Despair of the Long Night
Just as Todd pinned the Throat-Ripper Juvenile tadpole to the mud wall, he turned and, by the flickering light of the torch, the scene outside the trench suddenly came into view.
The First Ring ice slopes and the Second Ring Groundspike Formation continued to collect corpses, and the bottom of the ditch was filled with twisted and struggling Falling-Bone Beast, piled up into a layer of shiny mud.
But the monsters behind them didn't stop at all. They stepped on the still twitching bodies of their own kind and continued to surge forward, using the piles of corpses and spikes as cover.
A series of dark shadows tumbled in from mid-air, like an endless rain of bones, deliberately targeting the most difficult-to-see corners of the trench.
The Throat-Ripper Juvenile, hidden in the shadows of these giants, also crawled in.
They are small in size and almost invisible when they are close to the ground, only revealing their exaggeratedly wide mouths when they pounce.
The larger creatures disrupt the formation, while the smaller ones squeeze through the gaps, targeting people's throats and chins.
After Barris died, the empty space on his right side immediately became the most dangerous spot.
A Falling-Bone Beast squeezed through the gap, its barbs scraping against the mud wall, and was almost between a person's legs.
"Back row, fill in!" Kyle ordered without even turning his head.
The veins on his thick arms bulged, Ironbound Oak Shield held firm against the charge of the Falling-Bone Beast in front of him, making him look like an iron stake driven into the mud.
Without hesitation, the greatswordsman in the back row released his grip, and the heavy, broad-bladed greatsword plunged into the mud at his feet with a "thud." He then bent down and picked up Barris's Wrought-Iron Hook Sickle, which was still stained with blood and brain matter.
After taking half a step forward, his movements were surprisingly fluid. The hook scythe suddenly darted out through the gap in the shield and slammed into the knee joint of the Falling-Bone Beast. Using the force of his entire body, he pressed down and pinned the wildly swinging long leg to the mud wall.
The monster twisted in pain, its hind leg joints making a series of eerie cracking sounds, and half of its body tilted to one side.
Todd instinctively followed, thrusting his spear into the gap in the air, the tip piercing his ribs. Another man in the back immediately finished him off, hacking away at his neck and shoulder.
The trenches were now a complete mess of boiling blood and mud.
Humans trampled on humans, monsters crushed monsters, and broken bones and rotten flesh lay beneath their feet, yet the line remained unbroken.
The effects of three months of training are now becoming apparent.
If the sickle-wielding men fall, those in the back row with greatswords can take their place; if the spearmen retreat, those nearby will immediately fill the gap.
How to deliver the spear, how to use the hook scythe, and when to replenish the greatsword all rely on instinct honed through days of practice.
Every person still standing in the trench was like a cog in a machine.
As long as there are still living people in this ditch, this killing machine, built from flesh and iron, will continue to turn, continuing to crush anything that rushes in into a pile of minced meat.
But the sound of meat being ground in the ditch continued incessantly, as if it would never stop.
The newly patched breach was still bleeding when another Falling-Bone Beast crashed into it.
Kyle used his shield, hooked scythe to lock the legs, and spear to follow up with a thrust, then added a chopping slash from the back row. The whole sequence was still in motion, but the speed had clearly slowed down. He was still holding on, but his limbs were starting to feel heavy, and his breathing was becoming increasingly erratic.
The second, fifth, and tenth Falling-Bone Beast were pinned against the mud wall and pierced through, but as soon as the corpses in front slid down, the monsters behind them pounced on the rotten flesh of their own kind, as if they could never fill the gaps.
The murderous aura of the Blood Moon seeped into the trenches with the wind. By now, the warriors' Battle Aura had been almost completely drained.
Even Kyle, who was in the Resonance Realm, began to breathe heavily. His Ironbound Oak Shield was covered with dents of varying depths, and the edges of the iron plating were chewed up.
With each impact, the muscles in his shoulders and back tensed sharply, and the mud and water beneath his feet splattered outwards.
Once your physical strength collapses, death is imminent.
The newly arrived sickle-wielder's knees trembled, and his iron fork was a beat too slow to strike.
The long pole, covered in slime, suddenly slipped and slipped from his grasp.
The Falling-Bone Beast beneath the shield seized the fleeting opening, and a muffled cracking sound came from its chest.
The next moment, several twisted and elongated ribs on its chest suddenly sprang open and slammed into the chest of the hook-and-sickle man from below.
Blood spurted out immediately.
