But for nearly three centuries, the Holy Bell had never been rung.
However, the Resistance Army successively captured the four cities of Atlantis, Melson, Echshe Hulk, and Tricu within days, and even openly declared that the gods of the Covenant faith were false, which enraged the Archbishop.
Therefore, the Covenant decided to crush the profane with a holy war, making Colchis hear the thunder of the gods again!
Hundreds of thousands of slaves surged like a tide towards Melson's walls, their ragged clothes flapping in the sandstorm, driven forward by the Holy Covenant Army's whips.
From time to time, someone would fall behind, collapse in the yellow sand, tumble from the sand ridge, and never rise again.
The Covenant's rule over Colchis was never based on benevolence; their doctrines encouraged goodness, but slaves were not considered people.
"Don't shoot, conserve ammunition. I'll have the Crawlers drive them."
"Esperia!"
Akhida's face changed drastically.
The Crawler's steel armor colliding with the flesh and blood of mortals wasn't driving them; it was crushing them!
"We have no choice, we must—"
Her voice was drowned out by a colossal roar.
The King of Swift Dragons burst forth from the depths of the sand sea, its fanged maw biting down on the church dome atop the landship. Its two-hundred-meter-long body tightened like a hydraulic cable, and the ancient landship, a relic of the ancient ancestors, was dragged into the sandstorm amidst the screech of twisting metal, raising a dust cloud that blotted out the sky.
"Bang!"
Another King of Swift Dragons tore through the sand sea from underground, its massive mouth like hydraulic shears biting a Holy Covenant Army battle vehicle twice the size of a Crawler, instantly twisting and deforming it amidst the grating friction of teeth and armor.
Corrosive saliva seeped from its teeth like acid rain, pouring down on the Holy Covenant Army warrior who had jumped out to escape. His flesh melted away in his painful screams, peeling off his bones little by little.
The third King of Swift Dragons did not burrow into the sand sea like its kin, but instead glided and snaked across the surface of the sand sea at an astonishing speed. Standing prominently on its back, covered in golden-red triangular scales, was a tall figure cloaked in white.
"It's Logar!"
A cheer that shook the Low Desert erupted from the Resistance Army.
Chapter 67: The Destruction of the Perfect City.
Thirty days had passed since Logar's return, and under his leadership, the Resistance Army had liberated one city after another.
Each time The King of Swift Dragons emerged from underground, it would devour the local Holy Covenant Army forces. The liberated slaves, in turn, would fanatically join the Resistance Army under the influence of such 'miracles.' This positive feedback loop continuously expanded the Resistance Army's size.
The Rejected also heard that a saint capable of controlling The King of Swift Dragons was fighting against the Covenant, and every day, tribes of The Rejected joined the Resistance Army.
They liberated hundreds of settlements and cities, and tens of millions of people joined them.
The Covenant's cities were distributed along the coastline of the polar ocean, with a coastal highway connecting all of them.
Five days prior, the Resistance Army had liberated the two closest coastal cities to Vahadish, Asahol and Tesenlesh.
Vahadish could no longer receive support from other cities; this holy city of the Covenant was now isolated and helpless.
Between the Low Desert and Vahadish stretched a vast plain. The mysterious irrigation system dug underground by Colchis's ancient ancestors had transformed the desert into extensive terraced fields and flowing wheat fields.
Even though Colchis's ancient civilization was long gone, the seawater purification and filtration systems they built had continuously supplied water to the city and areas within a fifteen-kilometer radius since their completion. It was precisely by relying on these fertile lands that Colchis, a barren land, could sustain hundreds of millions of people.
However, the Covenant lacked the ability to maintain them, and as time passed, irreversible damage and malfunctions became increasingly frequent.
Once fertile lands had degenerated into wilderness and scrub, leaving only a patchwork of gray and red sand spreading amidst what was once lush.
Nairo pointed to the gathering mist and sandstorm on the horizon, "That is Vahadish, the City of Ash."
Logar's gaze pierced through the swirling sandstorm, fixating on this, the Covenant's strongest and final stronghold. Twenty-meter-high granite walls encircled it, and twin obsidian towers stood before the main gate like two towering giants guarding it.
Thousands of temple spires, like swords piercing the sky, formed layers of tower silhouettes resembling steel thorns, making the city walls' outline appear dim by comparison.
And atop the Prophet's Mountain, the city's highest point, the gilded Tip of the Tower of the spire temple, over a thousand meters high, pierced through the clouds, shimmering with a sickly glow, indistinctly in the sandstorm, as if tearing a rift in the sky leading to another realm.
The City of Ash, also known as the Perfect City.
The City of Ash was reality; the Perfect City was the beautification and blessing of faith.
