A week after Kayn ate the most recent 6th stage core that he acquired, he was floating above a city that was equally as massive as Palatine. Similar to the formation Palatine had covering it at the start of the war, Larend was covered by one as well, several in fact.
Kayn wasn't able to see the original formation at Palatine, but he guessed it looked something like this when initially activated. One massive barrier surrounding several smaller ones which surrounded even smaller ones as you got closer to the more important zones of the city. The biggest difference between Palatine and Larend was how they were laid out.
Palatine could be described as a massive circle with importance moving inward towards the center of the city. Larend was more of a giant rectangle with one end being where the palace was located.
Kayn's original plan was to only attack the palace side until he forced Emperor Carnet's hand, but after Lydia, his anger won over. With Wrath mostly in control anyway, it was hard to deter himself from targeting the city as a whole instead.
He hated Carnet. He hated that the citizens were complacent towards their Emperor's tyrannical rule. When all of Carnet's highest ranked mages could have rebelled against him, they chose to go along with his plans. Kayn knew deep down that he would never forgive himself if he killed innocent citizens, but using his All-Seeing eyes to glance through the barriers, no one inside of this city matched what he thought of as a normal citizen.
The shops he remembered visiting as a child no longer existed, instead slaves were being marched into various buildings throughout the city by armed personnel. Kayn looked around for several minutes wondering what happened to the millions of citizens who used to reside within Larend, but he couldn't find them no matter how long he looked.
During his travels, he did notice several small towns and villages that had popped up since his time in Carnet, but that still shouldn't account for the number of citizens missing from Larend. Knowing that he couldn't solve this problem anytime soon, he decided it was best to get his siege underway.
Without citizens inside the city and the slaves all holed up in massive warehouse type buildings, he only really needed to not destroy those warehouses, everything else was fair game.
Looking down at the outer most barrier, Kayn created a massive thunderstorm by utilizing wind, water, and lightning. As quickly as the storm appeared, lightning bolts were raining down on the barrier, weakening it significantly with every strike.
Next, Kayn summoned a firestorm. House sized balls of lava and fire rained from the skies, slamming against the barrier. Kayn then turned the rain from the thunderclouds into ice needles as they fell, further damaging the barrier.
With several types of magic impacting the barrier every second with even more powerful lightning strikes and lava balls hitting just as often, all Kayn had to do was wait. Using his wings to float in the air, he closed his eyes and began to use the Void Star technique to replenish the mana he was losing, all the while concentrating on keeping the multiple spells active.
He could have just sneaked into the barrier with the Shadow's Embrace spell, but he wanted the emperor to suffer. He wanted to take everything away from him. He was going to force the turtle hiding in its shell to peak its head out only to end up decapitated.
Once Kayn felt that he had complete control of his spells and mana recovery, he started taunting the ones below the dome, even if they couldn't hear him.
"COME OUT YOU BASTARD OR IS THE EMPEROR TOO MUCH OF A COWARDLY RAT?!"
Less than a week later, the first barrier fell, only proving the prowess and power of one man as compared to the armies of Carnet and Inmortuae who spent years trying to take down the first barrier of Palatine, granted neither Mitas nor Carnet acted.
Kayn swept the area with his Mana Sense and then began throwing massive purple fireballs all around the uncovered parts of the city. Defenders screamed as they couldn't escape the fire that quickly consumed the entire slum districts of Larend. The only places untouched by flame were the warehouses where the slaves were being kept like herd animals.
A few defenders noticed this oddity and tried to approach the buildings, only to run into massive barriers of invisible wind that tore them to shreds in an instant. Inside of the buildings, the guards watching over the slaves died without any clue as to what happened aside from blood pouring out of every orifice.
The city had been taken over completely by army members, and as Wrath deemed none of them innocent, the casualties started to stack up quickly. The defenders in this first area were at most 1st stage mages with 98% of them being non-magical. Without any remorse in his eyes, Kayn struck down millions of these defenders within minutes.
With defenders packed into the massive city like ants inside their colony, it would be more difficult to not accidentally kill someone with a single fireball. Kayn may show any emotion outwardly, but inside the battle was raging on.
He hated what he had become under Wrath. He wanted to save people, not slaughter them mercilessly. Unfortunately, the hate and anger at himself only gave Wrath more power over his body as he continued to obliterate the entire uncovered portion of the city. Not long after, only a few massive warehouses were left standing.
