“Clang! Clang!”
The air was filled with the thunderous roar of artillery striking shields, creating a strange, rhythmic resonance.
The Stone Troll army, hidden behind their shield phalanx, remained eerily calm as they advanced toward the city wall, stepping over the fallen bodies of their comrades.
After paying a horrific price of over a hundred scorched corpses, the first wave of Stone Trolls finally reached the opposite bank of the moat.
Their feet, glowing red from the lava, stepped heavily onto the basalt shore, emitting a gut-wrenching sizzle and rising plumes of sulfurous white smoke.
At this moment, the vanguard of the Stone Troll army was less than a hundred meters from the wall.
To an ordinary person, this distance might seem safe, but for the Stone Trolls—who averaged nearly three meters in height—it was nothing more than a short sprint.
Boom!
With a deafening stomp, the front row of Stone Trolls moved in unison. Their massive bodies erupted with incredible speed, every stride leaving spiderweb-like cracks in the basalt ground.
In just a few breaths, the leading trolls had already closed half the distance.
The front row held their stone shields high over their heads, absorbing most of the long-range attacks, while those behind them pulled out massive stone hammers.
Anyone could imagine the consequences if these stone hammers, the size of battering rams, were to strike the city wall.
“Free fire! Suppress them while their numbers are still manageable!”
Lagg roared, hoisting an explosive pack the size of a wine barrel from behind the battlements.
Veins bulged on his thick arms as he swung his shoulders, hurling the explosive pack downward.
BOOM!!!
The earth-shaking explosion made the entire section of the wall tremble. The explosive pack detonated in the thickest part of the troll formation, sending a radial blast of searing air, rubble, and metal shrapnel.
Several charging Stone Trolls were tossed into the air, their hard rock bodies shattering in the blast as purple-black blood rained down across the ground.
Yet, the Stone Troll army remained unmoved by the fate of their comrades. They continued their advance, tramping over the broken remains of their kin and burying them in the rolling dust and smoke.
“Keep throwing! Crystallized Grapeshot!”
Seeing that the explosions were effective, Maela shouted to the others. Simultaneously, her mana surged, manifesting countless iridescent crystal shards in the air.
The crystals created by her mana were incredibly hard. Under her guidance, they rained down like meteors. The tower shields that could withstand ballista bolts were suddenly riddled with holes.
The shield-bearing trolls maintained their charging stance, but by the time they reached the foot of the wall, their massive bodies had been pierced through by the crystal clusters.
A torrent of blood erupted from the puncture wounds, forming foul-smelling streams at the base of the wall.
Though this row of Stone Trolls had lost the strength to fight, they had successfully fulfilled their mission. Now, the first wave of hundreds of trolls had surged to the foot of the wall like a rising tide.
The walls of Cinder City were even more grand than those of human city-states, standing twenty meters high and reinforced with a special alloy casing.
However, against these behemoths who averaged nearly three meters in height, even such defenses seemed somewhat insufficient.
The Stone Trolls in the front row leapt suddenly, their explosive power launching their massive forms ten meters into the air.
Their cold, gleaming claws pierced the metal outer wall with a sharp hiss, cutting through it as easily as a hot knife through butter. In the blink of an eye, dozens of Stone Trolls were clinging to the wall like giant geckos, climbing upward at a terrifying speed.
Seeing this, the dwarven defenders scrambled to activate the defensive mechanisms, pouring molten metal down from hidden slots in the wall.
However, high temperatures did little to harm the highly resistant Stone Trolls. They simply shifted their bodies to avoid the main streams and continued their steady climb.
“It seems conventional means can no longer stop them,” Starlight said softly, his voice carrying an unquestionable resolve. “It’s our turn.”
“Right!” Po Kong and the others answered immediately.
The four of them moved to the edge of the battlements, their robes flapping in the hot wind. Below, the screeching sound of Stone Troll claws scraping against the metal wall grew closer.
Starlight and Moen stood side by side, raising their hands simultaneously.
The surrounding air began to vibrate violently as countless pale green wind elements converged, forming a howling blade net in front of the wall.
Sharp wind blades sliced through the air, letting out hair-raising shrieks. These highly destructive blades struck accurately at the Stone Trolls' limb joints.
As Maela had mentioned before, while these stone monsters had incredible resistance to fire and earth magic, their defense against other elements was relatively weak.
“GRAAAGH!!”
Shrill howls suddenly echoed across the wall.
Wherever the wind blades passed, the Stone Trolls' hard skin was sliced open, revealing bone-deep wounds from which purple-black blood geysered out. Several trolls whose arms were severed fell straight off the wall, crashing into their kin below.
Others, even after having their legs cut off at the hip, vainly clawed at the surface, leaving harrowing gouges in the metal casing.
The Stone Trolls struggling in agony halfway up the wall became perfect targets. Xia Duo smiled slightly, her slender fingers drawing her bowstring as she instantly locked onto the wailing behemoths.
Dozens of fire-red battle qi arrows flew in rapid succession. Every arrow struck a vital spot, burying itself deep into the Stone Trolls' purple-black eye sockets.
“Nicely done, Little Shadow!”
Seeing this, Po Kong laughed heartily as he slashed through a troll that had managed to scramble onto the battlements.
Xia Duo had already drawn her bow again, adjusting her angle on the wall to target the Stone Trolls climbing from the sides.
Her spinning arrows pierced the throats of several trolls almost simultaneously. These arrows were not only terrifyingly accurate but also exploded once they were embedded in the trolls' bodies.
Amidst a series of explosions, the Stone Trolls' heads were reduced to a spray of fragments, painting the wall with blood like a splash of ink.
“Tsk, the power still isn't quite enough,” Xia Duo muttered, clicking her tongue in dissatisfaction.
The Sacred Wood Arrows she had brought from Star-Song Forest had been entirely depleted during the battle in Dragon Valley. Without a way to resupply, she could only pick them off one by one.
Seeing their allies display such divine might, the surrounding dwarven warriors regained their confidence and quickly sprang back into action.
...
While Starlight and his companions held their hundred-meter stretch of the defense line perfectly, grim reports began to pour in from other sections of the wall.
The distant dwarven battle cries had turned into shrill screams. Several battlements without powerful experts to guard them had fallen, and the first Stone Trolls to crest the wall were already unleashing a bloodbath.
Though the dwarven warriors were brave and skilled in battle, they could not easily move the massive Stone Trolls given the immense size difference.
Boom!
A loud crash came from their right. Three dwarven defenders were swatted away by a Stone Troll’s massive palm, flying off the wall like ragdolls.
“This is bad! Something’s happened in the Third Defense Zone!” Maela looked toward the area anxiously, but she couldn't leave her own post.
While her crystal magic was powerful against individual targets, it was ultimately a drop in the bucket when facing hundreds or thousands of Stone Trolls.
“Po Kong, you take over the defense of this section. I’m going to reinforce them!”
Seeing more and more Stone Trolls surging through the gap in the defenses, Starlight gave a quick instruction before blurring into a streak of light toward the breach.
As he ran, he began to condense water elements. The moisture in the air converged frantically, and even the blood splattered on the wall began to hover eerily, transforming into countless crimson ice crystals.
“Icefall!”
With a sharp shout, Starlight threw his arms wide. In an instant, the scorching wall was plunged into a polar winter. The flying blood droplets froze into sharp blood ice spikes, the humid air turned into a swirling blizzard, and even the purple fluids leaking from the Stone Trolls froze into lethal ice needles.
The monsters that had just climbed onto the wall didn't even have time to react before they were frozen into various poses as solid ice statues.
Rate on N.U.
