Book 10, Baruch – Chapter 42: An Utter Catastrophe

Everyone in the tent couldn’t help but look towards Linley. Without question, Linley was the leader of these Saints.

“Boss!” Bebe called out frantically.

Linley shook his head slightly. “Once we break the agreement, then according to the original text, Desri, the Radiant Church, and the Cult of Shadows will join forces in dealing with us.”

“Why are you afraid of them?” Bebe wrinkled his little nose, and said viciously, “If those Saints come, I’ll eat them alive. What’s more, Boss, Desri probably won’t act against you. He clearly was on our side.”

Desri was indeed on Linley’s side.

“Zassler’s usage of a forbidden spell to summon an army of millions of undead would, without question, result in victory. Desri might not come attack us as a result of us violating the agreement. However, if we act in such a way, we would essentially be destroying Desri’s reputation.”

Desri had given him face. He couldn’t make Desri look bad like that.

“Goddamnit. What a pain in the ass.” Bebe was somewhat frantic. “Boss, Zassler can just summon undead that aren’t Saints. As long as non-Saint undead do the attacking, then that wouldn’t be considered a violation, right?”

Bebe’s words made Delia immediately begin to laugh.

Linley swatted Bebe on the head. “Bebe, you are equivocating. How is the ultimate summoning spell, ‘Undead Calamity’, different from other forbidden spells? In fact, in terms of power, the Undead Calamity spell is even stronger. It even can summon Saint-level undead.”

“But then we’re going to lose!” Bebe said hurriedly.

Linley sighed. “If we lose, we lose. At worst, that just means the enemy will take away the majority of the gems in the magicite mines. Fortunately, we’ve already mined away all of those gems that were on par with magicite cores of beasts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks. Bebe, you’ve finished with those, right?”

After discovering the secret door, Linley immediately mentally reached out to Bebe and had Bebe bring Haeru and the three Saint-level dragons to go to the core area and begin mining.

Although those magicite gems probably were only numerous enough to fill up a house, in terms of price, they were roughly on par with two third of the entire rest of the mine. After all, these gems held enough energy that they were on par with the magicite cores of magical beasts of the seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks.

“We’ve mined them all.” Bebe said hurriedly. “But, we’ve only mined out twenty or thirty percent of those ordinary magicite gems.”

The 20-30% of ordinary magicite gems, combined with the core gems that they had mined, were worth perhaps only fifty percent of the total value of the magicite mines.

..........

“Rumble...”

The thickly clustered soldiers quickly formed up into two lines. The enormous, million-man army seemed like a behemoth as it swept towards the defenses of the magicite mines.

Within the army, Weiss Porter and Guillermo both had smiles on their faces.

“We win.” Guillermo laughed as he looked at the distant magicite mines.

Weiss Porter chuckled. “Don’t celebrate just yet. Nothing is certain until the last moment!”

“I don’t care about Linley’s soldiers. What I’m afraid of is Linley personally interfering! Or, those Saint-level magic beasts attacking. Our army would probably totally collapse.”

“True.” Guillermo sighed as well.

How effective was their previous agreement in binding Linley?

“First let our army rest. They fought all night, then marched for an entire day. The soldiers haven’t had a chance to rest at all.” Weiss Porter said. “It’s already night. Wait for dawn. Let them rest one night, and then attack again at dawn.”

Right now, the advantage was all on their side. Although their common soldiers were exhausted, those sixty thousand elite soldiers weren’t tired at all.

The weakest soldier of those two legions was of the fifth rank.

During the battle at the prefectural city of Cod, they had only attacked at the very end, and then travelled for a day. Given their power, even staying up for three days and three nights was fine.

Within the Forest of Darkness.

“Rustle...” In this primeval forest, a soft sound rustled throughout the area. One Stoneater Rat and Shadowmouse after another could be seen, moving in dense ranks...as far as the eye could see, there were Shadowmice and Stoneater Rats. Countless rat-type magical beasts were traveling towards the south side of the Forest of Darkness at high speed.

Gray Stoneater Rats, black Shadowmice, silver Stoneater rats, blue Shadowmice, golden Stoneater Rats, violet Shadowmice...