Just as the other spearman on the left was about to retreat to catch his breath, his boot stepped on a clump of slippery entrails, causing him to stumble backward.
In the shadows of the muddy water, a Throat-Ripper Juvenile sprang up from the ground and bit off his wrist.
The scream had barely escaped his lips when several Falling-Bone Beast surged forward, biting his leg armor and shoulders, and dragging him out of the trench.
In the blink of an eye, only the muffled sound of chewing flesh and bones remained in the Gray Fog.
In just over ten minutes, the seven-person team had already lost three members.
The remaining four were forced to retreat step by step, their feet sinking into a maze of blood and broken bones, and could only stand back to back.
Todd mechanically held up the spear, his face and neck covered in thick, hot blood.
His comrades' blood, the monster's blood, mixed with grayish-black mud, flowed down layer by layer, blurring his vision with red.
He finally saw the true appearance of the Eternal Night Wall.
Ice slopes, spikes, Poisonfire, and Fang-Splitting Formation are indeed effective at killing, and they did indeed shred most of the Beast Tide at the start of the battle.
But the things behind the Gray Fog kept coming in endlessly; as soon as one batch died, another batch would immediately take its place.
The spear pierced the skull at a speed that couldn't keep up with the speed at which a new shadow emerged from the mist.
Todd looked up and glanced outside.
The Blood Moon still hung overhead, and the dark shadows slithering along the ground at the edge of the horizon showed no signs of diminishing.
A chilling thought lingered in his mind: even if they all sacrificed themselves, they might not be able to wipe out this wave of creatures.
Shien's eyes were slightly closed, his hands gripping the edge of the Sand Table tightly.
Deep within his consciousness, [Lv.3 Macro Battlefield Command] had been pushed to its limit.
In the eastern area where the First and Second Ring Roads are located, deep red, dangerous spots of light are exploding in patches, like a rapidly spreading wound.
Shien's gaze lingered on that area for less than a moment before he pinpointed the root cause of the chaos.
These two newly emerging Mutant are inherently designed to suppress the first two rings.
The Deceleration Ice Slope and Groundspike Formation were originally intended to cut off the momentum of heavy Magic Creature like Werewolf, but the Falling-Bone Beast's cartilage and rebound force were too strange, turning the mud walls, Caltrops, and spikes into leverage points on them.
The Throat-Ripper Juvenile relentlessly burrowed into blind spots, specifically targeting the most difficult-to-reach locations on the warriors' heads and feet to bite.
The shield wall on the eastern front hadn't yet collapsed on the surface, but the soldiers underneath had already been dragged into a chaotic battle where their strength was completely depleted.
If this drags on, the entire position will only be gradually chipped away at.
"My lord!" A lieutenant scrambled up the platform, helmet askew, "The eastern defenses are in chaos! Our soldiers are falling short! The reinforcement Knight are nearby; if we push forward, we can still close the breach!"
Shien opened his eyes, his icy blue pupils showing no hesitation. "The trench over there is less than four meters wide. If we push the Knight in now, he'll get stuck first."
As soon as he finished speaking, his gaze fell on the third groove on the Sand Table, and his command was crisp and decisive, without a single superfluous word. "Activate Plan Three."
The Alchemical Mechanism at the top of the tower immediately closed, and a huge high-voltage yellow lamp suddenly lit up.
The blinding yellow light, like a long spear thrusting down violently, pierced through the Gray Fog in the eastern sky and flashed twice.
"Clang! Clang!"
The bell tolled long and urgent, carrying an undeniable pressure that instantly drowned out the roars of the Magic Creature on the front lines.
The armored soldiers in the trenches, who could barely hold their weapons, felt a sudden jolt in their chests when they heard the bell.
The nerves, stretched to the point of numbness, finally cracked slightly, and the instinct to survive surged up through that crack.
Kyle's arms had long since cramped from exhaustion, his thick thighs slammed into the mud, and he slammed the tattered Ironbound Oak Shield in his hand forward.
With a dull thud, a Falling-Bone Beast that was about to pounce was forced back half a foot.
Using the force of the recoil, Kyle let out a hoarse roar from his chest:
"Abandon the formation! Do not turn around! Retreat into the Third Ring! Quickly!"
The survivors breathed a sigh of relief, as if their limbs had suddenly come back to life.
They stared intently at the dark figure rolling and approaching ahead, their boots treading on slippery mud, pieces of corpses, and the remains of their comrades, as they parried and retreated along the narrow, winding trench.