Chapter 227 227 - A Slaughter Of Dogs
Adorned in his silver garb, Dominion rode his way to the gates of the Dolatian kingdom. Met with crossed spears and drawn bows over the watchtowers, he was forced to get off the horse and lay his sword off onto the ground.
Scanning about the faces of the soldiers he noticed the presence of only demi-humans and monsters with no humans in his sight. Delighted that he wouldn't have to hold back, he gave off a bright smirk while the guards led him in through the gates as a potential prisoner.
"How many people live here?" He asked the demi-lion dragging him along with the rope tying his hands.
Peering back with a disgruntled look, he simply grunted at Dominion before shifting his gaze back to the front. After being taken through the two doors blocking the entrance to the city, he was brought out to a mob of elites wearing lavish armor.
'Golden helmet, silver armor, jeweled shield, and even artistic bows…' Looking through the crowd it didn't take him long to assess how little they knew about a true battle. 'All this showy, impractical stuff, did these idiots really used to work for the emperor?'
Pushed forward by the lion guard behind him, Dominion was pulled out of his thoughts. The crowd in front of him subsided at the same time, and an elderly demi-owl began making his way toward him. Dressed in a sagacious attire with decorative inscriptions, moved along with the help of a stick that seemed too fickle to carry his weight for long.
"If it isn't another war general of the emperor?" Stopping right in front of Dominion, the owl spoke in a mellow tone.
'Another? Is he talking about Nabe?' Having no clue about what Haruki had pulled with the clone of Michael, Dominion couldn't be certain. 'As if it matters right now.'
Brushing the thought off of his mind, he beamed a smile once more and broke through the rope by pulling his hands in opposing directions. Terrified by the sudden progression, the owls and the armored elites flinched back and even pushed their collared slaves forward to defend them if needed.
"G-guard!" Called the owl, his casual tone turning to worry.
With haste, the guards circled around Dominion and directed their spears right against his neck. Peering up at the towers, he even noticed the archers on the verge of letting go of a volley of arrows.
"Owl, can you tell me how many people live here?" Even in the face of adversity, he cared only to find the answer to that question. "Or do I need to keep a count as I kill you all?"
The last word had tipped everyone over, and the owl quickly turned to the archers and flagged his hand down to have them rain Dominion's body with countless arrows. The spear guards were no longer holding back either. Drawing their spears back slightly, they all plunged them forward to sever Dominion's neck from his body.
Until the very last moment, the smile on his face had everyone on the edge, it wasn't until the spears and arrows stabbed through his body did the masses finally relaxed their shoulders. With his flesh pierced from every corner, Dominion's body bled like a fountain, however, that was far from the end of him and the elites were just about to find out.
"I suppose none of you have heard of the emperor's curse," taking out the arrows and pulling off the spears one after the other, Dominion had everyone stunned. "Not like it will matter in a few minutes."
Once again wearing an ear-to-ear grin, he glanced around the masses and began counting their heads. Although terrified, the guards pulled their spear back and tried to sting him again, but this time, instead of stabbing through his flesh, the spear tips went in through a small portal and stabbed them in the chest. Watching their companions falling like dominoes, the archers readied their arrows, but none of them dared to let go of them first.
Eventually, as Dominion looked at them expecting a flying present, the arrows slipped from the hands of a few. Much like the spears, the arrows went through a portal and came out through the portal opened up right behind those archers' heads.
"Twenty-five," seeing the archers flop onto the ground, Dominion turned back to the owl.
"Wh-what?" Petrified by the slaughter, the elder muttered in a rush.
"That's the number of people who've died so far, but that's far too few for my liking," opening a liquid silver portal near his arm, Dominion reached inside and took out a bright red saber. "Let me change that."
'Melicia, care to string a tune, my dear?' As he called out to the witch, the owl and the rest of the elites tried to run away as quickly as possible. Leaving behind their unwell slaves, they expected Dominion to go after them first, but needless to say, he took great joy in shattering their expectations.
The moment he leaped over the slaves, a heavenly choir sang from the very skies. As if lamenting the death of a world, the voices sang in a cacophony of cries. Hearing the sound of violins and harps paired with the wallowing songs by the tortured witch, Dominion slashed the blood-hungry saber right through the body of the owl.
The masses screeching and crying as they ran only fueled him more to hunt them like the animals he thought they were. Leaping towards them, he made no use of magic and simply stabbed through their organs and left them bleeding so they would suffer before they died.
"A hundred…" Standing atop a demi-human child with his saber going through its skull, Dominion looked around at the escaping masses and felt unaccomplished for a lack of any real challenge. "You won't even protect your children? No wonder you've been treated as slaves for so long."
With a feeling of utter disgust towards them all, he carnaged them as brutally as possible. From taking out their guts, and serving all limbs for a prolonged death, he kept on trimming their numbers in the most fiendish ways possible. And by the time he was to be done with them all, the streets of Dolatia would turn into a river of blood.