Cycle of Destiny

Chapter 14 The End of the Port

Just as Harry was knocked away, the Duke of Langton's gaze swept over the port ruins—the innocent people bleeding from their seven orifices and huddled on the ground—causing her to frown.

Without the slightest hesitation, she swung her left arm forward, and several short syllables burst from her lips. In an instant, a translucent golden shield appeared out of thin air, rapidly expanding like an umbrella to cover the harbor. The shield shimmered with light, absorbing and dissipating all the remaining impact.

The next moment, a resolute determination to fight to the death flashed in her eyes. The figure wielding the golden sword and the summoned behemoth beside her transformed into two destructive torrents, one golden and one black, launching a pincer attack towards the elven prince in the air!

Faced with this earth-shattering combined attack, the prince truly neither dodged nor evaded, not even raising a finger. He simply hovered there silently, as if he had already given up resisting.

Just as the sword and claws were about to tear him apart—

An invisible barrier, completely transparent and seemingly formed from the extreme compression of air itself, suddenly appeared before us!

"boom--!!!"

The golden sword light and the behemoth's destructive energy slammed into this invisible barrier at the same time!

In an instant, energy surged, producing a deafening roar.

Duke Langdon gritted his teeth, channeling all his power into the tip of his sword, attempting to break through this final obstacle. The behemoth roared deafeningly, its dark energy crashing against the barrier like a tidal wave.

However, the stalemate lasted only a moment.

That invisible wall seemed to possess its own will; it was not only indestructible, but it also began a violent counterattack!

The first to be affected was the summoned behemoth. The dark energy that constituted its enormous body was as if it had been thrown into an invisible furnace, and began to rapidly collapse and evaporate from the edges inward!

The behemoth let out an extremely mournful howl, which was not the sound of flesh and blood, but the sharp noise that made people tremble when space itself was torn apart!

Its form twisted and disintegrated in the collapse, and finally, in a silent and violent flash, it completely collapsed into a black dot, and then suddenly exploded! Without fragments or remains, this calamity from ancient times was completely "erased" as if it had never existed in this world.

Almost at the same instant the behemoth was completely vaporized, Duke Landon felt an immense force several times more ferocious than her full-force attack, which fiercely countered back along the blade!

"puff--"

She and her sword were blasted backward, blood gushing from her mouth, leaving a blinding red line in the air.

Her body crashed to the ground like a puppet with its strings broken, kicking up clouds of dust. The excruciating pain made her vision blur, and her limbs and internal organs seemed to be dislocated and shattered. Even more terrifying, the wound on her chest was surrounded by a ferocious energy.

Even so, she forced herself to stand up, albeit unsteadily.

The longsword, which had once gleamed with golden light and exuded an imposing aura, was now completely devoid of its luster, its entire body turning as black and dull as charcoal. Even more chilling was the fact that the powerful aura that had once enveloped the sword had also vanished entirely, as if the sword's soul had been completely ripped away in the duel just now. What she held in her hand now was nothing more than a cold, heavy, ordinary iron sword.

In the air, the Elf Prince remained standing quietly in the same spot, as if the earth-shattering impact was nothing more than a gentle breeze brushing against his cheek.

However, upon closer inspection, one can notice the abnormality of his current state—his face is completely devoid of color, like that of a dead man; his usually playful emerald eyes are now noticeably dull; and his right hand, gripping the longsword, is trembling uncontrollably.

Although he still maintained that familiar curve at the corner of his mouth, the smile looked particularly forced against his bloodless face.

He did take the hit, but at a considerable cost.

At this moment, he was like a crack appearing on a fine piece of porcelain; although he maintained his shape, he was already on the verge of breaking.

The devastating shockwave from the collision swept across the sea, and the huge crater, pressed out by the invisible force, remained frozen for a brief and eerie moment.

The next second, the surrounding seawater crashed back with the force of tens of thousands of tons, and the colliding waves stirred up white walls of water tens of meters high. A muffled, thunderous roar finally arrived, and a brief mushroom cloud of turbid water vapor formed above the sea surface.

Immediately afterwards, the center of the depression rebounded violently, and a ring-shaped tsunami spread outwards at explosive speed, carrying fragments of wood and debris towards both sides of the harbor. The seawater repeatedly pounded against the embankment amidst violent oscillations, producing a continuous and deafening roar.

The entire bay resembled a giant bowl being violently shaken, unable to calm down for a long time.

Harry didn't even dare to look up at the battlefield in the air; this level of combat was far beyond his comprehension.

At the port, it was thanks to the timely deployment of the golden shield by Duke Langton that the surviving civilians in the port ruins were able to save their lives in this divine confrontation. Huddled under the sturdy shield of light, they looked at the Duke in the distance, his fate unknown, their eyes filled with a mixture of relief at surviving the ordeal and profound despair.