Rat-type magical beasts of all colors were coming out in a constant stream from within the depths of the Forest of Darkness like a tide, surging towards the south.

Amongst them, three violet-gold rat-type magical beasts were flying in the air above.

“Big brother, are we being a bit too nasty?” One of the violet-gold rats spoke out.

“What do you mean, too nasty?” The leader of the violet-gold rats sneered. “We are the kings of the rat-type magical beasts. Since all three of us brothers are making our grand entrance...we have to show off a bit. Also, we only brought a portion of the rat-type magical beasts of the Forest of Darkness. It isn’t as though we brought them all.”

The Forest of Darkness was the home of rat-type magical beasts.

In the Forest of Darkness, rat-type magical beast hordes were terrifying in power. No other magical beasts dared to offend these rat-type magical beast hordes.

Even Saint-level magical beasts didn’t want to offend the Rat Kings.

Each of these violet-gold rats possessed terrifying amounts of power.

“That Linley hasn’t met us a single time yet, has he?” The violet-gold rat in the middle laughed.

“Right. He can be considered as having rendered great merits, for him having taken care of Bebe for so long.” The leading violet-gold rat said.

“Big brother, don’t be so self-satisfied. From what I’ve learned from my conversations with Bebe, that Linley’s power is quite astonishing. In his full Dragonform, combined with his extremely high understanding of the Laws, you probably aren’t a match for him.” The third violet-gold rat said.

The leading violet-gold rat let out a few snorts. “At his current level of power, I suppose he finally, just barely, qualifies to be Bebe’s ‘Boss’, now.”

Twelve years ago, when Bebe and the violet-gold rat had exchanged blows, Bebe had been at a disadvantage.

But twelve years later, Bebe’s level of power had already reached parity with the violet-gold rat.

“They are moving so slowly.” The leading violet-gold rat said with impatience. Suddenly, it let out a shrill screech. “Shkreeeee!” The piercing sound rang out, and instantly, the masses of Stoneater Rats and Shadowmice below them began to move more quickly.

Wherever the endless tide of rat-type magical beasts went, the other magical beasts immediately scrambled to flee.

Nobody dared to stop them!

.......

Linley’s forces were all hidden behind their defenses. All they could do was rely on the local geography and environment to stop the enemy. Although they knew the enemy forces were exhausted last night, Linley’s 150,000 soldiers were exhausted as well.

The day slowly brightened. This morning was a foggy one.

The fog wasn’t very thick, but it prevented a person from seeing beyond a few hundred meters.

“The enemy is moving.”

Behind the defenses, the soldiers could clearly hear a multitude of footsteps. Clearly, the enemy forces were charging in this direction. In the mist, one could vaguely begin to see countless soldiers appear like a wave crashing towards them.

Linley, Delia, Bebe, Zassler, Barker, and the others all quietly watched.

“Jeeze, this pisses me off.” Bebe grumbled on Linley’s shoulders.

Bebe secretly glanced at Linley, but Linley maintained his silence. Who here was happy? Who wouldn’t be upset at having to give away half the magicite mine to the enemies? But Linley had signed the agreement, and he didn’t want to make Desri look bad. And so, he held to the agreement.

Soon, the hundreds of millions of gold coins worth of magicite gems would belong to the enemy.

Suddenly...

The footsteps came to a halt. At the same time, a loud, world-shaking voice could be heard: “Surrender. There is no way you can resist our army. If you surrender, we definitely won’t mistreat you.” The words were said quite suavely.

“He’s rather polite.” Gates snickered.

“Of course.” Zassler let out a sinister sneer. “They are afraid that we Saints will interfere.”

“If you put down your weapons within one minute’s time and surrender, we definitely won’t harm any of you. The countdown begins now.” After the voice finished speaking, not a single one of the 350,000 soldiers surrendered. They all quietly awaited the battle to start.

One minute and one second passed. A minute was a very short period of time.

The entire battlefield was put under terrifying pressure.

Baruch Kingdom’s side saw many soldiers sweating. Their knuckles were white from how tightly they held their weapons.

“Prepare!”

