Chapter 1308: A Surprise

For the past seven centuries, the Sentinel Tower had been a dreaded presence that monsters roaming the wasteland instinctively avoided—even the mindless aberrations and the wandering spirits born from abandoned arcane energies would steer clear of this towering structure. Its immense power constantly radiated purifying beams, making it a perilous fortress no creature dared approach in large numbers. An outright assault on the Sentinel Tower was unheard of.

But today, most of the tower’s defenses were offline. The ancient warning devices scattered around its base were powerless against the amassed aberration legions. Worse still, a command from the upper command node had overridden the instinctive resistance embedded in the chaotic minds of these monsters. At a single order, tens of thousands of aberrations and arcane spirits shifted their course, turning their terrifying spearhead toward the grand tower perched atop the wasteland highlands.

Meanwhile, countless aberrations continued to pour from the depths of the wasteland, reinforcing the battlefront along the barrier’s edge. The human forces there were under relentless pressure, struggling to hold back the tide. These stubborn mortals were powerless to stop the aberrations’ advance.

From a high vantage point, the entire wasteland border was a roiling sea of filthy, layered waves. Trapped behind the grand wall for seven centuries, the nearly endless aberrations answered the “command signal,” continuously feeding into the assaulting legions battering the boundary. The once-imposing walls were going dark, section by section. The shimmering energy barriers were riddled with growing breaches. The human soldiers fought desperately at these gaps, trying to plug the holes, but the breaches only widened, spiraling toward disaster.

A half-man, half-tree creature stood on the former northern border of Gondor, gazing out from a high hill. The vast army surged like a tide, crashing against the barrier’s breaches and the magnificent Sentinel Tower still floating in midair. He saw a spearhead of aberrations finally reach the tower’s base—a colossal mutated beast nearly the size of a city gate halted on the plain before the tower. Surrounded by countless cannon fodder, these massive “beasts,” their flesh pulsing with corrupted blood, lowered themselves, anchoring to the ground with twisted limbs. From their backs, parallel bone spines stretched upward, pointing directly at the floating tower.

Between the bone spines, bright arcs of electricity crackled. Highly compressed arcane energy screamed sharply through the air. After a brief charge, a beam cannon-like blast tore through the sky, striking the magnificent tower with brutal force.

Ripples spread rapidly across the tower’s surface. Its innate energy shield absorbed the high-energy beam unleashed by the giant aberration. Then, a few arcane devices at the tower’s base sputtered to life, firing scattered counterattacks—arcane missiles and electric arcs sweeping across the wasteland. This last line of automated defense felled some aberrations that ventured too close, but more “beasts” gathered on the plain, and relentless high-energy beams continued to hammer the tower’s upper structure.

The distant thunder of artillery shook the earth. The air thickened with a pungent, acrid stench that frayed the nerves of the soldiers. The ground trembled beneath their feet, the clouds above seemed to burn, yet in the eyes of the young communications officer, only one thing mattered: the signal relay hub, half-buried and silent, just ahead.

Findel Wilde led the last four soldiers through the toxic wasteland, littered with jagged rocks and swirling dust. Winds stirred by the collapse of the grand wall whipped his silver hair into disarray. His once-pristine uniform was now dirt-streaked and torn, a bleeding wound visible beneath a ripped sleeve. He crossed a low natural stone wall, and a few hundred meters away, the unresponsive communications relay bunker came into view. The concrete dome, half-buried underground, still looked mostly intact.

“No signs of attack,” Findel quickly assessed. “Probably the energy released during the grand wall’s collapse damaged some internal structure of the relay. A small mercy.”

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief and stepped forward. But then, a soldier trailing behind suddenly pointed to the sky and shouted, “Sir! Look over there!”

“There’s—” Findel started to shout, but when he looked up in the direction the soldier indicated, the rest of his words caught in his throat.

The floating Sentinel Tower was erupting in bright arcs of electricity. Corrupted red energy spheres slammed repeatedly into its midsection. The tower’s remaining energy at the top was already waning, and under the relentless assault, the faint light curtains extending from its sides began to collapse faster. The thinning energy shield flickered like a candle in the wind, on the verge of extinction.

