As his heavy eyelids slowly opened Noah, groggily sat up. He looked around checking if anyone was in his room. Not seeing anyone he stretched his back and stood up. Rubbing his eye he looked at his desk to see the plate he left in his room after he ate. Picking it up he walked to the door intending to return the plate. On his way to the door a loud bang rang out. Startled, Noah dropped his plate.
The plate hit the floor and it shattered into a few pieces. Sighing he looked down at the shattered rubble. He picked up the shattered remains of the plate and threw them away in the small bin in his room. After that he walked up to the door and went straight to the cafeteria. Not wanting to talk to Troy, Austin or Henry about why he did not attend his rituals he got his food and ate as fast as possible.
After eating he went straight to the training field, like usually he did his morning warm up route, but this time alone. Since he didn't have an instructor that day he just did the things he had already learned. His reputation with the church was at all time low due to his confession of not doing his rituals so there was no point in asking people to spar.
Sighing he put his arms up and started his training sessions. He threw and left jab, the impact vibrating though his body. Then he transitioned into a cross to the chin, moving in closer he pivoted his hips and foot to shoot a hook straight to the red spot under the right rib cage sticking the dummy right in the liver zone. The dummy recoiled a little at the hit then rocked back into place. He reset his stance then did it again, then again, and again. For the next hour he tried to engrave this combo into his muscle till it became a muscle reflex.
So engrossed in his training he did not notice a small smoke plum in the distance. The smoke plume then spread to a half circle around the side of the church that was covered by the field. Noah only noticed this once the thick smoke covered the sun. seeing the sun being blocked Noah finally looked around and saw the smoke. His mind raced to find a reason for this smoke. Logically it was from fire but why would there be fire in the distance? Then it clicked, the attack had arrived.
Looking around to see what everyone else was doing he noticed that there was no one left on the field. Panicking he ran towards the church to reach the safety of the guards. Which for now were the only people who could protect him. As he reached the safety of the door he opened it and slammed it shut. He looked around and saw everyone going to one place. Noah not wanting to stand out followed them to the front of the church. Out there stood every member of the heretical cathedral. At the head of the crowd stood the archbishop himself. Noah had looked to have arrive mid speech
"This heathen of the sun god will not destroy our great sanctum. We will defend it without lives for we are the holy and with the greatest god on our side we will kill all who oppose us. Now stand with me brothers and sister for we fight for a greater purpose"
Everyone in the crowd cheered in stalwart defiance of the sun god. The guards started to hand out weapons to everyone in the crowd. Noah was given a small knife. It had a wooden handle with an iron cross guard , the blade Noah estimates was about 7 inches long.
Noah looked at the knife thinking of a way to incorporate it into his fighting style. In the end he held it in his left hand so he could have the option to strike with the knife while throwing jabs.
The archbishop continued " now that all of you have weapons we shall defend this sanctum for which we have lived our life for. We will not be snuffed out so easily. Once we are past the wall of fire we will form up and advance upon our enemy. LET NONE OF THEM LIVE"
As the fires rolled closer to the cathedral a team of 10 guards walked up to the wall of fire and smoke. 8 of them put their hands out and shot water at one part of the wall of fire extinguishing it. The other two raised walls of rock to create a passageway for all the followers to advance thought. As the follower entered the passageway created by the guards Noah started to cook up his plan on how to survive this hellscape of a battlefield.
Noah knew that war was chaos. There was no exact plan for him to survive as much as there was a loose guideline of things that needed to happen in order for him to escape. He needed most if not all the guards distracted to escape but he also needed the sun god's warriors to be distracted so he needed to escape while his fellow followers and the church's guards were being slaughtered by the sun gods warriors. Speaking of the sun god's warriors Noah looked into the distance to see the army that they would be facing.
In the distance the grand army of the sun god looked to be made up of different parts. It was split up into 5 different cores of armies. They all raised different flags and all wore different armors. The middle most army held banners of sun marking them clearly as followers of the sun god but the other armies had different flags.
The one farthest to the right had wolves on their banner, the second one to the right had a red flag with a tiger on it, the banner farthest to the left however had what looked to be a bird of which Noah Could only guess. finally the second one to the left had a yellow background with the symbol of a mountain on it.
There can only be one reason for all the different flags. Mercenaries. Logically there is no way to raise such a large army in such a short amount of time so a large contingent of their army was made of mercenaries. This could be good since there are so many commanders on the field it could confuse the control of the battle causing even more chaos.
For Noah who needed chaos to escape he welcomed the change in circumstance. But this also meant that the church's army was out number so it could also shorten the amount of time he had to escape the battle
Both sides formed up in formation. The church took up a defective formation with the fire to their back. They had nowhere to run, if pushed back they would be consumed by the flames or run down at the church. The mercenaries took a strong attacking formation in the form of a V. The sun gods army was placed in the back to protect themselves.
