Chapter 467: A War Without Suspense (Part 4)
As the alien civilization developed into modern times, alchemical products such as alchemical potions became household consumables, magical technological creations such as airships, steam trains, and pneumatic cars were no longer rare treasures, and even books on the occult could be found on the bookshelves of ordinary nobles. Naturally, "forbidden magic" was not a field that had a high threshold for understanding for the group of spellcasters or even for people with a certain level of knowledge.
In fact, in the Ivory Tower, the Bounty Hunters Association, or the libraries of the Orthodox Church, one can find all kinds of magic spells, rune principles, required consumables, magic array diagrams and other material documents. Information related to forbidden magic is not particularly rare.
In a nutshell, "forbidden magic", a magical knowledge that was once regarded as a trump card by spellcasters of various schools, is no longer monopolized by a few people, but has become common sense that can be circulated normally within specific groups.
Thanks to this circulation, the black magician Kingsley was not only able to recognize the "Forbidden Magic: Breath of Wind" performed by the wind mage Gloria Storm, but was also able to correctly interpret its principles and roughly determine how long Gloria could continue to operate this magic.
It was precisely because the spellcasters were all very familiar with each other's ability to cast forbidden magic that Yang Qiu's four consecutive "Dark Devouring" spells shocked the three court mages who were watching the battle on the spot.
Under extreme conditions, a high-level spellcaster can cast forbidden magic twice in succession within half an hour. He needs to use potions to restore his mental strength in the middle, and must quickly enter meditation in a safe environment to maintain a stable mental state afterwards.
Casting spells four times in a row without a pause in between was truly a refreshing change to the worldviews of the three court mages - even more outrageous was that after casting four forbidden spells, Yang did not show any signs of fatigue, and even seemed to have just finished warming up, flying towards the city with great momentum!
"Is there no limit to the legendary spiritual power?"
This question arose in the minds of the three court mages at the same time.
Unfortunately, Yang Qiu was completely too busy to answer their questions.
The actions of the "Whisperer" sect have angered Yang Qiu.
"Publicly sacrificing soldiers in front of everyone means that they have no intention of leaving the soldiers who participated in the defense alive - the cause of death of the fallen soldiers can be attributed to the siege anyway."
Yang Qiu flew over the city wall and expanded his spiritual field, sweeping across the entire war preparation area in the city.
As expected... he detected about a hundred cultists divided into three teams, hiding stealthily in three buildings.
The four cultists thrown onto the city wall, who sacrificed their own lives, were just the first batch of cannon fodder.
Yang Qiu waved the dragon bone staff, and three magic arrays took shape in front of him at the same time, and then disappeared simultaneously.
In the three buildings he swept through, the floor tiles were pushed open, and the interior space of the buildings was filled with sharp vines that suddenly emerged. The three teams of cultists who had no time to react were all pierced through the body, leaving holes of varying sizes on their bodies.
Yang Qiu suddenly attacked without even looking at the three buildings a second time. He closed his eyes and sensed the atmosphere in the city.
After all, he was not the most proficient illusionist in mental magic, and it was not easy to accurately find the breath of the "Whisperer" in a city full of worshippers of different evil gods.
"If we can resolve the siege, the cost of 30,000 soldiers... is not unbearable."
Yang Qiu appeared calm on the outside, but his heart was as restless as a volcano with magma rolling in it. He tried his best to get rid of his useless anger and think rationally about the possible strategies that the enemy might adopt.
"If we still can't break the siege after all this... then at least I can let the invader, that is, me, see their determination to resist to the end."
"If you can force me to make concessions at an unbearable price and cede the land south of Robe Town as compensation for the armistice - no, that's not right!"
Yang Qiu suddenly opened his eyes wide.
In his perception, within the approximately 70 square kilometers of Creek City, there were points with unstable energy fluctuations that made him feel uncomfortable. The distribution range between the points seemed to have some kind of déjà vu, which vaguely made him realize that something was wrong.
Creek City is a large city with a permanent population of over 500,000. It faces the water on the east and is surrounded by plains on the other three sides.
Because the city had experienced a tragic invasion by foreign enemies in its early years and had eight city gates on three sides of the city walls breached, the rebuilt Creek City sealed the north and west gates, raised and reinforced the city walls, leaving only three gates on the south and southwest for people to pass through.
Now these three city gates are all surrounded by the Undead army, and the eastern port is also blocked by the skeleton fleet. The people in the city cannot escape and can only fight like trapped beasts.
This was also deliberately promoted by Yang Qiu - it would take less than 24 hours for the tireless army of players to capture the city's cliffs. In such a short period of time, with the weak organizational and mobilization capabilities of the local ruling class, they would never be able to cause any harm to the city.
Once the city is broken, the undead army and the militia blocking the port will enter the city simultaneously. The security in the city can be stabilized within two hours, and the threat of unrest faced by the residents can be kept to a minimum.
Now, Yang Qiu flew over the city wall and entered the city. With his inexhaustible and seemingly limitless mental power, he indeed did not see a large number of people gathering or rioting in the city. Most of the residents stayed at home obediently.
It is also for this reason that the mental power, whose "accuracy" is greatly reduced due to the large detection range, can more clearly discover the strange, unreasonable, point-distributed energy fluctuations.
In the mind, these points that produce energy fluctuations are connected with lines to form a super-large sacrificial array - a diagram that is marked as high-risk, taboo, and prohibited in all mystical books.
The scope of the sacrifice covers almost all the most densely populated areas in the city...that is, the outer city areas!
The already boiling volcano in Yang Qiu's chest almost erupted on the spot.
"Very good - you bastards have really irritated me!"
Yang Qiu laughed in anger and immediately reversed the core of the sacrificial formation in his mind.
