457 Hymns for The Judgemen

Buildings collapsed and burned as Immolators marched through the smoke filled streets, singing and praising their God. Bodies littered the streets and valiant soldiers tried to make a stand against the invaders, trying to buy time for the civilians to escape. But it proved futile as the gates were surrounded by the enemy and they were slowly herded towards the city centre.

The First King of the New Kingdom of Mecca stood on the courtyard of his castle surrounded by hundreds of soldiers. He wore a set of golden plate mail and a snowy white cape over his shoulders. His expression on his young looking face was pale as he nervously gripped his sword as the screams of terror and death came over the walls.

The ground shook as if something heavy was storming its way forward. The archers on the inner castle walls were yelling in panic and they loosed their bows at the attacks. Some collapsed backwards and remained unmoving as the unknown enemies weapons knocked them down.

Mages constantly tossed spells out beyond the gates, and the once highly praised dragon cannons that helped the young King win the Succession War did not even faze the enemy. The air crackled and the intense amount of magical energies running rampant in the surroundings by the mages spells, made one's hair stand. Some even felt a tingle of electricity course through them as they touched any metal as static in the air charged their armour and blades.

Suddenly, the defenders on the walls yelled something and the beautiful ornated double bronze gates shooked as if something had smashed against it. There was more yelling and panic cries from the defenders at the wall. Other soldiers supporting wooden beams braced hard against the double gates, to prevent the enemy from battering their way in.

"A golem!" A messenger kneeled down before the First King. "The enemy has some kind of giant golem and it is attacking the gates!"

"My king! You must retreat at once!" The First King's loyal ministers and soldiers urged him. "You must not fall to the enemy!"

But the young king shook his head resolutely. "No! I will not abandon our people!"

The courtyard and gardens of the castle and even the interior was already pack filled with crying and frightened citizens of the city. His strong sense of compassion and duty to the common people had won him great support among the people, which helped cement his claims to the Throne.

Now at such time, despite the fear in the young King's heart, he would still stubbornly stand his ground against the invaders of his land and people. His ministers and generals looked at each other helplessly before they made up their minds to save their King. As they were about to move in to grab their King to bring him to safety, the double gates of the castle suddenly gave a massive groan and a large crack as the bronze and wood was shattered and smoke and steam billowed in through the opening.

The fearful screams of the soldiers behind the gates abruptly cut off as the heavy remains of the gates crushed them into a bloody pulp. Others that avoided the unfortunate fate, scrambled away in fright. Smoke and steam covered the gateway, blocking sight of what had destroyed gates.

The soldiers forming the last stand quickly readied themselves as officers yelled out orders. The First King shoved his men away from him and he bravely held himself and stared at what was to come.

There were a loud clanking noise and a long hiss which more steam erupted out, making the men of Mecca tensed up. Slowly the steam and smoke dissipated and a giant stepped through the remains of the gate. As it exited the gate, the golem's body gleamed under the sun. Its bulk was as wide as two wagons, and its full height was also as tall as the ruined gateway.

The golem had a fat body, two jointed arms and thick stubby legs. Armour plating covered its body that was hunched forward with two thick pipes that were puffing out white smoke from its back while an effigy of the enemy rest between the two pipes. Its head wearing a vertical bar grill helmet about the size of a large barrel was centred to its torso had steam hissing out from the openings every once and then.

The red and black armour plating covered every part of the golem and prayer flags and banners hang off its massive shoulders. In its two articulated arms, instead of having hands, the right arm ended in a massive spiked ball, like a morningstar while in the left arm, it had held a hollow tube with pipes and hoses leading to the rear of the golem.

As it moved, loud clanks and clicks could be heard. Its stubby armoured feet cracking the beautiful pebbled pavement with each step. It halted after several steps, white smoke spewing out from its armpits and the young King felt like he was staring at a demon lord risen from hell.

Enemy soldiers started flooding in from behind the golem, their insect helmets looking both comical and hideous. The young King noted that the enemy did not wear much metal armour and seemed to prefer leather of some kind for protection.

Some rushed up the stairs of the walls and started massacring the archers and mages on the walls, while the rest formed up on both sides of the golem. The civilians recoiled back from the enemy as they entered the castle grounds, panic spreading through the people as they sought to distance themselves as far away from the cold blooded enemy.

The young King's eye narrowed angrily as he could only helplessly watched his people on the walls get massacred. Despite his soldiers outnumbering the enemy, the enemy appeared to be superior in magic, each enemy soldier carried an artefact that created a magic shield! Such an item like that was unheard of even within the Empire who has collected a massive amount of magical items over the years. It would be an epic ranked item or even a legendary ranked item! Yet now, common soldiers were carrying such mystical equipment, had totally boggled the mind of the young King.

"My King! You need to go! Now!" The young King's men pulled at his armour, trying to drag him away to a secret escape tunnel. "We will handle the rest here!"

The young King remained stubborn and growled, "Stop! I must witness this!"

