Castle of Black Iron

On March 23rd, after 8 days of endless bloody battle, the Mocco City was covered with blood and fleshes.

At dusk, as the last ray of sunshine disappeared in the distant woods, Zhang Tie woke up in an empty civilian house which was not far away from the north city wall of Mocco City after less than 4 hours of rest.

With sufficient all-purpose medicament and exuberant energy, Zhang Tie felt that he could even keep working 7-8 days without taking a rest. However, in order to not be too eye-catching lest bigger troubles, Zhang Tie kept his regular schedule consistent with most of the guards in Mocco City like that of other paladins and demon hunters.

The demonized puppets corps were terrifying. As long as they launched the attack, all the demonized puppets would completely become wild beasts who only knew about killing and moving ahead. They could constantly charge forward like waves with one batch after another until their heads were exploded or their physical structures were severely destroyed.

What a terrifying attack! Demonized puppets could keep attacking humans without food, water or rest just like killing machines. However, the greater part of guards in Mocco City didn’t have such abilities. Those guards could only keep fighting for 3 days at most; therefore, the troops in Mocco City were forced to defend on the city wall in two shifts.

More than 20 armored soldiers and paladins were lying disorderly in the civilian house like Zhang Tie in the bedroom which only had 2 beds. Some more were lying on the sofas of the parlor. At this moment, it made people jealous if one could occupy a sofa or share a bed with the others. Most of them could only casually find a corner in the parlor or the corridor and fall asleep while leaning against the walls.

Previously, the owner of this civilian house might be a middle-class man. Therefore, the entire house was clean. However, it had been disordered at this moment. A cabinet in the parlor had been hacked into firewood and wooden plates, which became the heat source for this place. The 3-layer curtains had become their quilts. At this moment, it was especially dirty inside. The pieces of wooden wainscots on the walls of the parlor had been taken down and nailed onto the windows on behalf of curtains. The air inside the rooms smelt very turbid as it was filled with the stink of men’s feet and sweat as well as various body odors. Including Zhang Tie, everybody inside the room had not bathed for 8 days.

After waking up, Zhang Tie picked himself up silently. After that, he strode over the disordered arms and legs and walked out of the parlor.

There was a washroom outside the parlor. Since the demonized puppets corps besieged Mocco City, the water faucet inside the washroom had stopped working. However, the washroom was still available if they had to pee or poo. Although that washroom was extremely dirty, nobody cared.

Zhang Tie, as a person, also had to pee. However, when he came to the washroom, he could not even place his feet. As Zhang Tie really couldn’t stand making any more contribution calmly to the piles of shit or pee which almost reached his feet, he could only retreat. After leaving the civilian house, he came to a lane nearby. After that, he faced the wall, pulling off the zipper of his pants and started to have a pleasant pee.

Squads of soldiers were running on the streets. Many buildings on both sides of the streets of Mocco City had been demolished by soldiers. Some buildings were destroyed while the others were reinforced. At this moment, everybody in Mocco City knew that they would lose this city. Therefore, many radical commissioned officers chose the street battle.

Amazingly, after knowing that Mocco City would be collapsed, Zhang Tie didn’t feel sad. He just watched those human soldiers passing by him in squads. Watching those faces which were as young as him and imagining how many of these people could finally survive when the city was collapsed, Zhang Tie felt faintly grieved. On the battlefield, after witnessing too many killings and experiencing too many life and death situations, one would not always be that excited and fervent anymore. These days, Zhang Tie had watched hundreds of thousands of people being killed in front of him outside the city.

For many soldiers of those troops, they had a chance to withdraw; however, they didn’t. Because they locked themselves inside the firm fortifications and fortresses and fought demonized puppets for 5 days until the corpses of the demonized puppets blocked those loopholes and those thorny trenches. Finally, it faded to silence.