“They’re trying to destroy the tower completely!” another soldier cried in terror. “If that tower falls, even if the elves reboot their barrier, this breach on our side will never be sealed!”

Findel’s eyes widened. The soldier’s alarm echoed in his ears. The flashes atop the distant tower burned in his vision. But as a communications officer with only a handful of men, trapped in the vast battlefield’s lower ranks, he suddenly realized he was powerless to stop any of this.

Yet in the next moment, his gaze snapped to the nearby communications relay. The howling cold wind of the wasteland cleared his mind. Ignoring the pointless pang of personal despair, he rallied his remaining soldiers and charged toward the bunker.

The exterior of the bunker was undamaged. Findel and his men quickly entered the half-buried fortification. At first glance, he saw the arcane network terminal at the center of the artificial pit, now dark and lifeless, and two Cecil soldiers lying dead nearby.

There were no signs of enemy attack around the bodies, but their chests bore horrifying burn and puncture wounds. The ground near the terminal was scorched by intense heat. The energy amplification arrays and backup mana crystals that should have been nearby were reduced to charred fragments.

During the grand wall’s collapse, random energy pulses had been unleashed. One of these pulses likely swept through this communications outpost, causing critical equipment to overload and fail. The soldiers stationed here probably tried to save the vital arcane terminal, rushing to the equipment at the pit’s center, only to be killed by a sudden explosion of the energy devices—explaining the fatal chest wounds.

Findel’s eyes scanned the fallen comrades, piecing together what had happened. There was no time to bury them now. He ordered his men to move the bodies aside, clearing space to repair the equipment. Then he crouched beside the arcane terminal, beginning to replace the burnt-out components.

As he worked, one soldier nearby frowned and whispered uneasily, “Sir, do you feel it? The ground beneath us keeps shaking.”

“The entire strip of plains is shaking,” Findel replied without looking up. “That’s the distant artillery and the aberrations attacking the Sentinel Tower. Stop wasting time. If we linger here too long, the shaking won’t be the only thing you’ll have to worry about.”

“Yes, sir,” the soldier answered quickly, but after a moment, he muttered again, “It feels like the shaking’s getting stronger… like something’s coming closer…”

Findel ignored the murmurs. He swiftly installed the new components into the terminal’s empty slots, then used his own magic to inscribe rune plates on the melted circuits. While working, he glanced anxiously toward the narrow window facing the Gondor wasteland. Through the slit, he saw the floating Sentinel Tower’s shield flickering violently. The entire structure trembled, and a piercing, unsettling howl rose from the plains, rattling everyone’s nerves.

Then, a low hum suddenly emanated from the base of the arcane terminal. The darkened, damaged device flickered back to life in his hands, and communication was restored.

The focusing crystal dimly lit up, projecting a blurry image. Findel had no time to fine-tune the system. Suppressing his racing heartbeat, he switched the device to emergency relay mode and broadcasted to every terminal he could reach:

“This is Cecil Communications Officer Findel Wilde. Emergency! Aberrations are attacking Sentinel Tower 98! Aberrations are attacking Sentinel Tower 98! I have visual on their assembly point. The main assault force is roughly southwest of the Black Hills—”

A thunderous explosion cut off Findel’s continuous calls and broadcasts, freezing every soldier inside the bunker. It even momentarily drowned out the howling artillery and the chaotic winds swirling between monsters and men.

Then came a second blast, followed by a series of shrill whistles and roars.

The last glow of the Sentinel Tower’s shield vanished amid the howling. A powerful beam cannon struck and destroyed a major energy conduit inside the tower. A deafening explosion echoed from above as the tower began to rupture—flames bursting through cracks that spread instantly. Uncontrolled energy resonated fatally between the tower’s base and its anti-gravity mechanisms.

The Sentinel Tower, guardian of this frontline for seven centuries, erupted in a chain of explosions. Its tough ancient alloy frame prevented it from shattering completely, but all its functions were irreparably lost. After a brief, violent tremor—like a dying giant’s final struggle—the colossal tower descended. It first crushed its own base, then flattened the hill beneath, before slowly, terrifyingly toppling toward the southeastern hills.

