"CHARGE!!"
With an army of their own to match this army of the dead, the lost souls were mowed down with an even quicker speed than before by the black wave. Dozens by dozens, these demon zombies were slain by the soldiers of the Black Army, but as every dozen were slain, one hundred more came to take their place.
While the men of God were fighting through the horde, a javelin pierced through the throat of one of the soldiers. Blood began spilling out of his throat, and the soldier didn't need a doctor to know he wouldn't make it.
There was only one thing he could do now.
"Ang Diyos ay magaling!!" he shouted, pulling the pins of his grenade belt at once, and his body exploded beyond recognition in his tragic yet successful suicide, with hundreds of deadites joining him in the flames. These explosions quickly began to increase, as the members of the Black Army were being outnumbered by the monumental numbers of demons.
But all of those deaths had not been in vain. With a final slash, Francisco leaped past the final deadite through a cloud of smoke. When he landed with a thud, a line of smoke came out of his mouth. Conquest stood on the rubble, standing above on the perch like a predator watching over his prey.
"You stand before me. I'm impressed. Show me more." Conquest grinned, preparing to launch an attack, but instead, Francisco tore the Sterling Silver Crucifix from his neck.
"You are not the only one who carries a mighty weapon, demon."
"Oh? Is this the toy that will defeat us?" asked Conquest, smiling with utmost confidence.
Francisco said nothing, and pulled the upper part of the Crucifix, causing Conquest's smile to instantly falter.
"A knife?"
Within the Crucifix was a small, shrapnel blade.
"Should I assume you're threatening me with some magic artifact?"
"If that's what you think, then yes..."
Conquest had seen many magic artifacts, ones that could cause mass destruction or bend the laws of the world. But this one, however, felt different.
Something... holy.
Even his senses alarmed him constantly. And what he had experienced with his instincts for many years, he knew it was something dangerous.
For the first time since the beginning of this battle, Conquest felt wary. He even tried to sense the measure of its power, but it somehow felt... hard to measure it.
At first, this was supposed to be a battle that could entertain him. Conquest had a strange hobby of watching inferior beings desperately fight with no fear and had a good battle spirit. It made him respect them as warriors, despite them being incredibly weak.
That's why many demons in the Netherrealm dislike him for that.
Then, to his shock, instead of pouncing at him with the small blade, Francisco turned the point to his own heart.
"PREPARE YOURSELF, DEMO-"
"Wait, General. Is that... a piece of the Lance of Longinus??" Trese suddenly chimed in, her voice filled with concern and disbelief upon laying her eyes on the tiny blade in the General's hand.
"You mean the one that pierced Christ's body!?" a random soldier exclaimed.
"General, didn't you say using this blade had dire consequences!"
"I know what I'm doing, Trese! If it's the only way to defeat this demon, then I had no choice."
"But…"
With a concerned look, Trese tried to reason more, but seeing the Major General's determined look, she couldn't help but sigh in resignation.
Reverting to his determined expression, Francisco fixed his gaze on the Archdemon and proclaimed, "I want nothing more than to be a weapon of divine punishment and judgment. A weapon wielded by the Lord Almighty to conduct His heavenly work below His glorious kingdom. I would have loved to be born a natural disaster, a storm, a mighty hurricane created by God. Without pity, without regret, and without emotion. And if this relic in my hand can transform me into something different, whether good or bad, then I, General Francisco Dianopra Agraviador, am willing to abandon my humanity in the name of God."
With all of the passion, fury, and love for god flowing through him, Francisco screamed and stabbed the tiny blade straight into his heart.
Despite seeing many gruesome deaths, Conquest suddenly flinched when he heard the sound of the blade piercing through his chest.
Only drops of blood dripped out of the wound. Francisco expected some dangerous effects, because since he was a member of the Templar Knights in the Vatican Church in his early 20s, he had heard many stories about the experiments that the blade was used on many subjects. Whether sinner or saint, it doesn't discriminate as the result was horrendous.
Anyone stabbed by the blade experienced varied effects.
One became an abomination that slaughtered countless lives, furthering the destruction until Francisco and his team contained or neutralized the threat.
Another effect was the complete disappearance of both the subject and the wielder, never to be seen or heard from again.