At this moment, when you watched a person dying in front of you, you would feel sad; when you watched 10 people dying in front of you, you would feel furious and painful; however when 100 people, 1,000 people, 10,000 people even hundreds of thousands of people died in front of you, you would gradually become dumb. After that, you would only feel sad.

It was like how you felt when you saw a red maple leaf falling off and turning into the mud. In Zhang Tie’s eyes, young human fighters were just maple leaves which were not red or would turn red.

There were many supply points in the streets being close to the city wall. They provided large pieces of brown bread which contained ham slices and canned meat paste, and meat porridge in paper cups. Those soldiers who ran over the streets would take a piece of bread or a cup of meat porridge with their hands. When they ate the food, they rushed onto the city wall or entered the fortifications inside the city wall.

Mocco City had sufficient supplies, with which the guards of the city could at least survive 2 months. However, everybody was clear that Mocco City could not stand for 2 months. In such a case, it would be meaningless to save any supply.

Zhang Tie took two pieces of bread and a cup of meat porridge. As he ate them, he walked onto the city wall.

It was already dark outside while the torches on the city wall had been lit. Demonized puppets had already attacked the defense line of Mocco City one wave after another for 8 consecutive days.

The demonized puppets were still uttering weird sounds outside the city while those human commissioned officers on the city wall were still roaring exhaustively. Although demonized puppets’ sounds remained unchanged, all the human commissioned officers’ voices had turned hoarse, which sounded as rough and dry as bubbles.

The city wall of the entire Mocco City was surrounded by a terrifying and disgusting odor of putrefaction. If one kept breathing in such environment for a long time, one’s organs would suffer a great damage. As a result, his battle force would be weakened.

After coming to one side of the aisle, Zhang Tie found a barrel of brown ointment. Fighters on the city wall would always daub some ointment below their nostrils for the sake of the corpses’ stink.

After 8 days of battle, over 1 million corpses of demonized puppets had been lying outside the city gate. After being exposed to the air for 8 days, many of the corpses had been rotten. 3 days ago, when the demonized puppets tore off the last defense line outside Mocco City and rushed to the foot of Mocco City, they also paved their corpses near here.

At the foot of the Mocco City, there were numerous demonized puppets.

However, the battle continued. The demonized puppets which looked like black tides were still rushing towards Mocco City constantly, which gradually increased the thickness of the corpses outside the city gate.

Zhang Tie didn’t daub that kind of ointment which was used to prevent from the invasion of the stink of corpses; instead, he just gnawed his bread, chewed his ham slices and meat. In the strong smell and battle fires, he walked onto the city wall and started to check the situation outside the city.

After several hours, the corpses of demonized puppets outside the north city gate grew 2 m higher. However, demonized puppets kept rushing in. At this moment, the demonized puppets were not in bare hands anymore; they all held a corpse or a part of the corpse in front of them as their shield and food.

Demonized puppets constantly rushed towards the north city gate with others’ corpses as the shield against the powerful defensive weapons on the city wall. Some thirsty demonized puppets were even biting off fleshes from those rotten corpses as they uttered harsh shrieks. However, those demonized puppets who had reached the foot of the city directly dropped off their shields to narrow the distance between the top of the city wall and their heights.

Eating bread, drinking meat porridge, Zhang Tie just watched this bloody battle icily.

At least Mocco City was safe at this moment; however, it could not stand for too long. The guards outside Mocco City had already fulfilled their responsibilities at the cost of their lives. For guards inside Mocco City, it was the time for them to sacrifice themselves when the demonized puppets almost reached the top of the city wall.

The north city wall of Mocco City was higher than 30 m. At this moment, the corpses of demonized puppets had been 15 m in height, leaving 20 m for the demonized puppets to rush into Mocco City.

About 7-8 miles away, where the steam centrifugal shells could not reach, was gathering more demonized puppets compared to one week ago. Looking away in the distance, Zhang Tie saw nearly 2-3 million demonized puppets which covered the entire plain. Those demonized puppets were also waiting patiently for the moment when they could directly run onto the city wall...

...