Virian did look more like one of the recruits than a regular Nergranian soldier. The only things that were really remarkable about her were her short gray hair and the two scabbards on her belt. As soon as the gate had been broken, she had shoved through the masses of recruits so that she could enter the castle as quickly as possible. Here was the first obstacle for her to overcome. The woman who had been walking in front of Virian was hit by one of the spiked balls in the chest. Both her boobs got ripped off, then she fell the the ground with a horrible scream. Narusha glared at Virian with a glance that could only have meant: Now it's your time to die! The spiked steel ball came hurtling towards Virian with insane speed. Right behind Virian were already more recruits pushing forwards. There was no room to evade the deadly ball. Virian drew one of her swords with her right hand and slashed the chain that came towards her, then she ducked. Her sword didn't manage to cut through the iron, but the chain coiled itself up around the blade. In the course of doing so, the spiked ball rotated around the sword several times- still at a deadly speed and only barely missing Virian's head. It graced Virian's unprotected forearm and made a deep cut. While trying to suppress the pain in her arm, Virian felt a tug from the chain. Then the sword in her right hand was gone. Narusha had ripped it out of her hand using the chain. Virian was stunned. Could it be that she was going to lose this fight? Not even a second passed until the other steel ball came flying towards Virian. It was aimed directly at her head. Virian clenched her teeth. Dammit... She hadn't come here to be stopped by some crazy bitch with a chain. Virian grabbed the hilt of her remaining sword with both hands, drew it and smashed it against the steel ball from below with full force. The impact almost knocked Virian off her feet. It made a loud clanking sound and the spiked ball went high up into the air. The blade of Virian's sword was visibly bent after the collision. Virian looked up. Now both of the steel balls were out of Narusha's control. One had lost its momentum after she had used it to snatch Virian's sword. The other one was still up in the air. Virian charged at the war priestess and knocked her to the ground with her sword's hilt. As soon as the danger from Narusha's weapon was gone, the remaining recruits charged forwards. Now they were able to confront the Loogranian army along a wide front. Virian kneeled on Narusha's chest. Blood from the cut on Virian's arm dripped down on the priestess' face. Narusha couldn't believe it. "How? The goddesses protect me..." Virian snorted. "Your goddesses ain't worth shit!" Then she put her sword through Narusha's throat. Virian had already picked up some of her master's habits. A gust of blood shot out of Narusha's neck. The priestess made a horrible rattling sound, then she closed her eyes forever. A moment later, Virian heard sword slashes and people falling to the ground right in front of her. Then there was a hateful voice. "The thing you just said about the goddesses... would you like to repeat that?" Virian looked up. There stood a girl in light armor with straight white hair. One of her eyes was covered by a black eyepatch. In her hands she held a finely crafted long sword. Virian gnashed her teeth. She was just able to raise her sword in time, then she was engaged in the next fight to the death.