The Sword of the War God
The Sword of the War God
Where does a priest's strength come from?
The answer was simple enough.
The immense divine authority they wielded, and the physical body reinforced by the Evil God who granted that authority.
Those two things made them demigods, gave them the power to twist this world to their whim.
Their monstrous vitality let them fight through wounds that would kill an ordinary human, and the authority in their hands warped reality beyond all reason.
A body that had broken its limits became a tool for destroying enemies. Lost humanity became the cruelty to bring those enemies to their knees.
That was why priests were strong. That was why ordinary humans could never defeat them.
But Warrior Monks, as a rule, stood slightly outside that logic.
"Th-they're coming...!"
A soldier's voice slipped out like a half-formed prayer, trembling with dread. The men manning the ballistae hunched their shoulders. The spear-bearers chattered their teeth, terror plain on their faces.
Past their shoulders, the figure they beheld was the mightiest Warrior Monk who had ever lived — the being who was the very first Warrior Monk.
Behind that being advanced a countless swarm of other Warrior Monks. An endless tide of footsteps spread like a stain across the blackened earth.
The soldiers who identified the threat swallowed hard. Strange, how the sound of their gulping rang out so clearly over the dull drumbeat of that approaching march.
The advancing Warrior Monks divided roughly into three groups.
A contingent in the far rear, sprinting with ranged weapons in hand.
A formation of shield-bearing fighters, each carrying a different shield, running in tight lockstep.
And a mounted vanguard — warriors riding grotesquely enlarged locusts, cave crickets, and cockroach-like insects, sweeping long polearms as they thundered forward.
These were, in their own way, soldiers chosen by the War God.
Strategic movement of a kind no priest of another god could ever execute.
It was not a waste-free army. But the way the disparate elements moved in concert was unmistakably military.
That was the difference between Warrior Monks and other priests.
As the sheer numbers implied, a Warrior Monk was not granted much divinity.
Only enough to sustain a body that had surpassed human limits. Their strength, for the most part, came from elsewhere.
And that strength was not so very different from human strength.
Technique internalized into instinct, deep experience, edges honed sharp — intuition and sixth sense, the ability to judge in the crucible of combat.
These things made a strong Warrior Monk.
A strong Warrior Monk was, at root, a strong human. Only those who had been strong while still human could become strong Warrior Monks — the so-called Named.
The Executioner had been one. The Collector had been one. The vast majority of the powerful Warrior Monks Aslan had fought and survived across the years had been exactly that.
And among that company, the figure now approaching stood out above all others.
Sword of the War God.
He who had been the last Emperor of the ancient empire, and its first Master of Combat.
He who had surrendered to the War God to save his people, only to be fused with the very people he sought to protect and twisted into the Sword of the War God.
Aslan watched the black silhouette resolve beyond the thrumming plain and let out a long breath.
A body pushed far beyond its frame by immense divinity, gorged on the souls of countless humans and swollen into something monstrous — armed with the swordsmanship of the God of War and Knowledge, and every scrap of combat art acquired in life.
The Sword of the War God was a formidable enemy.
Even in the game, he was a foe you only met in the late game. By the time you took him on, you were past level fifteen — and anything less meant you couldn't even call it a fight.
So the odds of victory here were not high.
But they were not zero, either.
Aslan re-assembled his plan in his mind, sharpening it, and fixed his gaze on the approaching Warrior Monks.
The Sword of the War God crawled forward. Arrayed on either flank, the other Warrior Monks spread like unfolding wings.
Abruptly, the Sword of the War God halted and raised its body. Aslan lifted a hand in answer.
"Sound-absorbing barrier!"
The mages did not hesitate this time, nor were they slow.
They wrung out their mana once more, and a veil covered the fortress front — a pale-blue barrier. An instant later it shattered into drifting fragments, accompanied by a roar that seemed to physically warp the air.
—!
Space appeared to bend, then snapped back. Fragments of magic trailed through the air between. A tide of sheer, appalling malice rolled through.
Even Aslan felt the corner of his eye twitch from the pressure.
"Guh..."
"Hik...!"
It was only natural that the soldiers choked on their terror.
