The Gamer's POV-Chapter 274: Battle of the Lords: Blood on the White Sand

The moment the vanguards of the cadets arrived at the shore, they had to immediately halt because...

"What the fuck is that?!" Evelyn yelled as she suddenly saw a foreign giant shattering the stone giants. Every time the ball of his flail fell to the ground, it kept causing tremors that sent cracks racing through the white sand and nearly threw the cadets off their feet.

Upon seeing such a sight, all the vanguards panicked, and their formation started to crumble under the sheer weight of the giant’s presence.

However, barely a second after the panic took hold, daffodils suddenly appeared atop Cedric’s head, and atop the heads of a few of the cadets. The daffodils began to wither and decay, and as they did, so did the fears of the cadets.

Cedric felt his heart, which had been suddenly hammering against his ribs, begin to steady into a rhythmic pulse. Then his terror was suddenly replaced by a focused clarity.

"That’s one of the lords," Cedric finally replied in a loud voice. "We need to find a way to bring it down."

"And how are we going to do that?" Xavier, who was not too far from Cedric suddenly interjected.

When Cedric turned to him, he added, "I mean... we are not even going to be able to get close to such a thing."

Roben gestured wildly at the swaying flail. "Yeah, he’s right. We’ll be smashed to oblivion before we even get within ten meters of his shadow!"

At that moment, Leon turned slightly toward Uriel and asked, "What do you think, Uriel? Can I take him out with Judgement Time?"

Uriel didn’t even think before she replied, "Huh? Do you even know how many levels that being is above us? To try that, not only would you expend all the mana in your mana core, but you would also expend a bit of your essence too."

The moment she said that, a loud boom sounded, followed by tremors and dust. But that wasn’t all.

"Fuck! Move, move!" Leon yelled because the massive head of an obsidian giant was suddenly barreling toward them like a falling boulder.

Everyone scrambled and tried to get out of the shadow of the plummeting stone. Those on horses spurred their mounts into a frantic gallop, while those on foot dove headfirst into the white sand. However, three cadets were unlucky and could not make it out of the impact zone in time. The head came down completely, crushing two under its immense weight with a sickening thud, while the third screamed in agony as his left leg was pinned and instantly severed below the knee.

As for those who had managed to leap clear of the direct strike, the impact sent a violent spray of sand and stone shards into the air, which peppered their armor like shrapnel. The shockwave rippled through the ground and tossed several horses and cadets onto their sides, leaving the vanguards dazed and ears ringing from the thunderous crash.

Leon felt his ears ring too and everywhere was choked with thick white dust. It took a moment for him to clear his vision and find his bearings, after which he looked around and began calling frantically for his bond.

"Uriel?! Uriel, where are you?!"

His eyes suddenly landed on Uriel, who was slowly rising not too far from him. When he saw her, he let out a long breath of relief.

However, a moment later, his face suddenly hardened into a mask of grim determination. "That’s it. I’m taking it out with Judgement Time. I’m afraid there’s no other way to deal with it."

He began to slowly stand up, then he locked his gaze on the giant in the distance.

Without hesitation, he began preparations to activate judgment time, and as per the usual, the shimmering manifestation of a massive golden woman appeared with a scale.

However, before she could pass her judgment, a supersonic rifle bullet flew through the air. In the next moment, a massive hole opened up in Leon’s head, sending a spray of crimson and bone shards across the white sand as the golden manifestation flickered and dissolved into nothingness.

Before the man could even realize what had hit him, he was jolted backward by the sheer kinetic force and slumped over, stone-cold dead on the sand.

Seeing that, Uriel let out a blood-curdling scream. "Leon!"

She began to rush toward his lifeless body, but at that moment, Cedric lunged, grabbing Uriel and leaping out of the way.

Not long after, a second bullet tore through the space where her head had been a fraction of a second before. It hissed past them with a terrifying crack, kicking up a geyser of white sand as it buried itself deep into the shore.

Cedric rolled across the uneven ground while hugging Uriel tightly to his chest, then in the same breath, he yelled at the top of his voice. "Cover us, Celeste!"

Celeste descended, her massive wings casting a dark, protective shadow as she towered over them to provide a temporary shield.

Then Cedric looked at a shell-shocked Uriel. He held her face firmly in both hands to snap her out of it, then yelled, "It’s a rifle! Forget the giant and quickly use Judgement Time on the person shooting at us!"

Uriel seemed slow and dazed until he added, "Leon will come back in a few seconds, but if that rifle is still there, he’ll be killed again!"

Uriel’s eyes widened and in the next second, her golden eyes began to shine brighter than ever before as she quickly activated her bonded ability.

Immediately as she did, a pair of massive golden eyes appeared in the air above them and began to search for the source of the gunfire. But just then, Celeste’s head snapped backward as she was suddenly shot in the forehead.

She staggered, but rather than falling to the ground, her head snapped back into place and the bullet was forced out of the wound, falling into the sand with a dull metallic clink as the entry point began to knit itself shut with a hiss of steam.

"Found her!"

Uriel blurted just then as she suddenly found the source of the lethal projectiles.

Without wasting any more time, she quickly activated Judgement. The shimmering lady facing the direction of the cliff began to manifest with a scale in her left hand and a sword in her right hand.

At that moment, another bullet flew into Celeste’s heart, causing her to stagger back. This time, she dropped to one knee, but just like before, the projectile was forced out of her chest by the sheer pressure of her rapidly mending muscle.

Then just as she rose again, the shimmering lady finished her judgment and declared the shooter for death!

Suddenly, the scale and the sword in her hand vanished as she lifted her hand and a massive, ethereal bow with a jagged light-arrow nocked in it materialized out of thin air. She aimed at the sky, drew the string back until the air hummed with divine tension, and let go.

The arrow took to the sky, then at its peak, it curved and descended with the speed of a falling star, smashing into the cliff with a blinding explosion of gold and white light.