Chapter 1270: A Legion
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The following is the recorded history of the unusual tide of Chaos in the southern part of Taros.
When the dark side of the Sea of Carnos surged in the endless abyss, it formed a storm on the border of the mainland and broke through the boundary of the World of Order. The first wave of energy swelled north from the southern part of the Black Forest and destroyed everything on the land. It deformed and wilted the forest, poisoned and corroded the earth, threw the climate off balance, and obscured the starlight. The unprecedented storm of Chaos wiped out the sentry posts and villages in the buffered zone between the Black Forest and the fortress, turning the land into a dead zone. Those people utterly had no time to send a distress call back to the fort.
Earlier during the first wave of attack, the battle raged on for a day and a night. Fort Raven did not get the early warning and suffered heavy losses. Before the runic s.h.i.+eld and the barrier of Order rose, the knights could only wave the Golden Battle Flag and fought with their flesh and blood. All members of the second team of the Blackblade Legion died on the front line, and no one had retreated. The third and fourth brigades of the Raven Guards held up amid the air raids of the storm of Chaos. No one withdrew until the s.h.i.+elds were up despite with only half of the brigades left. Count Donald, the highest commander of the Raven Guards, fought to his death on the wall.
The first round of storms finally receded after a day and a night.
The second wave of attacks came three days later.
The black and dirty smoke pillars scourged the land like tornadoes. More than a dozen such tornadoes had almost re-plowed the entire area outside the fort, wiping clean the aftermath of the battle of three days ago in the blink of an eye. Strips of smoke formed between the tornadoes as if the flags of the army of Chaos fluttering in the wind. Endless monsters were flocking to the heavily-guarded but struggling lighthouse—Fort Raven.
The Spire of Flames radiated a glorious Light of Order, forming a s.h.i.+eld above Fort Raven. Powerfully sacred runes were flowing on each stone brick of the city wall. The wall could block out the energy of Chaos but was helpless against the continuous suicide attacks of the monsters without intelligence. Those monsters formed out of the smoke had no blood, no tears, and no feelings. They were neither afraid of pain nor death. Only the bitter hatred toward the World of Order was motivating them to blast the outer wall of Fort Raven open with their bodies.
A skeleton-like, huge strange bird emerged from the darkness with a loud shrill. It slammed into the s.h.i.+eld of Order on the wall, crus.h.i.+ng half of its body. But its remaining body was releasing dark energy and produced a powerful explosion outside the barrier. Following that, more monsters started to pound the same spot. Some of the monsters detonated themselves to weaken the defense of the s.h.i.+eld, while some condensed all their energy into a more powerful and effective magic weapon: chaosbolt, which was formed by pure and primitive magic energy, equivalent to the level 6 or above spell of a human wizard, and the full blow of a mid-level wizard. But this one here just poured cats and dogs. The white ray pattern on the energy barrier rapidly dimmed under continuous impact. The energy flow began to turn haywire. At this time, a mage on the nearby tower issued a warning using brainwave resonance.
“Team C, on your front left, 7-5A, the weak point appears!”
Only soldiers in specific areas could hear the warning and rushed to the weakening spot, while the others would keep fighting in their positions.
A moment later, the breach appeared. Monsters shrouded in black smoke and poisonous mist pouring in through the breach.
The energy field of the Order instantly vaporized these monsters into primary energy. But before they dissipated, they had caused irreparable damage to the wall.
Philip and his soldiers lunged forward.
His enchanted sword hit a monster. The strike sent a vibration up his wrist through the sword. The old veteran instantly felt numbness on his arm. It was as if he had struck on hardwood or even stone. Only the body of the dying monsters could give him such a real physical sense of feedback, which proved that the attack worked. While the first monster fell, two more long swords swung past him from behind and hit the other two monsters, sending them flying backward.
Philip wiped the blood and sweat off his forehead. As the battle raged on, he had no idea where his wounds were except the one on his forehead. The veteran soldier nodded to his subordinates and gestured with his hands. Years of cooperation and rigorous training had let them master the use of eye contact and sign language. They could communicate with each other on the battlefield with only the movement of the eyes and gestures of their hands.
Group of soldiers rushed to form a defensive formation around the breach and engaged the monsters that came through the crack.
Philip brandished his giant sword and hit a humanoid monster. But he sighed when he saw his men in his peripheral vision.
