Lord of Rot

Chapter 471: Chapter 416: Collapse on All Fronts

The siege had begun.

Mama City held a significant geographical advantage. Built atop a sand peak, the towering castle looked even more impregnable than Iron Wall Castle.

It was ringed by mountains, and the open road before it was flanked to the southwest by a large lake.

There were few viable approaches for an assault.

Viscount Matthew, leader of the Wild Boar Mercenary Corps, had already started conscripting Transcendents. Unfortunately, they had only managed to gather ten in total.

‘If only Jones and the others were still here…’

He was once again consumed by regret. If he hadn’t decided to take Bonta Market on a whim, if he had gathered all his forces instead… Attacking Mama City with twenty or thirty Transcendents now—what an overwhelming advantage that would have been!

The one small mercy was that Baron Porcupine hadn’t committed his three thousand soldiers to the fight. After all, they had no legitimate reason to conquer a Viscount’s desert territory—not unless Baron Porcupine intended to declare war on the Water Buffalo Count.

‘Still, just taking Mama City shouldn’t be too hard.’

The Wooden Curtain Carriages had been constructed.

These were massive, wheeled carts. A huge shield, pieced together from thick wooden planks, hung from the top. It could block arrows from the front and above, allowing the attackers to rapidly close the distance to the castle during a siege.

It was like setting up a target for the soldiers on the walls to shoot at.

A war of attrition was an indispensable part of any siege.

WHOOSH—THWACK!

An arrow struck the wooden shield dead-on, its fletching quivering.

Arrows rained down from the soldiers on the distant walls, but the massive wooden shields blocked them all.

The Wooden Curtain Carriages advanced steadily, and the soldiers on the walls could do nothing to stop them.

Lisu Muma, the “Desert Pearl,” wielded her crossbow and fired back sporadically.

She tried using arrows soaked in pitch, but pitch was a precious strategic resource. It was scarce worldwide, and her reserves were low. Moreover, the enemy’s Wooden Curtain Carriages had been specially treated, making them difficult to ignite.

The two sides remained at a stalemate for most of the day. As the sun set, they mutually ceased hostilities.

On the city wall, soldiers held out their bowls as women in aprons moved between them in pairs, carrying basins. They ladled out hot soup for each man and gave them a piece of bread.

At least the large shipment of grain from the Porcupine Merchant Team had staved off a food crisis for the time being. They wouldn’t have to fight to the death on empty stomachs.

The soldiers hastily finished their dinner in the twilight. Their bodies were wracked with exhaustion, but no one dared to rest. They had to keep their eyes peeled, standing guard on the wall. If they dozed off and the mercenaries breached the city, they might never open their eyes again.

‘The most important thing was to keep an eye on the siege engines. They absolutely could not let those things get a single step closer to the main gate!’

Of course, Lisu Muma couldn’t stay on the wall indefinitely. She had a more important role to play.

After dinner, she went to meet with the Porcupine Merchant Team and the Transcendents residing in the city. The results were heartening: she successfully secured their help.

They could barely scrape together ten Transcendents.

However, the defense of Mama City had not yet reached a critical point. The enemy’s battering rams, siege ladders, and siege towers were not yet complete, so the pressure on the defenders wasn’t overwhelming.

The real trouble would begin the moment their ladders touched the walls.

Late that night, the mercenaries launched another surprise attack. The scale of the assault was small, but this time, three men from Mama City were killed by arrows from below—after a day of defense with zero casualties.

‘It must have been a Transcendent.’ Because the head of the soldier who was hit had exploded. When other soldiers went to recover the body, all they could find was a piece of a jawbone, a mostly intact right ear, and an eyeball stuck to a tongue.

A wave of panic swept through the defenders.

But after that one harassing volley, the mercenaries went back to sleep. Even their night watch could be done in shifts; their overwhelming numbers allowed them to rest as they pleased.

The soldiers on Mama City’s walls, however, dared not rest. They endured the long night, staying awake until dawn.

「By morning.」

The mercenary force launched another assault, following the same pattern as before: a war of attrition, focused mainly on harassment.

The Wooden Curtain Carriages advanced with infantry following close behind.

The soldiers on the walls, tense after a sleepless night, fought through their exhaustion and began firing again to hinder the advance.

Even though they knew the enemy’s siege ladders had not arrived and their battering ram wasn’t ready, meaning a full-scale assault was unlikely for now, they couldn’t just let the enemy approach uncontested. Once ground was lost, it would be difficult to reclaim.

As the wearying defense dragged on, some of the soldiers’ movements became numb and mechanical as they loosed their arrows.

Things changed on the third day. It wasn’t because the mercenaries had a crisis of conscience and decided to retreat, but because their battering ram and siege ladders were finally ready.

The three thousand armored mercenaries suddenly stopped their probing attacks. They abandoned all tactics and charged directly for Mama City. The spectacular sight was like an unstoppable torrent of steel. The ground trembled faintly, just as the hearts of the defenders did.

A few scattered arrows flew from the walls in a futile attempt to slow them, only to be blocked by a sea of raised shields.

The arrows that found their way into the crowd vanished like stones dropped into the ocean, leaving no trace.

Viscount Matthew was absolutely confident he would breach Mama City this time. The battering ram he had commissioned had six wheels and required twelve men to push.

A sloped, triangular roof made of wooden planks was built over the ram, providing effective cover from arrows and even falling rubble from the walls.

The one small relief for the defenders was that Viscount Matthew, wanting to protect “his” future city, had chosen not to use catapults for a destructive breach. For a man with such an overwhelming advantage, the difference between using catapults and not was merely the lives of a few more or less mercenaries.

In other words, no difference at all!

Their absolute numerical superiority sent the attackers’ morale soaring.

Staring down at the terrifying numbers below, the defending soldiers on the walls couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat.

As the horde of mercenaries surged to the base of the wall, someone shouted an order: “Drop the stones!”

Huge chunks of rock rained down. There was no need to aim; each one was guaranteed to smash into a cluster of men below.

Even those who managed to raise their shields were sent staggering by the sheer weight of the impact. The unlucky ones took a rock to the head; their flimsy helmets offered no protection against such a heavy blow, and they dropped to the ground instantly.

One couldn’t expect the three thousand men surging forward to pay any mind to their comrades underfoot. To fall to the ground meant being trampled to death.

More mercenaries died under the feet of their own comrades than from arrows and stones.

BOOM!

As the battering ram struck, the main gate shook violently. Up on the wall, Lisu Muma quickened her rate of fire.

But it was useless. She could only watch helplessly as the gate buckled and warped under the repeated blows.

She had already stationed a squad of soldiers behind the gate. When the gate of Mama City was breached, that squad would defend it to the last man, facing death without fear. ‘But can they hold back three thousand men… I can only pray the Immortal Spirits grant them the strength to hold on a little longer.’

The mercenaries pressed their attack on multiple fronts. Seizing an opportunity, they began raising the siege ladders.

Ladders slammed against the city wall one after another. The soldiers immediately tried to push them away, drop stones, or pour burning pitch on them.

But with the soldiers on the wall no longer firing arrows, they were no longer providing suppressive fire. The distant archers and crossbowmen were immediately relieved of pressure. They could now fire freely at the ramparts. A dense volley of arrows pierced four of Mama City’s defenders in quick succession, finally pinning the rest down so they didn’t dare show their heads.

At this point, there was no one left to stop the mercenaries from ascending the siege ladders.

The mercenaries began scaling the ladders. As long as they held their shields overhead, they were almost impervious to any attack from above.

The entire defensive line collapsed!