adbindia Chapter 256: The Cage
Chapter 256: The Cage
Across the prairie, the crimson light-curtain of the [Boundary of the Crimson
Purgatory] crawled forward like a slow-moving, gluttonous beast, claiming the
land inch by agonizing inch.
This was the structural flaw of the Great Boundary: as a high-tier spell
designed to overwrite the laws of an entire sector, its expansion speed was
frustratingly sluggish.
Lia stood ten paces behind Thanatos, her silver-white hair swaying in the
violent Mana-eddies generated by her father's concentration. This was her first
time witnessing a Planar War from the vanguard. She was not a combatant today,
but a sentinel and an observer. Her directive was clear: monitor the tactical
theater and neutralize any variable that threatened the Sovereign's focus.
Lia's violet eyes scanned the chaos, her mind recording every data point with
machine-like precision.
The soldiers of the Evernight Empire fought with a suicidal disregard for
self-preservation, returning from the Void time and again. The legions of the
Necrotic Realm were vastly superior in number, yet they were being methodically
eroded by the Empire's "Resurrection" trait.
But Lia's heart was not in the tally of bones. She stood as still as a statue, a
silent marionette of the grey. Even if an assassin were to lunge from the grass
now, she wondered if she would even possess the motivation to move.
Ahead of her, Thanatos's soulfire pulsed with a sharp, jagged intensity. He
didn't need a report to see the anomaly; the battlefield was screaming it.
He had conquered countless worlds, incinerated civilizations, and analyzed a
thousand disparate systems of magic. But he had never encountered a variable
like this.
Unkillable.
Not just resilient, but capable of rewriting an enemy's loyalty at the moment of
their "death." This defied the fundamental logic of Necromancy. Every King of
the Dead knew that power didn't stem from individual strength, but from the
mastery of "Bugs"—abilities that bypassed the natural laws of life and death.
But every reality-warping ability carried a tax.
The Crimson Purgatory was a prime example. As his most potent battlefield
Authority, it transformed a sector into a Plane-within-a-Plane. Within the dome,
the laws of the Necrotic Realm were absolute. Unless an opponent possessed a
rank equivalent to his own Tier 7 peak, no one could enter or leave without his
express authorization. This was the pillar of his thousand-year victory streak.
But the cost was logistical: the deployment was slow, and it required his
constant, uninterrupted Od to maintain. Until the boundary fully set, he was
tactically anchored.
Thanatos was convinced that the Sovereign of Evernight suffered from a similar
limitation. He just hadn't localized it yet. He had to find the structural flaw,
or the momentum of the war would slip through his fingers.
On the plains, the high-tier undead of the Necrotic Realm were beginning to show
signs of psychological fracture. They watched their elite subordinates fall,
only to stand up seconds later and plunge their blades into their former
brothers.
Worse yet, the converted units retained their biological memory and combat
muscle—they knew exactly where to strike their former kin to achieve maximum
lethality. The numerical superiority that Thanatos relied upon was rapidly
becoming his own terminal liability.
Thanatos's soulfire began to steady, chilling into a focused, blue ice. Enough
attrition.
He had brought the core of his military might—the culmination of millennia of
recruitment. He would not allow it to be drained away in a meaningless skirmish
of the vanguard.
Thanatos made his move. His will surged through the Soul Link, reaching every
unit under his banner.
"ALL LEGIONS: ALTER TACTICAL OBJECTIVE!" "CEASE ATTEMPTS AT TERMINATION!"
"TRANSITION TO HARASSMENT, INTERCEPTION, AND CONTAINMENT! MINIMIZE CASUALTIES!
NEW OBJECTIVE: BIND THE ENEMY'S MOVEMENT! STALL UNTIL THE BOUNDARY SETS!"
The shift was instantaneous.
The Necrotic legions, which had been locked in a death-struggle with the
Evernight troops, pivoted their behavior. They stopped the head-on collisions,
utilizing their sheer mass to surround and pin the Imperial soldiers.
Three Skeleton Warriors engaged a single Imperial unit—not to kill, but to
entangle. The Liches shifted from lethal curse-rays to spells of Sloth: slowing,
binding, and debilitating the enemy's nervous systems. The Skeleton Berserkers
abandoned their frenzied charges, forming defensive shells and using their
massive bone-blades as physical barriers.
The rhythm of the battlefield was broken.
The Evernight vanguard suddenly found themselves in a tactical void. There were
no more enemies to kill, only a leaden ocean of bone that refused to die or let
them move.
