The situation in the chapel quickly descended into a bloodbath.
The Followers of Thaleena held their own. They practiced forgiveness, not peace, so they had no trouble dropping body after body. They thrived in such mayhem, as they've been craving it for years!
However, there was strength in numbers. The followers killed two-hundred people so far, yes, but they also lost twelve of their own.
The entrance of the chapel was blocked by torn bodies and broken, wooden pews, but the enemy was still pouring into the chapel through the eight wooden windows. They stormed the chapel fifty men at a time, and by all odds, there still were hundreds of men waiting outside!
This was not a battle that the Followers of Thaleena could win, as whichever Duke, or whichever King wanted them dead, sent enough soldiers, guards, and even Heroes to do the job!
The Advocate of Thaleena killed forty men by himself. He even killed three Heroes, which were considered either Mages, or Swordsmen of great means! Superior, even, and yet he killed three of them, but despite that fact, he was still not confident about the odds. He knew that death was nigh, and his next step was to extend the inevitable, and take down as many enemies as he could.
The Advocate may be seventy-seven years old, but he didn't move like a frail old man.
Up until this point, he had been hurling six-foot wide fireballs around, flinging his arms as if he was in his twenties!
This was impressive, but it was not enough, so he moved on to his next plan.
So far, he had been putting out fires that either the enemy, or the followers caused. He wanted to preserve the chapel as best as he could, but as of now, as he faced shy of thirty enemies by himself, he knew that it was time to let go.
The Advocate first shot at the bundle of enemies, taking half of them down, and then he started shooting at the chapel's walls. The chapel was mostly made out of wood, so he set it ablaze within seconds!
This horrid, and albeit sacrificial step might put the followers in danger, but it also created a great barricade against the enemy.
If they wanted to fight now, they had to step into a burning chapel. He wanted to see which Heroes, soldiers, or any other man or woman of great means would fight so hard as to walk through a simulation of Hell, just to follow the orders of some random King or Duke.
To his surprise, twenty more enemies stormed in the chapel, jumping through the same wooden windows that had been set ablaze. They leaped into the castle yelling and screaming, with their heads, and leather portions of their armor set ablaze!
"They call us dark, they call us monsters, but the true monsters, the demons, are in front of me." The Advocate sighed, and then he shot the unnecessarily patriotic men to death.
In the middle of the chapel, Clayton was having the time of his life. He kept swinging at his enemies, cutting them down like a knife through butter, and when the battle wasn't working to his favor, or when he was outnumbered, he drained their life essence directly!
"Come on!" He yelled, and then coughed, as the smoke of the burning chapel was getting to him. "Fight like Heroes, die like Heroes!"
Clayton taunted the many men that were looking at him through the window, and much to his benefit, those men were dumb enough to leap through the fire just to fight him!
Men with Iron Armor could withstand the fire initially, but once they made it into the chapel, their own armor was basically like a toaster oven. The men got so sweaty and so overheated that each move they made was sloppy, and uncoordinated.
Clayton ignored their armor, and stabbed many men in the face. He had to get real close to them to do so, as he swung a Shortsword, but he was anything but hesitant!
No normal cut could put him down, as he had been absorbing so much Life Essence, that at this moment, it was virtually impossible to kill him!
The many men and women that his friends killed, provided him with a great amount of Life Essence that he freely absorbed. He used a lot of the essence to heal his wounds, but other than that, the health, and even age of his body improved dramatically. He felt fifty-one years old now, despite being sixty-four, which was a great feeling overall.
He felt so strong, so powerful, that he was confident he could bend the world over, and make it his lawfully wedded wife.
At this point, there were about three hundred enemy skeletons laid around in the chapel. He was breaking ribcages, or collar bones nearly every time he took a step, but he didn't let that stop him. He coughed his lungs out after every swing, but he did not slow down!
Clayton locked in to a man with a Warhammer, and when he saw a spark of electricity circling around the man's hands, or thunder, specifically, he made it his mission to get that hammer off of the man's hands. He knew that a blow like that could kill many of the followers, his friends, so he charged forward like an angry bull!
With one swing, he cut the man's hand clean off, but he didn't escape unscathed. The man retorted with a Thunderous Headbutt, sending Clayton flying all the way to the other end of the chapel, and through the brittle, burning walls too.
Clayton was naked at this point, and he was bald too, so the fire barely affected him, but the fall nearly broke his back!
He used a quarter of the Life Essence he accumulated to quickly heal himself, and then he stood up.
He stood up only to see short of two hundred enemies in front of him. There were hundreds more on the other side of the chapel, but as for the side he had crashed into, he had to find it within himself to fight two hundred men and women. He was unarmed, as he had dropped his sword, so this was a bit of a challenge.
"Fight me one-on-one if you dare!" He shouted out, "Fight me like men!"
Cooperative to his plea, seven men, and five women stepped forward. Each of them dropped their weapons, signifying that they wanted Clayton to pick which one of them to fight, bare handed.
"Nevermind," He smiled.
Afterwards, he unleashed two thick red clouds towards the enemy, engulfing half of the brigade in seconds!
"Hahaha!" He let out a battle-cry, as he started to get overwhelmed by all of the essence he was harvesting. "Hear my cry, father, mother, brother, and sister! Hear me from the Heavens! As of today, I will do everything in my power to avenge your untimely, and unjust deaths! That's a promise!"