Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 152: Wallbreakers

“Fire at will,” Zac said with a steady voice and nodded to the grinning beastmen.

The tense situation hadn’t affected them, and they gleefully made some last adjustments to their three cannons before they fired them. An insanely loud explosion was heard from each of them, and a shockwave even threw away the people closest to the cannons.

Zac knew those cannons would pack quite a punch, but he was shocked at the scene in front of him. He had barely time to register that the projectiles weren’t pellets or cannonballs before the three shots landed. One unfortunately veered completely off-course, but the others headed for the incoming army in the distance who quickly erected a group shield.

A blinding light flashed and a terrifying explosion rattled Zac’s eardrums a second later. When he looked out at the battlefield again two huge craters of over 50 meters diameter could be seen, with dead or wounded rockmen all over. Their shields clearly were of little to no use against those horrifying bombs the crazy tinkerers had created with Nexus Crystals.

Unfortunately one of the projectiles hadn’t gone off, but the power of those who did was amazing.

Zac hoped they could fire off a few more salvos, but a look over at the Ishiate engineers dashed any hope of them being able to shoot the Nexus Crystal infused bombs again. The three cannons were destroyed beyond recognition, with their barrels completely twisted and deformed. Two of the tinkerers were also down on the ground bleeding from cannon shrapnel, though it looked like they would be fine.

“Send scout parties to the sides of the wall in case the other forces tries to flank us,” Zac said to Ilvere, who nodded and sent a few parties away.

“Ibtep, Joanna,” Zac continued. “Your forces will stay on the wall for this one. Be ready to flee if needed. These rockmen are too high-leveled. Save your strength for the undead.”

Both nodded in confirmation.

Zac was about to continue, but the huge boulders that were floating above the Rockmen suddenly shot out like bullets, soaring toward the wall.

“Shit!” Zac screamed seeing the gigantic incoming projectiles.

“Take the middle ones, I’ll destroy as many as I can to the right, and Ilvere the ones to the left. The others will have to dodge,” Ogras said.

“Start shooting,” Zac shouted at the Valkyries who stood ready at the siege machines, as he got ready with his axe.

The siege machines taken from Rydel were mainly in the type of ballistae, each made with high-grade materials and having inscribed projectiles. None of the shots were close in power to the monstrous cannons of the Ishiate, but they were easily reloaded and one shot after another flew at the enemies.

Another huge shield was erected at the attackers after the initial blast from the cannons, and most of the large bolts were stopped in their tracks from the screen. However, Zac knew that every time one of the inscribed bolts slammed into the magic wall the attackers lost some of their cosmic energy, just like it cost Crystals maintaining his array when it was attacked.

The huge rocks finally arrived close to the wall, and Zac charged up as many blades of [Chop] as he could, ready on wall walk to intercept them. After some hesitation, he infused his blades with the Dao of Heaviness and launched his blades in quick order. The blades slammed into a huge boulder one by one, not one missing its target.

As his attacks cut into the stones Zac frowned when he realized that they were imbued with some power as well. The fractal blades managed to destroy the boulders, though barely. The stone fractured into smaller pieces, each around half a meter in diameter. Zac immediately threw a worried glance over at Illvere, who launched his huge ball on its chain toward his boulder.

Unfortunately the demon general only managed to create some cracks in the stone and had to scamper out of harm’s way when the projectile slammed into the wall, completely destroying a section of it. Similar scenes could be seen on various spots of the wall, where large cracks or tears were created.

A few of the ballistae were destroyed as well, though most were left unscathed. The loss of life was manageable as most of the armies were gathered at the length that Zac and Ogras protected. Still, a few casualties could be spotted, mainly amongst those on the edges of the army.

The army of stonemen seemed content to stay at the distance, even though their shield no longer could protect them properly from the ballista projectiles. Some ripped through the magic membrane and killed anything within an area of a few meters.

Normally the bolts should have created more mayhem, but the bolts were inscribed with a lightning attack, and the golems seemed quite resistant. Bursts of lightning bolts flashed amongst the golem-people, but the effect was clearly limited, as only those right next to the bolt were noticeably affected.

“We can’t let this go on,” Zac said with a frown as he saw new boulders rise from the earth.

Ogras who usually preferred the safe option actually nodded, and without another word the two jumped down from the wall and rushed toward the attackers. They wordlessly came to the same conclusion. They would have to attack the army the same way they did with the psychic wolves.

If the enemies didn’t want to come to them, then they would rush at the enemies.

Zac once again charged five huge blades with [Chop] as they ran, and unhesitantly shot them at the same part of the shield in front of them. They slammed into the shield one after another, and finally at the fourth blade it broke through, hitting the defenders behind it.

The black golemoids erected personal shields to intercept the two remaining fractal edges, and with concerted effort managed to stop the first one. But the last one created some carnage as Zac had actually imbued it with the Dao of Sharpness.

Zac took advantage of the opening and with [Loamwalker] stepped into the breach, and without pause started swinging [Verun’s Bite]. Having once poisoned himself with Cosmos Water had one positive side effect. He had become extremely adept at energy control since he fought the whole first wave without being able to properly restore his energy with crystals or gathering arrays.

Zac’s attacks generally consumed almost no energy, and he only activated his skills for the shortest possible duration. Everything was in order to last as long as possible, allowing him to keep fighting for hours.

Ogras wasnʼt as careful with his energy, and the familiar pond of shadows spread out amongst the enemies, reaping one life after another.

