Chapter 229
The sight of his familia members, Hogni and the Gulliver brothers, being toyed with by the cruel agents of the Apate and Alecto familia twisted something cold in Hedin's gut.
They were cornered, vital pieces of his defense fraying under the relentless, mocking assault.
He couldn't stand by anymore.
From his perch high in the belfry, gazing down like a hawk, Hedin knew he had to act, even if it meant abandoning the safety of his position, even if it meant taking a desperate gamble.
He drew a deep breath, the chill wind whipping around him.
"Struggle for eternity... lightning," he chanted, his voice a low growl against the wind.
Gathering his strength, he launched himself from the stone railing, soaring high into the open air above the city rooftops to secure a clear line of sight, a maneuver that bought him precious seconds against gravity.
His original plan had been simple: provide magical support from a safe distance near the church.
But watching his core fighters struggle, Hedin made a split-second decision – one he knew, even in that moment, would carry a terrible price.
"Caurus Hildr!" he roared, the spell name tearing from his lips as a complex magic circle flared around him.
Bolts of pure lightning erupted from the sigil, lancing down towards the street below in a blistering barrage.
The enemy reacted instantly.
Basram, and the two devious Dis sisters, Dina and Vena, scattered.
Dina, who had just been pressing Hogni, vaulted backward, a blur of motion to evade the crackling onslaught.
Vena ceased her own harassing attacks, pulling back from the edge of the lightning storm. Basram was already some distance away, largely unaffected, but his twelve spirit-infused soldiers were right in the line of fire.
Yet, their beast-like agility, granted by their strange power, allowed them to twist and leap with unnatural speed, narrowly evading the worst of the electrical storm.
Hedin continued his furious assault, even as gravity began to reclaim him, pulling him down in a steep, arcing descent towards the crossroad below.
Through the roar of the lightning and the wind rushing past his ears, he shouted orders.
"Van! Noga!" His voice, carried to the Einherjar warriors.
"Get Hogni and the others out of there now!"
"Yes, sir!" came the crisp, immediate replies from the fighters, already sprinting towards their beleaguered comrades, seizing the opportunity his magic had created.
Keeping them in his peripheral vision, ensuring their retreat, Hedin plunged towards the ground. He landed hard in the center of the crossroad, boots striking the cobblestones with a sharp crack. There was no pause, no breath wasted.
His hand instinctively went to the air as he began the incantation for a far more focused strike.
"Strike forever... Valiant Hildr!" This wasn't the scattered barrage of the previous spell.
This time, the gathered magical energy coalesced, bundling into a single, immense column of crackling, roaring lightning – a true lightning canon wide enough to engulf the entire intersection.
Faced with such overwhelming, widespread destructive power, the Dis sisters and Basram's remaining spirit warriors had no choice but to fall back further, their prior aggression momentarily forgotten.
The fate of the unfortunate evilus foot soldiers, caught too close and too slow, was self-evident, marked only by the acrid smell of ozone and burnt flesh.
"Tch." Hedin bit back a curse, his eyes scanning the street.
He had succeeded in forcing the most dangerous enemies to withdraw, buying time for Hogni's group to escape.
But he hadn't landed a telling blow on the powerful ones, merely made them retreat.
And, just as he'd feared, this intervention had pulled him further than intended, from his defensive position near the church, leaving the evacuation shelters, packed with vulnerable civilians and the wounded, terrifyingly exposed.
He hadn't underestimated this risk.
The dilemma had been stark, brutally clear in his mind: abandon Hogni and the Gulliver brothers, his most powerful assets, the linchpins of the northern front who, if they fell, could cause the entire battle line to collapse; or maintain his post and potentially lose his key fighters, ensuring that any future gains in this desperate war would be impossible.
It was not a choice made out of apathy for the innocent lives relying on him, but a brutal calculation of strategic necessity.
To achieve any victory, to ever push back the tide, he needed his strongest pieces alive and fighting.
The swiftness with which he'd made this agonizing decision wasn't the mark of a poor commander; it spoke of a pragmatic, if perhaps overly ambitious, leader.
He wanted to save everyone, the defenders and the defended, a greedy desire in the face of impossible odds.
But to the twisted minds of the Dis sisters, watching from the edge of the street still humming with residual magic, his choice was simple, selfish cruelty.
"So, you abandoned the civilians to save Hogni?" Dina's voice, though distant, carried clearly, laced with a sickening sweetness.
"So mean!" Vena chirped, her tone a mockery of childish complaint. "But... that's why I love you!"
The sisters shared a look, a wide, unsettling grin spreading across their faces as they struck simultaneously a pose of malicious glee and mock sorrow, their eyes narrowed to thin, predatory slits.
"Fufufufufu," they giggled in eerie unison, their voices echoing faintly.
"Now you have to face the consequences."
Just then, Hedin felt a surge in the air, a wave of magical energy radiating from Vena.
Time seemed to stretch and distort as four colossal magic circles shimmered into existence high above the city, directly over the cathedral where the largest number of survivors were huddled, and above the other, smaller evacuation points scattered nearby – the innocent souls Hedin had, for a moment, prioritized saving his fighters over.
