The Era of Gods

The defending army on the city square was ready for a serious confrontation and quickly advanced; hundreds of arrows rained down in a focused fire, mixed with the screeching launch of over a dozen bed crossbows. The Whale Knight who had just emerged from the city gate lane suddenly leaned backward, his body impaled by over a dozen thick fine steel crossbow bolts, as well as a few irregularly inserted normal arrows.

“Keep firing!”

The commander of the defenders waved his hand and bellowed as a second volley of arrows shot out, accompanied by the creaking sound of the windlass from the bed crossbows.

This Transcendent Great Naga endured the second wave of arrows and crawled out of the city gate entrance, making way for the second Whale Knight, who burst through the gate alley with his thick and powerful snake tail. It whipped rapidly, sending the arrows and broken stones on the ground flying chaotically, as it charged towards the enemy formation arrayed on the square with great roars.

Then came the third, the fourth, the fifth, along with a large group of Fishman and Forest Lizardmen cannon fodder flooding in. The square instantly became a chaotic mess.

Once a large group of Fishman Naga utilized the river to invade the city, and the city gate was breached, it was only a matter of time before the city would fall.

The only difference was when the enemy would be completely crushed and how large the losses would be.

After all, the difference in strength was too significant. They had yet to use their full power. At least their heroes under the command of the three of them had not yet joined the battle, and Shen Yue Xin’s hero, The Lord of Wrath, had not participated, let alone the seventy or eighty Sky Wrath Magicians under her command.

Moreover, they had nearly ambushed the city outright, and Duke Alfonso of the Blood had no preparation at all. His forces were not concentrated; only the less than twenty thousand troops of his headquarters were present, with the rest of the forces not located here.

One must know that when Lin Xiao faced the invasion of the Blood Earl, they had a Blood Legion of thirty to forty thousand. A Duke was more powerful than an Earl, so it would be unreasonable to have only these few troops.

Lin Xiao squinted his eyes, studying the Vampire Duke, who was enveloped by an invisible distortion. He could now sense a powerful pressure, not belonging to the Vampire Duke Alfonso, slowly emerging. It was evident that the Semi-god Vampire attached great importance to this legendary Fanatic Believer. A response was being prepared, likely in anticipation of an Incarnation’s descent.

Duke Alfonso, in his fanatic state, disregarded even his own territory. Without this Legendary Vampire to intercept, the city defenders stood no chance against them.

Even with a significant number of Transcendent Vampires inside, that was of no use.

Without the advantage of the city’s defenses, the mighty Great Nagas, relying on their Dominator’s Body, charged through unstoppable. They chiseled through the city gate defense twice in a row, crushing the defenders.

A fully armored Transcendent Blood Knight raised a blood-colored greatsword and pointed forward. A shadow of blood flashed across a hundred meters, smashing into the back of a Transcendent Great Naga. The over two-meters- long Blood Sword pierced through thick scales and tough muscles, impaling into the body up to the hilt, with the tip emerging from the other side.

The injured Whale Knight twisted his body as if unhurt and swung down two Dual Hand Greatswords. The Blood Knight clutched the hilt tightly and tried to pull it out but couldn’t immediately. The Whale Knight’s twisting waist and overpowering muscles tightly gripped the Blood Sword, preventing its immediate removal.

This fraction of a second’s mistake was fatal in a Transcendent-level battle, especially since the Whale Knight was stronger than the Blood Knight. In that very instant, both Blood Knight and his mount were slashed by the Dual Hand Greatswords, even before he had time to abandon his sword and escape.

Two piercing tearing sounds and ‘xi ji ju’ screams erupted as the Blood Knight, along with his horse, were cleaved in two, and even his thick armor was forcibly split open.

However, at the moment of killing the Blood Knight, a column of raging flames several meters in diameter blasted from the central tower of the city, striking the Whale Knight. The formidable power of a strategic spell instantly burnt the lower half of the Whale Knight’s body to ashes. The resulting dark-red flames covered hundreds of meters, blasting a huge crater at the city gate and killing countless Fishman Great Nagas and enemies in this fearsome strike.

Yet, the horror of the strategic-level magic did not affect Lin Xiao’s dearly faithful and spirited Clan members. Those who had already penetrated the city continued their assault, with the following forces continuing to storm through the breach.

Whale Knights, with their formidable physiques and vitality, pushed forward using a strategy of exchanging wounds for wounds, already being stronger than Blood Knights and additionally having unfair advantages, making it impossible for the Blood Knights to fight back.

In less than five minutes, more than a dozen Transcendent Blood Knights had suffered heavy casualties. The remainder led the surviving defenders to abandon the outer perimeter of the city and retreated to the three Magic High Towers within the city to stand their ground.

These three Magic High Towers were manned by Duke Alfonso’s Mage team. These towers were not the fabled Mage Towers but were a type of war structure. Although not as powerful as the Mage Towers, they still significantly enhanced the magical powers of the spellcasters within them and had the ability to deploy powerful war spells.

In the barely more than ten minutes since the siege began, these three Magic High Towers had already unleashed five waves of terrifying war-level spells, resulting in two Transcendent Great Nagas killed and four severely wounded, forcing them to withdraw from the battle.

