The Heavens Shall Fall

By the time Siu, Vael, and Arya had returned behind the defenses, the opposing army was finally in motion, the soldiers arranging themselves into multiple lines. The moment Siu arrived, General Devren hurried up to them and asked with a defeated smile.

“Well? Is it really this bad as what I see if I look over the walls, or am I just too pessimistic?”

“They're not Stormglass, and this? No, it isn't that bad,” Siu answered calmly.

“I hope that actually means something," He shrugged, shaking his head, then switched mood in a snap, showing he was still a general after all. "We are ready. Defending is always easier than attacking, and we can slowly retreat up the hill as they push us. They will pay dearly for every street they take.”

“You focus on the battle,” Siu nodded, taking a deep breath, "We will help out where we can, and you can leave the cultivators to us. If they appear, make your people steer clear of them."

He had just finished when Devren's answer was muffled by a deep horn, signaling the enemy's readiness. Hurrying to the walls, Arya hopped around nonchalantly, climbing onto the ledge with Marly sitting on her head, holding onto her two large ears.

“So... What do you think? They're going to throw mortals at us?” Ruben asked, appearing beside the others.

"If you ask me," Siu looked at him with one eye, "I am pretty sure about it, thanks to Arya's little trick."

"They are super confused, ehehehe!" She giggled, showing a V-sign. "You should have seen his face! He couldn't believe how many of us were there!"

"Yeah, but the moment they realize only a few of us fight back, the illusion will be gone," Seloryn warned her, making Siu shrug as he watched the army in the distance.

"It was all for the sake of buying some extra time, that's all. It gave us a breather so they won't rush us down from the get-go."

Another horn sounded, drawing their attention, and Seloryn's ears twitched as she picked up the groaning of wooden mechanisms in the distance.

"They are doing something..." She muttered, squinting as she tried to see behind the army.

“Trebuchets.” The General said, pointing them out, guessing that he was more familiar with this kind of warfare than the cultivators around him. "They will start with those."

"I see." Siu followed his gaze, nodded, and luckily, they weren't spread out evenly. Instead, they all faced the main entryway into the city. "We will deal with those."

“Everyone!” Devren yelled at the main moment, “READY! ARCHERS TO THE LOWER WALLS! KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN UNTIL THEY ARE CLOSE!”

"They may try to launch a surprise strike to crush the morale of the people," Siu said, turning toward Vael while Devren was yelling, "Stay with the King, in case they try to be sneaky.”

“You sure?” He asked, frowning at first.

“I want someone strong close to him if this is a distraction.”

"..." He was clearly annoyed by the notion, not exactly at Siu, but at the whole situation, but he nodded in the end, taking a deep breath. "On it."

"They are doing it!" Seloryn suddenly yelled out, hearing a loud, thumping noise before anyone else.

In the distance, they saw something dark get swung into the air, tumble through it, and head directly toward a random part of the city. Midway through its flight, they could make out that it was just a big boulder, nothing else. Two more followed quickly, launched at the city while Sumeck's defenders stared at them, unable to do anything. They would fall wherever they pleased, and people could only pray they wouldn't get crushed.

However, before they could do any damage, Seloryn had already blown into her flute. By the time they heard it, a sharp arc of sound actually flashed through the air, traveling faster than the boulders and cutting through the foremost one. Immediately, a spiderweb-like crack spread across its surface before it exploded from within, turning the big rock into thousands of little pebbles that rained down on the snowy field before the city, not even reaching the walls.

The second flying stone didn't last long either, because Ruben just pointed his umbrella at it and a jet of water shot out from its tip. At first, anyone watching thought it would destroy the boulder as Seloryn did, but when the water reached it, it expanded like a hand. It enveloped it like an amoeba, then he pulled, and the heavy rock plummeted out of the sky, landing on the ground and kicking up a cloud of snow.

“Hmph.” He snorted, "Too easy! And ugly."

The third stone got maybe the farthest, but only because Joren didn't have any long-range attacks like the other two. Soldiers were already scampering out of the way when a massive slab rose between two buildings, looking like a shield. The stone struck it with a loud boom, like someone hitting an enormous gong. Still, before it could shatter, Joren focused on it and began copying Ruben, enveloping it in his own summoned defenses and creating a round ball twice the size of the original boulder.

"Can we send this back?" He asked, panting, because it was heavy to hold up, heavier than the Prismhide ever was.

"Yeah!" Arya laughed and handed something to Marly, who flew out, reached the boulder, and the moment she slapped the tag onto it, its weight was gone, easing Joren's job of holding it.

"Was that...?" Seloryn asked, making Marly and Arya pose and throw a V-sign, because it was indeed a tag left over from the Prismhide mission.

"Off you go!" Ruben said with a grin, his water-made hand grabbing it and flinging it back toward the enemy army...

The mortals watched in awe on both sides, because the boulder regained its weight halfway back, threatening to land directly in the line of the trebuchets. However, it had no chance of doing so. A light-blue cloud appeared in its way, freezing it over, before an earth-made javelin struck it and destroyed it mid-air, the same way as Seloryn did to the first one.

"At least we also dragged out two of their Blood Resonance cultivators," Siu said, rubbing the girls' heads, watching the results.

"You have the best senses." Seloryn nodded with a smile. "Did you catch their proficiency?"

"Low." He muttered, licking his lips, watching as the trebuchets in the distance prepared to fire again. "And they felt rough. We can take them on, but still, be careful if we do."

"Naturally." She chuckled, twirling her flute between her fingers.