One more man was down; Elunique Jr. was lying on the cold wall forever.
It was during this distraction that Philip felt a burning sensation on his shoulder. He instinctively dodged as a black shadow sc.r.a.pped past his cheeks; he just saved his head from being cut in half.
The veteran quickly balanced himself, stepped aside, and turned around. Leveraging the inertia of the ma.s.sive sword, he swung it in a semicircle at the bear-like monster.
The blade of the big sword was gleaming with a faint light as it hit its target. Almost immediately, soldiers nearby lunged up and terminated the monster.
The big sword felt heavy in hand.
Philip gasped as he felt that a burning sensation in the wound on his shoulder, from which his strength drained. He felt the sword in his hand became heavier with every pa.s.sing second. The veteran shook his head and felt that today was his last.
He looked up the sky. The crack on the barrier had begun to close as the self-repairing ability of the runic wall, and the s.h.i.+eld of Order was patching the breach. It would take a while, and it would be safe again. By then, the monsters would no longer be able to enter Fort Raven through this crack any time soon.
But before the battle ended, there would not be just one breach on the wall.
The soldiers were finis.h.i.+ng the remaining monsters on the wall. Philip planted his sword in the ground and leaned his body on it to recover his strength as much as possible. He knew that the more energy he could gain, the higher the odds of him coming back from the battle alive.
Philip was neither a strategist nor a hero who could turn the tide of war on the battlefield. He was just a soldier, a veteran who was more senior than an ordinary soldier. With no idea of what sovereignty of the kingdom and the survival of civilization was, the vet knew only to fight to his death in the battlefield. At this moment, he was using all his experience and knowledge to stay alive until the next battle, which was the best he could do as a veteran soldier.
He was only an ordinary folk living in a world of Collow.
From under his armor, Philip took out an emergency kit that every frontline soldier of Raven Guard had. He poured half of the potion into his mouth, and half directly on his wound. The agitation brought by the cheap medicine made his throat and injuries sore at the same time, but it relieved the pain. This potion would not heal the wound; it was only an anesthetic and a.n.a.leptic. But for the soldiers on the battlefield, these two effects were precious.
The veteran tossed the empty potion bottle, got to his feet, and looked into the distance.
The black smoke outside the fortress had no signs of dispersion. Instead, the power of Chaos was coming with an even stronger force. A new storm was forming over the savanna outside the castle. Monsters continuously emerged from the black smoke column, as if there was an unlimited number of them.
The little suns.h.i.+ne that appeared earlier had disappeared completely.
The chaotic force had once again occupied the sky, blocking the light of the sun, Ulo. Unless the Chaos retreated, sunlight would not appear in the south for a long time.
Philip spat again and whispered something in his mouth. Just when he was about to turn around his head, a gleam of light in the sky startled him.
The veteran was rooted to the spot, his eyes affixed at the horizon. The light was getting brighter and closer.
It was as if the sun was rising again.
A ridiculous thought came to mind: Is the Chaos receding and the sun, Ulo, retaking the sky that quickly?
But he soon realized that he was wrong. The light was coming neither from the sun nor the sky, but the ground.
A powerful light source like a small sun was dispelling the darkness. Under that light, shadows appeared on the earth.
That was a sea of beasts.
Everyone in Fort Raven who was concerned about the battle had seen this scene.
It was a tide of beasts, the number of which was uncountable. No human had ever known that there were so many abhumans, lizardmen, cavemen, demonic wolves, demonic apes, bear monsters, and goblins, imps, and even elemental creatures, shadow creatures, undead, ancient beasts, and those unnamed ones were lurking outside the border of the civilized world.
The commander of Fort Raven froze as black tide covering the earth was rus.h.i.+ng toward his castle.
A master sorcerer dropped and broke his crystal ball as he saw a flaming giant python crawling on the earth, and several lords of flaming elements leading a sea of fire marching forward—it was a grand gathering of thousands of fire elements.
The leader of the Griffin Knight almost fell off his mount when he saw that above the Beast Tide, a black dragon, an epic creature, was hovering in the air acting as an early warning system for the Beast Tide.
The Beast Tide marched on without regard to the storm of Chaos ahead.
It seemed they also did not care about Fort Raven.
The husky maiden stood on the head of an ancient terracotta dragon, directing her army.
She was super happy now as if she had found Mr. Landlord.