However, the rockmen were no weaklings and they mounted a furious resistance to himself and Ogras. It quickly became clear that these things mainly followed two types of heritage. Rocks and ice.

The mages manipulated earth, or to a certain extent their own bodies, in order to launch all sorts of attacks at Zac. It even felt like their skill in stone manipulation was a notch above that of the earth mage demons.

Zac also saw that they weren’t some type of stone golems like he and Ogras suspected since they bled when they were cut down. The blood was blue and the splotches that his Zacs face told him it was cold, but it was blood nonetheless.

The other type of attackers mainly manipulated ice. They either used the element to create surprisingly sturdy weapons or shoot small icicles out as hard-to-notice projectiles.

All in all Zac felt that the fighters were quite strong, but not to the point that it would become a problem for him. He surmised their average power was somewhere around level 50 to 60, if they were average warriors without any special advantages such as unique titles.

Compared with himself with his enormous amount of attributes the assailers could only delay Zac, but not stop his onslaught. They would be free Contribution Points unless they threw out some of their elites soon.

Still, he wasn’t able to quickly dispatch them as he’d hoped. Their rocky exterior made them quite resilient, and they had dedicated defenders to keep the others safe. One wall after another, either wrought from earth or ice, stopped his advance, forcing him to redirect his swings.

It also meant that he couldn’t send down the average demon soldiers to help out, as they were about as strong on average compared to these assailers. There were only roughly 150 demon warriors, while there were quite a few more rockmen.

Only the true elites dared to venture out every now and then for a blitz attack, before rushing back to safety. But even though they were careful they sustained some wounds as they were pelted by a throng of ice projectiles. Zacʼs only other backup was the siege machines who focused fire on the areas of the army far from Zac and Ogras.

Even if Zac was far stronger compared to the golemoids it was a chore to fight with only two hands against a sea of fighters. It reminded him of his desperate escape from the monkey horde once upon a time.

A few of them did everything they could to intercept his attacks, while the others pelted him from a range. Even though he was strong he wasn’t invulnerable, so most of his time was spent dodging or circumventing the endless walls in the end.

The attacks were quite strong after all, and Zac couldn’t just shrug them off like he usually did with the wolves. He was already starting to accumulate some wounds, though between his gear and Endurance they were only superficial.

Worse yet, the weird attackers had no problem in launching more projectiles while Zac and Ogras killed their way around their ranks. The demon warriors could block a few of the boulders using the same sort of group shield they used during the monkey war, but many still slammed into the wall, and gradually destroyed the fortifications.

Suddenly the rockmen started to retreat, actually sacrificing some of their warriors to keep the duo occupied. Soon Zac and Ogras stood panting next to each other, both covered in blue blood and overlooking a battlefield with hundreds of dead aliens.

Zac sighed as he walked through the battlefield to put the ballista bolts into a cosmos sack. It would be easier to repair them than create new ones from scratch, and he knew he would need to use the ballista again soon.

As he traversed the battlefield he grimaced as he surveyed the damages on the wall. Huge cracks and missing sections all along a section of hundreds of meters made the fortification look like part of some ruins rather than a habituated town. There was no way that the demons would be able to fix it in short order.

Zac didn’t understand what was going on. It almost felt like the rockmen had a vendetta with the wall, rather than trying to fight Port Atwood’s forces. They sacrificed a significant number of their warriors just to make some cracks in it.

It made no sense after having fought them for over an hour. The stonemen were strong enough that a normal wall without the boost of an array would offer little to no hindrance if they wanted to attack head-on.

They could simply have climbed it in seconds and brought the fight to a melee with the demon army, instead of getting bogged down with himself and Ogras. That would have caused significant casualties to his forces, rather than the small losses from errant boulders.

Ogras seemed to be of the same mind as he surveyed the corpses in the area with a frown.

“I think they are sacrifices,” Ogras hesitantly said. “There is only one force that would be impacted by the wall. The undead. The Zealots and the rockmen could simply ignore it. But the stupid Zombies would act like the wolves, even when commanded by a leader. They might try to climb the wall, but they would likely fail, becoming prime targets for our warriors to farm some Nexus Coins.

“So these things are working with the Undead?” Zac asked skeptically.

“They’re probably coerced. No one wants to be fodder. It would be the same with Clan Azh’Rezak if we were in their situation. The Undead Empire and the Church of Everlasting Dao are both huge entities in the multi-verse. They could just order around minor forces to do their bidding, and the forces would have to comply due to fear of impacting their home planet otherwise,” Ogras answered with a shake of his head.

“They are being used as a wall breaker while simultaneously testing the waters,” Zac realized with a sigh.

“Yeah. Our only hope now is that they still don’t realize that we don’t possess arrays, and that we simply don’t care about the walls. But those assholes in the undead army are probably laughing it up right now.”

Suddenly Zac felt a slight tingling of danger, and quickly turned toward the forest. As if summoned by Ogras’ words a dour man stood at the crest of the woods, emitting a dense and powerful aura.

It was a humanoid being standing over two meters tall. On his back was a sinister weapon that looked like a hook that was almost as long as the man himself, completely wrought out of bone. It only took one glance to tell what force this thing came from. The man was deathly pale, while his eyes shone a sinister red.

However, the man wasn’t some handsome vampire, rather a walking corpse. There was no rotting flesh, but there was a strong sense of undeath, and the man could by no metrics be called handsome.

“Shit, it’s the big boss himself,” Ogras muttered and readied his spear.