Chapter 457: The Golden Cross Star Shines

More and more legion slimes descended from the sky, and the Metal Slime captain at the lead raised the short sword in his hand.

"Drive out these invaders who dare trespass on our homeland!"

"Charge!"

The Wind Slimes took a deep breath, puffing up their gel bodies, then let out a "puff" as they deflated like loosened leather pouches, plunging headfirst into the undead tide and scattering the skeletons in every direction.

The Metal Slimes, meanwhile, swung onto the iron beetles that had been waiting in formation, lining up in a single orderly row as they advanced.

The clang of metal colliding with undead weapons echoed through the streets, accompanied by the short, forceful battle cries of the slimes. Incredibly, they actually managed to push back the surging undead tide, inch by inch.

The pressure on the adventurers suddenly eased. Some collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air.

The Slime captain turned and shouted to the adventurers who were still standing there stunned, "Follow the legion in the counterattack and you'll be rewarded! Exchange your merits at the quartermaster after the battle."

The adventurers' eyes immediately lit up.

Rewards.

Those two words worked better than any morale-boosting speech.

The adventurers, whose legs had been going weak, tightened their grips on their weapons again, called out to one another, and charged out after the Slime Legion.

Yvonne sat on her horse, watching the adventurers swarm past, her heart pounding hard in her chest.

The Slime Warrior tilted its head up, its small eyes sparkling with excitement. "Captain, should we go too? All of this can be exchanged for rewards."

Yvonne hesitated for a moment. "Not yet. Let me go pick up some arrows first."

She dismounted, hurried over to the spot where she'd been fighting moments ago, crouched down, and pulled a few still-usable arrows from the ground. She then found the body of an undead archer near the wall and took a half-full bundle of arrows from its quiver.

She slid the arrows back into her own quiver, shook off the dirt, and was about to call for the Slime Warrior to follow when the corner of her eye caught a figure retreating from the front lines.

It was a middle-aged adventurer, clutching his arm. Blood was seeping through his fingers, dripping onto the stone pavement.

His face was pale. Gritting his teeth, he walked over to the steps beside the church and sat down, tearing off a strip of his sleeve in a clumsy attempt to bandage himself.

Seeing this, several adventurers who had been eager to charge forward couldn't help but stop in their tracks, hesitation and reluctance creeping into their eyes.

The undead tide had receded, sure, but that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous anymore.

Who knew if they'd end up wounded like him once they charged out?

Rewards were nice, but you had to be alive to spend them.

Just as the adventurers were hesitating, a group of slimes came bouncing through the crowd. Spotting the wounded adventurer, they hopped over to his side and simultaneously extended their gel hands.

The glow of healing magic flared up, like warm spring water seeping out from the gel. The adventurer's torn flesh slowly knitted itself back together under the light.

The adventurer's furrowed brow gradually relaxed, and some color returned to his pale face.

After finishing the treatment, these slimes even started handing out pills to those nearby.

The adventurers watching all of this exchanged glances. Those who had been wavering felt their fighting spirit reignite, and they tightened their grips on their weapons once more.

"Charge!"

"Who cares if there's no priest around!"

"Follow the Slime Legion, let's push out!"

The adventurers' morale surged anew, and they advanced forward alongside the Slime Legion.

As the front line stretched further and further out, more and more legion slimes appeared around them, and Yvonne began to see varieties she had never encountered before.

For instance, there were Rock Slimes, hard as stone.

Their surfaces were covered in gray-white rocky shells, making them look like pebbles with tiny little arms attached.

She watched as a slime compressed its own elastic gel body, then used a nearby Rock Slime as ammunition, launching it with a loud "BOOM."

The Rock Slime whistled through the air and slammed into the undead tide. Its hard rocky shell shattered a row of skeletons on impact, then bowled over several more.

It shook its head, picked itself up off the ground, and ignoring the undead's attacks, started plowing through them left and right.

Yvonne also spotted some Grass Slimes.

These slimes had their bodies covered in fuzz, looking like a clump of moss with eyes, or as if strange plants were growing out of them.

They crouched behind the front line, their gel bodies slightly swelling as vines rapidly sprouted from the ground, slithering along the surface and wrapping around the undead's leg bones and joints, locking them firmly in place.

Right after that, the Magma Slimes nearby started to tremble.

Their dark red bodies shook harder and harder, and droplets of searing molten rock splattered out from within, landing on the vine-tangled undead while simultaneously setting the vines ablaze.

Flames spread along the vines, turning the street into a sea of fire.

Under this onslaught, within just a few short minutes, they had retaken control of the West Gate.

Yvonne stood on the city wall, breathing heavily, her hand gripping the bow still trembling slightly.

She leaned against the battlement, gazing at the undead scattering in the distance, and finally had a moment to catch her breath.

The Slime Warrior was also crouched by the wall corner, resting.

The legion's counterattack had fully sounded, and a continuous series of booming reports thundered across the sky.