The bombardment continued for the next half an hour or so, even if the enemy couldn't fire that quickly, because loading the machines took time. Then, when they fired, the boulders never reached the city. More than that, Siu made sure the enemy only got to watch the same spells over and over again from Seloryn, Ruben, and Joren. Nothing else.

“Can I show them something?” Arya asked, getting bored, sitting on the wall, dangling her feet. "It is unfair that only you get to play!"

“In due time.” He said simply, and after nearly another half an hour, the trebuchets finally stopped, probably giving up on trying any more.

Which didn't mean the siege was over, because the infantry had finally started running. Several hundred people began striding forward, using the now-multiple boulders littering the field between them and the city's first walls as cover. And where that wasn't possible, they kept their shields raised, or at least those who had a shield did so. Siu couldn't tell whether they moved in loose blocks rather than perfect formations because they weren't professional warriors, or did so exactly because they were professionals, acting in smaller groups on a chaotic battlefield like this.

The moment they got into range, Devren held one arm up, and Siu watched as the archers drew their bows, still waiting in order, looking much braver now. When Devren finally shouted the call, the first volley flew as hundreds of arrows rose into the sky before falling back down, some landing perfectly in an attacker's head or chest. At the same time, others landed and got stuck in wooden shields that protected their wielders from certain death. As it was happening, some attackers found cover behind one or two deflected boulders littering the land and began firing from there, trying to hit the walls, but their aim was way off.

"Interesting," Ruben muttered, not sounding afraid at all, as they watched the attacking force split, moving toward the barricades and trying to enter the city. "Should we let them come in? I wonder how well they could climb the icy main road."

"No." Siu shook his head. "Let's keep them out as long as possible. Our main goal is to buy time, after all. If we have their cultivators here when an Elder arrives, it would be the best. Bren, can you help the defenders out where they are the nearest?"

"No problems." He nodded and headed away at once.

When he reached the terrified-looking defenders who were mostly militia or drafted locals, they were facing about thirty, maybe even forty enemy soldiers. They rushed at them, trying to finally get in, with swords, spears, and axes raised to attack. Without waiting, Bren stepped out and stood alone in their way. The first thing that reached his chest was a spear that, when it hit his body, splintered into nothing while its wooden shaft bent and broke apart. Bren watched the soldier's eyes widen, then grabbed him and flung him over his shoulder like a ragdoll. He landed on his neck, dying in a snap, missing how Bren punched out at the second soldier, whose looted breastplate caved in, along with his chest, his heart being crushed into a pulp. It wasn't all because the dead man's body left the ground and crashed into two others behind him, bringing them down into the snow.

“MONSTER!” Someone shouted as all the rushing enemies skidded to a halt, their hands trembling.

“...” Ignoring their shouts, Bren moved forward, true to his cultivation: never take a step back. He was not even looking at an axe that tried to hit his shoulder, maybe even cleave into his neck from the angle it was coming down.

The relatively big man who had swung it two-handed had no chance. The moment the axe struck Bren's shoulder, it shattered like it was made of glass, the rebounding force tearing up the man's palm and fingers. Worse than that, Bren grabbed him by the face, lifted him up with one arm, and threw him into the wall, his skull already cracked open by the time he left his grasp, dead.

Overwhelmed by panic, the rest attacked together in a desperation to bring him down, but no matter what they used, their simple iron or maybe steel weapons were worth just as much as sticks in a kids' playfight.

“Really?” Bren asked, turning his head when one of them tried to stab him in the back with a dagger.

Shaking his head, he just hit him, vaporizing his head into a bloody mist, finally using a bit of his essence, reinforcing his arm more than usual.

While Bren held down the first point the enemy hit, Nokoh and Cho'Wa arrived at the second part of the city where they tried to break in. Unlike Bren, who stood there, not letting anyone get by him, the pair was constantly moving, as if they were hunting the screaming, now deathly afraid soldiers. With the momentum of Cho'Wa's usual running speed, he shoulder-struck a man holding a wooden shield; the poor defenses splintered, followed by the man's body, twisting as its spine snapped into multiple parts before he even hit the snowy ground.

And through it all, Cho'Wa didn't even use his jaw, which, when snapped shut, bit through even chainmail.

As for Nokoh, he was just as bad in the attackers' eyes, because they simply couldn't hit him at all. The man flowed between their attacks, and even if they thought they stabbed him, it couldn't pierce his skin. The worst was when he caught a sword between his fingers and opened his mouth to speak.

“You should run.”

Nokoh may have said that, but the man couldn't have run at all, even if he wanted to, because the next moment Nokoh took the sword from him and drove it into his face, killing him at once.

It was unfair to mortals to face cultivators, because none of them even needed to use a spell; it was enough to circulate their essence-soaked blood to reinforce their bodies. Their bones alone were harder than any mortal weapon, making them the worst nightmare to fight against. Especially if they met someone like Bren, who has been cultivating his body to a higher degree than any of the other Wardens. A mortal could train his entire life, strengthen his muscles, or study the blade and perfect his swordsmanship. He may wear the best armor, too... it wouldn't make a difference. They would simply die from one punch.

Maybe that's why, when the defenders' shouts grew loud and cheerful, a horn sounded, and the rest of the coming attacks were aborted, drawn back to the main lines. It surprised many of them, because this one attack at the bottom barricades and walls lasted less than an hour, with nothing achieved. They were just throwing away a hundred or so lives, their corpses still lying in the snow, painting it red, while the second wave broke off and retreated...

"Are they giving up already?" General Devren asked, breathing hard, his face almost glowing with excitement as he stood next to Siu.

"I don't think so..." He muttered, watching the people run away, back to their starting point. "Best to prepare for the worst... Their second try won't be so easy."