Chapter 493 — The White Knights' Way of Fighting
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
"They're here! They're here! Rioters! Rioters everywhere!" the priest howled as he ran through the cloister. "They have holy light too! Those rioters... those rioters have holy light in their hands too!"
The corridors were full of people running every which way; panicked clergy darted like headless flies among the gleaming ornate doors. A black-robed Discipline Brother stopped the priest who was racing down the corridor: "Where are the Church knights? The soldiers? Where are the men guarding outside?!"
"Scattered! The soldiers were broken up by a mercenary company that came charging out of nowhere, the knights were beaten by those men in white armor, and the rest can't hold them—those rioters are about to break into the Great Cathedral!!"
A tremendous crash came from the circular plaza, mingled with the huge noise of something collapsing and shattering; the cathedral's glass windows shook in the din. A cleric whose face was covered in blood came running from the distance: "Father! Father! The barrier over the plaza is about to break!!"
Despairing cries rose from every direction: "The divine array? Why hasn't the divine array been activated?"
"The Lesser Cathedral District has already been overrun—the divine array there was never activated from the start!"
"The bishop... where is the bishop?"
At last someone remembered the interim bishop of Frostgate, at last someone remembered the man who ought to be taking charge at this moment. The priest with the holy-light burns on his face seized the Discipline Brother by his black robe and roared, etiquette utterly forgotten: "Where is Bishop Fran Belland?! Why hasn't he appeared?!"
"The bishop is in the prayer chamber... he is communing with god..."
"There's no time left—those rioters are about to break in!"
"I'll go fetch him!"
Crash after crash came from the plaza; every door and window of the Great Cathedral began to shake. The trembling clerics and priests gathered in the main hall of that vast structure, and the last remnant of the Church knights formed a guard before the spellcasters—every eye fixed on the gilded white doors before them. Some prayed under their breath, some cursed aloud, and every one of them stirred up his holy light, ready at any instant for the moment the doors were breached.
Until the moment those "mobs" stormed the cathedral district, they had never imagined they would face a force this powerful. They had thought their own strength as superhumans, together with the divine array of the cathedral district itself, would be enough to tear apart any invader—but the facts shattered all their hopes: the divine array of the cathedral district had never been activated at all, and those "mobs"... they too had holy light in their hands.
On this land ruled by the God of Holy Light, there existed holy light that did not belong to the god's dominion!!
A cleric, his face full of terror, listened to the sounds from outside and could not help saying in a shaking voice: "Those fellows with the holy light and the warhammers... where on earth did they come from?!"
"The Church has never trained that kind of... monster," a Church knight said, wiping cold sweat and blood from his forehead, shifting his grip on his sword again and again as he fought to steady himself. "Their sacred artifacts are terribly powerful, and when they cast they seem never to tire. We meant to strike in the gaps between their castings, but half our number were killed by their ceaseless blasts of holy light... they're simply monsters!"
"The Lor—the Lord will save us..."
The explosions outside stopped abruptly. Wild joy surged in the hearts of the priests, who had all but given up hope—but the battle-hardened Church knights and Discipline Brothers went pale in an instant: "The gate's ward has been broken!!"