The Elf Prince glanced down at Duke Landon lying on the ground and the people struggling in the ruins in the distance. He forced a smile onto his pale face and said in a hoarse but deliberately relaxed tone, "Let's play again next time."

Then, with a flicker, he disappeared into the clouds.

Harry struggled to lift his head and gazed in the direction the prince had disappeared. He knew perfectly well that the prince's departure was not out of mercy, but rather because he had exhausted his strength in the recent contest.

As the Elf Prince left, the last breath that Duke Langton had been holding onto suddenly dissipated. She bent over abruptly, and another mouthful of scalding blood spilled from her lips, dripping down her chin onto the charred longsword.

At this point, she could no longer hold on and collapsed to one knee, only managing to stay upright thanks to the sword blade stuck in the ground.

Harry rushed forward to support the swaying Duke, carefully helping her to sit down on a relatively flat rock. Miss Catherine, who was standing nearby, was also clearly injured, but fortunately, her condition was stable and she was not in any danger.

After a while, the Duke of Langton caught her breath and wiped the blood from the corner of her lips. Looking at the wreckage on the sea, she gritted her teeth and uttered a harsh sentence—a noblewoman who adheres strictly to etiquette should never utter such a sentence in public—

"That bastard!"

……

After a while, the sound of crisp, rapid hoofbeats suddenly rang out in the distance.

The sound was initially distant and indistinct, but within a few breaths it grew closer and louder—not a chaotic galloping, but a series of heavy, synchronized beats, like a signalman beating a war drum on the battlefield. Judging solely from the force of the sound carried on the wind, one could tell that the approaching force was no ordinary local garrison, but a well-trained and fully organized elite cavalry.

Finally, through the smoke and dust of the harbor, a troop of cavalry emerged. They rode uniformly colored, tall northern steeds, their chests and necks covered in silver-grey armor, the plates layered like fish scales, protecting their vitals. Each step of the horses was precisely in sync with the rhythm, demonstrating the riders' astonishing horsemanship.

These cavalrymen wore uniform silver-gray armor, which was enveloped in a soft white halo. On their left breastplates were engraved a striking emblem—a knight's lance pointing straight to the sky, and above the lance tip, a symbol composed of two perfectly intersecting rings, a horizontal "∞".

Harry recognized the meaning of the emblem: the lance at the bottom signified their knighthood, while the double rings above represented infinity, symbolizing the Goddess of Light with infinite power. The white aura on the armor was the Church's exclusive battle aura—Holy Battle Aura. This group were the Church's Holy Knights!

The Holy Knights of the Church have arrived!

These holy knights possessed exceptional horsemanship skills; even at full speed, the formation maintained a precise wedge shape without the slightest disorder. Beneath their armor lay dark brown leather tunics, and the longswords hanging at their waists swayed slightly with the horses' movements.

As they passed through the damaged dock area, the lead knight tightened the reins and raised his right hand—the entire group stopped simultaneously at a brief command.

The sound of hooves stopped abruptly, without a single extra neigh.

Immediately afterwards, the orderly array of knights seemed to be split apart by an invisible hand, silently retreating to both sides to make way.

From the back of the passage, a pure white steed emerged. Unlike the knights' warhorses, which were clad in armor, this white horse wore no protective gear whatsoever.

Sitting on horseback was an old man dressed in a white robe. His face was solemn, but his eyes were as deep as the sea, and he held a white scepter about half his height in his hand.

He didn't have the white light emanating from the Holy Knight's armor, but the pressure he exuded was far stronger than that of a Holy Knight fully clad in armor.

Harry, who knew a little about the church, knew that this was a white-robed archbishop.

Within the Church of Light of the Arcanos Empire, aside from the Pope and the goddesses, the most powerful figures are the four cardinal archbishops, each presiding over one of the four major dioceses of the empire: east, west, north, and south. Archbishop Lawrence, who died on the ship, was one of them. Below the four cardinal archbishops, each province has a white archbishop responsible for overseeing all church affairs within that province, including managing church revenue, bolstering the faith of believers, and conveying the benevolence of the Goddess of Light to those still lost in their ways.

It can be said that this white-robed archbishop's status was comparable to that of the Duke of Langton.

Harry's eyes lit up when he saw the white-robed archbishop appear—

The appearance of this white-robed archbishop was definitely not accidental. The earth-shattering clash between the Elf Prince and Duke Langdon must have caused intense energy fluctuations. Harry guessed that these powerful collisions and shockwaves attracted this white-robed archbishop, like a watchdog smelling meat. This white-robed archbishop, who was in charge of the religious affairs of a province, must have been drawn here by that overwhelming power, following the trajectory of the energy fluctuations.