Chapter 273: Explosions and Flames

They had arrived.

Sweeping in with corrupted magic and choking dust, filled with hatred for the living and for magic itself, they brought with them the destruction and madness of the Gondor Wastelands, trampling straight into the traps and minefields of the Cecil Territory.

Their assault was nothing short of earth-shattering.

The moment the alarm blared, tension snapped tight along the city walls. The rookies, armed with thermal ray guns and shield barriers, took their positions under the command of seasoned officers and veterans, forming a defensive line. Before their eyes, the monsters roared wildly, seemingly impervious to pain as they stamped across the mine-laden plains. The scene was brutal, overwhelming—and terrifying.

The Cecil Combat Battalion was a headache for any commander, burdened with an overwhelming number of green recruits. Out of over a thousand soldiers, more than eight hundred had been recruited after the first defense battle. Though equipped with the finest gear and trained thoroughly, rookies were still rookies. Without the crucible of real combat, an unbridgeable gap remained between them and the veterans. To mitigate this, Gawain had pushed for as much practical training as possible—sending them deep into dense forests to protect exploration teams and fight beasts, training in the mountains, even dispatching them to the northern wastelands and the borders of the Kant Territory to hunt bandits and desperate mercenaries exploiting the chaos. Through these harsh trials, he barely managed to ensure every soldier had fired a gun and tasted blood. But only by surviving today’s test would they truly shed their rookie status.

After today, even if they weren’t seasoned veterans, at least they would no longer be green.

From the mountain pass, a blood-red smoke billowed, thickening into a menacing crimson cloud. From within it, the abominations surged forward in relentless waves toward the southern city wall of Cecil Territory. The scent of the living and the omnipresent magical aura of the city were like beacons in the night to these creatures. As soon as they emerged from the mountains, they charged with single-minded purpose, heedless of the minefields exploding beneath their feet.

Mines were a godsend—Gawain firmly believed that, especially against mindless monsters. No matter how many mines were laid, these one-track creatures would charge headlong, trampling the entire minefield in a straight line. But even the most effective mines couldn’t fully neutralize the threat. The monsters’ bodies were incredibly resilient, and their physiology was disturbingly alien.

A single crystal mine could obliterate a monster’s lower half, yet they neither died nor retreated in fear. Instead, they dragged their upper bodies forward, crawling and running until triggering a second or even third mine before finally succumbing. So while they cleared mines at a terrifying pace, their bodies effectively “disarmed” the traps as they advanced.

Amidst the thunderous explosions, the blood-red cloud edge pressed ever closer to the walls. Soldiers in the watchtowers could see through their telescopes the horrifying sight of the lead monsters spiraling into the air and scattering as they fell. When a special wooden stake marked with a flag in the center of the minefield was engulfed by the foul magical miasma, the second alarm sounded. Byron’s commanding voice rang out along the walls: “Enemy in position! Ballistae, prepare to fire—launch!”

With a series of sharp “thwack” sounds as winches released, the specially designed small ballistae sprang to life. Crystal bombs, each the size of a human skull, arced through the air and landed on the battlefield shrouded in ominous black-red smoke. In the next instant, a chain of massive explosions erupted, brilliant flashes and roaring flames tearing through the cloud as shrapnel and heat waves whipped up violent storms within the monster horde.

“Retract the winches! Keep firing!”

“Keep firing—Barto, retract the winch and reload! Fire again!”

The shouts of his comrades snapped Barto out of his daze. The knight from the Typhon Empire felt his heart pounding, blood surging in his chest. He stared blankly at the distant plain, now engulfed in fire and explosions, his mind consumed by a single thought: Is this really the battlefield they faced?

Barto moved instinctively. Operating the ballista was no challenge for a knight of his strength; winding the winch was effortless. Yet as he tightened the winch and loaded another crystal bomb, a numbness crept over his mind.

This was nothing like the battlefield he had imagined—or experienced.

