Release that Witch

By the time that the soldiers realized what was happening, it was too late for them to adjust another machine gun in order to take aim, so they directly pulled out the revolving rifles tied on their backs to fire at the enemy.

The long sword shoved in the invisible monster’s body was now giving away its trail, making it an easy target for it to aim at. At such a short distance, Brian and all the other men fire all their bullets at once. The hail of bullets swept over Edith’s head and she could even hear the whoosh sounds as the bullets tore through the air.

She turned back and saw the distorted air had solidified as a monster emerged out of the void. It was bloodcurdling. The monster wore a taupe shell all over and was nearly two meters tall while standing. A height that would allow it to tower over most ordinary men. Apart from a pair of forelegs as sharp as sickles, it also had seven or eight pairs of supportive legs sticking out of its abdomen. Luckily, the bullets were fierce enough to pierce through its shell, and they finally cracked open the monster’s thin, long and locust-like head. It twitched a little and fell to the ground, bathed in blood.

”Get out of my way!” Suddenly, someone roared behind Edith.

A heavy sword proceeded the voice, piercing through the air with a strong power that caused the blade to buzz. It smashed right in the space before the first machine gun squad, blowing away the other two monsters and dispelling the invisible rippling air.

Hard on the heels of Ashes’ strike, several God’s Punishment Witches moved forward to slash the enemies, tearing their bodies into halves before they managed to get to their feet.

”The reinforcements finally arrived.” Edith let out a sigh of relief as she realized it.

The enemies had lost their advantage of invisibility, plus with their small numbers, it had not taken long before the Transcendent Warriors dismembered all of them.

Edith noted that as the monsters inched nearer to the God’s Punishment Witches, their form turned weird, half of their body invisible in the void while the other half was revealed in the light as if their hiding skills had been abated.

”Are you alright?” Margie pulled Edith to her feet. ”We spotted these enemies on the cliff and moved as fast as we could, but we’re still a little too late.”

”You spotted them with the colorful Magic Stone?”

”Yes.” Another tall man came up to her. ”Weapons of common people don’t work well in this kind of situation. You’d better inform the people above to bring more God’s Punishment Witches down here.”

Edith remembered her name was Betty. She asked, ”You’re capable of destroying their camouflage?”

”It’s a trick that works the same way as the God’s Stone of Retaliation.” The man shrugged. ”So far, it can only deactivate their invisibility skill for a short period of time.”

”But they also wear God’s Stone of Retaliation. How could they not see the enemy?” Brian asked with his teeth gnashed, as he looked at the three dead men on the ground.

”It’s not surprising,” Betty answered calmly. ”For light, distance, and attention will all affect our sights. A general God’s Stone works only within the area of one or two paces. Since the enemies only exposed in our visions for less than a second, it was reasonable that they couldn’t see the targets, not to mention in such a dim place.”

Edith could not help sighing. Betty was right. They had not noticed the sickle monsters until they showed their half bodies during the fight. The beasts’ long forelegs and invisibility skills had given them a great advantage. It was undoubtedly too late for ordinary people to react, even though they had sensed something wrong. There would have been no way for the First Army to defeat them unless they had buried God’s Stones beforehand to give them a clearer view to see through the enemies’ disguises.

”Damn it!” Brian wielded his fist fiercely. ”I should have sent down the wire netting first!”

”I think we should go back. I have a feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen in the hole,” Betty urged again. ”The weird shriek almost startled the entire snow mountain.”

”Did you hear that too?” Edith asked in surprise.

”Losing most of our sense of touch has made our eyes and ears extraordinarily sharp...” Betty studied Edith for a little while before replying. ”I didn’t expect that a common person would be capable of hearing the sound too.”

