Chapter 304: Needle in a Haystack
A once serene sanctuary of towering pines, flowing rivers, and rocky outcroppings had been transformed into a chilling, unpleasant domain. Winding trails weaved between jutting boulders, overlooked shallow, stone-filled creeks, and were criss-crossed with moss-covered fallen logs. They were untouched, lying dormant, ever since the assimilation began. The air was heavy, contaminated with alien mana that shrouded the region in a murky gray, and what should have been clear, sparkling water was black and syrupy.
This was a place that had been lost to the native inhabitants of earth. The Fallen Zone had become well-known to humans all across the continent, mostly due to the tremendous amount of territory it had swallowed up. It was exactly as unwelcoming as advertised.
All of the human alliances in North America were touched by the edges of the shadowy domain. The Primal Constructs had successfully developed their own massive stronghold, north of Neptune’s Bridge, and expanded across the American South, from the Atlantic Coast in the Carolinas to the arid Chihuahuan Desert in West Texas and Northern Mexico. It was a shadowy mark that swept through the continent.
Monstrous variants of the forces that made up the alien invasion were belched from the darkness of the forests, constantly pushing their borders in a clear corollary to the Swamp Lord’s strategy, but with a much different motivation. They were manifestations of external conquest: a metallic army of darkness intent on destroying the surviving humans.
Neptune’s Bridge stood like a bulwark against the swarms of monsters for the Lighthouse territory. The residents fell back to the end of their bridge, and used elevated platforms and towers to pick away at the swells of invaders. Hundreds of ships from the Tempest Fleet provided support while thousands of ranged soldiers chipped away at the enemies, day and night, in an unending battle with strict rotations that had been adapted from the experience of Ghost Reef during the Siege Event.
Still, even with the extensive defenses constantly engaged with the metallic alien creatures, the most robust individual invaders managed to reach the towering gates before they were fully depleted. They scraped, scratched, clawed, and smashed the white gates, but human engineers burned their mana to prevent them from breaking. So long as the damage never exceeded the rate the locals could repair, the perilous balance was maintained.
The tops of the walls were riddled with holes, like they protected the sentry towers from machine gun fire, though the monsters only rarely applied ranged attacks. Humans were actively restoring the fortifications while standing side-by-side with others who rained spells upon the river of invaders.
The nautical settlement had been undergoing a one-sided Siege Event for months. While the situation had become precarious enough for them to seek to abandon their settlement in the past, the reinforcements and reorganization from Ghost Reef had prolonged their defense, giving them a second wind that had carried them a few steps further into the assimilation. Ultimately, the reinforcing tactics were no longer adequate after the Underlayer Event concluded.
The only reason they had sustained the defense for so long was the way the monsters funneled into the long, narrow bridge, subjecting themselves to miles of steady ranged assaults. The defenders feared that blowing the bridge would result in a wider scale expansion across the sea, as the obvious path to their settlement provided a release valve for the enemy domain. Rather than finding relief in a full separation from the shore, they worried about losing the one advantage keeping them alive all this time.
By forcing the monsters into a zig-zagging obstacle course, lined with towering defenses, the forces of Neptune’s Bridge were able to hold out for significantly longer than if they stood toe-to-toe with the invaders. Traps were repeatedly reset, impediments established, and simple anti-siege tactics were spread across the length of the bridge, forcing the invaders to weave back and forth along the already extensive distance. Not even an inch was given without resistance. It was a classic game of tower defense.
As the monsters became stronger, so did the defenders, and gradually, an equilibrium was established through blood and sweat. The current problem was that the monsters had continued growing while the Underlayer Event occurred, but the residents of Neptune’s Bridge had a welcomed break while trapped inside their settlement’s mana dome.
The break was a double-edged sword, because while the local residents enjoyed the reprieve from battle, they had fallen over a month further behind the monsters in terms of experience. They hadn’t actually participated in the event, so they didn’t make any individual progress while the monsters frenzied outside of their territory. When the dome vanished, the resultant surge had pushed farther along their bridge, and the following waves kept the pressure on. An inch lost among miles was difficult to assess on its own, but consistently, over the course of days and weeks and months, the lost ground accumulated.