Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1308: Chapter 1307: Surprise

For the past seven centuries, the sentinel towers have been entities in the wasteland that wandering monsters dread to approach—even the mindless aberrations and the Wandering Wraiths born from chaotic magic instinctively avoid these dangerous facilities teeming with vast energy, always ready to discharge purifying beams. Rarely would a horde of monsters come near the sentinel towers, and initiating an attack was unprecedented.

However, today, most of the defensive functions of the sentinel towers are offline. The ancient warning devices surrounding the towers will no longer be able to fend off the collected aberration Legion, and the command from the upper command nodes has dispersed the instinctive resistance entrenched in the chaotic minds of these monsters. With a single command, tens of thousands of aberrations and chaotic magic wraiths began to turn in the wasteland, directing their fearsome thrust towards the grand towers atop the wasteland highlands.

Meanwhile, numerous aberrations still surge endlessly from the depths of the wasteland, replenishing the warzone at the barrier’s edge, continuously pressuring the human forces on the defense line, rendering these resisting mortals powerless to stop the actions of the aberrations.

From a high vantage point, looking down, the entire boundary of the wasteland is filled with countless overlapping filthy Surges. The nearly endless aberrations, trapped behind the great walls for seven centuries, are continuously summoned by the ”command signals,” flooding into the ”Legion” striking the boundary. The high walls that once stopped them are extinguishing segment by segment, larger and larger breaches appearing on the faintly glowing energy field screens. Mortal armies fight desperately at these breaches, trying hard to plug the gaps in the defense line. However, the breaches continue to grow larger, spiraling into an unmanageable situation.

A half-man, half-tree monster stands at what was once Gondor’s northern border, gazing at the distant scene from a high hill. The army, like a tide, assaults the breach at the end of the barrier and the distant grand sentinel tower still hovering in mid-air. It sees a thrust from the aberration Legion finally reaching the base of that tower. A gigantic mutant individual, nearly the size of a city gate, halts on the flatlands before the base, and as countless cannon fodders cluster around, these colossal ”beasts” with filthy flesh and blood bow down, anchoring themselves to the ground with deformed hands and feet, while the bone spurs parallelly growing from their backs point distantly at the tower floating in the air—

Between the bone spurs on the back of the ”giant beasts,” bright electric light fills. The highly compressed chaotic magic emits a sharp whistle in the air, and after a moment’s charge, an attack like a beam cannon slices through the air, fiercely bombarding that magnificent tower.

Ripples rapidly spread across the surface of the tower, the energy shields intrinsic to the tower block the high-energy beams released by the giant aberrations. Subsequently, some magic mechanisms set at the base of the tower began sparse retaliation, arcane bullets and electric arcs swept across the wilderness. This remaining automatic defense fire killed some overly close aberrations, but more ”giant beasts” gathered on the plains, and successive high-energy beams continuously bombarded the upper structure of the sentinel tower.

The roar of cannons from afar shook the earth, the increasingly pungent smell in the air stimulated the soldiers’ nerves, and the ground beneath trembled, while the clouds in the sky burned. In the eyes of the young communications officer, the only thing in the world that mattered was a signal relay hub that had stopped working in a half-buried bunker not far away.

Fendil Weld led the remaining four soldiers through the toxic wasteland filled with jagged rocks and swirling pungent dust. The airflow whipped up by the collapse of the great walls continuously blew, scattering his once tidy military uniform with dirt and tears. The sleeve’s tear revealed a bleeding wound inside. He crossed a low natural stone wall, and the unresponsive communication relay bunker appeared several hundred meters away. Its half-buried concrete dome looked relatively intact.

”There are no signs of assault; maybe the energy released during the great wall’s malfunction damaged some structure of the relay. A small blessing in a sea of misfortune.”

Fendil quickly made a judgment in his mind, exhaled a concealed sigh of relief, and stepped forward. But just then, one of the soldiers following behind suddenly pointed to the sky not far away and shouted, ”Sir! Look over there!”

”Over there is...” Fendil instinctively shouted a sentence but swallowed back the second half of his words when he looked up in the direction the soldier was pointing.

He saw that the surface of the floating sentinel tower was continuously blossoming with bright arcs. Masses of filthy red energy bombarded the middle of the tower, and the energy remaining at the top of the sentinel tower was already ebbing away. Under the incessant barrage, the light screens struggling to extend from both sides of the tower began to collapse faster, the increasingly thin energy field screen swaying like a candle flickering in the wind.

