CHAPTER 25
THE DETONATION OF A FALSE SUN
A massive flaming sphere erupted from the center of the battlefield, expanding with terrifying speed as it swallowed everything in its path.
"No…! What are they—"
The commander's eyes widened in horror. Realization struck him like a blade.
"What in the heavens is the Bal Thrag-gian Empire trying to pull here?" he muttered, suspicion twisting his features.
His breath hitched. "Don't tell me…"
The commander's eyes widened further as the pieces connected. For a moment, the battlefield seemed to fall silent around him.
"…Do they actually plan on wiping out every last one of us?."
He stood atop the final colossal wall of earth; the last line of defense that, once breached, would expose the entire allied army and the Hantrepedean Empire to catastrophe. From this vantage point, he watched like a powerless spectator as the two executioners prepared to change the course of the war.
What he witnessed was nothing short of apocalyptic.
It was like the detonation of a sun, a false sun. The flaming sphere dwarfed even the incomprehensible scale of the Hantrepedean earth walls, structures so vast they defied the imagination of any ordinary man that beheld it.
"This… This is madness…" he stuttered, voice cracking with disbelief. "Is this why they sent them here?! After keeping them behind their walls for so long?!"
The commander's face twisted with rage as he shouted, "Curse those barbarians!"
He clenched his fists, seething. "So that's their plan. They'd rather have the threat dealt with on Hantrepedean soil before it ever reaches their own borders… and they don't care if we become collateral damage in the process."
How little they think of the Empire." He scoffed
As he spoke, his mind was already racing, calculating his next desperate move.
The expansion continued without mercy.
A violent flare erupted from the blazing sphere, racing ahead in all directions like the wrath of a dying star. The countless corpses scattered across the battlefield; those unlucky enough to stand beyond the protection of the four colossal earthen walls.... were vaporized in an instant. Armor, weapons, flesh, and bone disappeared without a trace. The very ground beneath them melted into a churning sea of molten slag.
Temperatures soared to nightmarish levels. A single breath would melt lungs from the inside. The flare was a brutal precursor, far deadlier than the main sphere in those first few seconds.
It slammed into the outermost wall.
Hantrepedean specialists could be seen desperately channeling their power, struggling to reinforce the barrier. Maintaining walls of this incomprehensible scale already demanded inhuman stamina. Now, that stamina was failing faster than they could replenish it.
Once reinforced with the Art of Hantrepedes, the walls became nearly indestructible, the hardest material known to exist. The structures themselves took almost no damage. Instead, every ounce of punishment was transferred directly to the specialists maintaining them.
The twenty specialists responsible for the fourth wall were already pushed to their limits. The first group assigned to the fifth wall had died instantly when the initial shockwave struck. Now the second group bore the full burden. The flare battered against their wall with relentless fury, trying to melt the earth itself. Yet the twenty stood resilient, pouring every drop of their strength into reinforcing the barrier.
Behind the walls, the allied armies stirred with growing unease.
Muttered voices rippled through the ranks. They had heard the deafening roar they couldn't explain. They had felt violent tremors and seismic shocks unlike anything before. Many stared at the blinding light bleeding across the sky, its intensity rising with every passing second. Others noticed how the clouds had been violently swept away in a single explosive burst. The temperature was climbing rapidly, turning the air into an unbearable furnace that cooked them from the inside.
Fear spread. What in the heavens was happening on the other side of those walls? Was the Empire they fought so hard to protect still safe?
High above them, atop the final colossal wall, nearly a mile in height, stood the commander, as he watched the catastrophe unfold.
He realized the violent flare had only been the calm before the storm. Boisterous winds slammed into him, threatening to hurl him off the edge. With a swift deployment of his Art, he locked his feet in place and reinforced his entire body with the Art of Hantrepedes. Only high-ranking officials could withstand such temperatures this way.
His eyes remained fixed on the twenty specialists fighting the flare. They were oblivious to the true horror rapidly approaching behind it.
The flaming sphere finally reached the fourth wall.
The moment it made contact, the second group of specialists died instantly from total exhaustion. The wall collapsed in the same breath. The blazing sphere surged forward unimpeded and smashed into the third wall.
