Real Mount and Blade Game

They no longer attacked sporadically as they had during their previous infighting or when they were scattered and disorganized. All the inferior skeletons, regardless of size or speed, now had only one goal, one direction! The earth trembled under the trampling of countless bone claws.

In the sky, those inferior wrecks with deformed wing membranes on their backs, or whose flight posture was simply composed of pure sulfur energy, emitted even more piercing shrieks, and also rose into the air in groups, like a scarlet locust cloud with sulfurous flame trails, darkly obscuring the already dim sky light, heading straight for the barrier!
"All troops!!! Highest combat readiness!!!" Shen Mu's voice, as cold as ice for ten thousand years, was like the sharpest blade, cutting through the howling wind and the roar of the abyss, clearly resounding throughout the entire fortress!
He suddenly raised his arm, pointing at the dark red sea that surged in like a tide of blood and flesh!
"All ranged units! Target—the Tidefront!!"

"Balloons! Aim them at the swarms of locusts in the sky!!"

"Knights of the Holy Tree! Prepare to charge!!"

"Holy Light Tower Forest! Maximum power—Activate!"

Buzz-buzz-buzz-!
With Shen Mu's final command, the holy flames atop the twenty Holy Light Torch Towers located in front of and along the barrier suddenly expanded! Their brightness increased more than tenfold, as if twenty miniature suns had been suddenly ignited!
The runic sphere at the top of the tower spun wildly at an unprecedented speed, and countless rays of holy light, as thick as an arm, extremely condensed, and trailing brilliant platinum tails, swept out in a crisscrossing pattern, like a golden net woven by the gods!

They were no longer content with simply picking off targets, but under the guidance of Shen Mu's focused will, they precisely "ploughed" through the densest charging cluster of the horde of wrecked corpses!
puff! puff! puff! puff!
In the area swept by the rays, the abyssal remains melted away silently, like snow under the blazing sun. There was no earth-shattering explosion, only the dull sound of crystal cores shattering and the sudden eruption and purification of platinum-gold holy flames from within!
The leading edge of the charging tide was instantly slicing off a thick layer by this golden "plowshare"! Among the flying horde of wrecked creatures, dazzling purifying orbs of light exploded, like fireworks lit up in the night sky, and countless fragments of bones with sulfurous flames fell from the sky like rain!

The soldiers guarding the ramparts witnessed this magnificent scene of purification, and their spirits were lifted!
"Tallinn above!" the Rhodok crossbowman roared, his heavy crossbow aimed at the exceptionally large, viscous lava-like elite skeletal creatures in the endless dark red ocean on the horizon.

"Don't let those winged bastards get close to the top of the tower!" The Victory Archer drew his bowstring taut, his arrow locked onto the winged wrecks that kept swooping down from the air, trying to bypass the frontal light net and attack the top of the tower.

Shen Mu stood motionless, his gaze piercing through the fierce annihilation of holy light and abyssal energy, firmly locking onto the enormous shadow of the End Wolf hanging above the city ruins.

He saw that within those two giant abyssal blood diamond pupils, the reaction to the Holy Light Tower's brilliant counterattack was not anger, but a cold calculation.

The next wave of attacks will definitely not be a simple Degenerate Impact.

The tides of the abyss, carrying the omen of death that will end all light, are officially rushing in!

The formidable defenses have been transformed into a boiling battlefield.

The twenty Holy Light Torch Towers, like torches nailed down by the gods, burst forth with light from their tops, spewing out countless golden spears of light as solid as tangible matter!

These light spears, trailing scorching tails, tore through the leaden sky and pierced fiercely into the swarm of winged wreckage that blotted out the sun!
“Puff! Sizzle! Sizzle—!”

The light spear pierced, burned, and exploded!
The winged wreckage that was hit was like a lit oil-paper lantern. Its dark red sulfur crystal core emitted a shrill soul scream in the platinum purifying flames, and instantly exploded into burning fragments all over the sky, falling like meteors with filthy embers.

A crimson, scorching rain of bones began to fall from the sky. Tallinn's roar instantly cleared several sectors of the locust swarm, giving the fortress a precious respite.

"Arrows——!!!"

Legolas's emerald eyes burned with fury and the resolute spirit of the forest. His elven longbow hummed, and a dazzling arrow of holy flame shot out, instantly piercing the head of a winged skeleton that was trying to break through the light net and dive! His sharp elven war cry ignited all ranged units.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" The compound bows of the Vaegir archers roared with a deep, thunderous sound! Arrows rained down like a waterfall!
Their positions are scattered across the upper treehouse platforms of the ramparts, vine suspension bridges, and towering ancient wooden outposts.

