The Battle Line Collapsed

Kyle planted a foot on the still-twitching corpse of a Mutant Rat and strained to pull his Fine-Steel Longsword free of its ribs.

He was about to catch his breath when the eerie Blood Moon overhead suddenly dimmed.

A vast shadow bore down from above.

Boom—!!

The blast hurled Kyle off his feet. He slammed into the ground, and a mouthful of foul, muddy water flooded his mouth.

To his right, the thick wagon wall they had defended all night, packed with Stone Blocks, shattered under the savage impact.

Oak splintered, wagon frames flew apart, and twisted fine-steel axles spun through the air. Every piece swept across their position like shrapnel.

Kyle raised his head in a daze. His pupils shrank to pinpoints.

The young conscript who had stood beside him on the right moments ago now had only half a body left.

A flying axle had smashed him into a mass of mangled flesh. Shattered organs and blood splashed across Kyle's face.

Several Convicts nearby had been carrying planks to reinforce the breach. They fared even worse: the force of the giant rat's charge tossed them into the air, and when they landed, they were no longer recognizable as human.

The Aberrant Bloodthirsty Giant Rat advanced over the blood and flesh strewn across the ground, its massive body nearly filling the entire breach.

The Ghoul on its back raised a rust-covered War Scythe and forced a piercing shriek from its throat.

The breach had been torn wide open. Outside the defense line, the Rat Tide instantly surged.

The black swarm poured in like floodwater finding a break in a levee, its shrill squeaks filling the entire position.

The Spearmen who had barely held formation until then finally began to waver. Their hands visibly trembled around their spears, and the line stood on the verge of collapse.

From the raised platform, Shien saw it all clearly, yet he showed no panic.

Faced with a breach of that size, throwing more men into it would only turn it into a slaughter. The outer defense line had already lost its purpose.

"Abandon the First Defense Line! Execute the Second Contingency Plan immediately!"

At the order, Ivan snapped the Command Banner around.

"All Elite Knights! With me!" Knight Fabien let out a roar utterly unlike a clergyman's.

He swung his heavy Fine-Steel Longsword and led more than seventy fully armed Manifestation Realm knights straight into the crowd retreating in disorder.

"Kill them—!"

Those seventy-odd figures rose like a sudden wall, planting themselves at the most dangerous point of the breach.

They needed no further orders. Shien had prepared the plan for them earlier that day.

Fabien and a dozen or so Heavy Cavalry Knights with the strongest Battle Aura charged straight at the giant rat.

Every attack targeted the Tier Three Mutant Giant Rat and the High-Rank Ghoul on its back.

Battle Aura erupted all at once in the night.

Fabien gripped his door-sized greatsword in both hands and struck before the giant rat could crush the first corpse underfoot.

The thick blade whistled toward the Mutant Rat's head, bristling with bone spurs.

Thud—crack!

The impact blasted a ring through the surrounding Blood Mist.

Several knights closed in at once. Halberds from both sides pinned the giant rat's leg joints while heavy shields held the front, taking the blow of the rusted War Scythe as it hacked down from the bone saddle.

Nearly a dozen men pressed close against the beast, using Battle Aura and armor to pin it at the center of the breach. It could not advance a single step.

On the outside, the remaining sixty-odd knights spread out rapidly.

Tower Shields slammed into the mud, and the shield wall closed in an instant, forming a semicircular defense line.

The next second, the Rat Tide struck.

Countless Corrupt Rats poured through the breach, a black mass like churning sewage.

There was no room to dodge.

The knights dug their boots into the muck, leaned forward, and braced their shields with all their strength.

Broadswords, Warhammers, and Battle Axes hammered down again and again.

Black blood and chunks of flesh sprayed up. Layer upon layer of foul entrails struck shields and armor.

Standing amid the Rat Tide, those sixty-odd knights turned the breach into a sealed meat grinder.

The battle line had already been on the brink of collapse.

Once anyone turned to flee, the Rat Tide would chase down and tear apart the entire line.

But now, those seventy-odd knights had forcibly split the battlefield in two.

