Chapter 182: Durnvale Under Control Of The Chruch
The holy standard of Everbright fluttered in the wind as the golden-armored host crested the hill overlooking Durnvale—one of the Elysium-controlled supply town west of Hyparia.
It wasn't just a trade post. It was the King of Elysium territory for feeding his advance camps, housing not only weapons and rations, but artificers, beast tamers, and summoners.
Though, not the only supply town, but it was enough to disturb the wave of war for now.
His forces here weren't green conscripts either. They were elite and fortified.
A normal army would have retreated.
But Saintess Marienne wasn't a normal commander.
Her white cloak fluttered behind her, pristine even with the mud clinging to her boots. She stood beside her senior knights, eyes scanning the enemy formation with chilling precision with a telescope in hand.
Thirty-five hundred Elysium troops, with beast riders and at least one summoner—heavily entrenched behind makeshift palisades and reinforced by magical barriers.
She turned to her tactician. "Report."
"They've sealed the main roads. Archers posted on the east towers. Five tiered defenses inside the town."
"Two artillery batteries—one facing the southern hill, the other west. We estimate three summoned beasts on standby. They expected someone might try."
"Good," Marienne replied softly. "The Lord Of Calamity is meticulous. I like that."
The knights around her stiffened. She never raised her voice, yet her presence made men stand taller. She was no berserker nor fire-slinging war mage.
But in her mind, every soldier had already been moved into position like chess pieces. And soon, her game would begin.
"Begin the rite," she whispered.
Her staff struck the ground. "Sanctus Lux, Aperi Oculus."
A soft golden wave spread from the base of her staff, washing over the battlefield like light cutting through fog.
Wherever it touched, hidden things were revealed—soldiers in disguise, traps buried underground, and enemy positions behind walls or hills.
The spell cleared away illusions and made everything clear to her eyes.
It was a holy spell of vision—one that let Marienne and her knights see the truth of the battlefield.
"Form two decoy battalions and send them to pressure the east wall," she ordered, gaze locked forward.
"When they retaliate, shift our heavy cavalry to the south and break the artillery line. The second they redeploy their summon beasts…"
She looked to her right flank. "…we unleash Purity."
The holy knights standing near her tightened their grips.
"In nomine vitae, ruina daemonum—Lux Judicium."
The air shimmered. A holy magic circle formed in the clouds, and from it descended a massive light construct shaped like a phoenix.
Not powerful enough to destroy the entire town—but enough to punch a hole through a wall and scatter morale.
And that was all she needed.
"Go."
Like a ripple of divine wind, her troops moved. A thousand knights charged the eastern palisade, clashing with Claude's stationed guards.
Elysium's commander barked orders, and the defenses shifted—exactly as Marienne predicted.
Then, the southern cavalry emerged from the brush. Fifty warhorses, clad in armor blessed with holy runes, barreled down on the distracted artillery.
Meanwhile, the moment two large lizard-like summon beasts were called to the front—
Marienne raised her staff once more.
"Purga corruptio!"
Judgement has fallen.
From the magic circle above, the phoenix screeched and dived—its wings wreathed in flames of purifying light. The southern wall exploded inward, debris raining like shrapnel and the beasts turn into ashes.
Then came the roar of infantry. Two hundred foot soldiers, cloaked under her holy illusion, surged from the broken rear gate.
"Saintess, your support cleric squad is in position!" one of the captains shouted.
"Send them forward. Staggered formation. Interlace barrier fields every ten meters. Do not overextend. Protect the wounded first. Then press."
The support cleric marched behind the front line, weaving spells that blunted spears and closed arrow wounds in seconds. While giving protection to all the holy knights in front.
Marienne walked calmly through the field, untouched. She could destroy this town in one single spell like any other saints would do, but she wanted her holy knights and clerics to have their own taste of war too.
And she hated to show off her power when that power could be used against her. To found her weakness.
Enemy soldiers hesitated as they saw her, radiant and resolute, healing with one hand while conjuring lances of divine energy with the other.
One beast—a summoned ironclad bear—charged at her from the flank. She didn't flinch.
"Stella Caeli."
The bear convulsed mid-charge. A piercing ray from the sky cleaved it down the spine. Its summoner fell soon after, pierced by a knight's blade.