And the third incident involved an unknown organization who somehow stole the artifact and used it on Hiroshima, transforming the subject into a massive reptilian beast that wreaked havoc on the city. Fortunately, this is during the American-Japanese conflict, where the first atomic bomb was dropped, bombing the city along with the beast.
Francisco couldn't help to give credit to the Americans that they unknowingly killed the beast and saved the world.
Since that day, the shrapnel blade of Longinus had been secured deep within the Vatican, alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Ark of the Covenant, and many other ancient artifacts.
Now, it was being used once more, this time by the guardian of the blade himself.
Expecting whatever effects will be used on him, Francisco braced himself for the inevitable.
"..."
For a few moments, there was only silence. Francisco raised an eyebrow and pulled the tiny blade from his chest.
"It's not working?"
Francisco was completely baffled. For decades, he has been safeguarded this dangerous artifact since the fall of the Vatican by that fascist whore. For a moment, he wondered if this might not be the Lance of Longinus after all.
"General!"
His thoughts were interrupted by his disciple, who pointed to his chest. He looked down and saw the wound healing, along with all his other injuries.
"Strange, my senses warmed me with this weapon. Perhaps it's just a simple holy artifact that heals you," Conquest remarked as he shook his head. "Now that your theatrics are over, shall we continue?"
Glancing back at his fifty remaining soldiers and then at the Archdemon, Francisco activated his Chainsword once more.
"Yeah, we shall."
With those words, Francisco charged forward, followed by Trese in her Hercules exosuit and the rest of the Black Army soldiers, crying out like raging zealots.
Conquest smiled and decided to use [Gravity Suppression], the same technique he had used on that elf.
As the small army of humans charged, they suddenly felt a crushing weight and could barely move. Trese, thanks to her exosuit, resisted a bit but not enough.
Although it might have crushed them all by the intense gravity, Conquest decided to suppress its power to avoid them turning into meat paste.
But suddenly...
Bang!
A gunshot rang out, and a bullet flew which was aimed at Conquest's throat. However, it was meaningless, because even his vulnerable areas could withstand high-caliber rounds.
But who fired it?
Looking up, Conquest was surprised to see General Francisco moving perfectly within the gravity suppression field, better than the rest.
As soon as Francisco stepped out of the field, he rushed forward and quickened his pace toward the Archdemon.
"I felt that we will end here. Thank you, young mortal, for giving me this thrill about your species."
As he spoke, he raised his hand, and the space in front of him began to distort. In the next moment, a small space-tearing rift opened, and he drew something out of nothing, as though it had been sheathed in the air.
The object Conquest unsheathed was a sword, or rather, an Odachi. Its blade is over one hundred eighty centimeters long, and it was the sharpest of all the weapons which Conquest possessed.
A weapon at the Transcendent-level. Powerful enough to slay an Awakened Demon Lord with ease.
He had obtained this weapon from an Eastern-style magical and cultivation world, where he fought a powerful swordsman who had greatly satisfied Conquest. After the swordsman's death, he took the sword as a trophy.
Now, he wielded it against Francisco.
Spurt!
The fluid cut whooshed quietly through the air. If not for the present situation, it would have been a sound which people would want to listen to.
After that sound, Francisco's body and armor split into two halves from head to toe, which fell to the left and right into the icy floor.
"GENERAL!"
Trese and the rest of the soldiers shouted in horror, helplessly watching their leader get split in two. Their mouths agape and the words they might have to say stuck in their throats.
Is this how he died like this?
"Farewell, General," Conquest said respectfully as he sheathed the Odachi. Turning to Trese and the other soldiers, he added, "I guess this is goodbye to you as well. Safe travels."
With a snap of his finger, he could have killed them all by increasing the gravity's pressure. But just as he was about to, a deep rumbling began to emerge.
"Huh?" Conquest turned around, only to find something surprising.
The two halves of Francisco's corpse were releasing strings of blood and reattached to each other. As Conquest, Trese, and the Black Army soldiers watched in shock, the halves slowly fused, and the wounds began to heal.
'Interesting, is this the work of that artifact?' he thought.
As the process was finished, Francisco opened his eyes and stared at the Archdemon with an unknown expression beneath his gas mask.
"Guess who's back from hell…"
Francisco did not seem affected by his own death. Instead, he raised his weapons and yelled out with enthusiasm.
"Well... This is a surprising development."