The fact they hadn't run yet was already commendable.
Not that running was an option anymore. Aslan drew his eyes away from the soldiers and picked up his bow.
The Sword of the War God remained still. The other Warrior Monks kept charging. Their details were beginning to resolve through the dust when voices rang out among the defenders.
"Aim!"
"Hold your fire — draw them in!"
"Make ready to shoot!"
Ballistae tilted on their mounts. The enormous bolts of siege engines, their edges ground wickedly sharp, glittered under the morning sun.
At the same moment, the sergeants among the archers shouted in unison.
"Nock!"
Bowmen, legs trembling and breath ragged, raised their bows and set arrows to strings.
"Draw!"
At the next command, the strings were hauled taut. The archers' faces went taut with them, tension etched deep into every line.
The Warrior Monks filled their straining eyes — priests of that war god, surging forward, enemies who had spawned uncountable deaths and never doubted they would spawn more again today.
Countless arrowheads caught the light, aimed their way, but the oncoming Warrior Monks showed no hesitation in their charge.
For one thing, the numbers bearing down on them were far from trivial.
If the target were a fortress the size of Nechagni, this force had the quality and the mass to overwhelm it in less than half a day.
So they felt no fear.
They were only facing a human army.
They simply raised their shields, canting them slightly, and fixed their compound eyes on the walls.
A thousand fragmented images swam through those many-faceted eyes. And within them — a glint.
"Loose!"
With the shouted order, a rain of arrows descended.
Death surged from the strings the archers released. The ballistae, too, fired their heavy bolts in volleys, each one aimed at a specific Warrior Monk.
An onslaught no human army could endure. But the mounted Warrior Monks did not stop. They accelerated — and raised their shields.
What followed was shield-work elevated to an art beyond mastery.
Clang!
The mounted Warrior Monks shed countless death-strokes with the barest motion. An edge turned an arrow aside; the flat of a shield interposed itself in the path of a ballista bolt and deflected it away.
The deflected arrows scattered into the air. Through the gaps, the Warrior Monks accelerated again, charging the walls, swinging their shields and thrusting their weapons as they came.
Arrows and ballista bolts kept streaming their way. The Warrior Monks saw only panicked humans wasting ammunition on meaningless fire, and grins twisted across their faces.
They were arrogant in their certainty that humans — mere frightened humans — could not defeat them.
That arrogance was what blinded them to the small shift that followed among the ballistae and archers.
The gathered death began to glow blue.
"—Loose!"
Another command. Another rain of arrows. Another wave of death pouring down. And in the moment the monks moved to swat those arrows aside —
Giiiing!
The countless arrows that had fallen to the ground began to emit a strange light, triggered by the incantations of the mages who had revealed themselves atop the wall.
"Cease fire! First rank, reload!"
At the sergeants' call, the arrows flared red. The blue light was swallowed, consumed by fire rising from the ground beneath them.
The mounted monks realized what was happening far too late. They hurled themselves upward, scrambled backward, threw themselves from their mounts —
KWA-BOOOOOM!
The explosion left few survivors.
The fallen arrows themselves became shrapnel. The concussive blast scattered finely minced viscera and shredded flesh, announcing the deaths of whoever those fragments had once belonged to.
"Kuwaaagh!"
Screams tore through the smoke. Survivors reeled back in desperate retreat, but the ballistae on the wall did not relent.
"First rank, fire! Second rank, load!"
Thump. Thu-thu-thu-thump!
No space left to block this time.
The mounted Warrior Monks threw aside their shields and leaped clear to barely preserve their lives, or were pinned to the earth by the ballista bolts and sent rolling.
In moments they had been torn to ragged tatters. The fire did not let up.
Crossfire from the ballistae now filled the wall-top — death discharged in volley after volley, the product of the Kallus Empire's treasury and the smithing arts of Baramunz.
All of it prepared solely to fight the Sword of the War God. The reserve of bolts was still deep. The engines kept spitting death without pause, and atop the wall the activity of arrow-bearers ferrying fresh ammunition never ceased.
The number of cavalry was steadily thinning when new shapes emerged ahead of the survivors.
