Chapter 186 Sacred Knights
While Commander Ullyr, the other Instructors, and the Soldiers were taking away the bodies of their deceased comrades, many workers, who belonged to the military camp, were clearing the rubble in the now destroyed plaza.
The military camp's plaza was completely destroyed. Everything had been turned upside down and not a single stone was left in the same position as hours before.
It was a terrifying sight that grew only worse the moment one saw multiple huge craters, the corpses of more than a thousand Originals, whether they were soldiers, Instructors, or young participants of the military camp.
Nobody was sure of escaping death, and the bodies of the victims of the surprise attack were scattered all over the ground.
Nial might not be able to see anything but he could clearly sense the remnants of mana radiating from the human corpses.
'What a mess…'
They might have survived the sudden attack but that didn't mean everything had suddenly gotten better.
There was not a single person who had recovered from the shock of the unexpected and brutal attack of the Dryx and if one were to be honest, the situation was far from easy to explain.
'Why would he send the Dryx to the Teradan military camp? I mean…he should have known that the planet would restrict the strength of beasts, who can emerge from the teleportation array…'
Nial was pretty sure that Gods were knowledgeable enough to understand the crux behind newly awakened planets. To begin with, Jundra had not yet undergone its planetary mana awakening because it was still considered to be in the first phase.
That was why Nial didn't think that a God would recklessly sacrifice five Soul Space fragments to summon more than 15,000 beasts from his territory.
There should be something else, something more important than this particular God wanted to achieve.
However, Nial could only think about the abnormal Peak Seclon ranked Dryx, who had escaped, and a few worse scenarios.
'Either his plan was for the abnormal Dryx to survive and to pursue a different mission, or destroying the Teradan military camp…wait!! How was it even possible for him to complete the nourishment of the Soul Space fragments, inside the representatives of the human Organizations and Guilds?'
Nial suddenly frowned at that thought. His expression turned ashen and he felt that he had been missing out on the most important information.
How did the Soul Space fragment end up in the five representatives?
How did that God know about the fact that the said five representatives would end up in the Teradan military camp?
Was the Teradan military camp truly his target?
How much does he know about mankind's stance against the dungeon portals and dungeon beasts?
Is he really starting an open attack against mankind by revealing the fact that teleportation arrays can be considered to be similar to dungeon portals, or is there more to all of this?
Nial had no idea about the truth behind the reasons of the God for suddenly throwing thousands of Dryx at them, just to kill a bit more than a thousand Originals, and for an abnormal Dryx to escape.
However, it was certain that he had laid a complex trap.
And merely a few hours later, Nial figured out why he had been so certain that the teleportation array's appearance was not that easy to explain.
Nial and the others had already returned to their room to clean themselves up and to rest. The Military Games had been temporarily postponed. They might even be canceled for this year but that was not something anyone would take interest in.
After all, the news they had heard was far more shocking.
"What did you just say?! These purple dungeon portals and this weird pentagram emerged in every military camp and the eight shelters? Are you sure about that?!?"
Mathias' loud and alarmed voice reverberated through their small room. However, Nial and Bella could only shake their heads in frustration.
How were they supposed to know more about the incidents that had happened outside the nameless island than Mathias?
Bella was visibly shaken when she heard that Katu had also been attacked as a large purple portal had manifested in the city's center.
She feared that the only person close to her was no more. Bella wouldn't be able to forgive herself if her adoptive mother had died.
Fortunately, not many humans had died in any of the eight shelters, which was the complete opposite to what everyone would expect to happen the moment more than 15,000 beings of a vile race were to attack a high-populated shelter from its center.
However, it was a fact that the 10 military camps had been hit the worst. Only the Teradan military camp was the one to have suffered the least amount of casualties.
The remaining nine military camps had nearly faced annihilation. They had barely survived thanks to the unique abilities of some of the high-ranked authorities.
Thousands of Originals, consisting of dozens of representatives, a few Instructors, and numerous Soldiers had lost their lives in each military camp.
On the other hand, the casualties in the high-populated shelters were even lower than that. A few hundred unawakened citizens and merely close to 1000 high-ranked Soldiers died at the hands of the 15,000 Dryx.
As for how they were able to defeat the rest, powerful Originals had emerged when the situation in the eight shelters went nearly out of control before they started a massacre amongst the Dryx.
The tides of the battles all over the shelters changed instantly and the Dryx had turned into pigs in a slaughterhouse all of whom had been killed within a single hour.
This was great as only a few humans died at the hands of the Dryx in the shelters. It didn't make up for the loss of more than 40,000 Originals, who had been present in the 10 military camps but it clearly showed that it was still possible to protect the shelters even if a weird portal that resembled dungeon portals were to emerge in their city's center.
"Sacred Knights…" Bella mumbled with a grim expression.
The Sacred Knights was an organization that nobody had known of beforehand.
They had been rather low-profile and never exposed their strength…until now, at least.
The powerful Originals, who had taken care of the teleportation array, and the Dryx, who had emerged from it, majorly belonged to the Sacred Knights organization!
