310 Chapter 310: Flames of a Tyran

"Hurry! On the double!"

The mercenary lieutenant was waving his men onward, shouting for them to accelerate their pace. Behind the mercenaries, the students continued to jog. We would be preparing our spells, but we were over a hundred meters away from the venue so there was little point to it. And I couldn't afford to waste time standing around to complete my bigger spells while there were explosions and screaming people about.

If small spells could save a life in the meantime, then I would do so. Just because they were small or minor spells didn't mean they were any less effective in saving a life than the big ones (yeah, I already knew what some readers would whine about). As if to prove my point, a group of fleeing civilians came into view. A piece of falling debris crashed down upon them, and I quickly summoned Orion to blast the debris apart. Even though I couldn't prevent dust from raining down upon them, they were still alive and unhurt.

Much better than what would happened if I didn't take out the debris…they would have been crushed into bloody paste under tons of rubble.

"Over here!" Dong Fang Yue Chu shouted as he unleashed his own volley of fireballs to obliterate falling debris. The civilians raced toward the mercenaries, and the lieutenant gave quick, sharp orders to have several men stay behind to protect them. The Knights of Pendragon Academy, my friends from Jing Tian Academy and I hurried onward with a few glances, but we didn't stop.

Not when the main battle and the bulk of the civilians were still ahead.

"TYRANT!"

Amidst the chaos of running evacuees and the erupting infernos, I heard Troy's furious voice. Whirling about, I saw my dark-skinned friend hauling himself up and over several piles of burning rubble to confront his nemesis. Opposite Troy King, a similarly dark-skinned person, with dreadlocks, a fancy mustache and a ripped jacket that bared his arms, stood, an insidious grin on his menacing face. He clapped his hands as Troy approached him.

"Ho…you're approaching me? Instead of running away, you're coming straight at me?"

"Are you seriously trying to rip off Jojo's Bizarre Adventures right now?" I yelled, even though I knew Tyrant wasn't going to hear me. "And we already ripped it off a few chapters ago! Don't reuse the same joke too often!"

"Sorry, but I can't resist it. This situation is way too gold to not make that homage." Tyrant shrugged, and for some reason I was reminded of Dio. A dark-skinned Dio with perfect, white teeth. Must be those bulging muscles.

"I can't beat you if I don't come closer." Ignoring the exchange between me and Tyrant, Troy coldly advanced toward his brother. I groaned.

"Not you too, Troy!"

"Richie." He regarded me with an apologetic look. "Sorry, but can you stay out of this? From this point onward, this is my fight."

"No, Senpai." One of the female Knights from Pendragon Academy, dressed in blue and white armor and wielding a spear that was longer than she was tall, spoke up as she pointed her spear at Tyrant. "This is our fight!"

"I swear to God, if I ever hear you utter that line again, I'll tear your tongue out." I couldn't help but cringe. What was next? The descent of the Fourth Primogenitor? The appearance of vampires in this story?

While Troy confronted his brother, the mercenaries and students rushed toward the collapsing shelter. We cast basic and small spells to blast falling chunks of debris and rubble out of the way so that they wouldn't crush the poor civilians who couldn't get out of the way in time. There were still surviving soldiers who had accompanied Troy this entire time. They were doing their best to escort the civilians out of the crumbling building, using their own magic or bodies to protect them.

"Those fire spells…" Dong Fang Yue Chu murmured in realization. As a fire mage, he was the one most sensitive toward spells of the same element. He glanced in the direction of Tyrant. "He's responsible for casting them!"

Fortunately, with Troy distracting Tyrant, he was able to divert a significant of firepower away from destroying the building and attacking the civilians. We could help them escape. As Troy said, there were thousands of them, and they were quite a handful to take care of.

With the Hell's Hounds mercenaries and students of Pendragon Academy, however, we were able to work something out and evacuate all of them safely. Or so we thought, but…

"You think I'll just let you go like that?"

Tyrant managed to knock Troy back a few steps, and with a wild laugh, he threw out his hand. An immense inferno manifested at one of the exits, the one where the vast majority of the civilians were fleeing through, and took the form of a gigantic horse.

"How apt…" he mused, chuckling darkly. "I have brought the Trojan Horse into this city to level it and kill every resident."