”Those monsters want to completely destroy the tower!” Another soldier cried out in horror, ”Once that tower is utterly ruined, even if the elves on the other side restart the barrier, the breach on our side can never be fixed again!”

Fendil stared wide-eyed, the cries of his soldiers echoing in his ears, the flashes on the distant tower continuously dazzling his eyes. Yet, as a communications captain with only a handful of soldiers, as a low-ranking officer caught in the vast battlefield, he suddenly found himself powerless to stop it all from happening.

But in the next second, his gaze landed on the communications relay point not far away. The roaring cold wind on the wasteland sobered him up, and he ignored the meaningless personal lament in his mind, leading his remaining warriors towards the shelter.

The exterior of the shelter was not destroyed; Fendil quickly led the soldiers into the half-buried structure. At first glance, he saw the extinguished Magic Web Terminal at the center of the man-made pit and two Cecil soldiers who had fallen near the terminal.

There were no signs of enemy attack around the fallen soldiers, but near their chests were shocking burn and penetration wounds. On the ground next to the Magic Web Terminal were traces of high-temperature scorching, and the Energy Amplification Array and spare storage crystals that should have been set nearby had all turned into charred debris fragments.

The uncontrolled release of energy pulses from the great walls sent one pulse sweeping across this communication post, causing critical equipment to overload and lose control. Soldiers stationed here might have attempted to rescue the most important Magic Web Terminal, but they rushed to the center equipment in the structure, only to be killed by the suddenly detonated energy device—this could explain why their lethal wounds were on their chests.

Fendil quickly scanned the fallen men, roughly judging what had happened here. There was no time to bury his comrades now; he ordered his soldiers to move the bodies aside to make room for repair equipment before lying down next to the Magic Web Terminal to replace the structures that had been burned out.

And when he started to work, a soldier helping nearby suddenly frowned and nervously said in a low voice, ”Sir, do you feel... there’s been constant shaking under us?”

”The entire banded flatlands are vibrating,” Fendil said without looking up, ”That’s the distant artillery, and the noise of those monsters attacking the sentinel tower—stop talking nonsense, if you waste too much time here, you’ll face more than just this shaking!”

”Yes, sir,” the soldier responded loudly to the reprimand but couldn’t help muttering softly after a while, ”The shaking seems to be getting stronger... like something is approaching...”

Fendil ignored the soldier’s murmurs, swiftly installing new components into the slots of the communication device, and directly using his magic power to entrench the rune trigger on structures already melted inside the terminal. Amid his frantic operation, he quickly raised his head, with a worried expression glancing towards the narrow window facing the Gondor wasteland within the structure—through the narrow air vent, he saw the energy shields flickering on the surface of the sentinel tower floating mid-air, the entire tower body already shaking violently, while a piercing whistling sound constantly emanated from the flatlands direction, agitating everyone’s spirits.

At this moment, a low buzzing noise suddenly came from the base of the Magic Web Terminal in front of him, and this extinguished, damaged device finally came alive under his hands, establishing communication with far-flung locations.

The Focusing Crystal barely illuminated a shifting projection, and Fendil couldn’t continue to debug the system. Suppressing his rapid heartbeat, he switched the device to emergency relay mode, summoning all terminals he could connect to from here: ”This is Cecil Communications Officer Fendil Weld, urgent situation, aberrations are attacking Sentinel Tower No. 98! Aberrations are attacking Sentinel Tower No. 98! I can see their assembly location, attack main force roughly southwest of the Black Hills...”

A deafening roar interrupted Fendil’s continuous calls and broadcasts, interrupting all the soldiers’ movements in the communications shelter—even momentarily interrupting the whistling artillery on the battlefield, cutting through the chaotic gust swirling between monsters and humans.

Then came a second loud roar, followed by a series of piercing whistles and rumbling.

The last glow of the shield on the surface of the sentinel tower in the distance extinguished with a whistle, as a powerful beam cannon destroyed a major energy conduit inside the tower. A loud explosion came from above, and the chain reaction began inside the tower—instantly filled with flames, the fissures covered the tower, and then the uncontrolled energy created a lethal resonance between the base of the tower and the antigravity mechanism.

The sentinel tower, which had guarded this line of defenses for seven hundred years, began to experience numerous chain explosions on its surface. The resilient ancient alloy frame held the main structure from being completely shattered, but all functions of the tower had irreversibly reached their end. After a moment of trembling—which resembled the last struggle of a dying giant—the mighty tower hovering in the sky descended, crashing onto its own base first, then collapsing the hill below, and finally toppling towards the southeastern hills in a slow yet dreadful manner.