Sure enough, it was not her illusion to hear the sound. Edith nodded as she removed her God’s Stone of Retaliation and threw it next to the machine gun. She and the other men gathered around Margie who weaved the Magic Ark. Together they descended to the bottom and then ascended along the steep wall. Brian, the leader of the Gun Battalion, was slightly reluctant to hand over the frontline to the Taquila witches, but had to follow the trend. After all, once the God’s Punishment witches were involved in the fight, they could not ignore the witches and fire at the enemies recklessly.

The men who were stationed at the Blackstone Pagoda were unclear of the details of the battle at the bottom of the hole, so they kept sending down equipment such as tents, God’s Stones, guns and ammunition etc. After Brian commanded the soldiers to stop transporting, they did not transfer to the vacant steam-engine-powered elevator but continued to ride the Ark to ascend.

Just as they were approaching the worm passage, a hail of gunfire broke out above them, causing a sound as if a mighty storm were striking. That meant that the First Army which was guarding at the sentry post, had opened fire without leaving themselves a loop-hole.

Their faces changed. Margie pumped up all of her power to accelerate the Ark.

As the Magic Ark dashed out of the hole, Edith could not help widening her eyes.

Body parts were showering down from the upper cave. Three machine gun squads that were lined up in one formation were firing at the pitch-dark ceiling of the cave under Sylvie’s command. The revolvers and precision shooting squad concentrated on handling the blind corners above them, firing at the cave wall without taking aim.

”What are you fighting against?” Brian caught one man and asked.

”Demonic beasts, my lord!” the man reported as he was loading ammunition. ”A pack of demonic beasts charged down from snow mountain!”

”Damn it! Why do they bother us at this time?”

A thought suddenly flashed through Edith’s mind.

”Could the muffled buzz be the sound of it summoning its own kind?”

It was something she had read from His Majesty’s book, a unique sound in this world that was inaudible to the human ear but was particularly clear to some creatures. Some species were even able to make such sounds to help them communicate with each other in their own way. Was it possible that the sound they had heard was a kind of signal between the same species?

However, Misfortunes did not come alone. When Brian was watching the battle, one man ran in and reported to him, ”My lord, Lady Maggie spotted the abnormal trail of demonic beasts in the east to Misty Forest. They seemed to be marching on the snow mountain, moving towards Neverwinter as we expected.”

”What? This...” The leader of Gun Battalion was stunned for a moment.

”My lord?” the man asked urgently. ”What do we do?”

”How can this... How can this be...” Brian muttered repeatedly, his face grim, his forehead sweaty.

Edith frowned at Brian’s inexperienced behavior. In her view, a leader should never wear a bewildered look openly, especially in front of his men.

”Ahem,” she interrupted, ”things are simpler than you think. First, if we summon back the First Army deployed outside the snow mountain and gather them to guard the cave, the battlefront will be much smaller and only a few machine guns will be needed to stifle the attack of the demonic beasts.”

Brian turned to look at her. It took him a long while, but he managed to compose himself. ”Exa-Exactly,” he stuttered.

”Second, tell Lady Maggie to contact His Majesty and ask for reinforcements, just in case. After all, our ammunition and food are supplied through Redwater River. Once we give up the entrenched passage, our battle couldn’t last long because of the lack of replenishment.” Edith said calmly and clearly. ”The beasts can’t swim, so we should keep the cement ships and deploy a dozen of men who will help to pin down the enemy as well as guide the reinforcements.”

”Lady Sylvie’ll be responsible for annihilating the demonic beasts on the ceiling of the cave. Temporarily, we should collect everyone’s God’s Stones and bury them at the sentry post in case of sneak attack from the enemy. Lastly, remember to send the Taquila witches to the bottom of the hole to support Betty so that she’ll have enough men to march on the south of the riverway to look for Agatha and the other witches.” Edith’s composed voice eased the tension and discomposure among the crowd. ”We must send the witches to Betty as soon as possible. If I’m not wrong, the source of the weird sound will be the key to solving our problem.”

Brian inhaled deeply and said, ”I see. Let’s do as you suggested.”