The shouts were repeated rising; each time different people were shouting, but the words used never changed.
"The gate opened!"
"The gate opened!"
"The gate op…"
Ultimately, one of those shouting was silenced by means of an orc axe landing on his head before he could finish his words. The Seventh Apostle had killed ninety mages, and the Sixth Apostle was restraining the remaining ten; so then, who was the one opening the Golden City gates?
The addressees of the question with an unknown answer weren't the ten people restraining him with light ropes, and there was no longer a need for the Sixth Apostle to stay here. His eyes, the still waters of calmness up to that moment, were buried in darkness, and then shone in a way that would astonish even the mages who dealt with light throughout their lives.
A breath later, there was no one among the ropes, and in the second breath, Godfrey felt the intensity of the blow shattering his ribcage. The mage, collapsing to where he was, closed his eyes after taking a look at the dead bodies around him.
He was dead, but somehow the gate had been opened; he no longer needed to worry about his son's life because even though orcs were the symbol of barbarism, they were renowned for keeping their promises. While the orc warriors, flooding in through the gap created by Godfrey, who came to the end by adding his life to the great sacrifices he made, and the mages accompanying him, advanced towards the Northern Section, the Apostles disappeared from sight.
They were strong, even extraordinarily strong; despite this, the number of orc warriors entering through the opened gate had exceeded thousands in seconds. Perhaps it wasn't possible for them to die, perhaps they could massacre before the orc blood on their hands dried, but eventually, they would be forced to flee.
The news spread as fast within the Golden City as the orcs spreading. The mercenaries on the borders of the vacant Northern Part, the generals in the Middle Part, and the Machine Empire forces conquering the Southern Part were, as of the moment, aware that the greatest defense wall had been breached.
"Dona Gracia, you are a woman of your word! After all the actions we took against your commercial reputation and assets, I never expected you could open the Golden City gates for us!"
Bookworm was examining the events happening together with the force commanders gathered in front of the chief's tent. Knowing the effect their previous actions created on her, he chose to use this method to start speaking.
"Money, goods, or fame, these don't have the slightest value in my eyes. If necessary, I can sacrifice them all for my revenge without batting an eye!"
All the eyes watching the activity in front of the Golden City gates turned to the man resembling a pile of shit. Hearing these words from someone carried on a throne of solid gold, from whom glitter was never missing, and who ruled with his wealth in the Sand City, was a surprise for everyone.
"I guess you can share the truth with the others now, right Ms. Dona?"
Perhaps it wasn't for everyone; for the orc warrior possessing blood-red hair, some things might not be as mysterious as they were in the eyes of the others. When Nafız spoke confidently, Dona Gracia smiled; her face was at least as ugly as a newborn orc cub.
Then her body began to change; her sagging flesh tore off and fell; there was so much of it that it took five minutes for it to scatter around. While the area with a radius of three steps was occupied by mushy, sticky, and weird-smelling body remnants, only the dwarf servant didn't budge even a single step from where he was.
When everything was over, the moon hiding behind the clouds directed its lights upon Dona Gracia as if wanting to make the finale of the show. It was the dark brown hair that accepted the glitter; from there, the gleam advancing to her delicate and pink shoulders slipped over her smooth skin and reached the ground.
The man resembling a pile of shit, fat, ugly, and pushing the limits of repulsiveness, was gone, and in his place came a fairy escaped from fairy tale lands. This fairy's eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, everywhere were perfect. Her full breasts were laid bare for a second, but even this was enough to make the hearts of all the members of the male sex in the crowd in front of the chief's tent skip a beat.
"My lady, please cover up!"
When the dwarf servant dressed his master in the purple caftan, some sounds of grinding teeth were heard. Orc warriors who didn't have mates and some humans were very upset about this situation. They wanted to watch the woman, who possessed a perfect face and a wonderful body in equal measure, a little more.
"It's not for nothing that your servant has looked at you in admiration for all this time. It's impossible for someone who has seen your beauty once to forget!"
The orc warrior nicknamed Boss approached the woman, with whom he had dealt for years in her ugliest possible appearance, a bit reproachfully. Unlike him, the rest of the Sand City residents were waiting with their mouths open; their brains hadn't yet adapted to the change happening right before their eyes.
"I told you, nothing matters; until that old pig dies by my hands, even sleep is forbidden to me!"
The subjects of the revenge the magnificent woman mentioned and the person she wanted to kill remained hanging in the air; had it been any other time, someone would have stepped forward to find out, but the most important topic tonight was something else. How did she manage to get the Golden City gates opened?
No one directed this question, at least these words didn't come out of their mouths, but the veteran merchant of years, Dona Gracia, was aware of the responsibility the atmosphere brought her. After adjusting her caftan, she received her servant's help to get out of the fat layer that had covered her body for years, turned her gazes towards the direction of the Golden City, and began to speak.
"Being beautiful isn't such a magnificent thing as everyone thinks, in fact, most of the time it's disgusting enough to turn a person's life into a nightmare."
Even though starting her words like this after the beauty she displayed in front of everyone seemed odd, Dona Gracia continued after a short breath.
"When I was a little child, my family sold me for enough gold to feed all the other members for a lifetime. Yes, they sold their own child knowing what would happen to her, why? Because I was beautiful enough to be worth that money, and the place I was going to was the bed of a pervert rich enough to pay that money.
I remember every moment experienced from the moment we entered the bedroom together with the man with golden eyelashes. It's impossible for me to forget what he did to me before I was even a woman. In those days, those dark days, I had a single light. My friendship with the daughter of the pervert who defiled me over and over again was the biggest reason preventing me from taking my own life.
Of course, the fact that the gold given to my family would be taken back was another matter, but my little friend was my only reason to live. I was enduring what happened; thanks to that girl a few years older than me, I was both holding on to life and learning things about commerce that I couldn't hear anywhere else.
The method I used to hide myself was written on a parchment that came into my hands back then. That parchment was just one of the many things I took with me and escaped on the night she committed suicide. I made a vow then, I would take revenge on the old dog for what he made me and his daughter experience.
You damaged my commercial reputation, decreased my wealth, I even had to flee and live a life of exile, but I wasn't the slightest bit sad because I knew you would set foot on this continent when the time came.
I didn't stand idle; I continued to spend my time and money to learn the balances within the Four Great Merchant Guilds. Finally, I learned something useful to me; I reached the information that opened the Golden City gates for us tonight.
The Golden City was actually being ruled by someone calling himself an Apostle for a long time, and the Leader of the Diamond Leaf Guild couldn't get a good night's sleep from worrying about his son's life. They thought Godfrey's son would get the gate opened for us, but in the end, the one who did this was the leader of the Diamond Leaf Guild!"