A voice rang out. The battle at the prefectural city of Cod had resulted in almost no losses to the Sacred Legion or the Shadow Legion. Those 60,000 elite soldiers hefted their shields and raised their spears and warblades.

“We’re going to lose!” Gates said in a low voice.

Delia and Bebe looked at Linley, but Linley remained silent.

But just at this time...

Three violet-gold flashes of light suddenly streaked through the air, while at the same time, their excited voices rang out. “Bebe, I’m here! This time, I brought my big brother and my second brother with me.”

“Saint-level magical beasts?” Linley turned and saw three violet-gold rats.

This was Linley’s first time meeting Saint-level rat-type magical beasts aside from Bebe, and what’s more, there were three of them.

“What is that sound?” Linley, extremely sensitive to the elemental essences, suddenly sensed a sound from far away. That sound was moving towards them at a very fast speed. Linley spread out his spiritual sense, and suddenly he sensed...

“So many!!!!”

Countless rat-type magical beasts. Black ones. Blue ones. Violet ones. Gray ones. Silver ones. Gold ones. All sorts of rat-type magical beasts covered the land, like an enormous, endless sea. Countless rat-type magical beasts raised their head and began to let out excited screeches.

“Shkreeeeeeee!”

“Shkreeeeeeee!”

Terrifying, countless screeches filled the air, the world reverberating with the sound.

“What is that sound?” The Sacred Legion and the Shadow Legion, which had just been able to engage in battle, suddenly felt their hearts quiver. The sound was coming from behind the magicite mines, but there were far too many voices, like trillions of magical beasts screeching at the same time.

Weiss Porter and Guillermo’s faces instantly changed.

“What is going on?” Weiss Porter and the others all felt nervous, but they didn’t know what was happening.

Not just them. Even the forces of the Baruch Kingdom felt their hearts shake.

“Magical beasts are coming. All soldiers, remain behind the earthworks. None of you are permitted to go out, nor are you permitted to attack the magical beasts.” Linley’s voice could be heard across their entire camp, and his words immediately caused all the soldiers of the Baruch Kingdom to shout in joy.

But the reaction in the camp of the Radiant Church and the Cult of Shadows was the opposite.

“A magical beast swarm?” Weiss Porter and Guillermo’s faces changed dramatically.

Controlling a swarm of magical beasts to attack wasn’t a violation. After all, the Saint-level magical beasts weren’t personally attacking. For example, the O’Brien Empire had its Vampiric Iron Bull legion, which was a terrifying legion that had had hundreds of thousands of Vampiric Iron Bulls along with their caretakers.

“A swarm of magical beasts? Where did they come from?” Weiss Porter hurriedly said.

Guillermo’s face was ashen pale. “Linley’s rat-type magical beast! Right. It must be that Saint-level rat-type magical beast. The Forest of Darkness is the home of rat-type magical beasts.”

“Shouldn’t be. The rat-type magical beasts of the Forest of Darkness have their own rulers.” Weiss Porter knew very well that the Rat Kings of the Forest of Darkness were violet-gold rats. There was no way they would be under Bebe’s control.

But just at this time...

The squeeks from an endless tide of rat-type magical beasts rang out, and instantly, the horde of rat-type magical beasts covered an area of tens of square kilometers. Tens of kilometers! In other words, as far as the eye could see, the world had become covered with nothing but rat-type magical beasts.

“Wow!”

“Whoah!”

Cries of surprise rang out constantly from Linley’s side. Those rat-type magical beasts all quite orderly avoided Linley’s soldiers, heading towards the forces of the Radiant Church and the Cult of Shadows in a stream. These rat-type magical beasts were generally able to eat even rocks. One could imagine how sharp their fangs and claws were.

Shadowmice were fast. Stoneater Rats were durable.

The entire swarm of rat-type magical beasts charged over. A swarm like this would even be able to devour an entire mountain.

“Wow, buddy, as badass as that?” Bebe’s eyes were bulging and round as he stared at the other three violet-gold rats next to him. “How many rat-type magical beasts did you bring over? My spiritual energy can’t even encompass them all.”

The leading violet-gold rat said with a delighted laugh, “Not many, not many...this is just a small portion of our forces in the Forest of Darkness. Just a couple hundred million, that’s all.”