"Bang!"
The King of Swift Dragons burst forth from underground, its mountain-like body tearing through the ground, rushing skyward amidst sand and dust.
Its chilling fangs gleamed in the sunlight, effortlessly scaling the twenty-meter-high granite wall, devouring the Covenant's meticulously deployed armored artillery and its crew whole, leaving only a jagged crack on the wall, sizzling from its corrosive mucus.
The heavy defensive artillery on the Obsidian Twin Towers immediately roared deafeningly, shells raining down on The King of Swift Dragons' scales. These armor-piercing shells, capable of turning armored vehicles into scrap metal, exploded into bursts of blood on the giant beast, and the pain caused it to thrash on the wall, the Holy Covenant Army on the wall suffering this undeserved calamity, crushed into meat paste by the giant beast.
Just as the defenders concentrated their firepower, two other Kings of Swift Dragons seized the opportunity to burst from the earth.
One crashed into an obsidian tower, causing the tall tower to tremble violently from the impact. The other suddenly raised its head, its jagged maw opening like an abyss, biting down on the towering Tip of the Tower. With a teeth-grinding crunch, the entire tower top, along with the defensive artillery, was chewed to pieces, pulverizing in its throat.
As the Obsidian Twin Towers collapsed with a roar under the impact of The King of Swift Dragons, the morale of the Holy Covenant Army also disintegrated like a breached dam. They stared blankly at the falling tower fragments, the light of faith in their eyes being swallowed inch by inch by fear.
"I thought the Covenant would have some secret weapon. I overestimated them."
For thousands of years, Medeea had lived in constant fear, like a startled bird. Yet, ironically, even the bio-shielding machines created by ancient humans could effortlessly tear through the Covenant's strongest defenses.
The Covenant had failed to inherit any of the destructive weapons once used by the ancient ancestors.
Logar asked her, "The Covenant is so vulnerable, what are you afraid of?"
"You know who they are."
"You don't even dare to speak their names."
"You also said 'they'."
Worp found them quite abstract; Logar, being targeted by the gods, was fearless, while the iron Medeea was in constant dread.
The psychological trauma left by the destruction of the ancient civilization was too vast for her, likely incurable throughout her entire life.
The King of Swift Dragons tore open the city wall defenses, but they did not further destroy the city. Because there were still many innocent people in this city, Logar was unwilling to cause wanton slaughter.
The Resistance Army led by Akhida tore through the Holy Covenant Army's left flank defense like a steel torrent, while another Resistance Army commanded by Esperia, like a tempered blade, pierced into the enemy's heartland from the right. The two legions executed a pincer movement, outflanking the towering spire temple on the Prophet's Mountain.
The Ashen Circle, led by Erebus, swept through the temples like a storm, young warriors answering the priests' hysterical curses and shouts with bullets.
With the thunderous collapse of rows of bookshelves, thousands of years of accumulated religious texts turned into surging waves of fire, illuminating the entire city as if it were a purgatory.
The faithful huddled in their homes, gazing through windows as thousand-year-old temples crumbled in flames, the soul-tearing pain of their faith being uprooted leaving them in despair.
In the dark cages, shackled slaves desperately stretched their emaciated arms through the iron bars. Their cloudy eyes reflected the soaring flames, and their chains rattled with their excited movements, like a prelude to liberation awaited for thousands of years.
"I curse you in the name of the gods! The Powers shall witness your destruction in the Holy Temple of the Highest Heaven!"
The Archbishop, staff in hand, screamed hysterically at Logar in the temple hall.
"Your life is like a flickering candle in the wind, have your gods ever cast down their gaze? The scriptures of faith turn to ash in the flames, have they ever sent down divine punishment? When Vahadish fell, where were they?"
The Archbishop's eyes widened in despair, and with the crisp sound of shattering bone, Logar crushed his neck.
"I've changed my mind."
Logar said, "Esperia, have the Resistance Army withdraw from this city. Announce to the residents of Vahadish via broadcast, tell them I'm giving them one day. After one day, all who remain in this city will be buried with it."
Logar turned and left decisively, the religious atmosphere of Vahadish clinging to his breath like sticky grease. The incense wafting from the spires, the prayers echoing in the temples, the sickly piety on the faces of the faithful—all caused a physiological revulsion to churn in his stomach.
This City of Ash was like a giant shrine, every brick and stone permeated with suffocating ignorance.
But he would show humanity through facts that the gods were not worth believing in.
Logar gave them one day, seven small days.
Millions of slaves, like a breaching flood, scrambled to escape the city within two small days. Resistance Army warriors had already formed ranks on the wilderness ten kilometers away to welcome these souls freed from their shackles, offering them water and bread.
