Chapter 467 (1/2)
JASMINE FLAMESWORTH
As the on flew over the Wall, speeding aith frightening urgency I glanced over at Helen but found no answers; she was just as uncertain as I was
The Wall’s defenders, adventurers frouild halls all over Sapin, lined the top of the colossal structure, staring nervously eastward over the Beast Glades There was little we could do except watch and hope nothing approached, but it seemed like Arthur’s caution was borderline prescient; it hadn’t even been a full day since he went into his refuge beneath the Wall
Lance Mica Earthborn ca in the open air in front of us Her stone eye, black as a cloudy night sky, gave her a fearsouards, I’m certain of it Unbelievable If they’ve left the cities undefended, I’ll…” She trailed off with a sigh and a shrug “By rock and root, what exactly a their posts The riftto defend it The only thing that makes sense, really”
“If there is a force in this world that can defeat the dragons, then this is all for naught anyway,” Helen said matter of factly “As for us, all we can do is the job that was entrusted to us Arthur lies vulnerable beneath our feet We need to keep hioal That boy’s been fighting for us since he was fourteen years old Now it’s our turn to fight for hiravely “He’s our best hope, dragons or no dragons”
“I wish he was here now,” Angela Rose said, leaning over a crenelation and looking down “Whatever’s happening out there, it’d be a lot less scary if I knew our resident Lance Godspell was protecting us, and not the other way around”
Lance Mica scoffed “Well, you’ll have to make do with just ela asked, leaning a little farther out and staring into the trees “There’s so in the shadows”
The Lance fleenty or so feet away, then cursed and wheeled around “Man your posts, the enemy is—”
Dozens—hundreds—of spells erupted from the shadows of the trees It shouldn’t have been possible; no sizable force could natures, and yet soht on top of us
Lance Mica batted away a handful of spells and dodged others while conjuring plates of stone to deflect as , spears of ice and air, and bullets of every eleates far belohileatop the structure
Like ants, hundreds of Alacryans poured out of the trees that were cut back a couple hundred feet froht to the ground—not that it’d helped
Spells began to rain from the top of the Wall, but shi+elds of a dozen different shapes and colors absorbed or deflectedfor orders or running to get to their positions, caught out of place by the suddenness of the assault Helen was directing traffic, but she had her bow in hand, and with every order shouted, she loosed an arron into the oncoela, you’re supposed to be with Durden at the vault!” Helen ordered, letting off another shot
Angela Rose hesitated before nodding and hurrying away, pushi+ng past other adventurers ere rushi+ng to the Wall’s edge to start casting their own spells There was tooelevators, so she leaped down a flight of stairs and vanished froh the air between Helen and e away It clipped a conjurer across the side of his neck behind us, taking hiround with a surprised yell of pain, then curved around and caer and deflected it back in the direction it had coh the air and returned oncedown on Helen
A shi+eld of dark rock appeared in front of her, catching the disc but shattering under the force of its i rubble, carving its long arc down into the ar disc of wind-attribute mana dissolved only a moment later
Below, I saw a black blur speed away from the enemy forces, and then a cacophonous crack rent the air, followed by the tre of solid stone beneath my feet
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A single towering, broad-shouldered, horned man had stepped forward from the enemy’s front line The black streak had co darkness—solid, black ain flying at the reinforced gate at the Wall’s base
Another crash, another tre the structure’s stone and !” someone shouted, their words heavy with relief
“But for how long?” Helen asked under her breath
A brightly burning co for only an instant before pluhtness, but the following flash and concussive blast nearly knockedaze to the battle
The ground all around the horned man and the Alacryan frontline was scorched and blasted, but he didn’t seeh it could have been the distance playing tricks onWith a whip-crack flourish, he sent another projectile at the gates, and the Wall treh,” I told Helen, alreadytime with the elevator, or even the stairs, I bolted across the top of the Wall, planted one foot firs of the Wall’s interior toere far, far below, but they rose towardair-attribute ht soht broke through I repeated this again with the alternating foot, and then yet again, like I was running down the air itself Despite flying down the Wall’s interior side at great speed, when I hit the ground a few seconds later, I didn’t burst apart on the hard stone but instead pushed the collected momentum forward into a dead sprint toward the interior of the ates
Dozens of adventurers were already gathered there, conjurers holding fireballs in their bare hands or swirling with freezing air next to augmenters i weapons Stone pillars had been pulled up frorown over with veno like an enor as another projectile struck froh the Wall’s interior to reinforce it was like a physical presence in the air, but there was a whining, strained element to it that told er as hoped
A screaates, and a ht round by a condensed cloud of wind and water Outside the gate, I heard the earth shi+fting and stone grinding against stone
The gates burst apart as an enorh and with so much force that it cracked the foundations of the Wall around it
As one, the defenders flinched back Many had already conjured shi+elds or other protective barriers that saved iant spike split into hundreds of spear-sized slivers, scattering death like so many thrown dice Stone burst, mana cracked and collapsed, and ice shattered as the spears carved a bloody swath through our nu thrown e of the black iron spears—I stared through the newly punched opening Hundreds of Alacryans were charging toward us, weapons and spells raised Outside the shattered gates, the battlefield was littered with glea shards of soe She seehty blow
As I wavered on whether or not to rush to her side, the shattered re into place all over her body like plates of arravity, visible as a distortion in the air that raced ahead of her, pulling the dust to the ground and crushi+ng the soil down several inches, barreled out toward the approaching soldiers
The hard-packed ground ers curled up fro in around her like a fist She raised one are stone haht down into the ht
Stone and e shattered, but the gravity wave had been interrupted, subsiding just before striking the charging arh the tunnel h it at speed, back into our ring of defenders
“For Dicathen!” she bellowed, hovering ten feet in the air above us, her haripped in both hands
“For Dicathen!” the adventurers shouted in response, their voices resounding through the fortification
A gout of green fla away the thickly tangled vines, then an obscuringthe ene out at us As one, our cohort returned fire, duap
“Choke the breach with the bodies of their dead,” Lance Mica growled
Suddenly thesoldiers, hidden behind their conjured shi+elds They struggled to progress forward, their feet dragging across the ground as if they couldn’t lift the bellow came fro over the Alacryan soldiers and colliding with the Lance The two crashed through the wall of a nearby building and vanished fro forward
Ducking beneath a beae fire-attribute mana, I darted forward and threw myself at the first enemy I reached A panel ofthe blow and turning it aside He raised a spear in response, thrusting in turn at er and er in the opposite direction A panel of mana appeared to protect a different Alacryan soldier, but the dagger, held within a fist of air-attribute et and drove in between his shoulder blades The spear went lier sank into his chest With a twist of er in his back leapt to ht about how the Alacryans fought and the way their battle groups were structured, I searched for their shi+elds, thosethe others All over the battlefield, swirling barriers of fire and wind appeared to deflect the spells and blows of ah
As I ducked past a Caster slinging bolts of condensed lightning, a building behind us exploded outward, raining rubble down on the battlefield Fro her hah force to distort the air around her, and each blocked blow seeh my bones
Her opponent—a Scythe, I was certain—deflected the bloith a towering shi+eld of black iron that rang like a giant bell with each strike He wore a look of ecstasy, reveling in the combat Thankfully, he had eyes only for her But I had no tiht