The once orderly streets below had become a furnace of smoke, screams, and collapsing stone. The undead had breached the Outer Wall, well, obliterated it would be a far more apt word, as they had turned the once impenetrable gate into a broken maw of blackened rubble and molten iron.
The roof tiles cracked under his boots as Deacon sprinted across what was left of the Lower Bailey's rooftops, trying to locate where his Party was and join them in the push into the Upper Bailey and into the Holy Sanctum.
From his vantage point, Deacon could see the flood of the Tyrannical Undead Kingdom's army pouring through: foot soldiers wielding spears, knights in heavily plated armor that was coated in dense miasma with swords and shields in hand, and the massive reanimated beasts that wreaked havoc across the Lower Bailey like a bull shown red due to their necromancer masters riding atop them.
"Wait," Deacon muttered to himself as he vaulted over a chimney as his eyes caught the sight of three familiar creatures wreaking havoc. After Identifying them, Deacon's eyes widened as those creatures that he was seeing were indeed what he thought they were – Boneflayers, the elite version of a warrior skeleton created by the Tower.
[Reanimated Skeleton – Elite Lv 14]
Snapping his gaze above, he saw a hurling ball of white and black flame crash into a building before the flame extinguished itself, and whatever crashed into the building pushed itself out and revealed itself to be another Boneflayer.
It seemingly surveyed its surroundings before leaping off the building it crashed in and instead of joining with the rest of the army, it followed the same path as the other Boneflayers and tore through the street crashed through the streets, cutting down everything that moved.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Deacon's head whipped back at the Outer Gate before his eyes had widened to the size of dinner plates and lunged off the rooftop he was on and onto a neighboring one, dodging a massive flaming boulder that crashed into the very building he previously stood on. Along with that one massive flaming boulder were hundreds more that melted through the Outer Wall and widened the gap, which the rest of the undead could cross – and if what he believed to be right, for the siege machines to enter the kingdom to take down the Inner Wall.
Through the enlarged gaps in the wall, the remaining 70% of undead soldiers came pouring in – far more than what he'd expected to be remaining, given how many he had seen on his way to get closer to the Outer Wall.
Tearing his gaze away from the flood of undead soldiers pouring into the Lower Bailey, Deacon pushed himself to his feet and vaulted the nineteen-meter gap to the next rooftop. Jass, Sam, Bonehead, Esme… they should be heading toward—
His thought trailed off as his eyes scanned the chaos below, searching for any sign of his Party. They weren't at the front of the charge, which, due to the massive collapse of buildings caused by the Flare Towers, Trebuchets, and his own array of Flame Mines, they were heading towards the left gate of the Inner Wall and made pretty good headway towards there.
Flicking his gaze toward the center and right of the Lower Bailey, Deacon saw the flood of undead soldiers and knights begin to surge toward the Middle and Right Gates of the Inner Wall. And leading them was a Boneflayer and a massive, four-legged, horned, zombie-like creature puppeted by a necromancer – tearing through the collapsed buildings in its path like paper.
As he ran, he called upon the Quest Panel, and immediately a blue translucent screen appeared in the corner of his vision, relaying to him the Floor Completion Criteria.
Floor Completion Criteria:
▸ Breach the Walls of Dawn's Breath ✔
▸ Take over 60% of the Upper Bailey ~ 23%
▸ Enter the Holy Sanctum
Deacon frowned.
"Twenty-three percent?" he muttered, leaping over the collapsed chimney of what used to be a bakery. "They haven't even breached the Inner Wall yet."
So how… Deacon trailed off as his eyes snapped to the horizon – past the smog and where plumes of fire were rising from inside the Upper Bailey.
The realization hit him all at once.
"Oh, you've gotta be shitting me," he said with a growing smile on his face at the realization of what he accomplished.
"Fry my balls and call me Peter, that's fucking amazing!" he exclaimed in disbelief - though the smile on his face barely formed before the world around him erupted in explosions.
Thunderous cracks boomed audibly above the chaos of the undead army's breach into the last standing holy human bastion, as just two kilometers behind where Deacon stood, every massive trebuchet and flare tower under the control of the undead army fired onto the Outer Wall of Dawn's Breath.
Deacon dropped low on instinct, arms over his head, just as a flaming boulder whizzed past his face and slammed through the buildings in front of him. Though despite his quick reaction in evading the massive, flaming boulder, he was not left unharmed.
The shockwave that struck him just as it rushed past his head struck him with enough force to blast him off his feet for a fleeting few moments before gravity reasserted itself, and sent him tumbling down the slanted roof he stood atop moments ago.
As he tumbled, Deacon just barely managed to grab hold of a dangling clothesline at the very last second before he would have plummeted into a massive chasm created by the combined effort of his Flame Mine Array and a 300kg flaming boulder. Almost at the same time as the massive flaming boulders and explosive fireballs struck the buildings within the Lower Bailey, Deacon was forced to endure the rain of debris striking his dangling form as he strenuously pulled himself back atop the rooftop.
Heat struck him in the back as blazing portions of debris bombarded down, cutting through the air in much the same way that incoming shrapnel would.
