The minotaurs roared as Riser climbed to his feet once more. The lord had invaded his mind, inflicting great pain upon him, but he was gone now, his body obliterated by the intense storm created by the Refractor Orb. A strange peace filled the room. At least one lord couldn't hurt them anymore.
An explosion outside made the ground shake, and dust fall down from the ceiling. The minotaurs ran outside and Riser followed, finding himself back on the dark street with clerics charging towards him from every side. Los Verion was overwhelmed.
Everywhere he looked he could see an endless army of clerics charging through the streets in a rabid frenzy of violence. Small groups of people defended themselves with short swords and slingshots as the clerics kicked and punched them, striking them with cudgels and poles. They were forced back against the walls of ruined tower blocks as the minotaurs fought fiercely amongst them, pushing the clerics back with their savage halberds. Even they could only surge forwards for so long before being pushed back again by overwhelming numbers.
Riser had seen gattling guns firing down from the towers, but they had fallen silent now. Had they run out of ammunition? The lords had been tossing the black metal weapons onto the streets with increasing frequency, crushing unlucky clerics and shattering them across the ground. Maybe they had all been destroyed by now?
The people fired their rifles and slingshots from the upper floors of the towers, hailing down death from the bright star field above. They attacked the clerics from their high vantage points, but there were just too many of them. For every cleric that fell another three took their place.
Riser used his neural implants to control the Refractor Orb, searching for more effective ways to use its weapons. It would take too long to strike each cleric with an individual bolt of black lightning. An idea struck him and he raised his hands, unleashing many small streaks of lightning instead. The mini-bolts were less effective than their larger cousins, their power diminished as he spread them far and wide, but he could strike thirty clerics at once, hitting each with enough force to stun them and knock them off balance, making them less able to fight as fluently as before.
The minotaurs seized the opportunity to turn the tide against them, wading in with long sweeping blows of their halberds before striking down any clerics who got too close with short axes that hung from their belts. The clerics fell much faster than before, hacked down before they had had a chance to recover from small bolts of black lightning.
Riser struck again, focussing a hundred tiny bolts on the area just in front of the minotaurs. Black lightning struck the nearest clerics with enough power to stun them, making them sluggish and confused, hampering their efforts as the mighty minotaurs hacked them down.
Arrows and slingshots rained down from the towers. A cleric nearby took a stone in the eye before tumbling, grasping at his face.
Jeckos charged through the streets, flailing their long arms as they beat the clerics with furious fists that broke their bones, leaving them rolling on the streets in agony. They brawled with no style or skill, but their bodies were strong, and their rage brought death upon countless clerics around them.
Riser fought alongside his beleaguered colleagues, unleashing wave after wave of mini black lightning until he could barely see what he was doing anymore. When he grew tired, after several hours of fighting, he rested his neural implants, turning to the other weapons in his exoskeleton - miniguns and rocker launchers, acid sprays and flame throwers.
The continuous noise of fighting assaulted his senses from all sides. Bodies littered the streets. Clerics, minotaurs, jeckos and people lying in tangled heaps, their blood merging to form a slick red lake beneath his feet. Some gazed up at him as he passed by, their last breath still within them while others stared at nothing, their bodies long since gone cold upon the ground. He felt for those who were still living, their bodies half buried under a mountain of corpses. Their pain was obvious, but there were so many clerics. They had to keep fighting. Nobody could spare the time to help the injured.
* * * * *
After several hours of mayhem, the battle finally turned. A shift of momentum took Riser by surprise. The clerics were still present in huge numbers but he could see empty space behind them where previously they had extended to the horizon. A small glimmer of hope rose up inside him, helping him find a way to push even harder. Black lighting erupted from the Refractor Orb once more, even though he could barely keep his eyes open. The clerics fell before it, their movements now sluggish as even they started to show signs of fatigue. They fought on, lashing out with fists and daggers or cudgels and poles, but their savagery had faltered, their efforts becoming turgid and less accurate.
The minotaurs appeared in ever greater numbers as the clerics fell before them, stumbling over the bodies of their comrades. The senior clerics were all dead. Riser realised he hadn't heard any explosions for a while. He couldn't see any lords either. Either they were all dead or they had teleported away.
The clerics lost heart without them, gradually backing away from the fighting. It wasn't long before they turned and fled en masse. They ran away from the city on bowed legs, leaving a scene of total devastation behind them. The minotaurs chased after them for a while - until they were sure that they were leaving the city. Riser slumped down on the ground, surveying the chaos around him.