As for the devout faithful, even by the seventh small day, only three hundred thousand had left Vahadish in trepidation.
The remaining seventy percent of the faithful either clung tightly to the yellowed scriptures hidden in their homes, as if they could withstand the coming judgment;
Or they scoffed contemptuously. Vahadish was not only the religious heart of the Covenant but also Colchis's last fertile land. This fertile soil, nourished by ancient irrigation systems, was as precious as a clear spring in the desert. While it sustained the four million residents within the city, it also maintained the lifeline of twenty million people in a dozen surrounding cities through grain exports.
They were convinced that Logar would never dare to set this holy city, which had stood for a thousand years, ablaze.
The gold leaf on the temple spires still glittered in the setting sun, but it could not illuminate the ignorance of their choice to remain in the shadows.
On the eighth small day, at another dawn, Logar pronounced the city's fate.
"Medeea, destroy it."
Vahadish was too large; even a group of The King of Swift Dragons could not destroy the entire city in one small day.
But Medeea had recently repaired an orbital defense battery, the sole survivor of an ancient orbital defense system.
After several days of difficult calibration, the battery had now firmly locked onto Vahadish's coordinates.
The faithful stubbornly believed that judgment would not come, and certainly never imagined it would descend from the sky.
A scorching orbital beam sliced through the heavens like a sword of judgment, its blinding light completely engulfing the entire City of Ash.
When the destructive tide of light finally receded, the holy city that once boasted a thousand-meter spire had completely vanished, the entire city melted into a glowing, vitrified crater by the intense heat.
Among the shattered remnants of the orbital ring in outer space, the ancient battery Medeea had barely repaired disintegrated with a roar after completing its final shot.
This ancient weapon, carrying the last will of ancient Colchis civilization, ended two eras simultaneously with its destructive light.
It buried the ignorant religious beliefs of the Covenant and completed the final revenge for the ancient civilization destroyed by the gods four thousand years ago.
"Rejoice, a new era has arrived!"
The slaves enslaved by the Covenant, the faithful bound by religion, now held their breath, listening to the liberator's declaration.
"I hereby promise,"
Facing millions of hopeful eyes, Logar's voice echoed across the Low Desert through the ancient broadcast system. The static from the broadcast not only failed to diminish the power of his words but instead added a sense of solemnity that transcended time and space to his voice.
"Until the last false idol is toppled, until the last defiled temple is razed, until the last corrupted scripture is burned, until the last depraved priest is executed, until the tumor of faith, parasitic in the very marrow of human civilization, is uprooted—the war shall never end! Humanity and the gods shall never cease hostilities!"
Whatever fate awaited Colchis, the fall of Vahadish would leave an indelible mark on the history of human civilization.
The collapse of this Perfect City, like a violent tremor of the wheel of destiny, steered the future of many people in a direction completely different from their predetermined paths.
...
On the 100th day of Logar's birth, the last city on Colchis ceased its resistance.
He took less than two Terra years to complete the unification of Colchis; his efficiency was one and a half times that of Koz.
But the unification of Colchis did not bring Logar joy; instead, it stirred an ineffable unease within him.
"What are you afraid of?"
Logar questioned his inner self.
Afraid of the Emperor's arrival? Or afraid of the coming Great Crusade?
Neither.
He knew the answer in his heart: he was afraid of Worp leaving.
He turned to look at Worp, who was sitting on the bench. The shameless iron Medeea was sitting right next to Worp.
Logar disliked her, but this was exactly what he had asked for.
Even if he had Worp accompany him in the library, he couldn't constantly watch Worp.
He had to govern Colchis; a qualified father would not neglect his offspring after birth, nor would he unify Colchis and then not govern it.
So he had to have others watch Worp for him, and no one was better suited for this job than the iron Medeea; she didn't even need to blink and could watch Worp 170.4 hours a day.
"Worp."
He called out.
"I'm here."
Worp looked at him.
They had been together for so long, yet this was the first time Logar had called him by his name.
When they first met, Logar called him father and was reprimanded by him.
From then on, Logar never called him father again, nor did he ever call him by his name, which made Worp feel disappointed for a while.
But he wasn't Perturabo; he wouldn't get stuck on such a small matter.
Logar: "Nothing, I just wanted to call you."
Logar had countless times in his dreams depicted the scene after the unification of Colchis: strolling with Worp through the rebuilt Emerald Forest Sea, or standing side-by-side gazing at the restored orbital ring.
But when the last wisp of war smoke dissipated, he truly realized the vast chasm between ideal and reality.
He was too busy; even the times Worp taught him lessons had become fewer.