The horse neighed thunderously, its black fur bristling and its fiery mane blazing. It had to be almost nine meters tall in height, and a single kick demolished an entire wall. Its lips pulled back and its mouth opened wide to unleash a torrent of flames that incinerated a significant number of screaming civilians. Even though the mercenaries at the front struggled to erect a magical barrier to deflect the hellish flames, at least a third of them found themselves incinerated instantly.

"The fuck is that thing?!" Theodore growled furiously, his hair singed.

"A Soul Beast…just like Richard's!" Harrison understood what we were facing. As the flaming hell horse reared up to unleash another deadly stream of flames, he threw his hand out to cast a holy spell, despite knowing he wouldn't be able to withstand it.

Fortunately, I had managed to conjure Black Tortoise in time. A water barrier appeared around the crying and weeping civilians who had survived the blast, clutching burned limbs or searching for loved ones burned into a crisp by the attack. I didn't have time to take in their sorrow. The survival of the remaining soldiers and evacuees were my priority right now.

Seeing my water barrier up, Harrison quickly switched magic and buffed my water barrier. At the same time, Dong Fang Yue Chu opened up with a fire wall in hopes that his defensive would prove more resilient against an attack of the same element.

It worked. Almost.

Initially, Yue Chu's fire wall swelled and expanded rapidly as it absorbed the flames, and it seemed to actually become stronger. However, the flames from the Trojan horse overloaded the barrier before long, and it burst apart in an explosive death before the irresistible torrent of fire continued onward to collide with my Black Tortoise's water barrier.

Tyrant laughed. "The horse of a tyrant will not be so easily denied!"

"Shut up!" Troy roared as he hurled several boulders at his brother. The tyrant ducked under one of them before blowing up another with his own fireballs. Weaving through the hail of rocks, he jumped up to pummel Troy with his flaming fists.

Undeterred, Troy countered with his own techniques. A master of Krav Maga, he was able to deflect Tyrant's flaming fists to the side without taking much damage, and he returned with a kick that almost bowled his opponent over. The tyrannical brother laughed as he flipped himself back up and retaliated with a kick that forced Troy to move his head to the side in order to dodge it.

The sole of Tyrant's flaming boot grazed Troy's cheek, leaving a cauterized scar, but Jing Tian Academy's number one didn't even flinch or seem to register the pain. Instead, he lashed out with a kick of his own, almost taking Tyrant by surprise. The both of them circled each other, their arms and legs snaking out with deadly precision and snapping toward each other's vitals. More than once Troy managed to slap away Tyrant's punches or deflect his kicks before they could reach him, and he even got a few good hits into his brother's gut. He didn't escape completely unscathed, though. Burns and grazes scored his arms, chest and face, but he ignored his wounds and continued to bear down on his opponent, mercilessly delivering a barrage of attacks.

All around them, boulders collided with fireballs and exploded into flaming rocks that crashed down about them, leaving smoking craters. Despite the devastation about them, miraculously enough none of the shatter flaming rocks hit either of them. The two of them were too skilled and fast, their movements so graceful and sublime, that they would never allow themselves to get struck by anything as mundane as collateral damage or stray meteors.

As the two brothers pounded away at each other, I struggled to withstand the onslaught from Tyrant's Trojan horse. Fortunately, Harrison's holy buff strengthened my defenses, and together we were able to protect the civilians and mercenaries within the area.

"Your atrocities shall end here!" Charles growled as he brought his sword down, descending upon the Trojan horse from above and unleashing a deadly web of lightning that crackled around its titanic form. While the Trojan horse turned to snarl at him, Theodore came from the side and struck its head with his thunder hammer. The gigantic Soul Beast staggered, its head snapping back, but it kicked out at the big guy, who was forced to dive and roll away or risk getting pulverized from the sheer force of its kick. the fiery mane that ran along its back erupted and blasted Charles off, but his pristine armor seemed to protect him from the worst of its flames.

"Strong," he murmured, wiping at his smoldering armor. For me, I was more surprised that he actually escaped that blast unscathed.

"As long as we work together, we should be able to destroy that Soul Beast!" one of Charles's friends from Pendragon Academy murmured. He approached the Trojan horse, his massive figure completely clad in gargantuan armor, and charged with his lance. Bluish-white energies crackled around his long weapon as he rammed it into the Trojan horse, which neighed in agony.

The Soul Beast unleashed another massive blast of flames that sent the poor guy hurtling across the demolished shelter, but from what I could see, his armor protected him from what would otherwise be certain death. He vanished underneath a crumbling pillar, disappearing under a pile of rubble and dust, but his grunt and curses told me he was still alive.