From the side of the Sky Oath, fifty cannons fired in sequence.

The muzzles spat out clusters of searing light, bright trails streaking across the night sky, slamming into the dense masses of undead on the wasteland, erupting into blossoms of fire and flying debris.

Soil was churned up, the ground blasted into charred craters, and dismembered undead limbs scattered everywhere.

But the shadow creatures circling overhead were almost completely unaffected.

The cannon fire passed right through their forms, flying straight on to explode on the ground in the distance, as if these shadows were mere projections with no physical substance at all.

They let out shrill screeches, wheeled around, and came screaming down toward the town from above.

Those blurry black outlines seemed to be stretched apart by invisible hands, spreading wider and wider.

Within seconds, they had connected into one enormous black curtain, slowly closing over the town.

The moonlight grew dimmer and dimmer through the gaps as the curtain closed.

No one knew what would happen once they were completely enveloped, but it clearly wasn't anything good.

On the city wall, the adventurers looked around frantically. Someone raised a longbow and loosed an arrow at the curtain. The arrow vanished into the darkness without a sound, as if swallowed by something.

A few spellcasters tried attacking with evocation magic, but the explosions of light only rippled across the black curtain without dealing any real damage.

Only the purest Holy Light spells could leave a few gashes in the curtain upon contact, but the tears were quickly filled back in by the surging darkness.

"How the hell do we fight this thing?"

"Arrows don't work, magic doesn't work... what else is there?"

Just as everyone was at a loss, the sound of sacred prayer suddenly rang out from the city wall.

The prayer's syllables were long and solemn, like bells tolling from some distant place, piercing through the wind and the clamor to land in everyone's ears.

Yvonne followed the sound and saw a priest in a long robe climbing the stone steps of the city wall.

The priest was petite in stature, cradling a Holy Chalice in her hands. The cup's surface was carved with intricate patterns that gave off a soft silver glow in the darkness.

"It's Bishop Lya!"

"Thank goodness, we're saved."

And right behind Lya, Rem came bouncing up as well.

Her body radiated dazzling Holy Light, driving away any shadow creature that tried to approach Lya.

Lya stood before the battlement at the highest point of the wall, raising the Holy Chalice high above her head. The chalice trembled slightly in her hands, and its rim began to glow.

The light grew brighter and brighter, and then a terrifying suction force suddenly burst forth from the chalice.

It was as if a hole had been torn open in the night sky itself, the pull radiating outward in every direction from the chalice as its center.

The shadow curtain that had been closing suddenly halted, dragged toward the chalice.

The shadow creatures let out terrified shrieks, struggling desperately to escape, but the suction was too strong. They were like drowning victims being pulled into a vortex, unable to break free no matter how they thrashed.

One after another, the shadow creatures were stretched into thin strands and sucked into the chalice.

The shadow creatures farther away saw what was happening, panicked, and immediately turned tail, fleeing into the distance.

This Holy Chalice was none other than the Shadow Chalice left behind by the New Sun followers.

After becoming the sacred relic of the Night Church, the chalice had undergone subtle changes due to the shift in faith power.

After the Black Sun within the cup was devoured by Nilly's Shadow Slime, only the ability to imprison shadow creatures remained.

But even this incomplete version was more than enough to be the bane of shadow creatures.

When the last wisp of shadow was drawn into the chalice, the sky above Oakwood Town finally returned to a clear night.

Moonlight poured down, bathing Lya and the chalice in her hands, draping them in a veil of moonlight as if they were under the protection of the night itself.

"The undead are coming back! Attack them!"

"Where are the mages? We need mages over here!"

With the shadow creatures no longer interfering, the legion and adventurers launched their counterattack anew.

The Slime Legion's front line cut through the undead tide like an iron plow, pushing them all the way out to the wasteland beyond the city walls.

The Sky Oath's fifty cannons fired in unison, clearing the battlefield further ahead for the legion.

But it still wasn't over. From behind them came another earth-shaking rumble.

Everyone turned around, eyes wide with shock.

"A Floating Fortress?"

There, emerging from the clouds on the Dark Realm side, two Floating Fortresses burst into view.

Their silhouettes were similar to the Sky Oath, but they were larger, with wider hulls and magic towers standing on their decks. These were the newest model of Floating Fortress.

Three massive behemoths lined up in a row, hovering above Oakwood Town, casting their enormous shadows across the wasteland.

The undead tide that had seemed so overwhelming suddenly appeared utterly insignificant next to these three giants.

But the rumbling didn't stop. Some people could tell that something else was still emerging from within the Black Mist.

THUD.

The ground shook in a rhythmic pulse.

It sounded like something heavy was approaching, step by step, with deliberate, heavy footfalls.

With every step, the ground trembled. Loose stones on the city wall bounced and fell, and even the torches hanging on the wall swayed.

Everyone stared toward the rear, watching as clusters of hazy silver light flickered to life within the Black Mist.

First came the outlines, then the massive forms.