Different evil cults have different details in their sacrificial arrays due to the differences in their cult scriptures.
Fortunately, the Whisperers do not have a cult, and their worshippers have no specific sacrificial specifications to refer to, and use the oldest "universal" sacrificial formation diagram.
After being attacked by the tentacles of an unknown ancient god of rules, Yang Qiu specially collected and consulted some occult books - this ancient sacrificial array diagram that had been enlarged countless times was something Yang Qiu had seen in the occult books he had borrowed from Bishop Li Gene of the Innadri Diocese not long ago!
After figuring out which "point" was the center of the sacrificial formation, Yang Qiu immediately rushed over with murderous intent.
At the same time, in the lord's mansion in the inner city.
In the villa where the old earl "retreated", the black-robed believers and noble believers had dispersed, leaving only Earl Geketan and his son, Mrs. Carter, and another nobleman who looked like a middle-aged man.
Master Gladstone, who had looked radiant half an hour ago, now stood trembling and trembling at the bottom of the steps in front of the house, looking at the yard with a pale face.
The loyal deacon who had served him for many years was now lying on the cobblestone path in the courtyard that was originally used for walking.
No…still lying on the promenade was only the butler’s torso and lower body.
The deacon's head and arms were held in the hands of Count Geketian, Mrs. Carter and the middle-aged noble respectively.
The three core members of the Whisperer sect stood in a triangle in the garden beside the promenade, carefully and patiently dripping the blood from the deacon's remains onto the stone slab array diagram that had been drawn at some point and buried under the soil at their feet.
"Not quite."
Master Gladstone heard Mrs. Carter mutter something.
Then… he saw this lady, who was wearing a sophisticated and dignified makeup and a respectable lady’s long dress, casually threw away the butler’s broken arm, picked up her dress with her bloody hand, walked back to the promenade gracefully, bent down, picked up the axe that was casually thrown aside, and raised it high—
Master Gladstone closed his eyes subconsciously.
In the darkness, he heard the dull, yet extremely harsh sound of the metal axe breaking through flesh and blood and chopping off bones...
When he opened his eyes again... Master Gladstone saw that Mrs. Carter had returned to where she was standing originally, holding up the thigh of an adult man with one hand, staring intently at the bright red blood dripping from the broken thigh.
Master Gladstone's legs gave way and he sat down on the steps.
He saw with his own eyes that his "father" called over his trusted deacon, picked up an axe from the garden, and chopped off the deacon's neck.
He also saw that...the deacon whose neck was cut did not bleed much.
There was only a little blood on the axe, and the walkway where the body fell had only a small amount of blood seeping out from the places where the limbs were severed.
“Father” brought the head to the garden and stood there. From the broken neck, bright red liquid began to flow...
The head held by the father, when the blood just started to flow... was still moving its lips, trying to make a sound to beg for mercy.
Master Gladstone was going mad.
He always thought that as the second son of the Geketan family and the actual ruler of Tachia County, he knew everything.
And obviously, he actually knew nothing.
The middle-aged man seemed to have completed the "division of labor" first. When he threw away his broken arm, clapped his hands and walked back to the promenade, he even had the leisure to glance at Gladstone, who was as limp as mud.
"Count, our young master seems frightened." This middle-aged nobleman, whose face could not show any lively expression and whose tone was so dull that it was difficult to hear any emotional fluctuations, probably did not want to admit that he was different from normal people. He tried hard to imitate others' postures and spoke in a stiff and rigid tone that sounded like a teasing remark.
Count Geketian turned his head slightly and looked at his unpresentable "second son".
"He just has too little experience." said Count Geketian.
Master Gladstone should have been extremely familiar with the tone of "father", but at this moment, he suddenly had a strange idea... "father" seemed to be imitating the demeanor of a normal person.
Just like this sentence, "Father" seems to want to act casually, but... "Father" seems unable to do it.
Master Gladstone's face became paler and paler, and he had a strong desire to escape from it all. He wanted to hide somewhere where he could feel safe.
But he couldn't even stand up by his own strength.
None of the three people in the garden cared about the young master's thoughts.
Count Gekater and Mrs. Carter completed their "division of labor" one after another, walked out of the flower beds full of bright flowers, and headed towards the clean cobblestone path.
"Let's get started. That crap won't delay us for long."
Mrs. Carter grimly commented on the black-robed cultists who were risking their lives—their own lives and the lives of the soldiers defending the city—to delay the Undead army's siege, and urged them on.
"Don't worry, wait a little longer." The middle-aged man forced a weird fake smile on his stiff face and said, "I heard that spellcasters are very afraid of having their minds polluted. If the Nightmare Butcher enters the city and activates the magic circle, wouldn't it be very interesting?"
Mrs. Carter paused.
"That does seem very interesting." Mrs. Carter gave the same weird smile. "What do you think, Earl?"
Mrs. Carter's strange smile was frozen on her head, which looked beautiful unless one looked closely.
A saber more than two meters long and flashing with a cold light cut Mrs. Carter's right neck from the side, and the blade pointed diagonally downward and passed through Mrs. Carter's left shoulder.
A headless knight wearing hideous black armor and riding an undead warhorse appeared silently behind the three core believers of the Whisperers.
"ah--!!"
Master Gladstone, who was caught off guard and witnessed this scene, screamed in horror.
What made the young master even more horrified was that Mrs. Carter, whose head and left shoulder flew into the air, was still alive.
The attacked noble lady glared fiercely at the old master who was screaming and trembling with fear with a distorted face, as if she disliked him for being too noisy, and then glared fiercely at the sky.
The black magician who summoned the Headless Horseman was slowly falling from the sky.
