BXBX NOVEL Chapter 296 Confrontation (7)
An attack from Empress Carolina has been already expected by everyone.
However, the person who she was attacking came out as a shocking surprise! To think that the Empress will not hesitate to attack her own son!
Facing his mother alongside High Priest Enoch, Kazimir remained calm and immediately maneuvered midair to dodge Empress Carolina's attack. The black cursed vines were freely extending as they continued to crack Kazimir's movement even if it had already clearly evaded them.
High Priest Enoch also did not state idle as he tried to also distract Empress Carolina's chase with his spells. As he cast some warning spells. He observed that the vines were behaving very oddly.
The vines relentlessly followed Kazimir and no amount of attack would keep it from extending and following wherever he escaped. The sword attacks also did not make any difference as the vine would only continue to extend even if Kazimir was able to sever a part of it.
To confirm his theory, he immediately changed his attacking pattern and switched into close-quarter combat with his holy staff.
Empress Carolina was not well versed in close combat however, her caster abilities were superb and it was demonstrated by the astonishing control of her mana, perfectly blocking the spots where High Priest Enoch attacked.
But this brief exchange had confirmed High Priest Enoch's theory about the vine that was endlessly chasing Kazimir.
The vines were operating on their own, either it was sentient or Empress Carolina was actually casting a conditional spell to capture Kazimir at all cost. Seeing that even if Empress Carolina was distracted by High Priest Enoch's movement it proved that the efficiency of the black curse vine remained unaffected.
Moments after the first exchange of the battle, the Temple Knights and the High Priest had already finished their preparations and started to support Kazimir and High Priest Enoch.
As Empress Carolina had already initiated her attack, it meant that she had officially become the enemy of the Temple. Due to this, it is imperative that the Temple's resources would automatically be deployed to apprehend her.
With the additional players in the fight, Empress Carolina did not even budge an inch, there was something in her that made her unafraid and confident about even taking several knights and priests head-on.
She used her multi-attribute mana, wind, earth, and lightning, to fight the enemies.
Earth for shielding herself.
Wind and Lightning for combined mobility and attack.
Her being a proud Empress from the Vesala house was really not only in name but also in her high aptitude as a Caster Mage.
Even Kazimir was almost caught by the curse vine because he was surprised by how his mother was so good at using her abilities to fight!
The sky was already turning on a lighter shade of blue and everything was already starting to get visible. Empress Carolina was also starting to see how many people were against her at the moment.
But to her, it was still something that she could manage. The only annoying one in the crowd in her eyes would be the ever cunning High Priest Enoch.
Empress Carolina could only see him casually attack here and there but there is no trace of anything that could help her gauge whether the High Priest was stronger than her or not. Perhaps it might be because of his age that he was already experienced staying low key until the right timing arrives or he was just that weak.
As for Kazimir, she was not even a little bit worried. Just as High Priest Enoch had predicted, her cursed vine is actually a conditional cursed spell with the order as 'Capture Kazimir at all cost'.
She had to discipline her child after all because he was blinded by the self-righteousness hiding in his heart. 'At all cost, I must let him understand why I am right and the Vesala is meant for greatness!' She declared in her heart.
Her nonchalance worried the Temple's forces more as it indicated that the Empress was really not seeing the Temple as a threat to her power. As such the Temple Knights began to execute coordinated attacks with the priests and started to use their spiritual powers to increase their aptitude.
The sudden increase in their strength did not surprise Empress Carolina as she had already known a thing or two about the nature of spiritual power during her one-year stint in the temple.
What surprised her was how hard it was to deal with a coordinated attack from a group of experienced knights without having a good aptitude in combat.
Because of the forceful and heavy attacks from the knights and the awkward timing of the ranged attack by the priests, Empress Carolina started to finally feel the pressure of handling many at once.
"Trying to drive me into the corner, I see!" Even so, she was still confident that she would win alone. The fact that she even attempted to destroy the Temple on her own was the greatest testament to that,
And so, she started to embed cursed power to her mana and started to release vicious wide area attacks.
Wind blades and lightning shocks all embedded with cursed power, these attacks alone managed to injure half of the Temple's force at once.
"Not good…" High Priest Enoch was immediately alarmed by the overwhelming result of embedding the curse power into one's talents. The increase in potential was even more terrifying than the proven rate of increase when they used spiritual power.
"If the wrong people saw this, this will encourage them to desire the power of the curse more than sticking to mana or spiritual power!" This was the thing that worried High Priest Enoch, and as the sun continued to shine and so was the number of witnesses that would be able to figure out this ugly truth.
He did not want this battle to be a catalyst for the people to spread the use of curse power!
Deciding to finally step into the fight, he raised his staff and made a striking action as if he was hitting the ground with his staff even though he was still mid-air.
"Vooooong!" A loud humming sound resonated on the battlefield, it was life, a trumpet calling forth the armies of heavens to punish the evil on the heart.
"Ah!!" Empress Carolina did not know why, but upon hearing the sound, she felt a striking pain in her head and felt a strong sense of apprehension and fear towards the sound.
The vine was also affected as its speed slowed at a visible speed.
High Priest Enoch continued to produce the sound and Empress Carolina continued to shout in agony like she was being subjected to torture under it.
Seeing that she was already distracted and weakened by High Priest Enoch's support, the remaining forces continued their attacks in order to punish Empress Carolina and end the battle.
It was too bad that they could not kill the Empress because of the possibility of the angel's spirit fragment appearing from a curse power user.
All they knew was there was only one person who could manage to deal with the spirit fragment in the entire Empire, and that was the Subject to the Oracle.
"Charge!" The temple knights shouted in unison as they started to go beyond Empress Carolina's defense and tried to weaken her by inflicting injuries and weakening her physical state.
Along with the continuous sound from High Priest Enoch's staff and the combined attacks from the forces, wounds and injuries started to cover Empress Carolina's pampered body.
"Ahhh!!! Curse you! Curse you all! I'll put you all to death!" Her loud cries continued as she struggled to divide her attention to defend herself and deal with the painful effect of the sound.
Kazimir could only bite his teeth in a deep painful struggle. It was painful to hear his mother's cry.
Heaven knows how much he wanted to move toward his mother and tried to shield her from the pain!
But because he wanted everything to end, he persevered and begged the heavens to at least forgive him and his mother.
A great wave of guilt rushed through his pale face where his tears of heartbrokenness flowed freely like a river. "I'm sorry mother… I'm sorry…"
"D*mn, I'll kill you all!!!!!!" As the peak of the torture reached Empress Carolina's limit, so were these words that came out of her mouth.
At the same moment, Mishael and Eli were already at their third to the last array monument. The amount of power needed for their tasks had already taken their entire nighttime and yet they were still not done.
Just as when they were about to start embedding Eli's spiritual energy into the array monument, Mishael froze and his beautiful face wore a grave expression.
"Milady… I'd have to apologize." He said, interrupting Eli's actions.
"I'd have to ask you to go on ahead to finish these remaining three monuments on your own for the High Priest and the Temple were now in grave danger…" Mishael looked at Eli directly. There's pleading and desperation in his voice.
"Then let me go with you!" Eli immediately became worried the moment she heard his words, especially about the High Priest's current situation.
"No can do, Milady, this task was needed for us to ultimately win this fight! It was only you who could do it… Milady, let me do the fighting, I plead with you."
Mishael had already understood what was in Eli's heart but he could not grant her request.
For the situation was so dire that he did not even know if he would be able to see the High Priest alive upon his arrival!