Heavy infantry clad in thick armor, bearing massive shields that could nearly cover their oversized frames.
They formed a dense, unbroken line and held. Pouring ballista fire struck their shields and bounced away, unable to penetrate.
Behind that wall, ranged Warrior Monks advanced — archers, slingers, javelin-throwers, crossbowmen.
Aslan watched their movement, gauged the distance to the heavily armored monks, and sent a glance toward the archers concealed at various points along the battlements.
The finest sharpshooters of the Baramunz Mountain Kingdom raised their longbows and set arrows nearly as long as the bows onto the strings.
These were arts perfected over a lifetime of training. When Aslan lent a single hand to correct his own aim, a handful of near-flat trajectories stitched across the field.
—Thump!
The release rang out almost as a single note. Beyond the trembling strings, the ranged-armed Warrior Monks were impaled in near unison.
It was a small disappointment that none of the impaled monks had actually died from the strike, but Aslan paid it no mind.
The heavy infantry's return fire poured through the gaps in their shields, and the ranged attacks hammered from close quarters. When muscle-power beyond human limits hurled those attacks toward the wall, Aslan shouted a rapid command.
"All units, take cover!"
The ballistae fell silent at once. Soldiers snatched up the shields laid nearby and thrust them out.
Shhyaaak!
The Warrior Monks' volley slashed into the wall.
Clang-clang-clang. Crack!
The wall was hammered by javelins, throwing axes, sling-stones, arrows — a storm of impacts that chewed fragments from the fortress.
Krrk. Crrk!
A handful of soldiers died shield and all, pierced through, but their numbers were small.
One man's neck was torn open by a javelin and his head tumbled across the stone. Soldiers around him let out groaning, half-scream sounds, but no one threw down his shield and fled.
Aslan stole a glimpse of the landscape through the relentless hail of brute force. He looked at the advancing Warrior Monks laying down suppressive fire and released a cold, deep breath.
The tactics were far too obvious.
Strategy and tactics were unnecessary to Warrior Monks. So it was only natural that their plans would always converge along this identical path.
'I know all your tactics.'
After twelve years, Aslan could track the entire flow of a battle like this with his eyes shut. Their tactics never changed.
And this time, that unwavering consistency would become the poison that killed them.
He pulled a scroll from his tool pouch and shot a brief look at the sergeant right beside him.
The sergeant caught the look, instantly snatched the horn from his belt, and blew.
Bwoooooo!
The horn's call unfurled from the wall, spreading in echoes across the battlements. Within the resounding note, here and there, figures raised their heads.
In the meager gaps their shields allowed, hands gestured, lips moved, staves swung.
Aslan burned the scroll with his own mana and voiced the words.
"Fireball."
His hand extended. From its tip, heat gathered and kindled, a sphere of flame that swelled steadily larger.
The sheer thermal violence of it bleached the faces of nearby soldiers. Sweat beaded on their skin. Aslan gave them not a single glance and lifted his hand higher.
Taking Root amplified magic-tool effectiveness. Even a cheap, shoddy scroll churned out by a third-rate mage became, in his hands, the spell of an archmage.
The flame blazed like a small sun, rotating above his palm.
"Fire!"
Aslan shouted and swung his arm. The sergeant blew the horn with every fiber of his strength.
Guoooong — the sound came, and fireballs, massed across the full stretch of the wall, flew forward.
The target was the Warrior Monks' vanguard — the heavy infantry and archers drawn up in a single line.
Tens of fireballs struck home, and the wasteland, still bathed in the glow of a newly risen dawn, flared blood-red and erupted.
KWA-BOOOOOM!
Waves of flame rolled outward. Warrior Monks were tossed like scattered debris. Among the stench of giant insects charring to death, very few figures managed to retreat.
"Ballistae, reload!"
Only then did the soldiers lift their heads.
Archers drew their bows. Sergeants bellowed. The ballista crews sighted the shields and exposed backs of the fleeing Warrior Monks.
"First rank, fire!"
"Loose!"
In the space the Warrior Monks were abandoning, more bodies rolled across the dirt and soaked the wasteland.