One group held down the boss; the other held back the Rat Tide along the outer edge.

With armor and flesh, they plugged the breach and bought the rear a little time.

In the few breaths the knights had won, the junior officers' shouts rang out one after another:

"Spearmen, cover each other in shifts! Anyone who turns to run gets beheaded on the spot! Walk backward! Fall back to the Second Defense Line!!"

"Convicts, forget the sandbags! Carry the wounded! Get across the trench first!"

Those orders dragged Kyle back to reality. He bit the tip of his tongue, swallowed the blood in his mouth, and forced himself to his feet.

Several veterans had already gathered around him. Spears and swords pointed outward as they stepped backward through the mud, one step at a time.

The entire defense line was like a machine spinning out of control, forcibly knocked back onto its track.

Under Shien's cold command, what had begun as a rout slowly became an orderly retreat.

The soldiers stepped over their comrades' severed limbs, dragged their exhausted bodies onward, and withdrew step by step to the inner side of the Circular Waste-Oil Trench.

Once he saw the last wounded man with a broken leg dragged into the inner ring, Fabien roared through his ragged throat, "Fall back!"

The dozens of Heavy Cavalry Knights covering the retreat unleashed the last traces of Battle Aura in their bodies almost simultaneously.

Their strength was nearly spent, but they held nothing back.

The violent shockwave blasted flesh and mud outward. Using the recoil, the knights sprang back, clearing the broad circular trench one after another.

A cruel gleam shone in the Tier Three Mutant Giant Rat's scarlet eyes. Its thick hind legs dug into the mud, and its enormous body crouched low, plainly preparing to leap straight across the trench.

Just then, several burning torches flew from the inner ring and landed squarely at the bottom of the trench.

Flame touched the ground.

The Rat Oil, Quicklime, and Holy Silver Powder in the trench ignited instantly.

Ghastly green flames shot upward. A Toxic Flame Wall several meters high rose along the entire trench, completely separating the outer ruins from the inner position.

The flames burned fiercely, and the Holy Silver mixed into them gave them an even more terrifying sacred heat.

The giant rat had barely leaped when a tongue of flame curled around its forepaws.

Its mutated fur blackened and peeled away in an instant.

The searing pain drew a furious roar from the hulking beast. It twisted its body in midair and crashed back into the mud outside the trench, no longer daring to advance.

But the swarm behind it did not stop.

The Corrupt Rats, their minds long since eroded by the Blood Moon, rushed forward like an uncontrolled tide, slamming into the wall of fire one after another.

The crackle of bursting fat became a continuous roar.

The rats rolled, struggled, and burned in the flames.

Their flesh quickly burned through, and even their bones began to crack. The Corpse Poison inside them had no time to spread before the heat reduced it to black ash.

Corpses piled up layer upon layer, and the wall of fire only burned higher.

This makeshift Toxic Flame Wall dragged Blackpine Fief back from the brink of collapse and bought the position time.

Inside the trench, labored breathing rose and fell on every side.

Many infantrymen sank straight to the ground. Blood still seeped from wounds split open between their thumbs and forefingers, and their bodies shook uncontrollably with exhaustion and strain.

But no one dared lie down and rest, not even for a second.

Several veterans cursed and kicked the nearby recruits to their feet.

"Get up. Spears ready."

They dragged their weakened bodies upright, leveled their Iron-Capped Spears once more, and re-formed the defense line behind the second layer of sandbags and the broken Caltrops.

Priests hurried back and forth among the wounded.

Holy Light was pressed directly into wounds, burning away rotting flesh and barely staunching blood from severed major arteries.

As soon as they finished treating one person, they rushed to the next.

The ghastly green flames reflected on Shien's face. His gaze remained fixed on the giant rat beyond the wall of fire.

The beast paced outside the flames, growling again and again.

Shien's brow slowly furrowed. The wall of fire was only temporary; the oil in the trench would not last long.

In about an hour, the flames would die.

And the Blood Moon would still be in the sky. Then only the bones and flesh of the living would remain to fill that breach.