A Punishment Legion Centurion cleaved through three skeletons, but before his
blade could reset, a dozen more surged forward. They didn't swing their weapons;
they simply used their bodies to clog his movement, anchoring him to the spot.
The Fearless Vanguard's charge sputtered and died as their steeds were swallowed
by a sea of reaching hands. The State Army Vampires, attempting to break out as
blood-mist, were intercepted by targeted Mana-flares from the enemy Liches. The
Shadow Guards, searching for a dark corner to strike from, found the prairie lit
up by artificial magical flares.
The battlefield transformed from a slaughterhouse into a massive, living cage.
The Evernight soldiers were trapped, unable to advance toward Thanatos, and
unable to retreat toward the city.
They continued to dismantle the enemy, but Thanatos no longer cared; he simply
threw more bodies into the cage to replace those that turned.
A stalemate had formed. But it was a stalemate that favored the invader. Every
second that passed brought the Crimson Boundary closer to completion.
The Imperial Centurions on the field realized the danger. Finally, a voice rang
out through the Imperial Soul Link.
"ALL UNITS: THE ENEMY IS STALLING! THEY ARE WAITING FOR THE BOUNDARY TO SET!"
"IF THE DOME CLOSES, WE ARE STATISTICALLY DEAD!" "INITIATE EXTRACTION PROTOCOL!
BREAK OUT NOW!"
It was the Punishment Legion Centurion—the same one who had managed a passing
grade in the Academy's Officer Candidate School. He lacked the genius of a
General, but he could read a map.
"ABANDON THE KILL-OBJECTIVE! FOCUS ON THE RETREAT!" "RETIRE TO THE BATTLEMENTS!"
"DISPERSE! DO NOT CLUMP! NIGERUNDAYO!"
The Imperial soldiers reacted with terrifying agility. The Skeleton Berserkers
stopped hacking at the thralls and used their sheer physical strength to vault
over the enemy lines. The Death Knights abandoned their steeds, sprinting
through the gaps in the bone-sea on foot. The Vampires ignited their
blood-cores, achieving bursts of speed that blurred the vision, tearing through
the encirclement. The Shadow Guards took to the air, risking the crossfire of
the Liches to race toward the walls.
They ignored the fight. They had only one objective: survival.
Thanatos watched the retreat, his soulfire narrowing. Competent commanders. But
insufficient.
He raised his left hand, and a sphere of stagnant, grey energy coalesced in his
palm. It expanded rapidly until it was meters in diameter.
"[Space-Time Cage]."
This was one of Thanatos's most taxing containment spells. It froze every unit
within a designated radius in a state of temporal stasis. The victims could not
move, could not think, and could not die. They were "paused" in reality.
The cost was immense. It required a third of Thanatos's total Od reserves.
Furthermore, while channeling the Cage, he could not maintain the expansion of
the Crimson Purgatory.
He had to choose: the Boundary or the Capture.
Thanatos chose the capture. If he allowed these unkillable soldiers to return to
the city, the urban assault would be a logistical nightmare. Better to spend two
hundred thousand of his own thralls as collateral to seal the enemy's vanguard,
then resume the boundary.
Thanatos released his hold on the Crimson Boundary. He poured every drop of his
focus into the grey sphere in his left hand.
He hurled the projectile into the center of the Evernight lines.
The sphere traced a grey arc through the sky before detonating silently at the
heart of the prairie.
There was no sound. No shockwave. Only a series of grey ripples that expanded
from the point of impact like a stone dropped into a still pond.
Wherever the ripples touched, the world went still.
The entire battlefield—hundreds of thousands of units, most of them Thanatos's
own expendable soldiers—was frozen in time.
Only a few units on the extreme periphery, having fled far enough, managed to
escape the stagnation. Among them was the Punishment Legion Centurion.
He stood at the edge of the grey zone, his soulfire shivering as he looked at
the surreal scene.
What is this authority? Why is the world silent?
He tried to broadcast through the Soul Link, but there was only static. The
frozen soldiers' consciousness had been sealed alongside their bodies.
The Centurion turned his skull toward the horizon, looking at Thanatos. The
gargantuan skeleton was slowly lowering his hand. The Crimson Boundary had
stopped its crawl.
But as he looked across the plains, he realized the horror of his situation.
Aside from himself and the Aegis Legion maintaining the shield at the city
gates...
There wasn't a single mobile Evernight unit left on the field.
☆☆☆
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