Chapter 76: Chapter 76
Henry stared with fascination at the crystal castle and its unique architecture, it was large, and built directly on the forest lands without any grooves nor water streams surrounding it, it towers almost scraping the sky, the walls made of the finest crystal emerging directly from the ground without the stony base, shining with their own light, there were no signs of a gate or any windows on the castle, making it appear like a giant flawless diamond with perfect cuts, and for a second, he couldn’t believe he just gave an order to rain it down with fire and ice spears, not until they started colliding with the flawless walls.
Beauty could be deceiving indeed, Henry told himself, for something so beautiful like the castle was hiding the most vicious creatures in their world, ones which manipulated them for thousands of years, what he couldn’t understand though was why the Gods were still hiding?
One way to find out, he thought, hoping that he wasn’t leading his army to a death trap, without any windows or gates, the castle indeed looked like an enclosed beautiful tomb.
"Are these surprises ever going to stop?" Andrea growled in frustration as she watched the walls regenerating themselves after each attack, and Henry couldn’t help but agree, he was worn out and knew it was the case with the rest of the army, or what was left of it after the fire, a little more than half their initial numbers, the demon soldiers might have had a chance to feed but the humans didn’t, they have been fighting non stop without a chance to rest either, Henry knew that they needed to end the fight as soon as they could before their condition deteriorate even more, and that is why he was attacking the castle, attacking the unknown.
Henry rubbed his palm on his face, pinching the bridge of his nose for a fleeting second, the commanders waited patiently for his next orders, not pressuring him with insistence as they knew he was more tired than them all, the grime on his face failed to hide the dark circles, for the tiredness and the weight of the responsibility were showing their effects on him, especially while the ice queen was no more by his side.
"There is only one thing left to do, a direct attack" Henry answered, his voice not quivering, they couldn’t just keep on wasting time and resources and energy on attacking the walls that kept on regenerating, instead, he decided it was better to use the time-lapse of the regeneration process to infiltrate the castle, and put all the strength they had left, which wasn’t much to begin with, in this last attack, hanging all their hope on it, whether they win it all, or lose it all...
"How many crossbows we have left?" Henry asked, knowing this next step might actually be one toward their self-destruction, a risk he was willing to take as there was no safe way to breach through the castle.
There were no proofs to his theory, but if the Gods had set all those barriers to protect themselves, then there must be something that stopped them from wiping the armies themselves, the more they advanced into the castle without once facing one of the Gods only made him believe in that theory more.
"Thirty nine" A demon answered after a quick confirmation through the mind link, Henry nodded with a frown, the fire did really cost them so much
"A human archer, an ice demon, and a shadow demon will stay with each crossbow, they will all attack a single spot of the wall using ice spears" Ice was the element that helped them destroy the barrier, Henry thought, Why not take their chances with it again then? "Make every strike count, make it fast, and make it precise, because the rest of the army would be only a few feet away from the castle walls, you will be creating the opening for us!" Henry heard the gasps, knowing what he said sounded suicidal, and he couldn’t blame anyone for it, to be honest, he knew he was taking them inside the beast’s den, right into the death zone, and he himself was reluctant, but not enough to change his mind.
"Your task is to create an entry point for us by weakening the wall's defenses, the human archers, you on the other hand will shoot fire arrows randomly around the selected spot, Randomly, but not too random" only close by to slow the process of regeneration by forcing the energy to spread on several spots, and even though he knew many didn’t understand his plan, he didn’t bother with explaining it as he knew he had their full trust at that moment, yet he still felt the need to say something else.
"We made it this far" looking everyone in the eye, taking his sweet time to focus and each and every one of those who surrounded him, as if he, through their eyes saw all the soldiers in the army "Some came here for their freedom, Some for life, Some for safety, and Some for hope, we fought side by side, died side by side and survived side by side, I’m sure if our ancestors saw us now they would be very disappointed in us, after all, we broke a pact of mutual hate and enmity that lasted for thousands of years, fed by lies, but now we stand together, only a step away from victory, from ending a dark era and writing a new one, a better one, with our own hands, and for that, I ask you all my friends, the ones I knew before and the ones I made during this journey, I ask you all to take this step with me, For today is not the day we are going to lose, Today is ours, and every other day that comes after it, is ours!!" Henry stressed the last words, his voice clear and strong, making sure it didn’t miss any one’s ears, but mostly honest, an honesty that managed to reach all the soldiers’ hearts, feeding them with his strength and fire, with hope, and with lodging to the victory they saw in his blue eyes.
Once the troops positioned themselves near the walls, directly facing the spots where the spears were going to land, cloaked by snow and shadows, the human archers started shooting fire arrows at the wall, the supposedly random attacks not random at all as they scattered on a precise perimeter, and just as Henry expected, the cracks and impacts were closing quickly, not quick enough as the archers kept on shooting with all their might, causing the cracks to grow and new ones to appear while the old ones weren’t even closed yet.
While the human archers were busy attacking the perimeter in hope of draining the center of this perimeter by focusing their attacks around it, the ice demons got their signal to attack, huge ice spears landed in the middle of the spot the humans were attacking, Henry’s eyes watched carefully, noticing the delay in regeneration he was hoping for, which turned after seconds to a small penetrating crack, which grew as the regenerating process couldn’t keep up for some reason.
Not a single soldier hesitated once they heard Henry's order to attack the wall, all of them ran screaming toward the spot, the shadow demons running faster than the rest and crashing at the weakened cracking wall, the impact was strong leaving some of them bleeding but nonetheless, it worked.
An opening was created, as large as a gate, allowing the soldiers to flood inside the castle only to stop in their track.
No one knew what to expect from the Gods’ castle, but no one thought they would be finding themselves in a very large hall either, Henry looked around him, astonished and lost, he expected to see at least a garden, or rooms, or halls, or anything, but the inside of the castle was nothing but one single hall, too large it almost looked endless, the inside crystal was polished to perfection, not just the wall but the mirror-like floor as well which was polished to perfection, the ceiling was as high as the castle’s towers, no sign of chandeliers of any kind even though the place was fairly lit.
Where was the light coming from, and where were the Gods? Henry wondered, looking all over the abnormally large hall, it was completely empty, except for something that stood in the middle.
Focusing on the strange thing, Henry noticed it looked almost identical to the prophecies recipient he saw in the holy tower, only that this was much bigger, standing on a large pillar made of crystal while the recipient was made of gleaming white marble that radiated with a warm aura.
"What is this place?" A demon asked in confusion, the same question everyone was asking themselves, Henry expected that they will be faced with something, the Gods themselves, maybe another legion of some unknown creatures, he expected they would be attacked with blazing lightning or something, but what he didn't expect, was the nothingness they were greeted with.
the place was silent like death
"What is going on?! "
"Where are they?! "
"Where are we?!"
"What is this smell?!"
The last question caught Henry's attention since it wasn't something he thought of, unlike all the previous questions, sniffing the air around him, his nostrils nearly bled from the horrid smell of sweat, dirt, and ash, not he nor anyone in the army had a chance to clean themselves, but aside from that, there was nothing unusual.
"Blood, it smells like blood" A shadow demon said while licking his lips hungrily, his eyes looking everywhere trying to find the source of the intoxicating, maddening, and delicious smell.
"The sweetest blood, where is it coming from?!"
Henry knew that the shadow demons’ senses were absolute, and therefore didn’t doubt their words for a second, if they were smalling blood, then there was blood, the question was, whose blood was it?