"TAKE YOUR FREEDOM AND GO! I WILL GIVE YOU UNTIL THE SUN SETS BEFORE I BEGIN AGAIN!" Kayn yelled out as he stopped his barrage on the city and started absorbing mana once again.
He was hoping that the more powerful mages in the other barriers would see that he was resting and think he was low on mana, but alas no one came out to confront him. However, not even 10 minutes after screaming into the air, slaves began to exit the warehouses being led by the strongest of the bunch.
There were even some 3rd and 4th stage mages among the slaves, so they were the ones to take charge and lead the others out and away from the city after releasing their shackles with the guard's keys. Kayn opened his eyes as his hour deadline was hit, and he no longer noticed a single slave within the warehouses.
Due to the destruction of the city and how Kayn had flattened it out essentially before removing any lingering fire, the slaves were able to take straight paths out of the city. While they weren't fully out of the city yet since some of the warehouses were quite deep into the city, they were far enough away from the next barrier for Kayn to continue his work.
This time instead of summoning several smaller attacks, Kayn summoned massive lightning bolts each more powerful than a tier 12 spell that he threw at the barrier. He looked like a god of lightning and thunder as skyscraper sized bolts of lightning were tossed at the barrier one after the other.
If Kayn had to guess, he would put the power of each bolt somewhere between tier 14 and 15 as far as impact strength went. If he was to use something like this in combat it would be easily avoided, but throwing them at a stationary target guaranteed a full impact. Each lightning bolt that hit caused the barrier to tremble and the connected ground shook as if an earthquake was happening.
Days passed as Kayn's lightning barrage on the second barrier continued. Inside of the dome, the army members were looking towards the more inner barriers, hoping that one of their leaders would come out to deal with the threat before it breached yet another barrier.
Kayn's attacking was relentless, and the defenders couldn't help but wonder how he wasn't out of mana yet. They thought he would soon be out of mana as there was no way someone could keep up that power of attack one after the other for days on end.
Eventually the next barrier came down and the defenders all began to shout at Kayn at the top of their lungs. "Please forgive whatever we might have done to you! We will repent for our sins! Just let us live!"
Rather than kill them instantly, Kayn only stared down at them through his hood's veil. "You want forgiveness? You seek mercy? Mercy that you know you wouldn't and didn't show. No, fuck your forgiveness! You'll get nothing but death from me!"
Then the second uncovered district turned to ruin much like the first. Kayn, a single powerhouse, was destroying barriers that would normally take armies months to years to take down within mere weeks. Mitas and Carnet were probably able to do similar feats if they put their all into it, but neither one of them actively participated in the war.
The weeks continued to pass as Kayn took down one barrier after another, wiping away millennia of history in mere seconds after they broke. The only living people able to walk away from the carnage were those who were slaves.
A few of the defenders realized that the Death God wasn't killing the slaves and collared themselves before mixing in with what they thought of as ilk, but it seemed that the Death God saw right through them and every single one was killed without question.
There were only three barriers left now. The innermost one was where the emperor's palace was located, and no one had seen him for months now. The middle barrier held the remaining 6th and 5th stage Carnet residents. The last barrier was owned by none other than the Black Hand Society.
After siding with Carnet, they moved their operational front to Larend by the emperor's gracious hand. Their base was underground once again, and even they could feel the rumbling from the surface these last months. Most began to worry that they too would fall victim to the Death God once he managed to get through the third to last barrier, but the elders and leader stationed here assured them that they couldn't be found unless someone gave their position away.
A momentary pause came from above. Just like after every barrier fell, the Death God would destroy the city before sitting in silence for a few hours. The Black Hand assumed that this could only mean the third barrier had fallen. All they could do now was cross their fingers and hope that they would be able to sneak out while the Death God was distracted with the last two barriers.
*BOOOM*
The ceiling to the center of the small underground hideout collapsed as a figure draped in black descended through it. Kayn used light mana to perform a little trick and have some fun for those who might recognize him in this place.
The members of the Black Hand Society looked up in terror as two white upside-down crescent moon eyes and a smiling crescent mouth glowed in bright white staring down at them.
"Hello fellow Black Hand assassins! Jester has returned to complete a contract!"
Many didn't know who Jester was, but there were two who did. Namely Burt and the cat man he couldn't quite remember the name of were slinking away and trying to hide behind the reception desk. Just as they started to give up hope, another figure cloaked in black materialized in the air near Jester.
"Jester huh? I remember your name crossing my desk many years ago. If you're one of us, this will be easier than I thought. Submit!"
Rivera, the leader of the Black Hand Society, had appeared.