If they had been low-profile before, the fact that they saved the nine shelters from possibly facing destruction made it clear that they gave up on staying low-profile in order to rescue everyone.
Each of their members was praised as a hero.
'While facing near-death situations, humans tend to cling to anything and anyone, who might be able to rescue them. While searching for someone to rely on, to trust, and to follow for the sake of safety, the Sacred Knights organization emerged like the last ray of hope, the faint glimmer of light in darkness…so that's what he planned?'
Nial had been devastated to know that each of the eight shelters had been attacked in the same way as it had happened in the Teradan military camp. His first and worst fear had been the possibility that his family might have died.
He was working so hard to become stronger just to meet his family once again.
However, if they were to have died today, Nial wouldn't have been able to forgive himself.
That was why he felt extremely thankful to the Sacred Knights. After all, they had potentially saved his family.
Nial was quite certain that Liondra wouldn't have been destroyed, and neither any of the remaining seven shelters.
Tens of thousand people would have died at most before the military and everyone else would have taken care of the Dryx.
Nial had no idea where his parents and sister were but he could feel that they were somewhere safe.
There was no reason for him to believe this except his gut feeling. He relied on his gut feeling to prevent his mind from getting distracted by the thought that his family was being tortured, mistreated in different ways, or possibly dead by now.
In the end, Nial was not able to change the situation, either way. That was why he felt a little bit helpless…and angry.
His anger was not only directed toward himself and the Eclipse Assassin members, who had taken away his family but even more so toward the scheming existences, who dared to do however they pleased.
"This fucking bastard…" Nial suddenly mumbled, his voice overflowing with anger, the intent to kill and frustration.
The pressure around the young blind man increased manifold, attracting Bella and Mathias' attention.
'What is wrong with him?'
'Bastard? Who?'
Several questions flashed through the mind of Bella and Mathias but they didn't approach Nial to ask anything, not yet.
Both Bella and Mathias were currently trying to get their hands on the military camp's service network to contact their family members.
They wanted to figure out whether their family was safe or if something had happened to them.
Simultaneously, they were thankful to the Sacred Knights for intervening and saving hundreds of thousand humans in the process.
The humans the Sacred Knights saved might include their families as well. That was why the two friends didn't even realize that Nial's anger was also directed at the Sacred Knights!
And this was not because they saved the eight shelters from facing a worse incident.
Rather, it was because Nial clearly perceived the scheming of someone the late Darkness God knew too well!
'God of Devils and Saints…you piece of shit!!'
In the rumors that had reached the Teradan military camp, it was made quite clear that each of the Sacred Knights' members was able to decrease the strength of 'demonic/devilish/tarnished' existences.
It was something similar to Jase's [Holy Aura] innate ability, yet something completely different.
And that was simply because the Sacred Knights were not ordinary humans but existences that had been blessed by a God!
After receiving the blessings of a God, a minuscule fraction of the God's strength would enter the blessed existence's body.
Their strength would increase and one of the God's characteristics would emerge in their body. The said characteristic could be freely chosen by the God, who had blessed his believers.
His believers were forced to obey the God's words and orders, otherwise, they would not only be stripped from their blessing but also face his wrath.
Nial could easily tell that the Sacred Knights had been blessed by a God. It was impossible for runic armaments to recreate the effect he had heard about based on the rumors of the Sacred Knights and neither was it possible for an ability crystal with the same effect to exist.
Even if it existed, there had been several thousand Sacred Knights with the same ability in the rumours. An abiltiy crystal had to be quite common for several thousand Sacred Knights' members to get their hands on it!
Thus, mankind would have long since found out about it simply because it was impossible to keep such a powerful ability hidden as long as it was not difficult to procure as well.
If it wouldn't have been for the Soul Space fragments, the sudden appearance of a teleportation array, and the Dryx, Nial would have never arrived at the conclusion he had in his mind.
However, the existence of the Dryx, and the fact that the God of Devils and Saints was the only one, who controlled this vile race made the situation quite clear for Nial.
'What a sly bastard…creating chaos in every single place which is somewhat safe for humans, just to send his people to save everyone all of a sudden and become heroes. This piece of shit…'
Nial's thoughts were running wild. Even though he hoped that his conclusion was wrong, he felt that everything was correct as he imagined it to be.
It was quite intelligent to stir up some trouble before acting like the knight in the shining armor, and saving the damsel in distress to make yourself look good.
'Did he incarnate or is he controlling everything from the outside while waiting for the planet to grow so he can descend?'
Nial was pretty sure that the God of Devils and Saints was behind the entire mess.
At the same time, he thought that the God of Devils and Saints was already trying to gain control over mankind.
Instead of eradicating everyone in a single strike, he was likely to have sent the Sacred Knights after thousands of humans had already died before saving the remaining ones.
To make it look like the entire human race had been attacked at once, the military camps had been deemed as a necessary sacrifice, just to clearly show that there was no place where mankind could ensure their safety.
Thus, they would have to rely on someone strong, and dependable.
Who would be better in this regard than the Sacred Knights organization? After all, they had saved everyone!!
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