However, his Clan’s will remained sturdy, and despite the terrifying magic, their morale soared even more. In contrast, the city’s defenders couldn’t withstand such indiscriminate, terrifying strikes and were already beginning to collapse. A small number of defenders had given up resisting and fled into the city.

Above the Vault of Heaven, large groups of Wingmen had already crossed the city walls and entered the city, with many Wingmen escorting several dozens of Thunder Wings.

These Transcendent Thunder Wings had the innate talent to control lightning, and with the additional career of Thunder Magician specially granted by Shen Yue Xin, the combination was particularly formidable.

They clenched their hands in the air, condensing arduous bolts of vivacious blue lightning spears and thrust them down fiercely.

“Boom boom boom…”

Each arm-thick and two to three meters-long lightning bolt hit its target like a missile exploding, with countless lightning bolts wreaking havoc and destroying everything within range.

The destructive power of their spells may not have matched that of the kobold vein sorcerers’ Dragon Breath Flame Explosion, but the direct killing power within the area was terrifying, and moreover, lightning inflicted massive additional damage to evil creatures like undead demons.

And vampires were the very epitome of evil creatures. Within the strike zone of the lightning, any vampire below the transcendent level was instantly killed by a single lightning javelin, and even a transcendent-level Blood Knight would be wounded if hit.

Dozens of Thunder Magicians bombarded the area relentlessly, leveling all structures surrounding the three Magic High Towers. Numerous soldiers were killed by the secondary effects and scattered in flight, only to be intercepted and exterminated by the Fishman Supreme Naga converging from all sides.

Lin Xiao and his two companions stood silently in the void outside the city, looking towards Afonso, but their gaze was not on the battle within the city. Even the presence of three Magic High Towers didn’t concern them – such powerful yet long-cooling war structures were useless without allied forces buying time. The Blood Mages within the towers were now overwhelmed with defense and would probably be unable to cast their next war spell.

What they were focusing on was the now prayer-completed Duke Alfonso, a legendary vampire who was a fanatic believer. With his continual prayers and the deaths of a large number of followers, the Semi-god Vampire finally responded to the prayers and began to descend.

In their perception, a powerful and evil will was emerging in this space, its strength was accumulating.

If they intervened right now, they could forcibly interrupt the descent before it happened. A legendary vampire stood no chance of stopping them.

But there was no such “if”. This was a situation they had long dreamt of – why would they possibly want to interfere? They were actually hoping for the Semi-god Vampire to send several more incarnations.

Before the Blood God could descend, Lin Xiao and Lin Xu Shen Yue Xin simultaneously ordered a retreat for their forces, to prevent their subordinates from becoming involved in the inevitable clash of legendary beings.

Compared to their anticipation, Duke Alfonso, who had fully invested his faith in the Blood God, snapped out of his frenzied state upon sensing the response to his prayers and the beginning of the descent. It took several seconds for him to process the fact that the situation below had been decided in a mere ten minutes or so.

If not for the fact that he was a legendary vampire himself, he would have thought he was under an illusion.

How could his city have fallen so quickly?

Where was his army?

What had happened to his numerous forces?

For some reason, Alfonso felt a sense of foreboding, but as he sensed the divine might emanating from the Blood God Incarnate in the twisted void above, the slight apprehension quickly dissipated, replaced by renewed confidence.

From afar, Lin Xiao watched Alfonso’s changing expressions with some amusement and a hint of envy.

A demigod with a legendary fanatic believer was something to be envied indeed.

The Power of Faith provided by a legendary fanatic believer was not insignificant. In theory, one hundred legendary fanatic believers could maintain the God Level of a newly-enthroned Deity from falling. According to the information Lin Xiao had obtained, there were several Duke of Vampires in the Vampire Kingdom, with dozens of marquis and earl level big nobles, plus a large number of transcendent faithful. The quality of followers this Semi-god Vampire possessed was exceptionally good, theoretically sufficient to support a True God.

Yet having lived for so long, this Semi-god Vampire was still not a True God nor even a High-Level Demigod…

Indeed, this raised some doubts in Lin Xiao. He suspected that this Semi-god Vampire was more than just an ordinary demigod, but he had no evidence.

But whether it was a Normal Demigod or a High-Level Demigod, one thing was for sure: Divine Enthronement was far from easy.

After all, if there were certainty in igniting the Divine Fire and ascending to godhood, nobody would miss that chance. The fact that this Semi-god Vampire had lived so long without becoming a god indicated that either it was not confident of its Divine Enthronement, or the conditions were not yet sufficient.

They were unsure of what the Semi-god Vampire was up to, as its descent was exceedingly slow. Their subordinates were gradually retreating from the city, yet the Divine Incarnation had not fully arrived. They could clearly sense that the demigod’s will had indeed arrived, but it was unreasonably slow.

It was as if…

It was as if the Semi-god Vampire was so far away from here that it couldn’t descend swiftly.

Standing alone in the void, Alfonso felt that something was amiss – why had his opponents stopped their assault? What were they waiting for?

Lin Xiao and the others didn’t dare to move forward either, fearing they might scare away the Blood God Incarnate. Both sides were thus at a stalemate.

Fortunately, after such a long wait, as a vast will appeared in this space, the Twisted Void above Alfonso parted, and out stepped a figure with a head full of silver…