The Golem Mage

Chapter 1213: Battle Of Wits [1].

#The scene shifted to the top of the city gate in the city sector under Titan’s interim rule.

The Zerg swarm was rapidly advancing toward the city, at a very fast pace. Fortunately for Titan, there were very few residents who had remained in the city, and those few who had decided to stay were very disciplined enough to obey orders, and they had swiftly retreated toward the secure bunkers Jake had constructed across all his cities.

Jake had established these shelters to ensure the populace remained safe whenever conflict inevitably arrived, although he wished he could guarantee them long-lasting peace and protection, however; Alec was realistic enough to know that trouble seemed to follow him wherever he went.

Four cannons had been erected across distinct sections of the city wall, encased in a layer of frost, as they appeared seamlessly integrated to the wall, as if they had always belonged to the fortifications rather than artillery that had been conjured from thin air a few moments ago.

Alongside them, two new archer towers now stood etched along the towering city wall of steel and ice, another specialty that Titan’s city differs from the other cities.

Even the archer towers appeared to have been conjured through ice magic, due to the way they were seamlessly anchored along the city’s defensive walls.

“Spread out!” Bulwark commanded the ice mage unit to disperse along the battlements, as they were deviating from their usual offensive tactics, they were prepared to try the defending tactics for now while preparing for the siege.

This change was brought about because they were well aware that they were outnumbered, so they held back from any impulse actions like charging into the open field to contest with the swarm to see who is more powerful in a hot blooded battle, instead they were relying on the battlements to maximize their advantage against the approaching Zerg swarm.

The captain-rank golems under Titan’s command stationed themselves across the icy ramparts.

With one of such captain rank ice golem capable of manifesting an elemental bow taking a position inside one of the archer towers, as he was cooped up together with a fraction of his unit, he occupied the freshly manifested towers to secure the perimeter, while another group he assigned took the other archer tower.

As the advancing Zerg reached the hundred-meter mark, Titan who was hovering in midair with his hands folded behind his back, extended his right hand forward in that moment and issued a single order:

“Fire!”

It was a straightforward order, yet it unleashed a devastating barrage across four distinct locations, the ice mage soldiers stationed at the artillery posts acted in unison, igniting the cannons.

Boom! Boom! ... Boom! Boom!

A series of muffled detonations reverberated as the icy projectiles arced gracefully through the sky, rapidly closing in on their designated targets.

Unlike conventional artillery shells that erupt into fiery blasts, these ordinance impacts burst into dense clouds of frigid mist, and those caught directly in the epicenter were instantly flash-frozen into solid statues of ice, death by a dangerous cold.

Even those on the outer periphery of the blast radius did not escape unscathed, finding portions of their bodies being coated in frost.

It was then they started to realize that the true danger of the frost lay in the lingering debuff effect it has: once attached to a lifeform, the frost gradually begins to spread across the flesh, drastically reducing the victims’ movement speed.

The severity of the debuff also depended on how much area the ice covered, for the advancing Zergs, even a fraction of a second’s delay proved fatal, as hundreds more behind them surged forward with unwavering momentum toward the city walls.

As a result, those slowed by the encroaching frost were swiftly trampled by the momentum of the swarm behind them.

Meanwhile, the still unyielding ice mages unit operating the ice cannons kept up a relentless barrage under Glacius’s orders, firing stream after stream of frozen ordnance to deny the Zerg a clear path toward the city walls.

Above them, on the archer towers the archers provided them with targeted cover fire, though their volume of fire appeared lower and definitely couldn’t be compared to the amount of lives that the cannon had taken, still yet each shot was deliberate.

Rather than wasting arrows on the sea of basic Crawlers, they focused exclusively on those they believed were higher-ranking Zergs, which could be easily identifiable by their distinct, mutated physical traits.

Suddenly, a new strain of Zergs surged to the frontline, and unlike the four-legged Crawlers, these Zergs charged forward erect on two feet, what made them truly formidable, however, was their heavy bone structure, a dense exoskeletal armor plating their exposed muscle.

As soon as these heavy-armored variants took the vanguard, they reacted swiftly to incoming cannon fire, the moment the next set of cannonballs arced toward them, they leaped straight into the air, their forelimbs morphing into long, jagged bone blades, and with a fierce slash, they unleashed a wild and devouring wave of Qi, cleaving the projectiles cleanly in half.

Intercepted mid-flight, the frozen cannonballs detonated high above the battlefield, discharging their compressed icy payloads harmlessly into the sky long before reaching their intended targets.

Although a fine mist of frozen particles rained down on the advancing swarm, however the force of the cleavage had already dissipated the core of the frost energy, and a quick flare of the zergs Qi was all it took for them to shake off the lingering ice sticking to their exoskeletons.

“My lord!” Bulwark called out, looking up at Titan, who remained hovering just above the wall’s watchtower.

Bulwark was clearly eager to lead a ground assault while the ice mages unit provided them artillery cover, but Titan simply shook his head.

He held his captains back from engaging, since he sensed that this Zerg unit was far too coordinated; to an ordinary observer, it might have seemed like a simple, mindless wave of crawler-type Zergs advancing, but he knew better.

By his rough calculations, roughly seven thousand Zergs were approaching, and given their disciplined movement patterns, he was certain a lower-rank queen was hidden somewhere within the swarm.