Divine Flame Crystal

Chapter 643: A Giant Born from Song

There is no other way. After all, they are the ones who paved this path. If they are not careful, they will fail, so we have to remind them all the time.

Cyrus divided the troops into three rings: the outer ring, with shields forming a wall, marched slowly to keep the beat; the middle ring held wicks and holy oil, responsible for "supplying blood and light"; the inner ring consisted of the chorus and the carvers, who sang a combination of the threshold song, the suture song, and the return song. A motto from Valerian was inscribed on the back of each carver's hand: "The carver is the beam, the song is the girder, the pain is the nail, and the blood is the oil."

"When do we sing?" asked Ilio.

"When the wind sings the reeds for the third time and turns back," Mara pointed to the water, "that's the earth beating the drum for us."

Elio tilted his head to listen. Sure enough, the sound of wind and water combined, like an inconspicuous hand tapping the river's surface. Once it dispersed, twice it gathered, and the third time—it turned back.

"Get up." Cyrus growled.

The song begins.

The march of forty steps in the outer circle echoed in unison, the sound not loud, like a background for the night.

Blood rhythm is open.

The holy oil dripped down along the lines on the chest of the one who had been marked, the oil melted the skin and sparkled when it met blood.

Pain rhythm is open.

The threshold music is slightly upbeat, forcing every breath to follow the same narrow path.

"Look at the light, don't hide." Valerian walked slowly around the inner circle, leaving only four words for each person he passed.

The moment the echo well was activated, it became invisible, audible only in muscle and bone—a fine, steady echo that rose from the earth, silencing the frantic little beast within the heart. The chorus piled up, like a blanket covering the earth. At some point, everyone's chests merged, a harmony that no command could achieve.

The first, prolonged note echoed across Zheliu Ferry, creating a thin ripple on the water. The second thickened it, and the third drowned out the clatter of leather armor in the arrow tower above the bridge. The keynote of the return-to-camp song returned to its origin for the third time, and light converged at the center of the ferry—not thunder, not fire, but a shape that seemed audible in the air.

The reeds were lifted by the shape, revealing a blank expanse of water. On this blank expanse, the first stroke of the colossus emerged: the feet. Not divine feet, without feathers or wings, but two limbs woven together from law and breath. The second stroke was the shoulders, as broad as a doorframe; the third was the blade, formed from the overlapping shadows of a hundred broken swords.

Ilio held his breath: This thing is not a summoned god. It's like we used songs to mold "the image that many people want in their hearts" into a piece of skin, stuffed a wick and holy oil into it, and made it stand up.

"Cross." Cyrus extended his hand, as if pointing the way to a new soldier. "Go across."

When the giant raised its foot, the water didn't splash. Instead, it seemed held down by a massive rock, flat enough to reflect the stars. With its first step, it landed on the side of the bridge. Bowstrings in the arrow tower rang out in unison—to no avail. As if impeded by an invisible membrane, the arrows deflected, glancing past the giant figure and falling. With its second step, the giant's blade erupted from its shoulder, no more than ten feet long, yet incredibly accurate—it wasn't intended to cleave the bridge; it was intended to strike it down, aimed squarely at the center of the arrow tower.

"Forward." Carlon's wooden leg thumped against the ground. The outer shields pressed forward, and Ilio led two squads across the shallows beneath the bridge. The shouts were few and far between, their rhythm steady. Selin's broken blade sliced ​​through the first archer's gorget. The hand gripping his spear shaft uttered a single word: "Drop." And he did—not intimidated, but terrified by the sudden attack.

The lower ground was stable for now, but the battle continued on the higher ground. The Starfall Alliance magicians on the other side of the arrow tower began to gather magical light and unleashed their illusion-breaking magic.

"He's going to tear down our 'Giant,'" Mara warned.

"Change the skin." Valerian was prepared. "The chorus will close with long notes and lay down short beats."

The colossus's shoulder line instantly shifted from a long, constantly destructible line to a short, elusive one. It no longer looked like a statue, but rather like a rapidly vibrating saw, slicing at the intersection of enemy attacks. The mage's illusion-breaking spell targeted the complete sonic colossus, while the Embers Knight offered him only a continuous stream of sonic blades that shifted shape before they took shape.

"Come again," Cyrus commanded a second time. The colossus reached the center of the bridge, its blade tip tapping gently between the watchtower and the light bridge. There was no broken beam, no collapse, only a shattering of the structure: the clarions of war within and without the watchtower rose and fell, never to reconcile. For an army, this was worse than a broken bridge.

