Chapter 284: Lightning Kingdom

"Tsk. All we need to do is just climb without touching the ground then," Isolde said, a confident smirk on her face. "Just like Floor 1, right? Hassan?"

"Yeah. Piece of cake... Just like Floor 1."

In an instant, Isolde Castiglione conjured the same kind of air platforms that she had copied from Uhtred back during the rush to ascend to Floor 2 inside the Tower.

Unlike that time, though, her constructs were much more stable, her casting time also much faster. She leapt from platform to platform, ascending the hill not just by herself, but with Hassan Al-Malik following right behind her on her platforms before they disappeared.

The closer they drew to the fortress, the more vigilant Uhtred became back at the foot of the cliff. He readied himself to step in the moment anything went wrong.

If they’re really there then they should be attacking right around... now!

In an instant, the walls of the fortress that had looked dead and silent were suddenly filled with a long row of ascenders. They appeared from behind the walls where they’d hidden themselves, lighting up the sky with streaks of lightning spells.

Isolde Castiglione and Hassan Al-Malik reacted in an instant.

With a roar, Hassan shot forward in the air, conjuring up a wave of biting sand. It swept across the air, shielding both him and Isolde Castiglione from the incoming lightning strikes. The streaks of lightning descended on the sand screen, turning the sharp grains into molten glass on impact.

The barrage pounded down relentlessly for several seconds, then a brief, near-imperceptible lull followed — a short second of respite as the ascenders on the walls conjured up a second barrage.

But that short lull was all Isolde and Hassan needed.

"Fiery Sandstorm!!" Hassan bellowed, charging out from behind his sand screen, each individual grain suddenly lighting up like fireflies.

Back at the foot of the cliff, Uhtred raised a brow.

Oh? Interesting. He combined his fire magic with his sand magic to create a spell...

Uhtred watched as Hassan unleashed his Fiery Sandstorm onto the ascenders lining the wall. Falling from the sky, Hassan gathered his wave of flame-infused sand, using his momentum to slam it directly into the battlements.

The impact set a score of ascenders on fire, crushing them under a wave of heavy, scalding sand all at once.

With a series of explosive bursts, he slowed his descent and landed hard on the wall, immediately lunging straight into the fight. The ascenders panicked, blindly discharging a wild wave of lightning attacks at him. Hassan dodged and blocked their strikes, releasing another Fiery Sandstorm to quickly cut down their numbers.

Meanwhile, on another section of the wall, Isolde was wreaking even more havoc. Jagged spikes of ice had formed across the wall — some encasing several ascenders at a time, others piercing them directly through the chest.

The ones who got stuck inside solid blocks of ice eventually heated themselves free with their lightning spells, but by then, they had expended so much cosmic essence and came out gasping so heavily for air that they were easy pickings for Isolde to finish off.

Together, both Isolde Castiglione from the left and Hassan Al-Malik from the right efficiently mowed down the ascenders on the wall all the way to the middle, where at the end of it, only a handful of terror-stricken ascenders were left.

They dropped to the ground, quickly surrendering themselves to the terrifying might of the number 9 and 10 ranked ascenders on the planet.

Uhtred watched as Hassan waved from atop the wall, showing that it was clear to move.

The factions behind him immediately stepped forward, but before they could move far, Uhtred barked out:

"Stop!"

His left eye glowed with a deep purple light — one that made Golden Eagle Vance frown the moment he noticed it.

Within his vision, Uhtred could see clear essence disturbances overlaid across the ground leading up to the cliff.

"There’s a large array hidden underneath the ground," he said for everyone to hear. "Either go above it or find a way to disable it. But I wouldn’t recommend stepping on it to find out what it does."

With a sudden burst, he took off into the air, using the same air platforms Isolde had used — though his casting was much faster. Within a few seconds, he was already at the top of the cliff, landing softly on the fortress walls.

Isolde’s gaze flickered at how easy Uhtred had made it seem, but she said nothing and simply nodded at the few ascenders rounded up at the center of the wall.

"These are the only ones left," she said. "They’ve surrendered, but they’re still unwilling to talk."

"Well, I say fuck these guys and their tight lips," Hassan scoffed. "We don’t need them anyway. We’re already inside their fortress, and Stormcaller’s definitely in that castle. All we have to do is break in and force the information we need out of him ourselves."

"No. It’s not that simple." Uhtred walked over to the tied-up ascenders and squatted down to their eye level. "Rushing in blind is a bad idea. These guys were way too eager to attack us the second we set foot in their territory."

"Well, to be fair, we did break in..." Hassan chimed in from the side.

"True. But I’m willing to bet they would’ve attacked us either way," Uhtred replied, watching the eyes of the tied-up men carefully. "There’s something else going on here... something they don’t want us to find out."

A subtle flicker crossed one of the men’s eyes, and Uhtred caught it instantly. A slow smile spread across his face as he stood back up.

"And I’m guessing whatever it is, it has to do with those Prime Sapiens we’ve been hearing about..."

He stared pointedly at the tied-up men, who were now trying — and failing — to keep their faces blank.

"Stormcaller... He never got beaten up by any Ancient Variant, did he...?" Uhtred asked, though it sounded more like a statement than a question. He turned his eyes away from the tied-up men and looked toward the central castle, where two distant figures stood on the balcony, staring right back at him.

"...Instead, he’s harboring them inside that fortress."