Godslayer Lysette: Chapter 240

Chapter 240: The Fray of Battle

“Soldiers!  Heed my words!” General Cournot’s words echoed throughout the garrison and out into the fields where soldiers were already charging in, eyes full of passion and lust for vengeance.  “Let us show these bastards the might of Domaria!  Let us show that we are worthy of our country’s namesake, and deliver unto Domar a victory today so spectacular that he will revel in it from the Celestial realm!”

Lysette smiled.  She did not care much for invoking the gods herself, especially now knowing that his words were feeding Domar with yet more Divine Essence. Bbut seeing the impact on her comrades’ morale was more than enough for her to swallow her own loathing for the denizens of the celestial realm.  She sprouted a pair of wings and a pair of icy blades as she leapt into the front of the Domarian army and began attacking with complete abandon.

For all of his strength— strength which exceeded her own— General Balzano was fighting defensively from Lysette’s onslaught, choosing to evade rather than engage her directly.  He seemed shocked for some reason.  Not with her strength or existence, but more that he didn’t expect her to be present in the first place.

“So, it was you,” he said as he dodged a pair of slashes with a backflip, hovering up into the air.

Lysette leapt up and followed suit, continuing to chase after the general as he flew faster and faster, darting about in the skies above the battlefield.  Several Elithrians pointed their weapons toward her, firing bullets of solid light toward her.  A few lucky shots even managed to singe her clothing, though none of them did any serious damage as she continued her pursuit.

“What do you mean, it was me?” Lysette asked.

“You may think you play a good fool, but you’re far too unsubtle for the task.  And your skill at covering your tracks leaves much to be desired.”  Any magnanimity remained within his voice, leaving only a vicious sneer.

“Covering my tracks?”

“When you slew my soldiers the other day.  A group of brave Elithrian men that were engaged on a scouting mission.  I trust you remember.”

“Brave Elithrian men?”  Lysette scoffed, again charging at and missing General Balzano.  “I seem to recall a group of spies who crossed into Domarian lands and were summarily executed for espionage.  Cowards to the last.  Tried to flee like worms.  Buried them as they deserved.”

The general smirked.  “I’m sure the history books in the world to come will see things my way.  And I do have to thank you for burying our dead so admirably.  Truly a boon for us.”

“What are you getting at?”  Lysette threw several orbs of flame which the general batted away without any signs of wear.

“We recovered our men’s bodies, and during our analysis, we learned something.  Our soldiers weren’t just slain by someone random.  They showed signs of having their Sparks extracted.  Now, it could have the result of someone using a Soul Harvester, of course.  But the combination of our soldiers’ strength and the wounds on their bodies suggested a far more nefarious cause.

“They were slain by the hands of a demon.  We had received reports that one had been birthed some months earlier, though our intelligence had also reported that said demon was a young woman with long blonde hair.  That woman is you, isn’t it?”

“I really look that much like a woman?” Lysette asked.

“Again, you play the part of the fool most unconvincingly.”  Balzano sidestepped Lysette’s attack and threw a punch which cracked Lysette’s left wing, destabilizing her flight and sending her closer to the maelstrom down below.  “We realized when our northern offensive was completely vaporized months ago that you were serving as the marshal for the Domarian northern flank.

“For a time we kept watch on you, diverting extra forces to our allies in Terea to ensure any counteroffensive you might have launched would be repelled.  But for reasons we can only speculate, you never engaged us in combat.  Instead, you were content to simply hole up in some tiny town and remain perfectly idle.  Imagine our glee when our Lord’s greatest military threat simply decided to rest on her laurels.”

Lysette cocked an eyebrow.  One thing seemed highly suspect about the general’s story.  Namely that she, not Saffron, not any of the generals of the Domarian army, was supposedly Asterion’s greatest military threat.  There was an implication to his words.  That Asterion didn’t have the ability to create another demon, even for the explicit goal to counteract her.  And that begged yet more questions about the creation of demonkind that would have to wait until after.

General Balzano delivered another backhanded blow which sent Lysette careening into a mass of warring soldiers from both sides engaged in close quarters combat.  Lysette skewered three of the Elithrians and absorbed their Sparks before leaping back up to again engage the general.

“Of course, your sudden and unexpected arrival on the battlefield days ago, albeit in a new body, forced us to recalculate our strategy.  No longer could we continue to build our forces and slowly whittle down you Domarian scum.  Instead, we decided that our best course of action was to strike all-out with our full might and attempt to crush you in one fell swoop.”

“And why are you telling me this?”

