Polymath Redux

Chapter 25: PROJECT: Hellgate Part 2

...

"What... is this? What is all this?!"

The king rushed to the veranda to have a closer look at what was going on with the sky. Lucian Zandora and Mikhail Anton joined the king to gaze up at the abyss that swallowed their skies; none of them could explain this dreary phenomenon.

"Alchemists! You there, bring me the Chief of the Royal Alchemy Commission!"

The king ordered one of his guards that were standing by. The king hoped that at least his Royal Alchemists could explain this situation to them and how to deal with it effectively.

After a few minutes a young woman with disheveled blonde ponytail and wearing equally lazy white lab coat rushed in. She pushed up her large circular glasses as she introduced herself to the king.

"You have summoned me, your majesty?"

Del Granate, the Head of the Royal Alchemy Commission, she was also known to be a prodigy amongst researchers and alchemists. If there was anything that was unknown, Del was the person that you had to go to for the answers. But even for such a talented young woman this was a little out of her league. When the king asked her 'what was going on' she could only return a blank stare as she replied 'I don't know'. The words the king didn't want to hear in this situation the most.

Before they could even begin to continue discussing what they were going to do next something else had shown itself. Just beyond the outskirts of the city, a bright silver pillar of light could be seen connecting the land and sky. It was obviously some kind of sign that something would happen and happen it did.

The words that could best describe the next series of events were as such.

'Hellfire'. 'Burn'. 'Nation'. 'Legion'. 'Destroy'. 'Annihilate'.

Those were the words spoken by the black skeleton warrior. However events had progressed way too fast, this wasn't even at the level of a 'warning' but just the enemy leading them by the nose as the city was rapidly plunged into what could be aptly described as the 'apocalypse'.

Great balls of flame rained from the skies, causing massive damage to their city below. Who knows how many people were dying just by the impact of the explosion alone? But of course that was just the beginning of it. Out from craters caused by the balls of hellfire came the undead.

Skeleton warriors covered in an inferno, flame elementals, hellhounds, flame worms, all manner of hellish beasts started to emerge from them. Of course even that wasn't enough as in the skies skeletal dragons could be seen flying about and terrorizing the place.

"Go! Protect the citizens and clear out the undead!"

The king frantically ordered the entirety of his Royal Knight Commission and Royal Alchemy Commission. They all looked back hesitantly, they were the king's guards after all, but after seeing this display of mass destruction they couldn't do much but obey the king's will. Lucian Zandora and Mikhail Anton also left to call upon their own personal guards to help out with the dealing of the monsters.

Soon the throne room was a devoid of life except for the king. He continued to stare down at the chaos that had taken over his city; his country; his home. He slammed his hands against the stone railings as he felt powerless to help the people down there. Right this instant he wished to go down and help them personally but he knew that it was necessary for him to stay here and make the decisions as he continued observe.

As if to ease his heart a little he saw a small feminine figure off in the distance that was valiantly crushing the monsters left and right. Red hair and red sword, she was not a knight of Xagontetia, thus it was more likely that she was an extremely skilled adventurer.

She continued to cut down monsters as if they were just paper and even the king himself started cheering her on.

...

"Everyone grab a weapon and fight!"

The bells sounding the start of a war were being rang all across the watchtowers stationed on the city walls. The soldiers all complied with the orders as they saw the fire falling from the skies and monsters emerging. However there was one slight problem, it was that their weapons and armor were dulled from overuse in training and in the field and the next batch of weapons had yet to arrive.

Desperately the soldiers continued to fight but the monsters were far too strong for their level and especially with dulled swords/spears/bows it wasn't as effective as they could be. The only people who were truly effective in this fight were either magicians or clerics with their elemental or holy attributes.

When they had the chance, some of the clerics had tried placing minor holy enchantments on the swords and it worked to some degree but even that wasn't enough.

"Argh! What is this?! We've only joined the military and we're having an all out war in the middle of the city?!"

Ash cried out as he continued to smash the flaming skeletons around them. Since his class was [magician] he was one of the few soldiers able to deal with them but even then with the numbers that kept spawning it was obvious that his mana reserves wouldn't last that long.

"Aye, this is a bit too much excitement for me too! This is just like the time I was fighting that dragon that one time. It had a nasty breath!"

Padan roared as he clobbered more monsters that came his way with his mace. Since his weapon was a mace and usually reserved for blunt force attacks the dullness didn't affect it too much, but of course there were signs of being overstrained and would eventually break after a few more swings.

"Shut up both of you! I can't concentrate!"

Caroline screamed as she healed and enchanted her ally's weapon. Her class was [cleric] which did well against the undead type monsters but against other elemental beings she wasn't as effective.

"It's alright, we'll get through this."

Mordred(doppelganger) tried to raise the morale of his teammates, however it wasn't his teammates that were suffering from a lack of morale but the other soldiers who weren't as talented. The low quality weapons really showed their dragging weight as the battle was being skewered in the favor of the invading monsters, but soon that would change.

Morgana would be arriving with a full batch of highly enchanted weapons that would be extremely effective against these monsters. It was only a matter of time and during that time Mordred tried to reduce the number of casualties as much as possible.

The soldiers were spread across the city to protect the civilians as well with Mordred's team charging into a thick group of enemies. Out of the new recruits this team was known to be the 'best' and they had really shown their expertise and prowess by being able to last this long against the ultimate skill, [Hellgate]. Mordred was even slightly impressed.

However once they cleared the batch of monsters a skeleton dragon descended from the sky. It glared at them powerfully with its ruby glow for eyes.

"Oi old man, you said you fought a dragon before right?"

Ash asked as he started stepping backwards.

"It~ might have been a bit smaller than this one..."

Padan replied as he also tried to back away. The dragon was about to lunge at them bearing its fangs but was suddenly stomped on by the appearance of a red knight; the adventurer Irina had come and crushed the skeleton dragon with a single kick.

"Wow..."

Caroline couldn't hold in her amazement. The red knight shot them all a look before jumping off to slay even more monsters.

"Come on guys! We can't lose to an adventurer, let's go!"

Padan shout out as he dived into a mob of monsters with an almost berserker like glee.

"Didn't he used to be an adventurer as well?"

Ash asked, but shook his head as he registered that Padan had a point. Even if he had just been a fresh recruit he too had pride as a soldier and jumped into the fray. Mordred shrugged and also joined without another word, leaving Caroline behind.

"You guys don't leave me here! You need me to heal you and stuff!"