"Holy Spear!!" shouted the man as he shot out a spear of pure light.
Silva easily dodged the attack while moving away from its trajectory. He had no idea whether these warriors were creative enough to make it explode before it hit the target, and he had no wish to experience it with his own body.
As he dodged, several other arrows made of light were shot towards him again. They were weaker than the spears, but at the same time they were faster, smaller, as well as more numerous, so Silva had to exert himself a bit to escape from them, as multiple people were shooting at the same time.
Silva calculated the power shown by these warriors. The energy to shoot those lights seemed to be endless, as they were not even out of breath after constantly shooting and using magic for such a long time.
The only signs of any tiredness seemed to be because they had run after him all this distance.
So, staying in the same place was not at all strategic, as they all could shoot out energy blasts without being worried about their stamina. And since Silva was away from the forests, this was a battle of attrition that he could not win.
But at the same time, their output varied but stayed at the same level. So that meant they were getting power for their attacks from somewhere else, while the output of the attacks depended upon the person themselves.
And from what they had shown, Silva knew it was very easy for him to kill all these people trying to kill him, before even giving him a chance to have a fair opportunity to prove that he was not guilty.
'Where the hell was Christian forgiveness and the chance of redemption? These guys are looking like they were more familiar with bar fight rules,' Silva thought as he prepared to take everyone down without killing them.
Right now, there was a small chance he could prove his innocence regarding the matter of the murder of the priest. But if he killed any of these kids, he might just cross the line with no chance of proving his innocence.
And most importantly, Silva had no wish to kill these innocent people who were attacking him in anger, as they believed he had killed their mentor or friend.
'So I guess I have to repeat what I did to the Romans,' Silva thought as he let out an aura filled with killing intent towards all his attackers.
The moment he did, it instantly froze every single one of them who was attacking him. The ones who were floating in the sky fell down similar to kites that had their strings cut. The ones on the ground kneeled as they were faced with the wrath of a hunter who had killed thousands of monsters in his life.
The air itself slowed its flow, and an illusionary red seemed to fill the eyes of the victims of his killing intent.
Silva immediately noticed it and reduced his intent.
'Seems like it increased after the killings I did when Thalia's tree was damaged,' he thought as he reeled it in. His killing intent had already grown enough to cause death to ordinary mortals if he concentrated enough. As for these people in front of him, the effects might range from migraines to strokes.
As he was thinking about this, one of the females on the ground suddenly raised her upper body while shaking vigorously because of the strain. She brought both her hands together.
"Oh Lord who looks upon us from our birth to our death, I beseech you to grant us protection against the power of our enemies…" the girl kept on praying, and Silva noticed this but did not stop her; he wanted to see what would happen.
"The shield of the Lord," the girl said loudly at the end.
The next moment, multiple golden pillars of light descended from the skies. Each one of those lights fell upon every warrior and glowed golden for a few seconds.
The next thing Silva saw, the warriors who had fallen on the ground stood up without any problems, as if the killing aura sent out by Silva did not exist at all. They all seemed to have a layer of golden energy around them that seemed to be protecting them.
"Our God protects us from the powers of blasphemers. You will meet your end today for the sins you committed in our Lord's house," one of the warriors said, his confidence strengthened with the blessing, as he stood up with a wide smile.
The others too got their confidence back at the youth's words; they too prepared to continue their fight.
"Come on," the warrior tried to rally his allies. "Let's—"
BAM!
CRASH! SCREEEE!
The rest of the warriors froze, and they turned around. The man who had been shouting about getting revenge was currently on the ground, after smashing through an entire building and then skidding across the ground until his body came to a complete stop.
The only sign of him being alive was his slowly rising chest.
The warriors slowly turned around to find Silva, who had discarded his bow and was cracking his knuckles.
"What do you know, finally I can attack without the fear of you guys dying by accident. You should have done that blessing thing way sooner," Silva said as he slowly started walking towards them.
At that moment, for the first time ever, the warriors who had always felt thankful for the protection given by their god,
felt that the protection was more of a curse than a blessing.
The next battle was quick, as Silva did not feel like wasting too much time. He was already late, and the chances of Annabeth being captured by now were very high. And he had no idea what Artemis would do because of his disappearance. He knew there would be changes, and he had no wish for them to go uncontrolled.
'Bianca Di Angelo, she should not die,' Silva thought as he prepared to leave.
But just as he did, he realized that there was a golden barrier surrounding him right now.
He hadn't noticed it till now because the barrier was big enough to cover the battlefield entirely.
"It's time for the sinner to die," a voice echoed, which made Silva realize that the battle was not over.
A/N - Hope you like it.