The Fifth Ring's Grindstone of Flesh
Seeing that using human prisoners to clear the way hadn't worked, the Silver-Sword Ghoul Commander raised his hand and waved.
A large number of bloated, sluggish, and even roughly sewn-together Flesh-Shield Corpse were immediately pushed to the front.
The arrows from the regular crossbows pierced their swollen flesh repeatedly with muffled "thuds," and their entire bodies were soon riddled with arrow shafts.
But these monsters, screaming in agony, dragged piles of arrows forward, drawing away a large portion of the defensive line's vision and firepower.
And hidden in the shadows cast by these Flesh-Shield Corpse are real knives.
Dozens of Scythe-Jumping Ghoul crouched low to the ground, moving stealthily.
This thing is hunched over, with a protruding spine and two deformed, bulging thighs.
As they approached the human battle formation, the command Bone Whistle suddenly changed tone, its originally low whistle rising sharply to a piercing, shrill pitch.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
The Scythe-Jumping Ghoul sprang up almost simultaneously, leaping into the air on piles of corpses and human shields, directly crossing the First Ring of broken defenses and crashing heavily into the depths of the Second Ring.
Following closely behind, the Flesh-Shield Corpse also rolled down the ice slope.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
One impact after another struck the wooden stakes and Frozen Tundra ground, instantly shortening the buffer zone.
As soon as the Scythe-Jumping Ghoul landed, the bone blades on both sides immediately spun fiercely close to its body.
"Sizzle!"
Before the soldiers in the front row could even raise their shields properly, their throats and abdomens were swiftly slit open, their intestines spilling into the mud.
Before the people behind could even see how the monsters had rushed in, the bone blade had already sliced its way along the trench, close to the crowd.
Screams erupted all at once, and within just a few breaths, dozens of soldiers fell in the Second Ring, blood flowing down the muddy ditches, making it difficult to even stand.
More strange figures pounced after them, and in the blink of an eye, they reached the edge of the Third Ring of Venom Mist.
Just then, several scattered squads at the front line retreated along the pre-prepared trenches, luring the monsters into a narrower area.
Newly promoted Sergeant Todd, leading a six-man squad, stood guard at a bend in the road and shouted, "Get back into the ditch! Don't jump around with it outside!"
Todd was just the first to react.
The veterans and sergeants who had been through blood and sweat on the front lines almost all figured out the strategy at the same time.
If you can't catch these monsters in open areas, then drag them into narrow ditches to fight them.
The squad, which was initially stunned by the sudden attack, quickly took their positions and moved inwards section by section along the trench, covering all the bends, narrow ramps, and gaps between the wooden stakes.
The Scythe-Jumping Ghoul, which originally relied on leaping and swooping to kill in all directions, immediately lost their room to maneuver once they entered the trench, which was only wide enough for two people to walk side by side.
Their long legs kept crashing into the mud walls and wooden stakes, and their movements became chaotic.
The ensuing battle was short but fierce.
Human warriors no longer chased after monsters; instead, they defended trenches and fought in narrow battlefields.
Often, a small team of six or seven people would keep a close eye on two Scythe-Jumping Ghouls that pounced in.
A shield first blocks its front, two long spears are used to stab its lower body, and the hook spear behind it is used to stab it when it jumps and loses its balance.
As soon as the Flesh-Shield Corpse exposed its ankles, the spear plunged deep into the gap at the bottom of the shield.
Just as the Scythe-Jumping Ghoul was about to twist its waist and leap, a long sword and a short axe smashed down on its head.
The monsters in front fell, and those behind were tripped up by the corpses, quickly filling the trench with rolling bodies.
With force applied from several angles simultaneously, the shield wall pushed forward little by little, managing to trap the most ferocious thrust in the ditch.
Looking down from above, the entire western defensive line appeared to have been bent under the weight of the weight, before gradually springing back.
At the outer edge of the Gray Fog, the Flesh-Shield Corpse were still moving forward, while in the Second Ring and the trenches, the Scythe-Jumping Ghoul were locked in a fierce struggle with the human warriors.
Further back, new hordes of zombies continued to pile up.
The entire battlefield was in chaos, but the most crucial trenches and bends had never been completely breached.
On the Inner Fortress command tower, Shien coldly surveyed the shifting battle lines.
The front lines are only holding temporarily, but Shien has achieved his strategic objectives.
The Crimson High-Energy Cluster that had been pressing in had completely fallen into the deep Barbican he had prepared beforehand.
The First Ring was a deliberately loosened gate; the gap that the frontline soldiers had fought so hard to create was, from the very beginning, an entrance for the enemy's elite mutant forces.
The semi-automatic crossbows inside the high Dark Bunker roared to life.
