Chapter 610 — Breakout and Siege
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Yet when the tip was but a few centimeters from the heart, Edmund's left hand suddenly rose, and the palm covered in crystal clusters seized that searing adamantine longsword outright; after a burst of dazzling sparks and a teeth-grating screech between palm and blade, Belk's sword could advance no further.
Two pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the scene, and then Edmund raised his head and spat out a single word: "Run."
Belk released the hilt in an instant; without a moment's pause he dashed to one side of the hall, leaped, and smashed straight through the window, out of the castle.
In the shadows of one corner of the hall, a winding growth of vines stirred slowly; with a faint rustling they at last all contracted back into the depths of the dark.
...
West of the Giantwood Pass, in Boulder City and the White Pine region, on the lands held by the royal house, the dense fog had wholly dispersed.
The fog had left the cities and the countryside, and wherever the fog had tainted, people had become monsters.
Countless twisted giants, formed of flesh and blood fused with crystal clusters, were gathering, spreading like a firestorm of calamity; wherever men had once dwelled, a dreadful crystal legion would mass, and black-robed, giant-like individuals were the commanders of these legions. Under those commanders' lead the crystal giants seized every village and town within mere hours, then began to spread toward the positions held by the royal army.
Boulder City, one of the royal army's key strongholds, was under attack; this city famed for its massive walls now faced the greatest trial in its history.
"Hold the line! Hold the line!! Shield-bearers—hold fast!"
"We need more fire oil here! More stone shot!"
"The battle mages are spent—get the catapults up! The Guard Mage Corps is almost here!"
Oil sacks blazing with fierce flame and rune-etched stones whistled up into the air, flying from the walls into the distance; giant bolts tore through the air with the thundering snap of the bowstrings, smashing into the "crystal tide" far off. Knights and noble officers overseeing the battle ran along the walls, hoarse from shouting orders, using every spell to reinforce the walls and rouse the soldiers' fast-crumbling morale; yet below the walls those monsters only gathered in ever greater numbers.
This was a crystal legion transformed from the entire population of the region, and before numbers that had already brought about a qualitative change, mere stone shot and fire oil—even the mages' fireballs and lightning—seemed feeble; these attacks fell upon the monsters' heads like a pebble flung into the sea, scarce able to raise any great spray.
A noble officer in dark blue armor with a sash across his shoulder stood on the wall, watching ever more crystal monsters pour in from the distance. Those monsters did not fight by their mighty bodies alone; they had dreadful spellcasting power as well—powerful arcane lightning kept bursting from where the monsters were thickest, and after each bolt, a fresh dreadful crack would appear in Boulder City's walls, or a swath of soldiers would fall. If matters went on this way, the fall of Xuanyue City would be only a matter of time.
"How much fire oil and stone shot do we have left?" The noble officer turned his head and fixed his gaze on a nearby knight lieutenant.
"Enough to last two days, my lord, but I fear that still won't be enough—there are too many monsters, and countless more behind them!!"
Fire oil was the most effective means against those monsters, but the oil sacks flung by the catapults could not halt the tide-like assault, and the mages capable of unleashing large-scale flame spells in succession... there were too few of them, and all had exhausted their magic!
The noble officer's face was grim; he heard a tremendous crash from the western stretch of the wall, and hard upon it a chorus of screams and uproar.