Chapter 627: Monsters and Machines

The city-level shield of Red Maple City snapped shut.

A faint, shimmering energy barrier enveloped the sprawling plains city. Potent magical power was drawn up from the city’s underground mana focal points, channeled and projected through intricate rune arrays, transforming into a shield tougher than solid rock. As the barrier sealed, artillery fire from the surrounding plains rained down relentlessly upon the city walls.

The piercing shrieks sounded like banshees wailing at midnight. Metallic shells, wrapped in pale cyan energy, traced bright arcs through the air, bombarding the shield in an unending barrage. Explosions flared across the shield’s surface in massive bursts, resembling a storm of celestial fire. The shield trembled violently under the impact, ripples radiating outward from each strike. Yet no matter how fierce the assault, the shield held firm, successfully repelling the first wave of the Cecile forces’ attack.

Hovering above the city, the shield blocked every cannonball. A low, humming drone echoed through the outer districts—the sound of the subterranean magical apparatuses operating at full capacity.

On the city walls, a crystalline cluster commander wore an expression of relief as if he had just escaped death. Watching the shield’s brilliant flashes, he exhaled deeply, “We held them off!”

But Heaton shot the commander a sharp glare. “Fool! The battle has only just begun!”

The dark prelate showed no sign of easing up just because Red Maple’s shield had withstood the Cecile “heavenfire.” On the contrary, he knew this fight was far from over—he even understood that the fall of Rockhold Fortress had started precisely when their city-level shield had blocked the Cecile assault.

After some time studying the enemy, Heaton had learned much about the Southern Legion’s tactics. Those devices that launched explosions and beams weren’t traditional magical artifacts; they didn’t require mages to recharge. They could operate continuously, and their cost seemed surprisingly low—damaged equipment could be replaced quickly. Their weakness was rigidity: they could only cast fixed spells. But the Cecile forces compensated by mass-producing countless devices of various types.

Against such an enemy, conventional fortress defense was a dead end.

For Heaton, Red Maple’s shield holding off the first wave was significant only because it bought him time to keep fighting.

“Immediately summon the Southern Blight Legion to reinforce Red Maple and strike at the Cecile rear,” Heaton ordered his subordinate. “Have Krolod return at once and sabotage their positions from the east.”

Heaton issued commands swiftly, but before he could finish, strange, piercing shrieks suddenly echoed from the western sky—

These shrieks were louder than the usual “heavenfire,” tinged with a chilling hum. In a brief moment of stunned silence, Heaton sensed several powerful impacts striking the western side of Red Maple’s shield!!

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The shield above the city’s west side erupted with blinding light, the entire wall trembling under the tremendous force. Following these heavy blows came a continuous, terrifying low hum, as if a massive energy flow was converging, battering the western barrier.

The Cecile warships!

They had stealthily moved to Red Maple? When did that happen?

Heaton’s fury boiled. He distinctly remembered the last intelligence report placing those ships near the Fertile Woods. How fast had they sailed?!

“Notify Glem immediately! Find a way to stop those ships! Even if it means throwing his own head into their ‘magitech cannons’!”

“Yes, sir!”

Even after issuing the new orders, Heaton felt no relief. He realized the Cecile army was nothing like he had expected.

This was not the kingdom’s army, nor the noble regiments of the Eastern Territories. They had no intention of following any rules of war. Their war machines attacked Red Maple head-on, while artillery from the Gorgon River relentlessly bombarded the western shield. This simultaneous assault from land and water was unprecedented—a tightening vice strangling the city’s throat.

This was no probing attack. The Cecile forces aimed to utterly destroy the city in a short time.

…

To the east of Red Maple, the once-mighty Stonehold lay in ruins, its collapsed walls stained crimson with blood.

A day and night of brutal fighting had drenched the ancient city in gore. The mountain legion’s knights and warriors clung to the last remaining walls and the main keep, forming a makeshift defense line that repelled yet another enemy assault.

Countless grotesque, swollen monsters lay dead in the castle’s courtyards and stairways. Countless brave knights had fallen before the shrinking defenses. Both sides no longer cared about losses; they fought inch by inch over the ever-narrowing ground within the fortress. Even the most valiant warriors were nearing their limits.

The battle cries within the castle grew faint. The surviving soldiers and last knights huddled behind the battered walls of the inner courtyard. Inside their crumbling defenses, mages drained of magic and archers out of arrows had drawn their swords and knives, preparing for the final melee. Victoria stood at the courtyard’s center, watching the outside through the Mage’s Eye.

Massive shadows prowled among the broken walls. The twisted, mutated monsters regrouped, readying for another assault—perhaps the last. Her exhausted warriors were pushed to the brink of human endurance.

Victoria even spotted the monsters’ commander—a towering crystalline beast. It had never personally entered the battlefield before, showing extreme caution. But now it appeared inside the castle grounds, confident and resolute.

The monsters had already claimed victory in their minds—and it seemed the reality matched.

Victoria gripped her platinum staff tightly, calming the chaotic breath that came from overexertion, seizing the moment to restore some magic. She calculated how many minutes remained before the monsters would strike again, and how much strength she could regain in that time.

Suddenly, unexpected chaos erupted among the monsters.

The bloated giants grew restless, jostling one another in confusion. Then, all at once, they lifted their heads and stared toward a point outside the city. The towering commander, face twisted with shock and anger—remarkably, these monsters still retained human-like expressions—climbed a nearby wall, flanked by subordinates, and gazed toward the Gorgon River.