Durnvale's outer perimeter was no longer a battlefield—it was a slaughterfield.
But it wasn't over.
The cries of men and beasts sounded distant to Marienne's ears—like echoes in a chapel long abandoned as she was focused on the next move. Her eyes didn't waver. This was the moment she had been waiting for.
"Don't chase them into the choke point," she ordered, lifting two fingers in signal. "Hold the second line. Let them exhaust themselves."
"Yes, Your Holliness!"
Her holy knights vanguard halted their push just meters from the broken barricade. The Elysium troops, wounded and reeling, staggered behind the crumbled walls, assuming the enemy had overcommitted.
They hadn't.
Inside the fortified town center, Captain Rheos gritted his teeth. Blood ran down his temple, and the men around him were panting, covered in soot and ash.
The beast tamer beside him had collapsed—his final beast slain.
"We hold here!" Rheos barked. "Barricade the inner quarter and rearm the artillery. We make them bleed for every step!"
The captain had seen war. Fought in three campaigns. But never had he faced a force that predicted his movements with such terrifying accuracy.
It was like the Saintess had stepped into his mind and rearranged the pieces before he could even think.
And the worst of all, he could already felt Claude glared and his cold steel on his neck if he lost this supply town!
Outside the walls, Marienne raised her staff again.
"Ingressus Lux. Pax Velum."
A wave of golden mist rolled forward—not violent, but oppressive. It seeped into the cracks of the barricades, under doors, into lungs. And for a brief moment, silence fell.
Then came the screams.
Not of pain—but of confusion. Her spell didn't kill, it expose the hidden things but more precise than the Sanctus Lux and also making 'hallucinations' and panic throught the battlefield.
And the effect worsen since her enemies were daemon.
Hidden supplies glowed. Underground storage caches lit up like lanterns. Secret exits, hidden relics, even the disguised war priest attempting to ready a counter-curse—marked by holy light.
She turned to her tactician. "Disrupt their inner quarter. Breach squads one and two will move in from below using the east sewer line."
"The ventilation system will carry the sedative gas. When their command structure collapses we move in."
Her eyes narrowed. "Minimize casualties on our side."
The order passed down swiftly.
As the sewer teams vanished into the shadows to reclaim the town from inside, another light construct formed above.
This time not a phoenix, but a haloed lion—its roar cascading over the battlefield in a wave of morale.
The soldiers of Everbright knelt briefly at its passing, that lions turn into ashes and recharge their mana to keep going.
And then they charged.
A controlled advance. One line at a time. Shields forward. Barriers shimmering with golden inscriptions.
Inside the town, Rheos was coughing blood by the time the inner barricade trembled. The sedative fog burned his eyes, made his sword arm heavy. His men were panicking, some calling out to Claude. Others to death.
The sewer tunnel suddenly exploded open behind the granary. Saintess-affiliated knights poured out, striking key targets—not the front line, but supply crates, beast-control totems, and command posts.
Rheos made it only three steps before a blade of light clipped his leg, dropping him to the ground. He tried to rise. A woman's foot pinned his shoulder.
Saintess Marienne stood above him—radiant as moonlight, her staff leveled at his chest.
"You fought well," she said softly.
"You'll… never win," Rheos spat. "The King of Elysium will drown you in flame—"
Marienne silenced him with a look. "Perhaps. But not today."
She turned away. "Bind the wounded. Seize the summoners. And took all the daemon who survive becoming our prisoner!"
And like that, it was done.
Durnvale had not been destroyed. It had been claimed.
Later, as her knights tended the wounded and secured the remaining buildings, one of her senior priests approached.
"Your Holliness," he said, bowing low. "Should we leave our mark on the town by killing all the daemon?"
Marienne looked out over Durnvale—the holy standard of Everbright now planted beside a shattered Elysium banner.
"No," she replied. "If the King Of Elysium care about his people, we can use them as our bait."
"But the Church—"
"I'm not here to glorify the Church," she said coldly. "I'm here to reclaim this town and defeat the Lord Of Calamity."
The priest nodded silently.
Marienne exhaled slowly, her hands clasped in front of her. "Let Claude Calego see this as my answer. If he is the storm..."
Her eyes turned skyward. "then I will be the light that survives it."