Chapter 108
From the darkened sky, if anyone were capable of witnessing it, the scene would appear as an extraordinary mosaic.
Hundreds of Satanist soldiers, each still bearing the scars of terror from the journey and the prayer assaults, fused into a single, greater collective body.
They resembled a living shield newly forged upon the anvil of this sacred city, its surface still glowing and smoking.
The winds that whispered praises shattered upon striking this Satanist wall, meeting a resolve harder than the steel of their now-destroyed vehicles.
The gazes behind helmets and face coverings no longer reflected confusion, but a shared, patient fire—the same flame ignited by Zhulumat's command and nurtured by the sheer urge to survive.
The formation itself seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting in unison, a colossal organism ready to crawl forward through the intestines of a city infected by sanctity.
"We do not move as a straight line—we rotate as a single will."
At last, the shape fully manifested, etched clearly upon the chaotic canvas of the city of Thalyssra.
It was not a conventional battle formation, but a walking mandala, a ritual diagram in motion, animated by the collective breath of hundreds of soldiers.
The three concentric layers rotated slowly, like a gigantic prayer wheel turned in reverse, opposing the natural orbit of sanctity that sought to condense around them.
Each layer embodied a different function and doctrine, a theological war machine designed to endure and to strike within terrain wholly metamorphosed by hostile divine will.
A low hum emanated from the formation—not the sound of beasts or engines, but a frequency of rejection produced by hundreds of boots striking the ground in perfect unison, grinding the hymns from the sky into meaningless hisses.
The outermost layer was a pulsing living shield.
Here stood the sensory veterans, faces scarred by light and warped by heavenly melodies.
They were the absorbers of thunder, the first bulwark bearing the full impact of relentless prayer shockwaves that shook the walls of reality itself.
Their bodies trembled in resonance with the unseen assaults, yet their feet remained firmly planted.
In their hands, exorcistic shields were not raised to block physical blows, but driven into the ground, serving as conductors and dampeners.
Each sonic strike from the heavens was channeled through curse-inscribed metal into the city's earth, transforming sacred vibrations into mute subterranean rumbles.
They were an audible wall, creating a zone of relative silence behind them at the cost of their own senses and nerves.
In the second wave, the pulse of the formation changed.
Here, within the denser and more dynamic middle layer, captains such as Shaqar operated.
They were the regulators of orbit, maestros controlling the rhythm of this entire human machine.
Every movement of Shaqar's hand, every sharp glance from Onigakure, became a signal transmitted like electrical current through the ranks.
In their grasp, active exorcism weapons lay dormant—until they ignited.
Swords forged from cursed metal capable of severing the bond between sanctity and matter, black incense whose smoke twisted and shattered liturgical phrases in the air, doctrinal hammers heavy enough to crack heavenly seals embedded in pavement or suspended in midair.
This layer was the tactical nervous system, translating the will of the core into motion, accelerating or slowing the rotation of the colossal wheel, ensuring constant pressure against the reality warping around them.
The core layer was sovereign silence.
At the center of all the metaphysical clamor and screams, Zhulumat Katamtum and the other Satanist High Officials stood like monoliths.
They no longer perceived the city with human eyes, but read patterns of energy, flows of dominion, and pressure points within the contested weave of reality.
In their hands, tomes bound in dark hide lay open, their pages filled with geometries antithetical to heavenly law.
Seals made of unknown substances pulsed with blackened violet light.
Here, counter-doctrine was proclaimed without sound, a dark narrative rewriting reality itself.
They did not fight with swords or hammers, but with text, concepts, and pure will.
They were a new gravitational center of their own making, drawing surrounding chaos into orbit under their laws, creating a pocket space where Satanist doctrine could breathe and strengthen, slowly tearing apart the fabric of sanctity wrapped around the heart of the city.
This formation, in the end, was a war of belief given Satanist form.
"Do not wait for an opening, because we are the opening. Advance now."
A silence heavier than all previous thunder crystallized within the core layer.
Zhulumat Katamtum, like the unmoving axle of the rotating wheel, finally moved his lips.
His voice did not explode or echo, but seeped outward like dense black mist, slipping through the gaps between soldiers, reaching every ear not through the contaminated air, but through direct vibration in bone and soul.
The instruction was simple, absolute, and indisputable.
Advance.
That single word became a new law.
Advance.
The word was the key that shifted the entire mechanism of the Layered Concentric Formation into a higher operational state.
In the outer layer, the thunder absorbers tightened their grips on their shields, muscles tensing like steel cables, ready to absorb not only echoes but the possibility of physical impact from impossibility itself.
In the middle layer, Shaqar, Onigakure, Makakushi, and all the other captains synchronized their breathing.
The exorcism weapons in their hands began to pulse in the same rhythm, a collective heartbeat defying the cadence of praise from the sky.
Their eyes stared straight ahead, piercing the haze of dim light and distorted architecture, fixed upon the heart of the city where all the chaos originated.
Then, the colossal wheel began to roll.
Not with haste, but with overwhelming and inevitable pressure.
The first step of the hundreds of troops was a single удар that shook the ground.
They moved as one entity, the outer layer cleaving through air saturated with sanctity like the prow of an icebreaker cutting through a frozen sea.
Every unseen obstacle—psychic pressure, waves of rejection, defensive spells etched into the streets—was met head-on.
The middle layer, with their active weapons, began to "clear" the path.
Swords spun, emitting lines of dark energy that severed invisible sacred bindings, while black incense smoke formed protective clouds that corroded exalted light into stains of shadow.
"Every step we take is an affront. And every breath we draw is an act of rejection."
In that moment, a perfect and terrifying symphony of action was revealed.
As Zhulumat's instruction settled into collective will,
The Anti-Thunder Line in the outermost layer moved with machine-like uniformity.
Three medium-sized exorcistic shields—not forged from ordinary metal, but from a fusion of bone and cursed alloy, their surfaces engraved with counterclockwise concentric circles—were raised before each soldier's body.
The motion was executed in a single synchronized snap, producing a low metallic "click" that resonated not in the air, but within the soul, as if sealing a protective sigil.
The shields were no longer merely defensive tools; they became active mirrors, reflecting not light but sacred intent, shattering it into harmless fragments of energy before it could touch the soldiers.
Behind the newly formed wall of shields, the second wave—the Orbit-Breaker Line—performed its regulatory task with heightened intensity.
Shaqar, Onigakure, Makakushi, and the other captains were not merely commanding, but synchronizing.
Their sharp gazes swept across the ranks ahead, sensing every misalignment, every heartbeat racing from panic, every breath faltering under sensory strain.
To be continued…