The Line Collapses

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

He had barely drawn 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 heavy wagon wall they had defended all night, packed with Stone Blocks, shattered under the brutal impact.

Oak splintered, wagon frames flew, and twisted Refined Steel axles spun through the air. They swept across the position like shrapnel.

Kyle lifted his head through the haze, his pupils shrinking to pinpoints.

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

A flying axle had smashed him into pulp, spraying Kyle's face with ruptured organs and blood.

Nearby, several Convicts carrying planks to reinforce the breach fared even worse. The giant rat's charge flung 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 breach.

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

The breach had been torn wide open, and the Rat Tide beyond the defenses erupted.

Black rats poured through like floodwater finding a broken levee, their shrill squeaks filling the entire position.

The Spearmen who had barely held formation began to waver. Their hands visibly shook around their weapons, and the line teetered on collapse.

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

With a breach this large, sending more men into it would only turn it into a slaughter. The outer defenses were lost.

"Abandon the First Defense Line! Execute the Second Contingency Plan at once!"

At the order, Ivan whipped the Command Banner around.

"All Elite Knights! Follow me!" Fabien roared, sounding nothing like a man of the clergy.

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

"Kill them!"

Those seventy-odd figures rose like a wall and planted themselves at the most dangerous point of the breach.

They needed no further direction. Shien had prepared this 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 flared across the night.

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

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

Thud—crack!

The impact blasted a ring through the surrounding Blood Mist.

Several knights closed in at once. Halberds pinned the giant rat's leg joints from both sides, while heavy shields held the front against the rusted War Scythe chopping down from its bony saddle.

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

Outside them, the remaining sixty-odd knights spread out fast.

Tower Shields slammed into the mud. The shield wall closed into a semicircle.

The next instant, the Rat Tide struck.

Countless Corrupt Rats surged through the breach, a black mass rolling like sewage.

There was nowhere 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 shredded flesh splashed everywhere. Layer after layer of reeking entrails struck shields and armor.

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

The line had been on the verge of collapse.

If anyone turned and ran, the Rat Tide would chase down the entire defense line and tear it apart.

But now those seventy-odd knights had forced the battlefield into two layers.

One group pinned down the giant rat and its rider; the other held back the Rat Tide along the outer edge.

They plugged the breach with armor and flesh, buying the troops behind them a little time.

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

"Spearmen, cover each other as you fall back! Anyone who turns to run gets beheaded on the spot! Walk backward into the Second Defense Line!"

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

The orders dragged Kyle back to his senses. He bit the tip of his tongue, swallowed the blood in his mouth, and forced himself upright.

Several veterans nearby had already gathered. Spears and swords pointed outward as they backed through the mud one step at a time.

The whole line was like a machine spinning out of control, forcibly wrenched back on track.

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

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

Once the last wounded man with a broken leg had been dragged inside, Fabien bellowed through a hoarse throat: "Fall back!"

Dozens of Heavy Cavalry Knights covering the retreat unleashed the last of their Battle Aura almost at once.

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

A violent shock wave blasted flesh and mud outward. Riding the recoil, the knights sprang back and cleared the wide Circular Waste-Oil Trench one after another.

A cruel light gleamed in the Tier Three Mutant Giant Rat's scarlet eyes. Its thick hind legs dug into the mud, and its huge body crouched, ready 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.

The flames touched down.

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

Sickly green flames surged several meters high. A Toxic Flame Wall 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 terrible, sacred searing power.

The giant rat had barely leaped when tongues of flame caught its forepaws.

Its mutated fur charred and fell away at once.

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

But the rats behind it did not stop.

Their minds already consumed by the Blood Moon, the Corrupt Rats charged like an unstoppable tide, plunging into the wall of fire one after another.

The crackle of bursting fat merged into a continuous roar.

The rats rolled and thrashed in the flames, burning.

Their flesh soon burned through, and their bones began to crack. The Corpse Poison inside them was incinerated to black ash by the heat before it could even spread.

Bodies piled up in layers, and the wall of fire only burned higher.

This hastily assembled Toxic Flame Wall dragged Blackpine Fief back from the brink of collapse and bought the defenders time.

Inside the trench, labored breathing rose and fell.

Many infantrymen collapsed into the dirt. Blood still seeped from the split skin between their thumbs and forefingers, and their bodies shook with strain and exhaustion.

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

A few veterans cursed and kicked the recruits beside them to their feet.

"Get up. Level your spears."

Dragging their weakened bodies, they raised their Iron-Capped Spears again and formed a new line behind the second layer of sandbags and the battered Caltrops.

The priests hurried from one wounded man to the next.

They pressed Holy Light straight into wounds, burning away rotting flesh and barely stopping the bleeding from severed arteries.

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

Sickly green flames lit Shien's face. His gaze stayed 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 corpse oil in the trench would not last long.

In about an hour, the flames would die.

And the Blood Moon would still be overhead. Then the only things left to fill that breach would be the flesh and bones of the living.