The energy shield extending from both wings of the tower finally extinguished completely, and a part of the great wall’s structure permanently disappeared at that moment, transforming into a terrifying breach extending from Cecil’s southern frontier all the way to the northern defenses of Typhon.

Inside the communication bunker, a soldier stared in shock at the ghastly scene in the distance, witnessing the barrier that stood for centuries on the edge of the civilized world, assumed to be as natural as a force of nature, extinguish completely before his eyes. The massive impact overshadowed every feeling of tension and fear; he just gaped at that direction along with the other soldiers, eventually squeezing out a voice from his throat: ”Sir...the wall has collapsed...”

”I see it,” Fendil said, almost through gritted teeth. It was the only way he could barely maintain his composure—though he himself was just a newly graduated ”officer,” he had to maintain a calm attitude in front of his soldiers. ”We’ll immediately relocate to check the backup line, that energy surge just now likely disrupted our communications with Typhon, the Magic Web Terminal is full of noise...”

As he rapidly spoke, Fendil stepped towards the exit of the bunker. He thought he was composed enough, yet nearly stumbled over a green vine that had emerged from the soil nearby. Staggering forward two steps, he barely managed to grab onto a pillar to avoid falling. Standing at the exit of the fortification, he gazed in a daze towards the direction of the Gondor wasteland amid the harsh, cold wind.

But in the next second, as if he suddenly realized something, he quickly turned his head to look in the direction he’d just walked, at the thing that nearly tripped him.

...

The sentinel tower has fallen, and a permanent breach has been torn open in the barrier that sealed the wasteland for seven hundred years, representing the stubborn idiocy of mortals.

The Druid priest responsible for attacking the northern defenses left his high ground, adjusting the main formation of the aberration Legion under the escort of his guard, beginning to concentrate attack pressure towards the newly opened breach, while a rousing emotion filled his already altered nervous system, dispelling the accumulated depression and irritation in his heart since the start of the war.

He had a reason for his frustration—from the start of the war, reports of smooth progression kept coming from all branches of the legion, with almost every advancing unit crushing the feeble ”alliance” resistance like dry weeds, taking full advantage of surprise attacks and overwhelming numbers. The army emerging from the wasteland saw victory after victory on all fronts—but his case was the exception.

The determined resistance of the Cecil Clan and their absurd, almost neurotically amassed firepower made the aberration Legion attacking the northern defenses suffer greatly.

That damned firepower turning the whole land over several times is something humans couldn’t have managed! Even the nerve signals fed back by the monsters suggest those humans across are the real monsters!

But now, everything has turned for the better; the humiliation of the officer’s setbacks during the attack has been mitigated at the moment the sentinel tower fell.

No matter how strong the will of the Cecil Clan, no matter how powerful their firepower, they couldn’t stop a breach nearly tearing open the Dark Mountain Range.

They could only watch as the tide of aberrations surged over their defenses, rushed into their homes, and tore apart their kin and friends.

”Give them a big surprise!”

The dark Druid, resembling a fusion of a grotesque tree and an ugly human, shouted loudly. Under his will, the aberrations surged like a black tide towards the gap on the eastern side of the Dark Mountain Range.

Then he felt the tremors from deep within the earth—

At first, he thought it was the rumble of distant artillery, then he thought it was his army shaking this scorched land.

But later, he realized it was neither; the tremors came from deeper down, from farther away.

It was as if some colossal creature was burrowing in the depths of the earth, as if some terrifying entity or a structure from deep within the earth was breaking through to the surface.

”Archbishop!!!” the terrified scream of a lower priest interrupted the dark Druid’s thoughts, ”Something’s emerging from the underground!!”

The dark Druid, tasked with commanding the legion, reflexively looked up, towards the end of his army.

There, countless nightmarish ferocious vines burst from deep within the earth, instantly reshaping into towering trees. Thorny brambles lashed at the scorched land that once lay under the great walls, strong aberrations, giant ”monsters,” toxic bio-synthetic beasts, and chaotic magic creatures—their supposed terrifying visages were successively pierced, whisked into the air, struggling desperately in mid-air like insects caught by a carnivorous plant.

A massive green barrier was forming across the land on the border of the Black Forest, taking shape in an incredibly short time, while a vaguely familiar female voice, inexplicably, exploded in the dark Druid’s nervous system, echoing across the vast battlefield:

”A surprise, my former comrade, High Priest Bertrum.”