As the formations were finalized the truly au inspiring hail of arrow was hurled from the side of the mercenaries. They arced over the battlefield cutting through the air towards their targets. But before the arrow had landed the archbishop stepped forwards. A dark vine sprouted from the floor creating a barrier on the front line blocking almost all the arrow. Some arrow made it through and a few of the church's followers were stuck down or injured.
As the hail of arrows stopped Noah could feel rumbling on the ground. Looking forwards there was a wall of dust rising up from the burnt field. Not being able to look over the guards on the front line Noah could only assume that the wall of dust was a result of the enemy lines moving forwards.
As the enemies got closer the front lines guards of the churches vangarde started to spread out to prevent an encirclement. Which in turn left small gaps in the line which the enemy could exploit in due time. As the line got closer and closer Noah gripped his weapon and stretched his arms warming up for the fight that was to come.
Both of the army's vanguards smashed into each other. The church's line held firm as the first clash left many dead mercenaries. The second clash did much the same and so did the third. The church's battle hardened warrior fought with a surgeon's precision,firing off elemental blast and cutting down many mercenaries. Their daily training was paying off. But after a few bouts of fighting they were bound to get tired. One guard out of breath swings his sword too far. His arm was grabbed and he was pulled out of line. In horror he moved his sword up to block but it was too late. He was hacked to pieces on the spot. Another guard was stabbed through when his shield was pierced by an essence enhanced spear.
Now with a way in they burst through the lines past the guards from there it turned to pure chaos.Noah found himself near the back of the army. He was trying to keep his distance so he was not caught up in the fighting when the awakened started to join in. but once the line broke it did not matter where he was. There was fighting all around him. There in the chaos of battle Noah realized that this was the perfect time to run. There was no one watching him anymore,
He could escape, as he tried to run though he was stopped by one of the mercenaries. Lucky for Noah this man didn't seem to be awakened due to him moving at the same speed as a regular human. The mercenary stopped Noah and drew his sword then swung it , Noah jumped back so as to not get hit. The mercenary sees this charge in and swings his sword again. The swing narrowly missed and Noah jumped into close range. He hit him with a jab unbalancing him, then a cross which disoriented him. The mercenary, stunned, swung his sword in desperation but Noah ducked under it and put his full body weight into a hook straight to the liver. The mercenary crumbled in pain leaving Noah with the perfect chance to kill him, but he hesitated after all he had never killed a person before. Seeing this hesitation the mercenary recovered and struck out hitting Noah across the chest.
The cut was superficial but it still hurt and Noah still bleed. Enraged, Noah's attribute flared up and he launched himself at the mercenary. Hitting with a hook to the spleen then an uppercut to knock him out. As he was falling to the ground Noah took his knife and lunged at him, stabbed him in the chest, piercing his heart and killing him instantly.
Noah slowly got up and looked at the dead body in front of him. This was the first time he had killed someone, shellshocked; he just stood there till he was tackled down by another mercenary. Struggling on the ground the mercenary got on top of him and got a hold of Noah's knife. Noah tried to stop the mercenary from driving the knife into him. The knife's edge inched close and close till someone drove a sword through the mercenary's chest. Looking past the mercenary he saw a guard with his sword thought the man's chest.
Relieved to be saved Noah quickly pushed the man's off of him and got up. Looking around he could see that the battle was still raging on. Still trying to escape, Noah started to rush to the edge of the battlefield where he caught a glimpse of a titanic battle taking place on the edge of the circle. From what Noah could see it was a 4 v 4 the four generals of the mercenaries and archbishop and his 3 elite warriors. The battle was fierce and they were destroying everything that was around them friend or foe the destruction was indiscriminate
As Noah was running he could notice that the titanic battle was starting to move towards where he was. Noticing this, Noah's face dropped and He started to run faster. trying in vain to get out of the cross fire of the battle.
Then the battle was upon him. Noah ducked down and laid on the ground in the fetal position to try and protect himself. The air cracked with power and the sound of objects flying close rang into his ear. The ground shook near Noah. great cracks in the ground were made by the seismic clash of their power.
A large shock wave from one of the trades of blows hit Noah from his right, launching him and many tons of rubble into one of the great cracks. The shock wave launched him into the side of the crack knocking him out. Noah hit the ground hard but landed on the dirt at the bottom of the crevasse, softening but not neutralizing the impact . Then the rubble fell on top of him, entombing him underground.
As Noah was trapped underground the battle raged on above ground but it was a lost cause. The church's followers were able to fend off most of the mercenary but when the sun god army which was at the middle of the formation hit the front line the weary and exhausted guards and followers were quickly overrun by the well organized and rested army. The archbishop was slaughtered by a leader of the sun god's army who happens to be a priest of the sun god. And the rest of the guards and followers were run down and slaughtered by the sun god's army and the reminisce of the mercenaries.