"But..." His men protested.

"Do it now!" He ordered at his men who nodded. "Let them feel our anger!"

As the order was passed down, a magic circle erupted out from the ground just before the castle's gateway and luck has it, the spell formation was directly underneath the golem. It spanned out over a dozen metre and for a moment the enemy seemed confused. The magic trap glowed red and without warning, it activated, flames spewed up like a flaming volcano eruption, followed by a massive thunderous explosion as over two hundred casks of black powder each containing five kilos, stacked under the magical trap in tunnels dug by the Meccan soldiers was ignited by the magic flames.

The magic trap took them over a day to complete and countless lives of soldiers to delay the enemy. Finally, using the King himself as bait, the Meccans lured the enemy right into the trap. For a moment, the King and his men were worried that the weight of the unexpected enemy golem would collapse the tunnels with the buried explosives but thankfully, the tunnel's supports held.

"KILL THEM!" The young King roared as he pointed his sword forward at the thick cloud of smoke that covered the confused enemy troops. "FOR MECCA!"

"FOR MECCA!"

-----

Inquisitor General Rism smashed the crystal wine goblet down on the floor when word came in of his troops getting caught in the trap. "Is the Avatar of Justice still functioning?"

"Yes, Lord Inquisitor General!" The commander replied as he and the rest remained in a bowing position. "It is still moving but it has gotten stuck when the ground collapsed!"

"The Chief Paladin of the Second has reported, over a third of his men have gone to the Judgement!" The commander continued his report. "Another third of his men are badly wounded and unable to commit to the repentance of the lawless!"

"Good...!" Rism growled as he stood up from his chair and he climbed down the steps to the crystal windows. "Very good...!"

"Kill them!" Rism snapped. "Kill them all! And show this world what will happen to those who spills the blood of Ramuh's most devoted! Let their screams be the hymn to the souls of those gone to the Judgment!"

-----

Air Space Over New Kingdom of Mecca

Flight Sergeant Dane of the UN Airforce checked his surveillance instruments carefully as the pilot's voice came over in his headset, informing the crew that they had just entered NKM air space. He adjusted his oxygen mask that was hooked up to the FB - 1R Mariner's internal oxygen tanks as they were flying over four kilometres over sea level.

Dane powered up the sensors and cameras that were mounted on the belly of the modified FB - 1 Mariner. Unlike the other variants of the same aircraft, the R series was especially for reconnaissance and surveillance.

The bomb bays were replaced with sensors and camera and the majority of the internal space was filled with life support and fuel tanks. The top, bottom and tail ball turrets were all removed, its engines upgraded, giving the aircraft more speed and endurance.

The aircraft had taken off from Orwell's Point Airbase, and after a five hour flight, they landed on the waters of the Source Sea where a UN floating base was stationed. There they refuelled their tanks and took off again, taking another three hours before flying over the Frontier City of the NKM.

Display screens flickered to life as the cameras under the belly of the aircraft rolled and Dane adjusted the zoom and fine tuned the clarity of the images. They will take a long loop over the NKM's territory and return to refuel at the floating base before heading back home.

Dane leaned back on his chair and flipped the record switch, "Alright, cameras rolling! It's gonna be a long boring four hours!"

-----

"Dane! Wake up, Dane!" The urgent voice came loudly in Dane's headset and he jolted up in his seat. "Check your cameras!"

"Huh?" Dane rubbed his tired eyes and changed the time, which barely two hours has passed. He tapped the controls on his station and asked, "See wh- !"

His eyes grew large as the camera had picked up an image of a smoking city beneath the clouds. He quickly adjusted the zoom and the powerful lenses of the surveillance systems stripped from the decommissioned Owleye UAVs zoomed all the way down to the city that was over four kilometres below them.

"What in the Gods names has happened here?" He muttered as he stared at the screen showing the devastated city. Images of collapsed buildings, and bodies laid everywhere. "You guys seeing this?"

The rest of the aircrew had gathered behind Dane's shoulder and was staring with unease at the destruction. "What city is this?"

"It's supposed to be the Capital of the NKM..." The navigator replied as he double checked his charts. "Who... invaded them?"

"What is that?" Someone suddenly called out as he pointed to the screens. "There! At the top right corner!"

Dane panned the camera gently and the view moved towards the location pointed out. "What is that?"

The top down image showed many strange statue like in rows. As Dane was about to zoom in more, the shadow of the clouds over the objects moved away and sunlight caused shadows to appear. "Oh... my... gods..."

The image quality was sharp enough to see the shadows of dozens and dozens of bodies impaled onto spears. Dane swallowed nervously and panned the camera more before he zoomed the camera out. Immediately, the camera showed a field dotted with hundreds of similar bodies and when he panned the camera more, there was not just a single field of impaled bodies, but it contained an entire countryside.

"How... how many dead are there?" The aircrew mumbled in horror. "Who... the hell has put to death so many people?!"