BXBX NOVEL Chapter 73: Blazing Circle
With the Baltimore dead, there was no one in the underworld army who could handle Hannah in any capacity.
Blood flowed from the side of the invading army, their soldiers falling left and right, most of them not even knowing when they died, and it was only when Hannah had gone through half the army from the underworld that the infernal demon that had been resting spoke, his voice reverberating throughout the battlefield and freezing everyone in place.
"You choose to spend your energy on reducing the burden of your soldiers, are you a commander or a mother."
Clutching her blade as she ended the life of a fiend that had been battling Marzel, Hannah looked at the infernal demon who rested on his throne as he spoke, her eyes envious of the wide berth that had been given to his throne, none, not even his own men daring to stand in his presence.
Hannah stared at the demon for a few seconds and then she gave him a wide smile before jumping back into the fray, her just sword sending more souls to be eternally judged.
With a fierce passion, Hannah became a harbinger of death, her speed of harvesting lives more than tripling and just when her actions had struck fear in the enemy, the soldiers retreating towards the rift, a command that resonated throughout the battlefield came from the infernal demon.
"Soldiers of Matleshore, charge forth and lay waste to the humans."
Immediately, the command thundered out, the loud roar of an army rang out from within the rift and soon the sound of thousands of men running began ringing out.
With the infernal Demon having seated himself at the edge of the summit of the hillslope, Hannah and her men had been pushed away from the edge of the valley into flat land and as such no longer had a direct view of the valley, so though they heard the thunderous roar of thousands of men running up the valley, they could only wait till the men reached its summit and came into their sight.
Like swarms of ants climbing up a hill, the declared soldiers of Matleshore came spilling over the summit, their swarming number and energetic roars making Hannah's men begin gulping and looking at one another in doubt.
"Death to them all" Hannah said raising her sword into the air and then slowly swinging it down, the descent of her blade met with several roars from her officers scattered throughout the army and when these officers began running towards the enemy, the soldiers followed along, the image of their commander who was slowly beginning to glow up, a powerful aura rising within her motivating them to give it their all.
Watching her soldiers charge forward, Hannah sighed internally as she knew that more than 60% of them were doomed to die.
Though it looked like Hannah's action had been stupid, her taunting the infernal demon instead of using the little energy she had to battle him when she knew for a fact there were still more soldiers in the rift.
The truth was that all this had been part of her and Rachira's plan to make the battlefield more chaotic. Although Hannah's actions now placed her soldiers in a situation where they were heavily outnumbered, it also gave birth to the possibility of a portion of them surviving.
With Rachira apparently needing the sacrifice of the souls of the enemy to summon this divine being, something that surprised Hannah, the woman could only perform the summoning on the battlefield and with the need to make sure the infernal demon did not find about this summoning and stop it, in addition to Hannah having to battle him they also decided to make the battlefield more chaotic.
Watching as a new round of battle that quickly saw her soldiers on the backfoot began, Hannah pressed her sword into the ground, got down to one knee and then poured her mana into the weapon and into the ground.
Of course, Hannah kept an eye on the seated demon, and when seconds later he made no move to stop her, she activated her technique.
"Death line" the commander whispered to herself, her words accompanied by a 3-meter-wide line of several thick earth spikes shooting out of the ground across the hillslope and skewering the scores of enemy soldiers running up it.
Despite the technique she had just performed, Hannah's aura did not stop rising and now after helping her soldiers in the best way she could, she turned to the demon whose gaze was directly on her and she shot towards him, her aura rapidly spiking and the ground shattering with her every step.
For this battle, Hannah knew even her best was not enough to use as a delay tactic, this was a fourth-order being she was talking about and as a woman who had gotten the honour to spar with a few, she believed she had an idea what she was facing.
"Blazing circle'
Chopping away at her life force bit by bit and using it to boost her strength to levels that she could only dream of reaching at the moment, Hannah used this sacrificial technique to bring herself closer to the infernal demon's level, looking to make herself a worthy opponent that could hold it back.
"What is sacrificing a few years of my life compared to losing it" Hannah thought to herself, and when she remembered that Rachira was for certain going to lose her life when all this was over, she increased her momentum her aura soaring to heights that had the battlefield once more looking to her, the soldiers further distancing themselves from her and the infernal demon despite the already wide gap.
Looking at the demon and speeding towards it, Hannah mouthed words she hoped he would understand.
"I will kill you," the woman said, looking at her enemy, but then she got a terrifying immediate reply.
"Oh, are you sure about that."
Hannah's problem wasn't the fact that the reply from the infernal demon rang in her head, but more of the fact that it was whispered into it, by a towering being who was standing in front of her, its left palm on her chest having already completely cancelled out her momentum and it's head and back bent down so he could whisper his words.