At this moment, every three-edged armor-piercing arrow that left the bowstring was imbued with a vibrant platinum glow under the radiation of the Holy Light Tower Forest! The trajectory of the arrows was briefly illuminated, like a meteor shower streaking across the dim sky.

"Swoosh! Crack!" The arrow pierced precisely into the surging, black lava-like tide of wrecked remains below.

The wreckage, continuously illuminated by the Holy Light Tower, seemed to have its hard bone armor, marked with dark red blood scabs, weakened invisibly.

The sharp arrowheads of the Vigia Archer have greatly reduced the resistance to tearing through the bone armor, easily drilling into the joint gaps and penetrating the crystalline support structure near the eye socket!

"Awooo!!!" The wrecked creature that was hit by the arrow let out a piercing, inhuman howl. Holy flames burst forth from the arrow wound and quickly spread along the cracked bone! Countless dark red vanguards instantly stiffened and shattered, turning into burning remains that spewed holy flames and dark red sparks!

"Whoosh! Bang—! Whoosh! Bang—!" The ballista positions at Senmu Fortress roared even more violently! Fixed beside the massive tree roots, the Rhodok heavy ballista positions saw gunners working shirtless, the winch gears creaking and grinding. The giant root spears, burning with runes and holy flames, were imbued with terrifying kinetic energy! They no longer aimed for area-of-effect spray, but were instead calibrated and focused on the enormous lava wrecks charging at the forefront—those slow-moving yet battering ram-like abyssal creations—at the gunner's roar!

The heavy root spears, with a destructive shriek, tore through the air. A lava wreck was struck squarely in the chest! The massive breastbone, covered in viscous, dark red magma, shattered with a deafening roar! Inside, the sulfurous crystal core, far larger than that of an ordinary wreck, like the heart of a furnace, under the impact of the holy flame root spears and the purification of the Tarin's intense light, erupted like embers doused with cold water, emitting a deafening explosion and blinding flashes! The intense light, mixed with the stench of lava and dark red bone fragments, swept across the area!
"Sharpshooters! Suppress the left flank! They're building a bone ramp!" The officer's shout pierced the air from behind the firing ports in the middle of the fortress.

The wood elf hunters there are like shadows in the forest; they don't even need to lean out, their elven longbows opening and closing at an astonishing rate through the firing ports.

Each slender elven arrow, imbued with a faint, shimmering holy light, was silently fired from the dimly lit firing port.

The arrows flew cunningly from below, precisely striking the weak, skeletal supports of those trying to climb the city wall's base, using their own bones to build up their companions' climbing points!

The faint erosion of the holy light made the decaying bones even more fragile, and the climbing horde of wrecked remains slid down one after another like a collapsing sandcastle.

However, the raging tide of the abyss was boundless! More and more inferior beings surged up, trampling over the bone fragments and ashes of their own kind!

Their bony claws, wreathed in black sulfurous vapor, frantically scratched and tore at the newly formed, revitalized thorny root walls and wooden defenses of the fortified barrier, producing a teeth-grinding "crunch" and leaving trails of corroded marks billowing with charred smoke. "Hold on! Long live Deherime!" At the breach in the defensive line, the roars of the Rhodok soldiers drowned out the cracking sounds of bones breaking! Their tower shields were deeply embedded in the ground, shoulder to shoulder, like a dam built of steel and flesh.

The extended halberds and broadswords thrust out from the gaps in the tower shields and slashed fiercely from above!
"Snap!!" A skeletal predator that was trying to break through from the side had its head severed at the neck!
Under the light of the Holy Light Tower, hissing white smoke rose from the severed neck, and the filth of the abyss was slightly suppressed!

Another soldier swung his halberd diagonally, piercing through and sending a wrecked creature that had climbed the shield wall flying! The shattered bones, streaked with dark red sparks, crashed back into the surging tide of bones behind them.

The silver storm crashed in at the critical moment of the soldiers' defenses! Half of the Holy Tree Knights transformed into ten silver bolts of lightning, their mithril greatswords trailing a sacred golden aura!
They did not hold their ground, but rather, with Shen Mu's watchtower as the center, they moved like a precise winch, rapidly weaving along the edge of the city wall, precisely clearing out any stragglers that had broken through the tower shield defenses, and stabilizing the precarious nodes.

"For order!"

A Holy Tree Knight's battle cry rang out like a bell! He spurred his horse over a makeshift low wall, and his cold mithril greatsword slashed down with unstoppable force! The target was a gigantic wreck that had just broken through two rows of spearmen and whose body was flowing with dark red magma!
“Dang—Boom!!!”

The greatsword clashed violently with the massive bony arm encased in abyssal lava! Blinding holy light and dark red sparks flew out like a powder keg exploding!

