Chapter 703: Chapter 727 Aldergran
(To be updated and revised later)
In front of everyone lay a road paved with stones. From a fallen road marker on the ground, Lancelot deduced that the na of the road was Alder Road. It was the only street in the town, and the stony surface was littered with a large amount of debris and freshly killed corpses, with trickling blood reflecting the blazing fires from the buildings. Jackalweres were pillaging the shops along the road, while Demons were furiously destroying anything in their line of sight. Lancelot noticed that several individuals he had thought were Jackalweres were actually mutated Coward Devils, and so other recognizable Demons also had distinct Jackalwere features.
At the end of the road, hundreds of feet away, stood sothing in this Illusory Mirror that caught everyone’s attention the most. There was a statue at least four tis taller than Lancelot, depicting an Angel in armor with its eyes blindfolded. The Angel had spread its wings and was holding a sword in a protective stance, and the companions imdiately noticed that the sword in the statue’s hand was the very one they had just seen in the Volcano Fortress.
“Look around,” Lancelot said calmly, “If I’m not mistaken, we must be inside so sort of illusionary realm.”
Upon hearing his words, everyone shifted their gaze from the nightmarish scene in front of them and noticed that the edge of the town was enveloped in thick fog, clearly not a natural phenonon. It was then that a stern, cold voice of an ageless woman echoed in everyone’s minds:
‘This is Aldergran, a town once plagued by the Jackalwere Tribe. During an attack by the Jackalweres, a priest of Losanda led the townspeople to seek help from their god. The Lord of the Dawn, Losanda, responded enthusiastically, sending down the Angel Zariel who effortlessly repelled the Jackalwere attack. However, generations later, the Jackalweres returned, this ti accompanied by filthy beasts from the Bottomless Abyss. The town is on the brink of destruction—hurry and lend a hand!’
No sooner had the woman’s voice ended than the attackers on the street suddenly noticed the group, as if they had been invisible before. Several dozen Jackalweres were originally besieging a shop with its doors tightly shut and roof on fire, but their leader decided that Lancelot and his party were a more interesting target than the house.
This Jackalwere captain was draped in clearly pilfered trinkets, looking like a monkey performing acrobatics at a rural market. However, its malicious expression and drooling wolfish maw were not at all endearing, not to ntion it was pointing a filthy, large cleaver at the group, issuing an attack command to its underlings with a voice full of malice. The Jackalweres turned their heads together, dozens of murky grey eyes suddenly widened, shooting out an evil and crazed glow, then they pounced towards the group like wild dogs discovering wounded prey.
“It seems like we need to flex our muscles if we want to escape this illusionary realm,” Lancelot said, swiftly drawing the hand half sword from behind his back, “Even if everything here is illusory, any injury we sustain will certainly have real effects, so everyone, stay sharp!”
“Alright!”
The companions responded enthusiastically; they had faced Demon armies on blood-drenched battlefields, and a confrontation of this scale was not enough to scare them. Lancelot charged ahead without fear, his longsword swinging like a windmill, easily deflecting two feathered arrows shot at him, followed by a swift diagonal slash, which cut the leading Jackalwere and its weapon cleanly in half.
Although the attack was visually stunning, it failed to affect the other enemies. Two jackalweres let out maniacal cackles and leapt over their companion’s corpse, thrusting their filthy spears at Lancelot.
Lancelot easily stepped aside, allowing the enemy’s attack to miss entirely, and with a flick of his weapon, a hyena-like head spun into the air. The other enemy, distracted by Lancelot’s movents, turned his head just in ti to miss the Dwarf making a throwing motion and the hamr that killed him.
Without waiting for the hamr to return to his hand, Bruto charged forward with his shield, toppling several enemies to the ground in succession. Compared to Lancelot’s approach, Bruto’s fighting style was far ssier—he was quickly stained with a great deal of jackalwere filth—but it had to be admitted that this style was highly efficient against large groups of relatively weaker enemies. Coupled with his Dwarf Berserker Armor, which was covered in blades and spikes, he resembled a humanoid at grinder rolling over the battlefield, leaving behind only mangled corpses.
On the other side of Lancelot, the white-haired, red-eyed half-elf stepped confidently, reaping the lives of the jackalwere thugs with her Shadow Glaive. As a Cursed Swordmaster, her weapon was imbued with power from the Fallen Shadow Realm. A jackalwere she killed rose again in the form of a shadow, forced to submit to the swordmaster’s will and claw at its forr allies.
On a nearby rooftop, two jackalweres huddled in an unignited area, clumsily loading their crossbows. Their awkward paws were clearly not well-suited to the task, but after several attempts, they succeeded. A jackalwere sentinel raised the crossbow, aiming at what seed like the idle Elf at the back of the group, but an iron rod, appearing out of nowhere, smashed the first jackalwere’s weapon, while the second, in shock, fired an arrow far off the target.
The jackalwere did not realize they had been attacked but blad the mishap entirely on its companion. It threw aside its weapon, turned around, and shoved its fellow to the ground with a threatening growl.
The other jackalwere indeed showed a terrified expression, which pleased the first one imnsely, and it barked aggressively several more tis. Jing, perched on the nearby fence, watched the scene with amusent. When she saw the intent to pick up the crossbow from the ground, she flicked her tail and smashed her stick onto the jackalwere’s head.
The group’s offensive was like a breeze sweeping away fallen leaves, and in less than a minute, the last standing jackalwere also fell.
The door of the house that had just been under siege by the jackalweres creaked open, and out ran a middle-aged man dressed as a shopkeeper, his face blackened by smoke, clearly having been watching the commotion through a crack in the door. He ran up to the group, making a hasty bow, and said urgently,
“Kind Knights, you must be the reinforcents sent by Zariel! Jessa’s prayers have been answered! She’s hiding with most of the townsfolk in the church at the end of the road, please go help her!”
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