Chapter 448 Start Of The Battle
Waiting just outside of the city with Kuromi, the two of them watched as the sun slowly rose. The patrol was circling the city with no idea that all hell was about to break loose the moment the enemy sees the head.
In the time leading up to this moment, they had already experimented quite a bit with the gauntlets but made very little progress with trying to merge both the activation of the Celestial Raiment and the gauntlet at the same time.
Of course, Shiro made sure to have a short rest so that she could replenish as much energy as she could so that she would be ready for the fight.
"Oh, I think I see a few scouts ahead." Kuromi called out as Shiro perked her ears up at the mention of scouts.
Making herself an orb, she threw it towards where the scouts would be and observed them with a smile on her face.
Their shock and anger upon seeing Rialin's head being hung up upon the city gates were quite satisfying as Shiro would chuckle whenever they talked about revenge and how Teriu city was clearly looking down on them.
Ending their scouting early, they rushed back to the camp in order to report that it was 'Teriu who killed Rialin and hung her head on the wall'.
"Satisfied?" Kuromi asked with a smile.
"Yup. You should have seen the look on their faces." Shiro grinned.
However, before they could continue their conversation, they saw royal family soldiers dashing in from the distance.
*Whistle~
"Their reaction was pretty fast, ay?" Shiro raised her eyebrows.
"Well considering that you killed Rialin yesterday afternoon, they had quite a few hours to prepare. Now that they know who the 'culprit' is, why wouldn't they come here." Kuromi shrugged.
"True. In that case then do you want to return to the base and get everyone ready for battle?" Shiro suggested while narrowing her eyes at the incoming army in the distance.
"Sure, let's go now. We probably want to get them out of the city first after collecting all of our intel. After all, there is a chance for the enemy to just bombard the city with large destruction type spells in a fit of rage. While you can cancel/redirect the effects, it would still take quite a bit of energy." Kuromi replied as Shiro nodded her head.
As the duo dashed back towards the city, they sent a message to all of the shadow guards and told them to meet up at the base closest to the city walls along with making sure that everything important was brought along.
Upon arriving at the base, Shiro saw that everyone was packed and ready to go at a moment's notice.
"Well it seems like everyone's ready. In that case then I'll spare you the long talk. Let's go make a secondary camp not too far from the battle. Once the fighting starts, we'll go in and take a few lives. It doesn't matter which side we kill since it's beneficial to us regardless." Kuromi said with a smile.
After doing a headcount to make sure that everyone was here, they started to make their way out of Teriu without being spotted.
However, just before they could leave Teriu, they felt a surge of celestial energy above them as hundreds upon thousands of spells were being stacked together as they formed a giant magic circle just above the city.
Compared to the one that the giant and dragon had created, it was roughly half as big but twice as dense.
"Damn, me and my big mouth. I've jinxed us." Kuromi frowned.
"Well I guess I have no choice. Come on, single file people and don't push." Shiro said as she created a portal after throwing an orb outside of the city.
Gesturing for everyone to enter the portal before the spell rains hell down upon them, Shiro looked up and analysed as many of the spells as she could.
Thinking for a moment, she theorised that she could probably redirect some of them to strike back at their casters if she started to 'edit' their components now.
As the last shadow guard teleported out of the city, it was now just Shiro and Kuromi once again.
"What are you planning to do?" Kuromi asked curiously since Shiro always had the same serious face whenever she's thinking of doing something. After spending a bit of time with Shiro in this quest, Kuromi had become more perceptive of what Shiro could be doing.
"Mn? Oh, I was just thinking about how I can redirect a lot of the spells back to their owners if I started my edit now." Shiro replied.
"Heh~ In that case then why don't you tell me how you do it and I'll assist you." Kuromi smiled.
"Oh sure, that would actually make my life easier." Shiro nodded.
Quickly explaining the concept behind the act of editing a magic circle, Shiro prepared a simple one for Kuromi to practice on while she edits the deadly 'I want to kill you' magic circles that hung above their heads.
Raising up her hand, she started to shift the components around as spells were deconstructed and reconstructed with minimal energy use.
Glancing at Shiro while she was practicing, Kuromi could clearly tell that Shiro was talented in this aspect.
'Hmm… despite being a tier 6 legend back in her old life, she wasn't one to be constructing spells since she used her nanobots to make weapons. Cancelling spells on the other hand seems to be what she's good at. I suppose a tier 5 mage would be quite a handful to fight against if you have nothing to stop them from casting their huge spells.' Kuromi thought to herself. It wasn't too surprising that she was better than Shiro in terms of being a mage but overall, Shiro still takes the top spot.
After a few noticeably short moments, she could already feel that some of the spells were about to fire so she decided to cut her losses and stop here.
"Let's leave, any longer and it'll be a bit risky." Shiro suggested as Kuromi nodded her head.
With the short amount of practice, she had, Kuromi guessed that she was around 10% done with learning the concept of editing magic circles.
Teleporting out of the city, they sat on the tree and watched as panic flooded the city walls.
"So Shiro, I've been meaning to ask. If you're so good at recognising spells and editing them, how come you're not as good at being a mage?" Kuromi asked.
"Well it's kind of like languages. Sure, you may understand what they're saying and how to speak it yourself, it doesn't mean you're able to use the language effectively to the best degree. Think of it like big words. A tier 1 mage uses words like big while a tier 5 mage uses words like humongous." Shiro explained as Kuromi nodded her head.
"An interesting explanation but it does make sense. I suppose in one sense, you're reading a book whenever you look at a spell. You take a paragraph out and change its structure for a different meaning whenever you edit the spell."
"Bingo."
*BOOM!!!!!!
Just as she said bingo, the spells flared up with an ominous light as hellfire descended down upon the city. A shockwave exploded out from the initial impact, forcing Shiro to hold onto Kuromi so that she didn't fall out of the tree.
"I said bingo to Kuromi, not you!" Shiro retorted out to the spell since it was a little annoyed that her conversation was cut short by the explosion.
Due to her interference with the spell, a few of them flew towards the enemy army and caused quite a bit of casualties on their side.
Once the spell started to end, they could see the destruction it had caused. None of the buildings that were inside Teriu were intact anymore as even the sturdiest buildings were reduced to ruins.
During the windup, most of the city guards managed to escape the destruction but without a city to protect them against a clearly disadvantageous battle, their will to fight seemed to have been dampened. Of course, it wasn't their plan to fight against a country but with how the events played out, they had no choice in this matter.
"Welp, seems like it's time. Remember, kill as many as you can but make sure you survive since that's the most important thing to me." Shiro called out as the guards nodded their heads.
Readying her spear, Shiro activated her celestial raiment and charged up one of the strongest attacks she could do. The moment she throws this spear, they were going to wreck some havoc on the battlefield.