Chapter 399 – The Assault Begins
The first of the Demonic Beasts came within sight of Viridis about half an hour after Damion flew back over the wall. Despite Mage Locke’s attempt to keep the knowledge of S Rank Breaches appearing, word began to quickly spread among the defenders. Thankfully, the magic cannons and the defensive walls of Viridis were rated to be able to hold off and take down an S Rank Demonic Beast, but that did not mean the defenders were confident.
The magic power difference between an initial S Rank and peak S Rank, was enormous. While most adventurers did not know the actual number, few is any outside of S Ranks did, every adventurer could guess there was a huge gap, which was why S Rank was the believed cap for humans. Knowing this, the adventurers on the walls had the fear that what came out of those S Rank Breaches might be unstoppable.
The horde of Demonic Beasts grew closer and just when everyone was beginning to wonder what would happen next, the magic cannons on the walls of the city began to fire. Explosions of Fire, Ice and Lightning erupted on the battlefield. Scores of Demonic Beasts disappeared from view. A moment later the horde pushed forward, the gaps in their charging line quickly being filled as more Demonic Beasts rushed forward.
The larger magic cannons continued to fire as soon as they recharged while smaller ones with shorter range began spitting out Fireballs, Ice Shards and Earth Shards. Many of the Demonic Beasts shrugged these attacks off, since these smaller rapid-fire cannons were only rated for B Rank creatures, but dozens were still cut down.
Damion was hovering in the air on his Ice Sword, casting Summon Ice and splitting the huge cube of ice into tiny pieces and raining death down on the incoming Demonic Beasts. Even with the magic cannons, Damion and all the adventurers on the walls casting spells and using artifacts, the wave of Demonic Beasts seemed to have no end.
Given the confusing nature of large-scale battles, Damion decided to give a few of his new spells a try. Along front line of encroaching horde, he cast Fire Storm, but not just once. Casting as far away as he could, he cast one, then another closer along the line and another and another. After casting six Fire Storms and snuffing out hundreds of Demonic Beasts ranging in Rank from F to B, the line of Demonic Beasts in front of his section of wall, began to thin.
The adventurers lining the wall cheered when they saw the multiple Fire Storms erupt. Believing that an S Rank had come by to assist them. Damion said nothing to dissuade them of the belief and resumed casting Summon Ice. The spell could cover a large area, but because of him having to summon the ice and then split it into smaller pieces before attacking, it was not as efficient as a spell that already had a large area of effect.
He would have liked to fly over the Demonic Beasts’ heads and cast Frost Over or Ice Domain to freeze entire areas, but with so many other people casting spells and the magic cannons firing into the area, Damion felt it was better to stay behind the lines. After sending out another volley of ice crystals from Summon Ice, he decided to switch to Ice Beam.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The spell was much more powerful, and of course more mana intensive, but he could cast the spell and sweep it across the ranks of the Demonic Beasts that were now clawing and ramming into the walls of Viridis. Soon enough the Demonic Beasts would start to try and climb the walls and that would be when people started to get desperate.
Since Ice Beam cost him 250 mana per second to cast, after each pass through the Demonic Beast horde, which left dozens dead and even more partially frozen, Damion had to take a few seconds to let his mana recover.
Bodies of Demonic Beasts were beginning to pile up, but more creatures were climbing over the dead to reach the walls. To Damion’s left he saw a feline Demonic Beast crest the edge of the wall and launch itself at a knight. A mage a few meters away cast a spell at the beast, but a moment later, another Demonic Beast cleared the wall and pounced on the mage.
Seeing that their section of the wall was about to be overwhelmed, Damion flew down and crossed over the wall and then dipped lower than its edge. This way he was out of the light of fire from any of the magic cannons. He then began to cast Frost Over. The repeated casting caused the enchanted stone walls of Viridis to become slick with ice and the small pyramids of Demonic Beasts scrambling over themselves to reach the top to collapse.
Further down the edge of the wall Damion could see other clusters of Demonic Beasts trying to climb the walls. He flew towards the closest one and cast Ice Beam. When it toppled over, he continued on, aiming an Ice Beam at each of the clusters of Demonic Beasts in turn.
With this many Demonic Beasts attacking the city, eventually they would breach the walls, but the longer he delayed that, the better the situation would be when the S Rank Demonic Beasts showed up. After a single pass around the city, Damion saw a new cluster of beasts trying to climb the wall, so he began a second loop. On his second pass around the city, Demonic Beasts with ranged magic attacks began trying to target him. Thankfully, he was moving quickly and the attacks had little chance of hitting him.
The attacking Demonic Beasts, however, were not so lucky. Because they stopped to try and attack Damion, the beasts made themselves sitting targets for the city’s magic cannons. Generally, the cannons would fire and cover a certain area, attacking the largest clusters of Demonic Beasts or any beast that registered a certain level of magic power. The exception to this was creatures with ranged attacks. Such beasts were dangerous not only to the defenders on the walls, but to the magic cannons. If too many cannons were lost, it was possible that the damage to the city could be catastrophic.
After his second pass, Damion flew back over the wall and then went to find a place to rest. It had been nearly eight hours of constant fighting, and he was becoming exhausted. As much as he would like to go on for days, like he had during the Saung beast wave, this go around he was constantly casting spells, and not almost solely using his mana to stave off physical exhaustion.
He did not want to collapse from mana exhaustion during this beast wave. This meant regular rest. The adventurers on the walls rotated every five hours, this meant he had already been out there nearly twice as long as everyone else. After finding a quiet place to rest in one of the emergency barracks set up, Damion quickly fell asleep.
Three hours later, Damion was shaken awake by a thunderous sound followed by a wailing alarm. While three hours was not as much rest as he was hoping to get, it was still better than nothing.