Giant trees stepped forward with heavy, ponderous strides, emerging from the Black Mist.

Their trunks were so thick that it would take several people with linked arms to encircle them. Silver patterns flowed across their bark, and every step left a deep impression in the ground.

One tree, two trees, five trees, ten... twenty silver giant trees lined up in a row, striding past both sides of the town, making the very ground tremble.

Their silver canopies were so vast they blotted out the sky, dyeing the entire night into a flowing expanse of silver-white.

Trees... Treants?

The adventurers' jaws dropped. Some rubbed their eyes, thinking they were seeing things.

Every single one of these ancient trees was Gold-Rank. Twenty of them, just like that, standing in a row across the battlefield, like a silver wall holding back the surging undead tide.

These giant trees fought differently from War Treants.

They merely gave their canopies a gentle shake, and the dense silver leaves within them radiated magical brilliance as all manner of spells rained down like a storm, completely wiping out the undead masses on the ground.

Under the relentless baptism of one hundred and fifty cannons and the treants' magic, the undead surging from the forest couldn't replenish their numbers anywhere near as fast as they were being consumed.

Deep within the forest, Krog could no longer hold himself back.

Leaning on his staff, he stepped out from the shadows.

Mammon stood beside him, gazing flatly at the Floating Fortresses and silver giant trees in the distance, and said coolly, "No matter what, never underestimate the foundations of an empire, Krog. This time, you miscalculated."

The giant Undead was silent for a moment before speaking in a low, rumbling voice, "No. Someone betrayed us. Those cunning humans truly can't be trusted."

Mammon chuckled twice. "Aren't you the same? You only ever treated those human nobles as pawns."

"Human loyalty isn't worth a damn. Only by stripping away their souls do these pawns learn to behave."

"Whatever." Krog lifted his head, his gaze passing over the silver giant trees and settling on the three Floating Fortresses. "The probing is done."

"It's time for the creatures of the land to once again remember the terror of being ruled by giants."

He took a step forward. The moment his bone-white foot touched the ground, white frost rapidly spread outward in every direction from the point where he stood.

He raised his bone-white staff high above his head, opened his jaw, and let out a series of ancient syllables.

[Blizzard]

The weather changed in an instant.

Dark clouds piled up at a visible rate, pressing down toward the ground. Howling northern winds swept across the entire battlefield, carrying snow and hailstones.

These hailstones were the size of fists, slamming into the ground with dull, heavy impacts. Even the sturdy stone bricks were cracked by the force.

The Floating Fortresses overhead flickered continuously with the glow of defensive magic formations, each flash representing a layer of defense being worn away.

"It's hail!"

"Run!"

Yvonne quickly scooped up the Slime Warrior and dashed into the tower on the city wall, curling up in a corner.

The other adventurers also abandoned their weapons and scrambled for whatever shelter they could find, shielding their heads with their arms.

But the most terrifying thing about this blizzard wasn't the hail. It was the bone-chilling cold that threatened to freeze the very blood in their veins.

The horrific gale blew the snow and ice into slanting lines. The world turned into a blank white expanse. Nothing could be seen. All that met the eye was churning white and the howling of the wind.

The temperature was still dropping at an alarming rate. The city wall began to ice over, and even the wooden door of the tower creaked and groaned as frost seized it.

At this rate, in less than half a minute, everyone here would be frozen to death.

The Slime Warrior trembled uncontrollably in Yvonne's arms.

As a slime, the cold was almost its greatest natural enemy.

Yvonne could feel it shivering against her, its normally elastic body gradually turning stiff and hard.

"Captain..." the Slime Warrior's voice quivered. "Wh-what do we do?"

Yvonne shielded it from the biting wind and snow with her own body, murmuring softly, "Trust His Majesty. His Majesty will definitely come."

Just then, the Slime Warrior suddenly raised a trembling gel hand, pointing at something behind Yvonne.

"Ca-captain, look, look at that!"

Yvonne turned her head with difficulty.

Through the raging snowstorm, a golden cross-shaped star was shimmering faintly behind them.

At first, the light was very weak, but its brightness was increasing rapidly. It grew from a candle flame to a torch, and finally into a golden sun hanging in the night sky.

RUMBLE.

A low, deep vibration spread outward from the golden cross star as its center, bringing even the raging blizzard to a standstill.

Then, golden light spread outward like a tidal wave, enveloping all of Oakwood Town and the surging undead masses on the wasteland beyond.

The ferocious, howling blizzard seemed to have been paused by an invisible hand.

The snow and ice hung motionless in midair, then slowly drifted down like feathers losing their support. When they landed on the ground, they actually bounced a few times like gel.

Golden light... it's so warm.

The Slime Warrior stopped trembling, staring blankly down at its own gel body.

Bathed in the golden light, it felt a warm power welling up from deep within its gel, filling its whole body with strength.

It looked up, and its small eyes blazed with brilliant light.

"The King!"

"The King is here!"