Promises should be kept. Gaius could still hear the words of those who had charged in fearlessly, and even though a team of Knights had made it through, his allies — now dead — had kept their word the best they could. His fingers danced and flickered, creating more and more explosion sigils that trailed around him. Drawing such sigils at high speed was painful, but the boy knew that he only had one shot. It would be a culmination of their wishes — to inflict as much harm as possible to dissuade the Lifespring’s forces from swarming Feng-Lang after they took down the final line of defence at Eo-Seu.

The enemies were clustering around these two points of resistance, and none of them were paying attention to Gaius, who had distanced himself away from the battlefield. The Blink ability had been useful here — whatever power that had locked him down earlier had vanished when he’d taken out the strike team targeting him. It was probably something they carried, rather than the divine intervention that had occurred the previous round…which had some implications of its own.

Gaius peered through the scope, and selected one of the giant bubbles. It was likely that this single attack would kill everyone in its range, his allies included, but from what he knew, they wouldn’t mind at all.

But it didn’t make the boy feel any better about doing so.

Over a hundred sigils aligned themselves in front of the Moonshot’s barrel. This strike would kill even a Lord, and as far as assassinations went, this was one of the deadliest, provided that you had a still target and no one noticed the absurdly long queue of sigils in front of your weapon.

His heart, beating wildly, stilled as the boy placed his finger on the trigger. He was beginning to understand what artillery operators felt when small teams requested fire directly on their positions. Gaius could feel the dryness of his throat, his finger’s reluctance…and a sense of mounting sorrow. It was probably the first time he’d killed an ally — he was quite sure that even back on Earth, the him then had never faced such a dilemma before.

His finger tightened around the trigger. His heart jerked — a motion replicated by his finger. Once again, time seemed to slow as the projectile exiting from the Moonshot slammed through fifty explosion sigils.

Moments passed in silence, as Gaius watched the projectile strike someone at the periphery of the encirclement directly, and for the second time in a single day, a small sun bloomed, engulfing everyone caught within it. He had used more sigils than the first strike — and if both encirclements had been positioned close enough, Gaius might have killed off all the Knights in this battle almost singlehandedly.

At such a range, Gaius could barely see the aftermath of his attack. But one thing was clear as the light cleared — over three-quarters of Conrah’s Knights sent out in this battle had died. Bodies fell like stones, scattered and thrown into odd trajectories all across the battlefield. The other encirclement was likewise thrown into disarray, and Gaius fervently hoped that whoever that was still alive inside would take this chance to flee.

These thoughts continued to swirl around in his mind as the last bunch of Knights turned to his direction. Their eyes were ablaze with blue flame, and the boy, even at such a distance, could feel their hostility. He wasn’t sure if the hostility belonged to these Knights, or the person directing them — but now that the possibility of there being an actual living being in these suits of armour had surfaced in his mind, Gaius was leaning towards the former. Whether it was for the sake of self-preservation or not the boy had no idea, but the swarm of Conrah’s soldiers had scattered, breaking up into small groups that were intent on pursuing him.

It would take more than a few minutes for these soldiers to reach his current position. Fleeing wouldn’t be hard — now that he could once again use the Blink ability, he could leave the battlefield as and when he desired. The small group that had chased him was probably carrying something that hindered Blink, but to arm everyone with that item was probably impossible.

But he owed it to the fallen defenders of Eo-Seu to buy as much time as possible for the Territory of Feng-Lang to prepare themselves, even if they numbered in mere minutes. Gaius aimed through the Moonshot as a few quickening sigils floated in front of his barrier, and his speed dropped to a crawl as he fired three times.

Knights fell, but when compared to the incoming wall of enemies, his work didn’t seem like much. After drawing more sigils and firing a few more times, Gaius was forced to blink into the distance. At such numbers, once they closed in enough to ensure that Gaius wouldn’t be able to dodge attacks cleanly, saturating the area around him with attacks would be more than enough to crush him. Those flak-like attacks that the strike team targeting him used earlier, if replicated by the entire horde of Knights, would most likely shake his inwards to bits.

In conclusion, there were over a thousand ways to kill someone with sheer volume of numbers. Gaius had not grown strong enough to hold off entire armies alone, and when up against multiple enemies of similar capabilities, he was ultimately still mortal.

The boy reappeared a few hundred metres away from his original position, and then nodded to himself as the Lifespring’s Knights showed no sign of further advancement. He glanced at the battlefield on the ground. Most of them had been slaughtered to the last man, but the outcome of their fierce resistance would be that the bulk of their forces had retreated in an orderly manner.

Eo-Seu had been conquered. Gaius burned the sight of the smoking ruins that the defence lines were into his eyes. The tower he’d spent some time in was listing to the side, and Gaius thanked his gut instincts that he’d taken his belongings with him before he departed for the battle. For most of the others however, this crumbling tower would be the last proof of their existence, of the desperate resistance that the Knights of the Eastern Territories had put again against a god’s invasion.

The sea of blue on the ground, and the far smaller contingent of Knights in the sky descended as Gaius continued to flee from the battlefield. What came next for this ruined land was obvious — the God of Water would consolidate his gains and build those azure towers.

As for the Paragons on both sides, they were probably still locked into a bitter battle. Whether or not the Eastern Paragons would make it back alive was another question, though. At that thought, Gaius reached out to the teleportation marker he’d left in Feng-Lang and blinked away from the doomed land.