He was an elite of Typhon, a battle-hardened knight, no rookie or provincial militia. Along the Ansu-Typhon border, he and his men had faced countless crises. Though the two nations hadn’t officially declared war, their skirmishes had escalated to deadly clashes. He had faced blades and bloodshed, had slain enemies himself. But never had he seen a battlefield like this—

Opposing forces separated by hundreds of meters, yet the fight had already erupted. Blood and fire, thunder and explosions blanketed the entire field. The unknown monsters charged fearlessly through the blasts, while the city’s defenders rained down more thunder and fire upon them.

And this was before swords were even drawn.

Of course, battle mages existed in this world, conjuring thunder, fire, and arcane missiles to strike from afar. But how many mages could a battlefield hold? How many times could a single mage unleash such devastating spells?

Here, spells on the scale of Fireball could blanket the entire battlefield.

Barto had once imagined himself pushed onto the city walls by the Ansu, standing behind the overseers, wielding sword and shield with his Typhon comrades, fighting desperately to avoid the executioner’s axe and cling to a sliver of life. He never expected to be manning a ballista here—nor that the “stones” it hurled would be so terrifying.

Suddenly, he recalled the afternoon when he’d accidentally dropped several of those crystal bombs on the wall tiles. A cold sweat broke out across his skin.

What he didn’t know was that those iron spheres had reliable safety mechanisms—controlled by runic triggers, springs, and locking devices—not simple “touch and explode” bombs. Only after removing the copper safety pin before loading into the ballista did they become live. And only the powerful impact of being hurled to the ground would release the trigger and detonate the bomb…

The second volley of crystal bombs flew from the ballistae, igniting another round of explosions within the monster horde. By now, the creatures had crossed half the battlefield with their monstrous, inhuman bodies. Sometimes, sheer physical power was just unfair: they had no command or tactics, but their reckless charge pushed them forward relentlessly. Against such foes, humans could only rely on numbers, intelligence, and strength.

Solderin nocked three arrows to his longbow. A faint green magical vortex swirled at the bow’s tip, suffusing the feathers with a crystal-clear glow. Releasing the string, the arrows screamed through the air, and moments later, three monsters on the battlefield were blown to shreds.

A single shot from a high-level ranger was no less deadly than a crystal bomb.

Solderin didn’t pause to watch the carnage. Silently, he drew, aimed, and fired again.

These monsters were the same as those from seven centuries ago, but old friends seemed to have crafted many new toys since then—those explosive “stones” and traps packed a serious punch. Mid- or even high-level professionals caught in concentrated fire like this wouldn’t survive. After the battle, he’d have to ask those old friends about these impressive weapons—if he could hold his ground and keep this territory from falling to the monsters’ onslaught.

The advancing “blood-red front” of monsters thinned as it neared the walls, but still pressed forward. After the second marker was overrun, new orders reached the soldiers’ ears:

“Grenadiers, prepare—”

At the command, soldiers stepped forward behind the battlements, where baskets of crystal grenades awaited. The initial tension and fear had dulled into numbness; obedience was their deepest instinct. They pulled the grenades free, removed the safeties, and waited for the order.

“Throw!”

From the height of the walls, their throws gained tremendous range. Moments later, dense explosions rained down on the monsters who had survived the minefields and ballista bombardments.

Gawain stood atop the towering walls, watching the tide of monsters thin and falter under wave after wave of firepower. This wave of abominations hadn’t even reached the range to unleash their corrosive energy arrows before being cut down to just twenty percent of their original numbers. Without a doubt, they would fall at the foot of the newly built walls.

Yet he dared not relax. Reports mentioned “large individuals” yet to enter the fray. The monsters currently attacking were only half the reported force.

His gaze fixed on the center of the battlefield, at the edge of the ballista range. There, several ominous dark red clouds churned, hiding enormous, terrifying shapes. Behind those clouds, more abominations poured from the mountain paths, gathering for a fresh assault.

As the first wave of abominations was wiped out by grenadiers and concentrated thermal fire, the massive figures finally began to move.

(End of chapter)