City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

The Portal Opens

The western portions of the Baruch Kingdom were mostly comprised of a harsh desert with undulating terrain. However, these barren lands had been transformed over the past month. Sentinels and horses now patrolled the area regularly, looking for possible hiding spots in the empty desert. A massive army was camped nearby, ready to charge in on a moment’s notice.

A scout was currently urging his horse forward to circle around a stone pillar that was ten metres thick, his horizon expanding to reveal vast flatlands ahead.

The ranger was already quite old, his face filled with the vicissitudes of time, but his gaze remained sharp. He looked into the distance where everything was calm as per usual, preparing to have his horse move on.

However, the old horse that had accompanied him for a long while was unwilling to go forward. Startled by the creature neighing and backing away, the scout squinted ahead and saw the space in front of him beginning to distort. A dazzling light suddenly filled the air in front of him, splitting space apart!

The ranger found himself blinded in the moment, but with decades of experience he immediately brought his hand up to block the strong light. Blinking his vision back slowly, he managed to discern the scene ahead of him.

An enormous portal had already taken shape a few hundred metres away. Groups of fully-armed soldiers walked out from a ripple-like screen, the style of their armour entirely different from anything the Faelorian had ever seen. They were evidently not of this world. place.

“Invader!” the man gasped, producing a short red flare. A single press and this would fly hundreds of metres into the sky, sending a magical wave of energy that would alert all mages within a hundred kilometres to the location.

However, just as he was about to press it, the ranger hesitated. The first few groups of invaders had just walked out of the gate, yet to discover him. Once he sent out this flare, he would not be able to escape.

The old man’s hands gripped tighter and tighter, large beads of sweat rolling down from his forehead as throbbing veins popped out. Squad after squad of soldiers continued to walk out…

The scout knew that the ability to determine the location of the invaders and attack them before they could assemble would play a huge part in the oncoming battle. In a war of the entire world, his life was nothing. The man suddenly gritted his teeth and pressed hard with both hands, the short red stick shooting into the skies as it shot out bright red light. The tracks it left behind took quite some time to dissipate.

The ranger felt as though all strength had been sucked out of him, body going limp. He immediately turned back and had his horse bolt, fleeing as fast as he could.

A powerful general leading the vanguard was quickly urging his soldiers forward with a loud voice, having them leave the following squads some space. Bright red suddenly flashed in the corner of his eyes, the red beacon immediately revealing the fleeing ranger. His eyes glinted coldly as he snorted, taking an enormous bow off his back and nocking an arrow.

*Twang!* *Thump!* The arrow sparked as it flew into the distance, crossing several hundred metres in the blink of an eye to bury itself into the scout’s back. The horse continued to run on, but after a mere dozen metres or so its rider exploded into a torrent of bloody rain!

The general loosed a thunderous cry, having the soldiers set up formation even as he dispatched a group of light cavalry that had just stepped through the portal to go hunt for and kill any other scouts nearby.

More and more soldiers continued to stream out, the formation growing a little disorganised as it approached the 10,000 mark. The general’s voice grew slightly hoarse, but many of those who had just walked out the gates were still a little disoriented from the leap. Some even had trouble standing, an unfortunate side effect of using an unstable passageway

Thankfully, a second general soon followed. The one in the vanguard sighed with relief, working together with the new arrival to bring things back into order.

However, it was at this moment that the earth trembled slightly. A cloud of dust rose up in the distance, pressing closer to their location until they were finally within range of sight. A row of cavalrymen was charging over at full speed!

The expressions of the two generals warped. With vision surpassing that of normal soldiers, they noticed that there were nearly 10,000 horses in the vanguard. The problem was with the dust obscuring their sight. If just the vanguard was this large, what about the army behind? How many would there be?

The soldiers that had already walked out of the portal quickly adjusted formation, the heavy infantry in the front with the spears right behind. The flanking cavalry was quickly withdrawn as the army closed up in preparation for battle.

The Faelorians had already charged up. Their commander quickly noticed that Raymond’s troops were experienced and didn’t dare to rush into the wall of spears head-on, instead splitting the vanguard in two and having them flank around the wings to strike at the rear near the portal. Norland may have been proficient at planar incursions, but Faelor was experienced in fending them off. They were aware that the teleportation gate was the key to this battle.

A volley of arrows suddenly rose up from the centre of Raymond’s army, leaving behind trails of various colours as they landed in the midst of the charging cavalry. The few hundred enchanted arrows worked just as well as a volley from over thousands of elite archers, leaving 200 cavalrymen on the ground. The same dazzling light flew into the sky once more, and that body count doubled.