General Balzano dashed toward Lysette with blinding celerity far eclipsing the Chancellor’s, headbutting her before launching his knee toward Lysette’s stomach.  Despite the first attack, Lysette’s aura alerted her to the follow-up, and she was able to catch the general’s knee mid-thrust.  She used the momentum to throw herself backward toward the ground, landing beside Ari.

“How are things down here?” Lysette asked.

“Not well.  We have the advantages in terms of numbers, but these damned devices stop us from making any progress.  Worse, the Elithrians aren’t showing even the slightest sign of fatigue, while our soldiers are dropping like flies.”

Damn them!  Lysette took a moment to fire a few volleys of flame toward the Elithrian regiment before leaping back up toward General Bolzano.  For all she wanted to assist, she had to conserve her strength and prevent the Elithrian commander from having enough time and building up enough strength to wipe out the entire garrison in a single blow.  Even trying to heal her injured comrades while fighting was too taxing with her avatar’s limited physical, and more importantly, mental, faculties.

The only saving grace was that Lysette’s own body had arrived back to Ciricu a moment earlier and was now resting and Cultivating in her cottage.  That, coupled with infusions of Divine Essence from a few errant prayers, helped to restore her stamina as she continued her bout with a superior foe.

Lysette continued pressing her attack, though she was the only one taking damage through it all.  Her regeneration was keeping pace, but only barely.  Slowing down wasn’t an option.  Withdrawing meant only death.  Mirae was approaching, but they were still five minutes away.  And Lysette was going to buy the time they needed no matter the cost borne upon her in the long term.

She continued her attack, but rather halfheartedly this time around, conserving her strength.  She instead focused on preparing her Reciprocity Dominion, reasoning that her best chance of dealing any damage to General Balzano was to hit him with an attack he could neither see nor dodge.  She waited, watched with her aura and prepared, holding back her technique until the last possible second.  And when her opponent launched his next attack, a haymaker at the base of her wings, she struck back.

Both combatants winced in pain as the damage Lysette sustained was reflected back at her attacker.  But Lysette, having experienced far worse pain over the course of her many trials, recovered and powered through her injury.  She followed up first with an uppercut that stunned the general yet further, then slammed into his back much as he had done to her, sending her into the dirt.  And finally, not wanting to give him any quarter, she slammed into him, repeatedly pummeling him with her fists and skewering him with blades of ice and fire alike.

He groaned, he moaned and winced and screamed out in pain as the battle all around raged on.  Despite— or perhaps because of— his anguished cries, Lysette continued her assault unrelentingly.  She relished the pain of her enemy, slipping into the penumbra of her darker impulses as she furiously tore apart the leader of the Elithrian army limb from limb until his body lay crumpled and broken.  But there was no Spark, no surge of power within for her to absorb.

Instead, there was only a slow, condescending clap approaching from the west and another man, twice as powerful than General Balzano, emerged out of the western sky and landed next to her.  He laughed, a mixture of divine madness and amusement, somehow.  He extended his arm toward Lysette, who jumped backward out of reflex.

“I must commend you.  Your powers as a demigod are certainly unique.  Never would I have expected that you were planning to attack me by taking damage yourself.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been told that.”

The man laughed.  “And, with the opening you achieved, you completely and utterly broke my avatar.  That was an unwelcome setback for sure, though your power eclipsing my avatar’s was not outside the realm of my calculations.”

“Who are you?  And what are you getting at?”

“Oh, I do apologize.  It doesn’t matter much since you are about to die, but I feel I should at least do you the courtesy of letting you know who is about to take your life.”

The man snapped his fingers twice, the sound of which reverberated in Lysette’s ears.  In the ears of every combatant fighting on both sides, from the looks of it.  As the echo subsided, the entire battlefield, previously a cacophonous pandemonium, went silent.  Soldiers on both sides of the conflict went silent, refusing or perhaps being unable to move altogether.

And the sky went dark as the moon stepped into the line of the sun, eclipsing the light and replacing the ball of white-hot flame with the darkness of night.  The battlefield was brightened only with the sun’s coronal glow and stars who had come out of the sky to observe the battle in all its bloodshed, eager to see in what direction Aimarion’s fate would be decided.

Lysette steeled herself, preparing for the worst.  Her own powers were weakened by the moon’s embrace, and she had not the Periapt of Stability around her avatar’s neck to protect herself.  And the man standing before her grinned, shining his toothy countenance toward Lysette as he extended out his hand.

“My true name is Alan Ballano, and I am the Godslayer of Asterion.  Now that introductions have concluded, it is time to put an end to your resistance once and for all.”

Chapter 239: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114045722

Table of Contents: https://www.patreon.com/posts/101896170

Chapter 241: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114177483