Bringing the control system back online could not reverse the damage the Sentinel Towers had already sustained. As the defensive node that had endured the fiercest attacks during the previous waves, the Sentinel Tower in the northern Highland Kingdom had accumulated far too much damage and too many system failures. Once those failures passed a critical threshold, even if the barrier rose again, the tower had already entered an irreversible process of destruction.
Under the horrified gaze of countless soldiers on the battlefield, the towering structure that had stood for centuries, believed by many to be incapable of ever falling, finally collapsed that day. The chain reaction triggered by its fall ultimately led to the collapse of the entire defensive line.
The heavy Energy Barrier vanished, and the Aberrants surged straight through like a flood. The only thing left between them and the Highland Kingdom was a forest defense line burning in fierce flames. The battered Guardian Giant Trees and the utterly exhausted mortal armies began retreating layer by layer.
Viewed from above, the land had become a blackened inferno. The black-and-red tide crossed the extinguished Great Wall, while enormous monsters moved across the rugged, cratered battlefield as if on level ground. The forest's edges were burned away. Polluted energy beams and missiles screamed down upon the mortal army. Towering Guardian Giant Trees tore themselves from the earth and bravely charged the enemies pouring from the wasteland, only to be swallowed almost instantly by a "tide" ten times their number. The Knight Order attempted to cut off part of the enemy force from the flank, but the fearless Aberrants and the "behemoths" harder than stone stood like walls, unafraid of the charge—
The mortal armies were retreating, and the border north of the Highland Kingdom was rapidly falling. Though there