The energy barriers extending from the wings of the towering sentinel finally flickered out completely. A section of the grand wall’s structure vanished forever in that instant, leaving behind a terrifying breach stretching from the southern border of Cecile all the way to the northern defenses of Typhon.

Inside the communications bunker, a soldier stared dumbfounded at the dreadful scene in the distance. That barrier—standing firm for centuries at the edge of the civilized world, as if a natural law—had just been extinguished before his eyes. The shock overwhelmed all his tension and fear. Like the others around him, he simply stared blankly in that direction, and after a long moment, he forced out a voice from his throat: “Sir… the wall’s fallen…”

“I see it,” Findel ground out through clenched teeth, barely able to keep his composure. Though he was a freshly minted non-commissioned officer, he had to appear steady in front of his men. “We move immediately. Check the backup comm lines. That energy surge just now probably damaged our link with Typhon again. The arcane network terminals are full of static…”

Speaking quickly, Findel strode toward the bunker’s exit. He thought himself calm enough, but nearly tripped over a vibrant green vine snaking up from the soil nearby. Staggering forward, he caught hold of a support beam just in time to keep from falling. Standing at the fortification’s mouth, he gazed out toward the ruined lands of Gondor, the cold, biting wind whipping around him. For a moment, his mind went blank.

Then, as if suddenly realizing something, he whipped his head back to where he’d almost been tripped—toward that creeping vine.

…

The Sentinel Tower had fallen. The barrier that had sealed off the wasteland for seven centuries—the stubborn, foolish shield of mortals—had been torn open, leaving a permanent gap.

The druidic priest leading the assault on the northern defenses left his high ground. Surrounded by his guard, he reformed the spearhead of the aberrant legion, focusing their attack on the newly opened breach. A surge of exhilaration flooded his now-altered nervous system, washing away the frustration and anger that had built since the war began.

His anger was justified. From the start, reports from the legion’s various branches had been overwhelmingly positive. Nearly every unit pushing outward crushed the laughable “alliance” resistance like dry twigs. The wasteland’s armies had the advantage of surprise and overwhelming numbers, and victories came swiftly on every front—except here.

The Cecilians’ stubborn defense, and their almost irrational, neurotic accumulation of firepower, had made the aberrant legion’s assault on the northern line a nightmare.

The sheer volume of firepower that had blasted the land to rubble multiple times over was beyond anything a human could muster! Even the aberrations’ own neural feedback suggested the humans were the real monsters.

But now, everything was turning around. The humiliation of the failed assault was avenged the moment the Sentinel Tower collapsed.

No matter how resolute the Cecilians’ will, no matter how fierce their firepower, they could not hold back a breach that threatened to rip the very Black Mountains apart.

They could only watch helplessly as the tide of aberrations surged through their defenses, flooding into their homes, tearing apart their kin and friends.

“Give them a surprise they’ll never forget!”

The dark druid, a grotesque fusion of twisted trees and malformed human flesh, shouted. Under his will, the aberrations coalesced into a black tide, surging toward the mountain pass on the eastern side of the Black Mountains.

Then, he felt a tremor deep beneath the earth—

At first, he thought it was distant cannon fire. Then, he assumed it was his own forces shaking the scorched land.

But soon he realized it was neither. The tremor came from deeper still, from farther away.

It was as if some colossal, monstrous creature was burrowing through the soil, or some terrible structure was breaking through the earth’s crust.

“Archpriest!!!” a subordinate’s terrified scream cut through the dark druid’s thoughts. “Something’s coming up from underground!!”

The dark druid commanding the legion instinctively looked up, toward the front lines.

There, countless nightmarish, grotesque giant vines burst from the earth, instantly reshaping into towering trees. Thorny brambles lashed at the scorched earth that once lay beneath the grand wall. Strong aberrations, massive “beasts,” venomous bio-synthetic creatures, and arcane monsters—these fearsome entities were pierced one after another, lifted into the air, writhing desperately like flies caught in a Venus flytrap.

An immense green forest barrier was pushing through the borderlands of the Black Forest, forming in mere moments. Then, a vaguely familiar female voice somehow cut across the vast battlefield, booming through the dark druid’s neural system:

“A surprise, my old comrade, Archpriest Bertram.”

(End of chapter)