"You, fucking cock-sucking bastards!" Deacon shouted as he pulled himself back onto the rooftop after having grabbed hold of the remains of its stone gutter. They don't give a fuck if they hit people on their side!
Whipping his head toward the shattered Outer Gate, Deacon's eyes locked onto the sources of the attack through the haze of fire and smoke. Beyond the massive breach in the Outer Wall, Deacon spotted the trebuchets; while obscured by the rising ash and smoke, their massive and twisting silhouettes could be seen through the firelight as their arms wound back. Behind them, the Flare Towers pulsed with crimson light, mana surging at their cores as they prepared another volley, as even more mages rushed to supply them with even more mana.
How the fuck are they able to reload them that fast! Deacon mentally shouted to himself in panic.
The next barrage from them would turn the entire middle of the Lower Bailey to ash.
"For fuck's sake!" Deacon shouted out, forcing himself upright as his eyes darted across the burning chaos below, searching for his Party – jumping across destroyed plazas and buildings above the collision of two armies below.
It wasn't until he reached the heart of the chaos around the Middle Gate of the Inner Wall did he find the members of his Party.
The massive iron doors were sealed tight, flanked by a legion of knights and guards, their shields emanating a golden glow. Behind them, priests stood shoulder to shoulder, their voices intertwining in synchronized chants that infused the air with holy power.
And all around them were the glowing golden lights cast by the bright lamp posts that bathed the gate and its surroundings in holy light. Their blinding brilliance washed over the soldiers and priests alike – blessing them with heightened strength and endurance while scorching any undead that dared step within fifteen meters of the gate; a far cry of their previous range, 50 meters, which was as a result of a large chunk of the street lamp posts having been destroyed by a massive explosive blast from a flare tower.
Deacon clenched his jaw. There were at least twenty lamps still burning, forming a barrier of light that his Party couldn't push through without being scorched alive. "Not for long."
Breaking into a sprint, Deacon's boots hammering against the rooftop as he moved parallel to the chaos below, Grabbing a handful of loose shingles with his right hand, he rolled his wrist and poured mana into his arm until the tiles shimmered faintly blue, veins of light crawling across their surface.
"I really need to get me a bow and some damn arrows," he muttered.
He snapped his arm forward — the first shingle cutting through the air with a whistle before it struck a lamp dead center; snuffing out the flame and squashing the candle as the flat of the shingle easily broke through its glass casing and splattered its contents against the face of the Inner Wall – spending wet, hot wax and sparks of holy flame into the air and startling the guards and priests nearby it.
Another throw — two more shattered. Then three.
Deacon didn't stop moving as he flung shingle after single at the holy lamp post; to those moving to defend the lamp post, Deacon's right arm practically became a sniper and the shingles he threw became bullets as with every whip of his wrist a lamp post either lost its holy light or the sound of a shotgun resounded from a shield managing to block Deacon's attack and launching the defender backwards with a warped shield.
Eventually, with the help of other archers, belonging to the undead army and undead-sided cadets, lamp after lamp, the holy flames within the lamp posts went out, where there were only twelve left, and the holy, golden glow that covered the Middle Gate of the Inner Wall had receded to only being able to bask just over half of its previous distance.
As the final of his tiles slipped from his hands, Deacon took notice that there were only five lamps still alight with holy flame, and the shingles around him were too cracked to be used, and that there were no buildings nearby that he could remain on to hit the final five holy lamp posts.
Just as Deacon was about to leap from where he stood on the nearest rooftop, a massive arrow whizzed past his head and curved itself mid-flight to shatter through the glass cages of three of the five lamp posts that remained.
Rolling to his side and ducking behind a chimney, Deacon's eyes scoured the rooftops of the buildings previously behind him and immediately found the owner of the arrow had no interest in hiding themselves from the sheer amount of mana oozing from their body as they fought mid-air with a swarm of winged individuals.
[?]
…
[Angel Lv 12]
"Is that Liam fighting against Cabel and his angel friends?" Deacon muttered to himself in disbelief as a flaming boulder whizzed above the archer's face and its glow illuminated the archer's face and the faces of the angels nearby him.
Hearing the crash of the boulder striking the massive wall behind him, Deacon whipped to face the explosion and managed to pull out his shield from the Spatial Sling Bag to protect himself from the shower of debris that rained down atop him and a loud thud that resounded beside his head as something struck the chimney he hid behind.
After the rain of debris on him stopped, and Deacon lowered the shield that protected him, his eyes immediately became drawn to the long, broken-off rebar that embedded itself into the chimney.
Without a wasted motion, Deacon brought his shield up over the exposed rebar and slammed its metal edge down. The impact rang out sharp and heavy as the rebar snapped free from the chimney with a shriek of tearing steel.
Letting the shield drop, Deacon caught the falling length midair, drew his arm back, and flooded it with mana. Then, with a single heave, he hurled it skyward like a spear just as the entire plaza, and the Middle Gate of the Inner Wall, were swallowed by darkness.
Deacon's rebar spear tore through the air, crossing the fifty-meter distance in less than half a second before punching through the back of the angel that was in the middle of casting another spell at Liam.
In that same moment, the miasma of the undead army surged forth like a wave breaking free from its confines and charged at the Middle Gate of the Inner Wall.