By now, the Trojan horse was going into a rampage, hellfire snaking out in all directions and discouraging the knights of Pendragon Academy. The mercenaries, fortunately, were nowhere near its berserk figure, and were busily helping the civilians out through another avenue, now that the monstrous creature was blocking the main exit.

'Watch out!" Harrison warned. A few seconds later, the Trojan horse slammed into the water barrier that Black Tortoise created, its flames scrabbling and licking ineffectively against the clear, transparent screen.

Snarling, the Trojan horse then delivered a powerful kick that actually caused the fluid barrier to crack. I winced from the impact, but fortunately both Black Tortoise and I continued to hold strong. Especially with Harrison providing backup by buffing us with his holy spells.

"Useless," one of the civilians sneered. Harrison, Yue Chu and I turned to stare at him. he was reading the Webnovel app on his smartphone, but had torn his gaze away from whatever story he was engrossed in to mock me. "What a weak main character, needing to rely on his friends to help him fight or survive. Why can't you be like the main characters from other stories, who can solo everything by themselves? You're pathetic. One day your friends will betray you and you will find out that you can only depend on yourself. If you continue relying on your friends to help you in every battle like this, you will only suffer. Not only that, it's extremely frustrating to read about such a weak main character. Why do you have so many stupid limitations, and can only fight if you have allies? Most main characters have cheats and can solo their stories by themselves, yet you're so pathetic, needing to depend on other people for help! I can't read this trash!"

Yue Chu strode forward and hammered the guy in the face, breaking his nose and sending him sprawling on the ground. He then stomped on the guy and kicked him, knocking him out. Turning toward us, he shrugged.

"Keyboard warriors. Always throwing insults and talking as if they were so tough, but when they get into a fight in real life, they get stomped so easily. But seriously, the comments they leave on your story are so inane. And so unrealistic. What person in real life would ever be able to solo everything by himself? Even Steve Jobs had to create an entire company, and relied on his employees and distribution facilities to get rich. He didn't just do everything himself. These guys just want to read their wish fulfilment, self-insert power fantasies where they are gods who can do whatever they want without needing help. They can go screw off and read other stories if that's what they want. We deal with reality here."

"Uh…right." I wasn't sure what to say, so I returned my attention to the Trojan horse, which was beginning to breach Black Tortoise's usually watertight defenses.

Fortunately, I had allies outside of the barrier. Theodore, Charles and several other knights from Pendragon Academy (including the girl with the spear and blue and white armor) launched their attacks while the titanic Trojan horse was still distracted, their Divine Devices glowing with incredible power as they unleashed devastating spells. The Trojan horse shrieked as it was struck from all sides by every manner of elemental spells, ranging from lightning to ice to earth.

"Withdraw your Soul Beast!" Troy commanded from above, having cast his gravity spell. A massive black orb now surrounded Tyrant, who had dropped to his knees when he found himself unable to resist the powerful gravitional forces that pulled him toward the ground. "It's over, Tyrant!"

"Over? No, it's only just beginning!"

With a shrill cackle, Tyrant forced himself to rise to his feet, flames pouring from his body.

"Nightmare! Trojan Ambush!"

"…huh? Ambush?"

At first, I wasn't sure what Tyrant was talking about. Then I noticed the black Trojan horse swelling and expanding, its flames intensifying to the point that Theodore, Charles and the Pendragon Knights were forced to back off. The black stallion then exploded.

No…it didn't explode. Hellfire was erupting from its body like a volcano, pyrotechnics and enormous embers blasting upward and arcing through the air before crashing heavily onto the ground. My water barrier was able to protect the civilians, my friends and myself from the fiery projectiles, which just bounced off and landed on the ground like blazing meteors.

No, not blazing meteors.

The flames began to flicker and transformed, taking on familiar silhouettes. To my astonishment, I found myself looking at an army of hell horses, each sporting a flaming mane, rise to their feet and neigh ferociously. They were several times smaller than their parent Trojan horse, but each of these hell horses stood two meters tall, and were no less ferocious.

"You've got to be kidding me," Yue Chu murmured, his jaw dropping.

"The Trojan horse indeed…" I agreed, my mouth dry, while I watched the horrifying sight. "It was bearing an entire army of monsters inside itself."