At the heart of the invading troops was a square-shaped formation that was noticeably different from the rest. All of these archers were tall with long arms, their arrows enchanted with various effects that would bring death to their enemies.

A single kilometre’s charge had been intercepted by five waves of arrows, leaving more than a thousand dead. However, the cavalry didn’t lose any morale at all. Charging ahead with no regard for their own lives, wave after wave of soldiers successfully passed the organised formation and struck the soldiers closer to the portal who were still forming up.

Everything instantly descended into chaos!

At the heart of the division of cavalry was a tall general holding the Baruch warflag up high, roaring as he stomped through the Norlanders. He used the flag as a polearm of sorts, hoisting the enemy soldiers up into the sky and impaling them with its sharp tip. This general gave off a bloodthirsty aura that made him seem like an abyssal god of massacre.

“I just move over and there’s a saint to kill? What a surprise!” A snicker suddenly resounded through the battlefield, “Alright, I’ll take care of you!”

A powerful being clad in black armour with an enormous sword appeared at the portal, taking large steps forward as he closed the hundred-metre distance from the general in an instant. Amidst booming roars, saints from the two great planes had crossed swords for the first time.

Every collision between the broadsword and warflag sent sparks flying into the sky, the clashes sounding like claps of thunder. There was no way to rein in one’s energy in such a battle, but the experienced soldiers on each side quickly gave the two fighting powerhouses a wide berth. They knew they couldn’t even afford to get close, much less intervene.

The Baruch general fought with all his might, but even though he was fearless the Norlander constantly maintained the advantage. He soon devolved into a series of wild attacks, but even though the opponent’s energy reserves were similar to his own the power and dexterity of the broadsword was on a completely different level!

“Im...possible…” It wasn’t long before the general watched the huge sword pierce into his body with a face of disbelief. In the last few moments of his life, he suddenly noticed a series of sparks on the opponent that seemed to be bound together by some threads. It seemed almost like the working of a magic formation. He had originally thought the opponent had legendary-grade armour, but now he realised these flashes came directly from the skin.

These were runes! The magic tools that had only recently popped up on Faelor!

However, he didn’t get to dwell on that thought for long before the giant sword deftly cut off his head. This was the first of the Baruch Kingdom’s sub-legendary guardians that had died.

The black-armoured Norland saint waved his giant sword around once more, beginning a one-sided massacre of the light cavalry. Raymond’s soldiers slowly recovered from the chaos, the new entrants now able to fight normally. The troops gradually organised and formed together, giving their newer colleagues some time to recover from the teleportation sickness. A powerful counterattack rocked the Faelorians. The Baruch Kingdom’s light cavalry was whittled away, leaving more than half of them dead.

However, they had accomplished their purpose. Enough time had been bought for the main army to come in!

The earth quaked with far more vigour as the Baruch heavy cavalry that was well-known on the continent surged over like a golden tide. Following them was a black mass of footsoldiers that seemed to have no end!

When Raymond walked out of the portal under the escort of his personal guards, the first thing he saw was an exceptionally massive battlefield where more than a hundred thousand soldiers were engaged in a battle to the death. The frontlines of the battle had been broken at many places, both sides now stuck in a vortex of death. Powerful beings were engaged in close quarters all over, more and more soldiers dying every second.

The light of magic seemed to shroud the entire battlefield. Clouds of fire, hailstorms, lightning bolts, acid mist… Many large-scale spells constantly struck the Faelorian soldiers before being dissipated by their own mages and clerics. A dozen eye-catching balls of light floated in the sky, all grand mages fighting each other while trying to lob spells into the battle below.

Anyone who dared to float up in this battlefield was unordinary; at the very least, they were confident in facing the hundreds of enchanted arrows from Raymond’s archers. However, they quickly realised that this confidence was misplaced. The Faelorians in the sky were shot down like fowl by the clumps of arrows; startling all but those with extreme power into returning to the ground.

Divine light constantly flickered in and out of existence as well. Groups of soldiers were turned into killing machines by Faelor’s clerics and priests, madly rushing towards their enemies without fear of death. Although the divine spells of Faelor seemed weak to those of Norland, the few high-levelled priests that the Baruch army had was much higher than Raymond’s zero. Whenever battles entered a stalemate and one side had clerics while the other did not, there would only be one end.

Raymond’s eyes narrowed. He had never expected to face this situation on the other side of the portal.