The massive, monstrous skeleton's skeletal arms cracked with a chilling force, and the knight's warhorse slammed heavily into the ground with the impact! But the divine energy on the greatsword was amplified in resonance under the continuous illumination of the Holy Light Tower Forest, corroding the abyss's armor like a branding iron!
The knight's comrades behind him instantly thrust their spears forward in unison! Several sharp lances, accompanied by the roars of the Rhodok soldiers, viciously pierced the relatively weak rib joints of the giant wreck from the flank! The holy light-enhanced blades struggled to break through the bone amidst a piercing scraping sound!

"Hoh—!" The giant monstrous skeleton roared in anger and pain, its massive body shaking violently, dark red lava spewing from its wounds and mouth and nose, but it seemed to slow down under the suppression of the holy light.

The Holy Tree Knight's eyes were as cold as iron. In the instant the wreckage struggled and lost its balance, the greatsword suddenly changed direction and slashed horizontally! The blade sliced ​​through the air with a shrill whistle, precisely sweeping across the relatively slender neck of the giant wreckage!

"Crack—boom!!!"

The enormous, twisted head flew high into the air, and the broken neck erupted like a volcano, spewing out dark red lava and foul energy!
But the golden holy light brought by the greatsword was like a whip of judgment, lashing fiercely at the gushing filth, and the sound of purification echoed throughout the area!
The headless behemoth crashed down like a mountain collapsing and a jade pillar crumbling, crushing a group of ordinary, inferior wrecks that were charging forward.

Shen Mu stood atop the watchtower, like the cold core that controlled the rhythm of war.

The runes of rules flowing across his mithril heavy armor shone brightly, and his spiritual power enveloped the battlefield like an invisible giant net.

He did not directly participate in low-intensity fighting, but instead focused his will highly.

His icy gaze swept across the surging army of wrecked creatures, precisely targeting those nodes that occasionally appeared amidst the crimson waves, emanating even stronger abyssal fluctuations—the core points of secondary crystal cores, the mutants guiding the corruption.

Each time his gaze locked onto something, the nearest Holy Light Torch Tower seemed to respond to his will, and a much thicker ray of holy light would flash out from the top of the tower as if it were his own arm!

"Pfft! Boom!!"

A mutated, inferior spellcaster attempting to quietly gather a cloud of corrosive poison was pierced head-on by a precise ray from a medium-sized Holy Light Tower in the distance!
The crystal core and the brewing poisonous cloud were instantly purified and detonated by the sacred flames, clearing a small blank space in the surging dark currents.

This battle surrounding the fortress, with its gleaming weapons, the hum of bowstrings, the cracking of bones, and roars, intertwined to create a primal and brutal war symphony.

The radiance of the Holy Light Tower Forest is the eternal theme of this bloody symphony. It weakens and disintegrates the claws of the abyss, making soldiers' swords more deadly and enemies' bone armor more easily broken.

The fortified wall stood like a stubborn reef amidst the boundless, dark red tide of destruction. No matter how the giant waves crashed against it or how many bones piled up, the blade of burning holy light remained on the wall, ruthlessly slashing down time and time again!
Blood soaked the walls, and bones piled up like mountains. The roar of the abyss shook the sky, while the blades of light refused to yield an inch. The battle, in the fierce clash between holy light and sulfur, had entered its most brutal and exhausting phase.

Legolas missed his quiver of arrows, panting as he took a step back, gazing at the enormous wolf shadow in the distance above the core of the Black Domain, supported by a towering pillar of dark red light, coldly watching the battlefield.

A sense of unease arose within me. This first wave of monstrous frenzy was merely cannon fodder used by the Abyss Overlord for attrition and testing... The true terror had yet to descend.

Legolas's intuition was like the cold dew in the forest, icy and accurate. Shen Mu stood atop the immovable watchtower, his eyes, forged from steel, beneath his cold mithril visor, piercing through the smoke and howls, locking onto the shadowy figure of the End Wolf hovering above the core black domain.

Those two colossal eyes, forged from abyssal blood diamonds, looked down upon the meat grinder-like battlefield below with indifference, like frozen stars.

Its enormous phantom floated on the black and red demonic pillar, as if it were not a body of flesh and blood, but rather the indifferent manifestation of the will of the abyss itself.

It is evaluating, it is waiting, using endless scavengers to consume the edge of the fortress and the brilliance of the dazzling tower forest.

Below, the horde of monstrous remains from the abyss continues to assault the fortified walls with an overwhelming force capable of annihilating everything.

The golden arrows of light from the Holy Light Tower Forest crisscrossed endlessly, each strike creating purifying ripples within the dark red waves, carrying away swathes of evil.

The fierce battle continues in a frenzy! (End of Chapter)