The third group proved far more resilient. They reinforced the barrier with everything they had, desperately holding the line. But even their strength had limits. One by one, they fell. The third wall crumbled.
Then came the second wall.
The fourth group fought valiantly against the overwhelming power of just two individuals, but they couldn't endure. They too collapsed, and the second wall fell.
"Damn those Bal Thrag-gians!!!!"
"Those bastards!"
"Bastaaaaards!!!"
Witnessing the consecutive deaths of his finest specialists and the collapse of wall after wall sent the commander into a blind rage. He leapt off the final wall without hesitation, plummeting toward the ground from nearly a mile high.
There was only one wall left; and it was already on the verge of breaking.
Mid-air, he released his Art. A massive new wall of earth violently erupted from the ground, rising with the same colossal scale as those raised by the specialist teams. His feet slammed into the earth as he had them and his entire body reinforced to avoid taking any damage from the fall, creating a deep crater on impact. Unscathed, he thrust both arms forward, channeling his full power into reinforcing the final barrier.
The feat the commander had just performed was no small miracle. Even as the highest-ranking official of the Hantrepedean Empire, bearing the title of Commander, raising a wall that normally required twenty specialists was suicidal; especially for someone not built like the Executioners.
He understood the cost perfectly. Yet his loyalty to the Empire burned far brighter than his fear of death.
The fifth and final group of twenty specialists fought desperately to hold the original first wall. They quickly realized it wouldn't last much longer. This wall was the only thing keeping the apocalyptic expansion at bay. Should it fall, everything beyond it would be erased from existence, just like the corpses before them.
To their shock, a new colossal wall had already risen directly behind them.
That could only mean one thing: they were marching toward death's door. Still, their duty remained clear: reinforce the wall until their final breath. Everything else was secondary.
The blazing sphere finally breached the last specialist wall. The fifth group exhaled their final breaths as one.
The commander had hoped the expansion would slow or weaken before reaching his wall. It did not. The false sun smashed straight into the barrier he had personally erected, forcing him to reinforce it alone.... an act considered outright suicidal.
He pushed beyond human limits.
Bones began to fracture. Unable to reinforce his own body while channeling everything into the wall, the backlash tore through him. Blood poured from both eyes as his eyeballs bulged violently from their sockets. The flesh on his hands ripped apart, splitting from fingertips to shoulders before tearing across his entire body revealing muscle tissues, torn tendons, ligaments and exposed blood vessels. Thick clouds of steam erupted from his muscles as every drop of moisture in his body rapidly evaporated.
Yet the wall stood firm, an impregnable barrier. It took no damage. All the punishment was absorbed by the commander alone.
The allied forces watched in horror as their commander sacrificed himself to protect them and the Empire behind him.
They could not stand idle.
Warriors possessing the Art of Ice Release surged forward. They unleashed Absolute Freeze, coating the final great wall in thick layers of ice and pushing the cold directly against the blazing sphere where it touched the barrier. The clash between extreme heat and absolute cold birthed massive plumes of steam that billowed into the sky.
With the commander pouring the last of his life into reinforcing the wall and the ice users acting as support, they managed to contain the expansion. The deadly advance slowed, then held.
They fought like this for several long minutes until, at last, the flaming sphere began to shrink. Gradually, the detonation of the false sun faded away completely.
Silence returned to the battlefield.
It was another day of peace, bought at a terrible price.
The Executioners had carried out their mission flawlessly. From the Bal Thrag-gian Empire's perspective, it was a resounding success. The threat had been completely eradicated without a single trace left behind. Though it had endangered the allied armies and the entire Hantrepedean Empire, the job was done.
The Hantrepedean Commander, however, did not survive. His body finally gave out under the unimaginable strain.
Glory was proclaimed for the Bal Thrag-gian Empire. Yet they were immediately accused of recklessly causing the commander's death and endangering their allies for selfish reasons. Other nations and empires branded their actions unjustified and barbaric.
In response, the Bal Thrag-gian Empire released an official statement defending their actions and the actions of the two executioners on the battlefield that faithful day.