66 THE GREY MAIDEN 8

The red sun slowly set on the horizon, those cultists still sitting there on open field, oblivious of what about to come. "This will be quick." Emperor Lam confident. The cultist may have the number, but aside from some Vudai city guard dotted their rank, the rest of them were barely armed, Empress Aucelen also instructed the men to aim at their head or chest only, and also to covered their mouth and guard from the enemy blood splat. After a quick battle plan, Emperor Lam and Empress Aucelen rode side by side leading 2000 Brocade Cloak Guards into the battle field.

A sound of horn echoing the crimson sky. After cleared the forest, their rank formed into a wedge formation, they'll cut through the cultist rank and rode to the foothill of Heitei fortress, then turn around for another swept, until there are none left to kill.

What a glorious sight to behold, red sun on their left, its twilight rays painted everything with a crimson hue, the Varlann flag glow like fire, flying in the wind, an ominous dust storm rose behind them, kicked off by 2000 velelises thundering downhill. Dagger-axe spear pointed forward, they bearing down on their enemy like an unrelenting landslide. With only a few lias left to reach their enemy, Emperor Lam and Empress Aucelen, at the spear head of the wedge, unleashed their magic. Ear busting were their lightning bolts, like a blade made of pure light, it cut through the cultist rank in front of them, like a deadly viper, it jumping from cultist to cultist, reduce them into a smouldering corpses on their wake.

Their formation melting through the cultist rank like a red hot blade sank through a block of butter. With just only a minute or two, they had cut through the cultist rank all the way to the foothill of Heitei fortress. Then from within the fortress wall, a sound of horn, and thousands of cries erupted from the fortress, through the collapsed section of the outer wall, the fortress defender led by Prince Tua, with four tall figures of the disciples of Ochwesi closely behind him, they bursting out from the breached like a swamp of furious hornet. The Brocade Cloak Guards turn around and do another sweep, and like before the mindless cultists just fell down like weed before a farmer scythe. Everything is going well, just another one or two sweep and the cultist are no more.

With a derange grin, Hua Xia greeted Emperor Lam and Empress Aucelen. Shouted at the Brocade Cloak Guard captain, Emperor Lam gave him the command of the troop. The pair broke off from the formation, their lightning bolts once again melted a clear path through the cultist rank to where the head of the snake are. Closer and closer, their distance to the enemy decreasing fast, just a few dozen lias more, but a painful shriek came from their velelises as the poor creature's legs were twisted broke by an invisible force, sent them tumbled down to the ground, and threw the pair rolling on the grass while a psychic wave sending a coruscating pain through every nerve fibre in their body. Endured the pain, they quickly get back on their foot and blew every cultist trying to get near them sky high with fireballs.

With the nerve pain torturing them, every step they took felt like being stabbed by millions of daggers. Yet, the pair still move forward, forward to the head of the snake, to cut it off one and for all.

"Hah hah hah hah…" gave off a maniacal laugh, Hua Xia spoke "…Lady and gentleman, may I present to you two, the herald of the Old Gods, my greatest work, Li 'the Grey Maiden', witness her power and tremble is pain."

From Li finger tips, a lightning bolt bust toward the pair. Empress Aucelen braced herself and block the bolt, sparks are everywhere as the bolt stopped in front of her palm, the heat from the lightning bolt felt like it about to melt through her hand, such incredible power. But Empress Aucelen has withstood the strike, channelling her qigun while her husband fire breath defends a perimeter around them, Empress Aucelen chanting a spell and about to show off her Elvas's power. A ball of fire, the side of a velelis burst out in front of her palm, then it imploding and collapsed into a fist size ball of pure light, constantly giving off static spark. The ball of light flew forward at Li and Hua Xia, engulfed them in a blinding light and incinerated anything nearby that are not protected by a magic barrier, before released an earth shaking boom and a shockwave travelling hundreds of lias from the epicentre, blow off and knocked over anything that not anchored to the ground.

Yet, when the dust settled down, in the middle of a small crate created by the explosion. The cultist pair still stand, Hua Xia maniacal laugh mocking Empress Aucelen's attack, as another lightning bolt come from Li, it clashed mid-air with Emperor Lam's lightning bolt, shooting sparks to the surrounding area at where the two bolts connected, electrocuted anything standing too near. The two person's magical struggler went on for many minutes straight, until the point of contact of the two lightning bolts slowly moving toward Li. The girl's breath rhythm increasing more and more as the struggling went on, she's losing this fight, Emperor Lam guessed that his wife spell has did more damage than what the eye see. Hua Xia must notice this too, for that grin had disappeared from his face, replaced by a look of disbelieved and confusion.

Another lightning bolt flung toward the girl Li from Empress Aucelen. Though the girl did blocks it, but her body started to trembling by the effort and Emperor Lam's gaining more of the upper hand. Another minute went by, and now Li's nose started to bleed as Emperor Lam's lightning bolt has completely overpower her bolt. The nerve pain has also gone from the pair as Li's now on the defend before both lightning bolts. Suddenly the girl gave off a scream, an ear piercing, high pitch sonic scream, Emperor Lam and Empress Aucelen can felt their body vibrating by the scream and has to disengaging if they don't want their ears to went deaf, their brain to liquefied and drift out of their noses. The girl Li is no better, barfing up blood and felt to her knees on the grass, heavy breathing and shaking uncontrollably.

Hua Xia yelling something, and before Empress Aucelen and Emperor Lam recover from Li's sonic scream, load and load of mindless cultist charging at them like mayflies throwing themselves at fire. One after another, Emperor Lam and Empress Aucelen lightning spell turned them into a smouldering corpse, piling up around them, the stench of charred flesh was unbearable. Then it's all ended, they stop charging in at the pair, when the two get out of the ring of piling corpse, the cultist are retreating, scattered to the nearby forest. Hua Xia and Li are nowhere to be seen.

Scouts was quickly sent to tracking them.