A Tunnel Boring Machine Come to Life?

"Holy shit!"

Lin Mo nearly fell off the branch.

He stared at that thing, a single thought filling his mind.

Isn't that a fucking tunnel boring machine come to life?!

With that thing on the field, what was the point of holding a defensive line?

It could skip the front gate entirely, burrow up beneath your home, and tear you apart from the inside!

"Attack that monster! Hurry!"

Fendona shouted, the tip of her Moonlight Staff blazing as a roaring waterspout slammed toward the Earth Python.

All the Elf mages reacted, hurling ice spikes, fireballs, and wind blades at the Earth Python as though they cost nothing.

On the ground, the Elf warriors fired their final arrows, drew their twin swords, and charged, only to be tied down by countless low-tier Demon Creatures.

They could only watch helplessly as the giant python weathered the magical bombardment and heaved its way out of the ground, inch by inch.

"Stop it! Don't let it get out!"

Despair crept into Fendona's voice.

Once this massive war beast emerged completely, that mouth alone could tear the entire camp apart!

The Earth Python's enormous size gave it terrifying resistance to magic.

Hundreds of spells blasted its body, but only made its skin twitch a few times. None penetrated its defenses.

With a violent thrash, its enormous body finally broke free of the tunnel!

Another concentrated volley of magic finally tore through its flesh. The beast stiffened abruptly and crashed to the ground in a spray of blood and torn meat.

BOOM!!

Dust billowed amid the thunderous impact.

The Earth Python was dying, but its mission was complete.

From the pitch-black hole, reeking of sulfur, came strange metallic scraping sounds and howls that made their scalps crawl.

An endless tide of Demon Clan creatures poured out like a flood of rot, red light gleaming in their eyes!

Leading them was a row of Heavy Armor Demon Soldiers carrying enormous bone shields.

They stood over three and a half meters tall, their dirty gray-green bodies knotted with muscle.

Their bone shields were as thick as walls, with ominous dark-red magical markings flickering across them. One glance was enough to identify them as "tanks" with enormous health pools and high defense.

Behind them, a dark, transparent barrier quietly rose, enclosing the entire tunnel opening and a hundred meters around it.

The Elf mages' follow-up spells struck it, stirred a few ripples, and vanished without further effect.

"Loose!"

An Elf centurion roared.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

Countless arrows fired from traditional longbows flew toward them, clattering against the bone shields. Beyond a few sparks, they did so little damage that they hardly even counted as scratches.

The Heavy Armor Demon Soldiers even taunted them by pounding their shields against their chests with dull thuds.

One bared a mouthful of fangs, casually grabbed a small Demon Clan "runt" beside it, snapped its neck with a crack, and flung its steaming black blood toward the Elf positions.

"Damn it! It's a Lich's barrier!"

Up in the tree, Leon's face turned livid.

"What the hell is that?"

Lin Mo asked.

"A Demon Clan spellcaster, sir!" Leon explained rapidly. "They're at least tier four! This barrier blocks the vast majority of magic. Our mages... are useless now!"

He punched the trunk in fury.

"No! Physical attacks can get through! We still have a chance!"

After hearing that, Lin Mo steadied himself.

As long as we still have a chance.

"Compound Bow squad!" Leon ordered loudly. "On my command! Enchant your arrows with armor piercing and explosive! Three volleys! Drop those tin cans in one go!"

Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!

The bowstrings thrummed, deep and powerful.

Arrows wreathed in pale golden light left the strings five times faster than ordinary arrows, arriving in an instant with shrill whistles.

A moment later, three arrows punched straight through the bone shield of a Heavy Armor Demon Soldier still swaggering at the front.

They didn't shatter it. They pierced it!

Carrying tremendous kinetic energy, the three arrows passed through the Magic Barrier and knocked the demon soldier, over three meters tall, flat on its back, shield and all.

The demon soldier looked down at its shattered bone shield, utterly confused.

Since when did Elves have something like this?

The entire battlefield fell silent for a second.

Every Elf saw it happen.

Then cheers erupted skyward.

"It worked! Gods! The new weapons worked!"

"Shoot! Kill those bastards!"

Morale surged from freezing point to boiling point in an instant.

"Keep firing!"

Overjoyed, Leon nocked an arrow and drew his bow, issuing another order toward the tunnel opening nearly a kilometer away.

More than five hundred Compound Bows became more than five hundred heavy sniper rifles, picking off targets one by one.

Before them, the Demon Clan's heavily armored units either had their helmets blasted off or their shields pierced.

While the Compound Bows picked off individual targets, the Repeating Crossbows laid down sweeping fire.

The Demon Clan creatures trying to rush forward and rip apart the Elf positions were met with a metallic storm of crossbow bolts.

Clack-clack-clack-clack-clack-

The Elves only had to pull the triggers to empty a magazine in three seconds.

The dense bolts formed a curtain of death. The Demon Clan "runts" at the front fell in swathes, unable to reach even the edge of the defensive line.

In the workshop, Master Elder held a Repeating Crossbow and sprayed bolts wildly at the advancing Demon Creatures, ranting all the while:

"See that, you ignorant fools? This is the power of standardization! This is the art of tolerances!"

Each time the old man emptied a magazine, he let out an excited roar and deftly slotted in a fresh one.

"Damn you, Demon Clan! Feel the wrath of the God of Precision Craft! You hellspawn scum!"

Watching from the tree, Lin Mo's eye twitched.

Good grief. The old man's completely lost it. He's abandoned the God of Craftsmen and converted to the Mechanist Creed.

The battle was going wonderfully, yet Lin Mo's unease only deepened.

Something's wrong.

The Demon Clan's taking this much punishment, and they're still not retreating? Aren't they just feeding us kills?

Sure enough, once a thick layer of corpses covered the ground, the Demon Clan's assault slowed.

They did not retreat.

A teeth-grating scraping sound came from the tunnel opening, and a dozen or so even larger Demon Creatures were pushed out.

They resembled bloated beetles, each carrying a constantly writhing fleshy growth that oozed green slime.

At the front of each growth was an enormous crystalline eyeball.

Several demon soldiers carrying massive tower shields stood in front of the beetle Demon Creatures, protecting them.

"What the hell are those? Mobile turrets?"

Lin Mo muttered.

The moment he finished speaking, the fleshy growths on the beetles' backs abruptly contracted, and the crystalline eyeballs at their fronts flared with blinding light.

Hummm-

A piercing sound tore across the battlefield.

Dozens of dark-green energy beams burst forth, striking the treant defensive line ahead of the Elves with pinpoint accuracy!

There were no explosions, only a scalp-prickling sizzling sound.

The instant the beams touched the treants' tough trunks, they dissolved and charred like butter under a branding iron, billowing foul black smoke.

An Elf guard failed to dodge in time, and a beam swept across his left arm.

His entire arm vanished, leaving only a puddle of black pus bubbling on the ground.

The guard froze for a second, then let out an inhuman scream of agony, rolling across the ground as his voice grew hoarse.

"Corroders! Get out of the way of their acid!!" Fendona cried desperately.

The cheers the new weapons had sparked among the Elves abruptly died.

Cold fear seized their throats once more.