Seconds later, the monsters rapidly gathered and retreated from the castle grounds!

The commotion outside the courtyard quickly caught the knights’ attention. A sentry atop a tower stared in disbelief at the space between the courtyard and the outer walls, then shouted, “The monsters are retreating!”

Another sentry echoed the call, “They’re really retreating!”

Victoria stepped out from the crowd, bewildered. She couldn’t understand what had just happened. But after a moment’s thought, realization dawned—

Someone was attacking Red Maple!

She could think of no other reason why the monsters would abandon a castle they were so close to capturing at such a critical moment.

With this possibility in mind, Victoria’s heart did not just swell with hope for reinforcements. She also knew what she had to do:

She could not allow the Stonehold monsters to reinforce Red Maple. She had to find a way to hold back at least the elite among them, even if only to buy time.

She didn’t know who had broken into the corrupted zone, or who was attacking Red Maple. She didn’t even know if it was truly reinforcements. But with no other choice, she had to believe it was—and on that premise, do everything possible to cooperate.

Victoria clenched her platinum staff, then pulled from her side a delicately crafted pale gold snowflake-shaped amulet.

A faint shimmering light danced across its surface, as if an entire frozen world was trapped within.

She had thought she would never need to use it, but now, with this unexpected turn, she felt compelled to call upon her ancestors’ power.

The amulet’s sharp points pierced her palm, the blood of the Wilde family staining the pale gold snowflake. Victoria exhaled softly and whispered a single word:

“Frostfall.”

Outside the castle, Krolod was regrouping his crystalline legion. The urgent orders from Red Maple and the relentless waves of despair transmitted through telepathy left the transmuter agitated. Just a few hours—no more than a day—away from capturing the small fortress and crushing the stubborn “Northern Queen” and her mountain legion, he now had to abandon the spoils and dare not delay.

Because Red Maple’s situation was dire—on the verge of falling.

If Red Maple fell, if the high priests inside were all slain, Krolod and his followers would face madness and ruin. The church’s grand plan was unfinished; the archprelate’s “final rebellion” ritual was ongoing. All the transmuted abominations, including Krolod, were incomplete. Without higher nodes to share the divine will’s corruption, beings like him could not survive independently.

So he had to aid Red Maple—and its clueless prelate, Heaton.

“Take a breather,” Krolod growled, glancing back at the fortress. “I’ll be back soon to—”

His movement and thoughts froze mid-turn.

A pale white halo silently spread across the castle grounds. Wherever the light touched, everything froze in place.

The mountain legion, Victoria, the Stonehold fortress, even Krolod and his crystalline legion.

The entire castle district crystallized into a frozen tableau.

…

The main force of the Cecile army had fully entered the battlefield—there were more war machines than expected.

One after another, they appeared on the horizon like a swarm of steel insects. They formed a loose assault formation, firing continuously as they steadily advanced toward Red Maple’s walls.

The bombardment from the Gorgon River had briefly ceased, only to resume ten minutes ago with renewed fury. The forces sent to halt the warships had clearly failed. Amid the relentless thunder of explosions, the high-ranking priests of the End of All Things watched the hellish scene unfold—

The war machines pressed forward. There were no charging knightly squadrons, no infantry phalanxes sent to their deaths, no chaotic slave battalions. Highton saw none of the familiar elements of a battlefield. All he saw was cold steel advancing—moving forward, firing, moving forward again, firing again…

The three units that had sallied out from the city were utterly annihilated, crushed beneath the ceaseless hail of gunfire and raging flames. Yet the assault of the Cecilian forces maintained a steady, unyielding advance.

They were like some kind of machine, a flawlessly meshed, relentless gear. They turned, they moved forward, crushing everything in their path. There was no honor in this, no noble cause or bloodline duty—this machine advanced simply because advancing was its purpose.

Suddenly, Highton recalled something he had once said—

Divine wrath is a cold weapon of war.

But compared to the steel unleashed by the Cecilians, that weapon seemed almost gentle.

“Archpriest!” a priest shouted urgently, his voice nearly drowned out by the continuous explosions. “The shield’s about to give way!”

“Use all the stored mana—hold on a little longer. Korod will arrive soon,” Highton said quickly. “Once Korod and his elite troops get here, everything will turn around. They’ll strike the Cecilians’ flank from the east…”

“Archpriest, Korod—he…” another priest clutching a crystal ball hesitated. “Korod’s mind is gone…”

“Damn it!” Highton cursed under his breath, feeling his voice tremble, but he forced himself to think clearly. “Don’t panic. The shield can still hold. Have every spellcaster channel energy into it—we can hold out until the southern legions arrive. They’ll attack the Cecilians from behind…”

Yes, there was still hope. The Cecilians’ “Heavenfire” was devastating, but it couldn’t break the city’s shield in such a short time. Even those three powerful warships seemed only able to strike the western district of Red Maple. They could simply abandon that area, shrink the shield’s projection to the city’s core… That way, Red Maple could hold out much longer—long enough for the southern divine wrath army to come to their aid.

Highton comforted himself with this thought. But suddenly, an indescribable dread surged through his chest, shattering all his focus.

Along with that dread came a deep, terrifying voice from high above—

“Delivery for pickup—”

Highton looked up in shock to see a massive shadow sweeping across the distant clouds, while countless black shapes plummeted from the sky with piercing screams…

(End of chapter)