--
High-pressure steam forced open the cylinder valves, and hundreds of Refined Steel arrows flew over the muddy ground of the front-line melee, striking the retreating troops' path outside the First Ring at maximum rate of fire.
The rain of arrows instantly formed an impenetrable iron wall, pinning the advancing horde of zombies outside the defensive line.
The group of Second-Tier Elite who rushed in were immediately trapped like turtles in a jar.
Meanwhile, the remaining Spring-Loaded Ground Spikes and Concealed Pitfall in the Second Ring were reactivated after the engineers in the rear pulled down the winch.
Dense Pig Iron spikes suddenly emerged from the mud, completely blocking the movement space of the mutated Ghoul.
The lowly armored soldiers fought desperately through knee-deep blood, using their iron shields and broken spear shafts to hold the monsters, now without reinforcements, firmly in the narrow mud pit, preventing them from advancing even an inch further.
Meanwhile, the long-suffering Third-Tier Heavy Cavalry Corps charged out from the flank trench amidst Fabien's roar.
Seventy high-ranking Knight simultaneously detonated their Qi Sea, Platinum Battle Aura instantly filled the battle formation.
The men and horses, like a row of steel battering rams, with their heavily armored hooves and whistling broadswords, charged into the Second Tier monster stuck in the swamp.
The entire killing formation was completely crushed at this moment.
The once ferocious, Second-Tier Elite Ghoul were now pinned down in the mud and shredded into pieces.
The defensive line at Blackpine Fief, bent to its limit, suddenly snapped back at that moment.
As the heavy cavalry advanced, this heavy blow crushed the entire position, pushing the enemy's remains, along with the black blood on the ground, back to the ruins outside the First Ring.
But this only suppressed that wave.
This back-and-forth struggle, involving sudden advances and counter-attacks, went back and forth a dozen times under the Blood Moon.
The Frozen Tundra landscape of the first two rings has been completely destroyed.
The Magic Creature's black blood, the human's shattered organs, and the broken Pig Iron parts were all frozen together, forming a thick, dark red hard shell.
The entire ring road was flattened from beginning to end, turning a large area into ruins.
The traps and mechanisms in the Second Ring were also badly damaged, leaving only a rickety skeleton of the entire outer defense line.
Deep in the Gray Fog before dawn.
Silver Sword Commander sat astride the back of Bone Warbeast, observing the battle unfold before him.
The eerie green soul fire in its empty eye sockets flickered rapidly, and a chill gradually subsided.
It was originally calculated very clearly.
--
They used endless low-level cannon fodder to carry a portion of Second-Tier Elite, sending wave after wave crashing forward. They used high-pressure thrusts to drain Blackpine Fief's military equipment, wear down the new recruits' courage, and force the fortress to collapse on its own through attrition.
It even deliberately timed its attack during the Blood Moon Tide, hoping to use its most ferocious momentum to carve out this new territory before the Church's Mobile Holy Knight could arrive.
But by now, this plan has failed.
The three Blood Moon Tide have passed.
Under normal circumstances, such repeated attacks of this intensity would be enough to crush an established Long Night Fief to its death, but for the time being, they have no way to deal with this newly established territory.
The first two layers of moats in Blackpine Fief were indeed dried up and the outer ring terrain was almost completely destroyed, but it just retreated, shrinking little by little into the third layer.
Moreover, the Silver Sword Commander has already realized that the other side is still holding back their strength.
The infantry would rotate, and the heavy Knight wouldn't all rush in at once; they would only cut in briefly at the most critical moment and then immediately withdraw.
This made it start to get irritable.
The wind swirled through the Gray Fog, and the Ghoul's innate ferocity and hunger, fueled by the sight of blood, gradually intensified.
At one point, its mind was consumed by the most direct impulse: to push everything behind it forward in one go, to tear apart the city wall and the people inside.
It gripped the Silver Sword in its hand tightly.
As soon as the bone claws tightened, a sizzling sound came from where the sword hilt and guard made contact.
The Silver Sanctity burned along the decaying bone palm, and fine white smoke rose little by little, like needles, forcefully pulling it back from the increasingly intense Ghoul instinct.
It regained some clarity.
Continuing to delay is not only pointless but also extremely dangerous.
It simply found a gap in the supply before Church support arrived.
This gap won't last forever. The Mobile Holy Knight in the Graymist Defense Zone could pounce at any moment.
If this drags on any longer, and human reinforcements manage to block its flanks and rear, its main force will be pinned down beneath the walls of Blackpine Fief.
The Silver Sword Commander slowly raised its bone claws, and the silver cross-shaped Cross Silver Sword stained with the blood of a human Viscount was gradually lifted into the sky.
He has no intention of trying again.
Before the Church reinforcements actually arrive, we must unleash our most ruthless force all at once and crush this tough nut that has repeatedly thwarted our plans.