"Open, the fifth garden! Resound, the ninth song!" Vena's chant, though seemingly brief in its execution, possessed an ancient, heavy resonance that settled over the battlefield like a pall.
Its speed wasn't due to rapid casting but to a master's technique: precast magic, held in readiness, a demonstration of Vena's terrifying skill.
She had prepared this devastating spell beforehand, waiting for the opportune moment.
This was why she had primarily relied on her magic sword during the earlier skirmish; she had been saving her true power for this exact moment.
Dina watched, a slow smile playing on her lips.
Her fingers were intertwined with her sister's, a strange, almost intimate connection through which she seemed to be channeling her own magical energy into Vena, boosting the already immense power gathering above.
"Dialv Dis!" Vena intoned, naming the spell.
Immediately, the four monstrous magic circles unleashed their payload.
Not lightning, but columns of searing, emerald-green hellfire, descending like divine wrath upon the targets below.
In a primal, desperate response, Hedin instinctively lashed out, stretching his arm towards the heavens.
"Valiant Hildr!" The familiar incantation roared from his throat, the raw energy of his own ultimate spell gathering instantly.
The massive thunder canon erupted from his hand, a deafening blast of brilliant light and raw power, rocketing upwards to intercept the falling inferno.
The two forces met in a cataclysmic explosion of light, sound, and raw magic.
Thunder clashed against fire, crackling and tearing at each other for a terrifying moment, showering sparks across the ruined street below.
Then, with a final, deafening roar, they annihilated each other, leaving only trembling air and the lingering smell of ozone and brimstone.
The main cathedral, the largest and most crowded sanctuary, had been saved, shielded from the worst.
But the other evacuation structures, the smaller pockets of survivors Hedin hadn't been able to cover, were obliterated.
Hedin could only stare, aghast, as the areas around the main cathedral ignited, flames licking into the sky.
The faint sounds reached him even over the ringing in his ears – the distant, piercing cries of children, the desperate screams of mothers and fathers trapped, choking and burning.
The innocent lives who had trusted him, who had looked to him for protection, were being consumed by fire.
He stood frozen in the middle of the crossroad, fixed on the horrifying spectacle, inhaling the sickeningly sweet, metallic tang of burning flesh that clawed at his throat.
A ripple of sinister laughter snapped him back to the present.
The Dis sisters, watching his agony, found it utterly delightful.
"Hahahahahahahaha! Isn't it beautiful, Hedin? So beautiful!" Dina cackled, her voice dripping with malicious pleasure.
"Listen to that!" Vena taunted, a cruel smile stretching her lips.
"The screams of people you chose to let die!"
Hedin remained rooted to the spot, unable to form a reply, the weight of his decision crushing him.
"Ah, you know what I heard?" Vena continued, her tone shifting to mock curiosity. "I heard that you used to be a king."
"Oh, how scary and saddening it must be," Dina added, her voice a false sigh of sympathy, "to watch your subjects die again due to your decision!"
Hedin knew they were right.
He understood the full horror of what he had done.
The moment he had committed to saving Hogni's group, he had accepted that there were only two possible outcomes: either his core fighters perished, or the people in his care would be slaughtered.
He couldn't redirect full blame towards these vile sisters, these architects of destruction.
The deaths were a direct consequence of his choice.
He had done everything in his power to avoid this terrible outcome, and in a way, he had succeeded – the critical units were saved, the main shelter held.
But the cost... the cost was a bit too much.
"Did you like our presents, Hedin? We sure did enjoy making them." The sisters' voices chimed together, chillingly casual.
"Aaaaw, we've never seen you look so sad. We really want to cheer you up with a big hug... but we're afraid there isn't time for that."
With twisted glee, the two girls briefly embraced each other, then sprang lightly into the air, leaving the ground behind.
"Our god told us not to end things yet," they announced, their voices fading slightly as they ascended.
"So we will have to finish this another time. But don't worry, we will kill you both next time. Please stay safe and healthy until then."
Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the two sisters vanished, their eerie, shared laughter echoing mockingly through the smoke-filled air before finally dying away.
There was no need for the enemy to be overly greedy.
The evilus had inflicted a deep wound on the Freya familia; there was no need to push them into utter desperation just yet, not when psychological damage served their purpose so well.
They retreated, satisfied with the chaos and despair they had sown in District Seven.
As the sounds of battle faded, healers and survivors from the main cathedral began cautiously emerging, rushing towards those who had miraculously survived the secondary attacks, tending to the wounded and the dying amidst the smouldering ruins.
Hedin remained where he was, a figure of stone in the middle of the crossroad.
His hands trembled, not from cold, but from suppressed fury, clenching involuntarily until the glasses he held shattered in his grip, slivers of glass digging into his palm unnoticed.
An unbridled, suffocating rage boiled within him, a monstrous thing with no immediate outlet. He could only bottle it, let it fester.
His voice, when it finally came, was a low, broken whisper filled with venom.
"Next time we meet... I will definitely kill you, you vile abominations."
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