The middle ring, the wick added oil, and the inner ring raised the threshold again. The stigmata on Reinhardt's chest condensed into a steady, bright dot. His hand holding the knife suddenly became as light as water. He knew: his strength was being used in the right place.

"Take down the ferry." Carlon pulled up the flag from the ground and didn't shout, only "Return." The outer ring was like a wall, the inner ring like a furnace, and the middle ring like a lamp, all lined up around the center of the bridge. The last resister on the watchtower was knocked down by the back of Celine's blade—a knock, not a cut. She pressed him against the wall and said calmly, "Come up."

The man opened his mouth, but his throat was stiff and he couldn't sing anything. Celine then dragged him to the echo well and pointed at the wall and whispered, "Inhale four, exhale four." The man hummed the first breath, trembled the second, closed the third, and on the fourth breath, his feet fell from the wall to the ground.

"You are...you are..." He gasped, "This is not divine magic."

"Of course not." Celine tied his hands. "This is a spell."

Victory never belongs to just one side. Atlantis, the Starfall Alliance's lieutenant general, quickly grasped the point: this thing was like a singing attack, emphasizing rhythm over power. He summoned a row of broken-tempo drums from the rear formation. The drumheads were covered with the stomach membranes of monsters, and the vibration spectrum was chaotic and chaotic, just right for disrupting the beat.

With the first bang, the wind at the ferry was tilted half an inch; with the second bang, the outer ring of the guard began to fluctuate; with the third bang, the shoulder line of the colossus shook.

"Well." Valerian put his fingers together, pointing to the echoing wells on either side. Mara and Hubert immediately let the sound of the wells engulf them—singing two lines, then letting the wells return one line to the other. While the other side's chaotic voices disrupted the rhythm, the Embers' knights broke the ice with their orderly singing.

"Come again," Atlantis sneered. The broken drums sounded, and the reeds in the shallows fell to the ground. The remaining soldiers in the arrow tower seized the opportunity to counterattack, using long hooks to pick up the target, attempting to bring down the inner circle choir.

Carron's wooden leg thumped to the ground, like a stake driven into the mud. Ilio took a step forward, the little sun in his chest clanging with a resounding thud. He had actually caught the tumultuous chorus, restoring order to the song. Reinhardt stepped forward again, his blade plunging into the tumult at its most unstable moment. While everyone was aroused by the clamor, he deliberately let the blade of the Sound Colossus fall back at the lowest stroke; this drop was like a hoop, encircling all the loose threads. He had thwarted the Arrow Tower's counterattack.

"These guys are trying to tame the sound..." Atlantis murmured, looking at the ferry: the shoulder line of the colossus stabilized again, and the tip of the blade moved back and forth, like a patient tailor, sewing invisible cracks on the opponent's drumhead.

"Retreat." He made a decision, "This place is lost."

The ferry crossing had been taken over by the Knights of the Bright Embers before dawn. The bridge wasn't completely destroyed, the towers weren't completely collapsed, yet no one rushed forward. He scattered the enemy and demolished their watchtowers.

Victory is a cure, but so is defeat. Seven days after the Battle of Broken Willow Crossing, the Embers encountered a flanking charge from the Starfall Alliance at Jawbone Slope. The terrain there resembled a half-open mouth, its slopes solid. This time, they suffered a hidden disadvantage: the echo wells supporting the singing were difficult to dig, hindering the spread of the rhythm, and the outer ring was breached by the archers.

Cyrus made a quick decision: "Change the song, change the formation."

Mara led the inner circle in a reverse singing, starting with the Return to Camp song and working her way back to the Threshold song, essentially singing the retreat itself into the rhythm. Reinhardt was left behind, the stigmata on his chest pale from excessive exhaustion, but his blade remained steady. Carron grabbed Ilio by the scruff of the neck and pulled him out of the hail of arrows, scolding, "You are fire, not a torch. Stop standing in the wind."

The battle failed.

Back at Varn, according to military discipline, the losers were first sung back to camp before being disciplined. No scolding, only records.

— Those who cross the line during the hardship test will have a three-day break;

If the threshold song does not work, continue practicing in front of the stone wall;

— The rest of the group followed Carloen around the town twice, singing "Dark Beat."

At night, more lanterns were lit in the square. It wasn't a celebration, it was a roll call: each lantern held a thin wooden plaque with a name on it. Valerian lit the lantern himself, saying simply, "Failure is the hand that brings you to the right place." Mara walked around the square with the lantern, saying, "Look at the lights, not your wounds."