Vol. 3: Chapter 22
The arrival of the Tauren Warriors sent a chill down the spines of the defenders. There was no time for complaints; every player on the wall unleashed their most powerful abilities. Arrow Rain, Piercing Shot, Blizzard, Starfall—the sky lit up with a storm of magical and physical attacks.
A cascade of damage numbers appeared.
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The Taurens below barely seemed to notice, their momentum unchecked as they charged forward. With 200,000 HP and massive defenses, they were not so easily felled. The first wave collapsed right as they reached the palisade, their bodies forming a ramp for the second wave that was already there, living and enraged. They raised their colossal weapons and brought them down on the wooden wall.
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Each section of the palisade only had 100,000 health. It wouldn't last long.
Down in the village, the repair crews worked with frantic energy, and the players ferrying materials behind them ran in a constant, hurried stream.
"Dammit, why can we only carry three pieces of lumber at a time?" one of them yelled. "I've got dozens of empty slots in my bag!"
But this was by design—a deliberate mechanic to throttle the defenders and drain their resources.
If it were only the Tauren Warriors, the players might have held. But the Burning Horde soon brought its two most devastating weapons to the front, and the defenders’ situation became untenable: the War Elephants and the mobile siege towers.
The defenders' greatest advantage lay in the 35-foot-high palisade, which granted them a twenty-to-thirty-yard range advantage over their attackers. The new siege units erased that advantage instantly.
The War Elephants stood 30 feet tall, their backs nearly level with the ramparts. Each one carried a score of Troll Throwers whose spears hit for over 12,000 damage—enough to one-shot any player caught off guard.
If the elephants were bad, the mobile siege towers were worse. Standing 45 feet high on wheeled platforms pushed by orc brutes, they towered over the defenders. Each tower had Troll Throwers on its open-air platform and more waiting inside. If the trolls on top were killed, replacements would immediately take their place.
Caught between the Taurens battering the walls below and the deadly accurate fire from above, the players of Legion A3 on the wall faced an impossible choice.
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In the end, they prioritized the greater threat. If they ignored the Troll Throwers, the walls might hold, but there would be no one left alive to defend them.
For twenty brutal minutes, they focused all their fire on the siege units. They managed to destroy all the towers and all but twenty of the War Elephants. But in that time, the palisade finally gave way to the relentless assault of the Taurens.
BOOM!
Section after section of the wall collapsed, and thousands of orcs poured into the village.
The east gate of Starlight Village had fallen.
The Burning Horde now had 19,000 troops remaining. The players had 28,000. On paper, the defenders still had the numerical advantage, but they had lost nearly all their defensive ground. All that was left was a head-to-head brawl in the streets.
High in the central watchtower, Lila stood up. "MirthBringer," she said, her voice calm. "Command is yours. I'm going in."
MirthBringer nodded, his eyes fixed on the chaos below. "Don't worry. I've got this."
Lila hefted Dragonbane onto her shoulder and leaped from the tower, landing lightly and sprinting toward the breach. The Horde was already flooding the streets, clashing with players in a chaotic melee.
When she was still fifty yards from a War Elephant, a dozen arrows flew toward her from its back. Lila swept Dragonbane in a fluid arc, parrying the arrows as they clattered harmlessly away. Her health bar didn't even budge. The Guardian's Ward effect was just as potent as she'd hoped.
She reached the elephant's massive leg and swung her weapon upward.
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Three waves of force erupted from her blade, not only gashing the elephant but cleaving upward through the Troll Throwers on its back.
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With a flicker of movement, Lila was on the elephant's back. Her use of a movement skill had triggered the Seismic Slam from her Inferno Striders. The trolls stumbled, their footing lost for a crucial moment.
Lila didn't waste it. A single sweep of her blade lashed out.
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Thanks to Dragonbane’s Cleave effect, every troll in a wide arc in front of her took damage. As they did, several small, crimson orbs popped out of them and hovered in the air. This was Bloodthirst. Each globule of vitality she collected would restore 10,000 HP.
The trolls recovered and thrust their spears at her. Lila parried the ones in front, but two from behind found their mark.
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Guardian's Ward wasn't omnidirectional. But with nearly 100,000 HP, the damage was trivial. She sidestepped, absorbing the globules of vitality that had dropped. Her health bar shot back to full.
She answered with two more slashes.
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With only 80,000 health, the Troll Throwers died in droves. A quick turn and a final sweep cleared the rest.
In less than ten seconds, she had neutralized a War Elephant.
Lila looked up and spotted another one a dozen yards away, its riders raining death down on the players below. She crouched and launched herself into the air with Earthshatter Leap, landing squarely on the second elephant's back.
She repeated the process, a whirlwind of steel and righteous fury. One by one, the twenty remaining War Elephants were cleared of their riders, left as nothing more than big, dumb targets wandering the streets. They were quickly brought down by random AOE spells from other players.
Lila's assault was like a shot of adrenaline for the defenders, her power a visible confirmation that they could still win this.
But the enemy was a tide of bodies. Even for someone as strong as Lila, killing twenty or thirty monsters a minute was a drop in the bucket. There were still thousands on the field. She could fight until nightfall and not kill them all.
It was then that a new voice, arrogant and mocking, appeared in the world chat.
"Hey, you scrubs in Starlight Village. And you bitches from Crimson Bloom. Heard you haven't even seen your boss yet? We've already started the main event over here. Try to keep up."