Precision Strike and the Gray Blood's Heavy Shell

In the gray-white light before dawn, White Fang Fief's Second Defense Line teetered on the brink of collapse.

Two great banners tore through the Gray Fog. The Blackpine Command Banner led, with the Church Platinum Banner close behind.

But the black tide did not charge the line. Fifty paces from the outer trench, the entire mobile unit halted as one, like a steel blade suspended in midair at the edge of a safe distance.

Fabien merely raised his armored right hand and made a brief gesture.

Three knights immediately spurred their horses forward and hurled Alchemical Tracer Rounds into different parts of the sky.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Alchemical Flash Rounds burst one after another at different heights.

A harsh white glare overwhelmed the battlefield, tearing back a layer of Gray Fog.

Fabien narrowed his eyes. His heart sank.

That thing on the outer edge had gone far beyond any Demonic Beast.

The black-and-red scorched earth breathed slowly, its surface swelling and shriveling by turns. Corpses and severed remains were embedded throughout it, and fragments of armor that had not burned away still hung from its edges.

Gray-Red Blight Threads twitched back and forth along the ground. The Borrowed-Shell Abominations rising from its outer rim were only the limbs that patch of rotting earth had extended to feel its way forward.

Fabien followed the glare to several heavily swollen Blood Scabs deeper within.

Buried beneath the thick shell, they pulsed with the rise and fall of the whole mass, like hearts beneath skin.

Farther down, several gray-red Blood-Returning Chains convulsed against the ground, dragging everything on the surface beneath the thick shell.

Seeing it firsthand, Fabien realized where White Fang Fief's tactics had gone wrong. Their fire had been spread too thin: cannons pounded the edges while crossbows swept the surface.