Hope, like shattered glass, turned into a sky full of golden light motes, and then completely dissipated.
Eric, the commander atop the city walls, snapped awake from that ashen despair. He looked at the main force of the Iron Guard outside the city—now stripped of the barrier’s protection and instantly colliding head-on with the tide of a hundred thousand monsters—and let out a heart-wrenching roar:
"Shield wall—! All shield warriors! Use 'Strength of the Firm Rock'! Hold the line for me!!"
But amidst the chaos, the command did not seem to be transmitted down.
Under the dual shock of the barrier’s destruction and the explosion of the furnace within the city, the Dwarven army’s formation suffered a fatal, seconds-long delay.
And the monsters gave them no chance to regain their footing.
ROAR——————!!!
Without the obstruction of the barrier, that black ocean composed of a hundred thousand monsters erupted in a sky-shaking roar of greedy and murderous joy. Like an opened sluice gate, they launched a true and tragic general offensive against the sixteen thousand Iron Guard regulars who were already fighting a bloody battle and had lost their magical protection!
"Hold on—!!" Outside the walls, the Iron Guard commanders let out heart-wrenching roars. The first row of heavy-armored shield warriors roared as they slammed shields as thick as city walls into the ground, attempting to form a cliff of steel.
But it was too late.
In that brief moment of daze, the second wave of the impact force—composed of ogres, cyclopes, armored savage boars, and shadow wolf packs—had already acted like black battering rams, slamming fiercely into the shield wall that had not yet fully recovered from the shock!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
This time, it was no longer a simple collision. The massive morning stars of the ogres smashed the first row of heavy-armored shield warriors, sending men and shields flying. The violent charge of the cyclopes plowed a furrow of flesh and blood directly through the formation. And those shadow wolves, fast as lightning, slipped through the gaps in the formation, crazily tearing at the fragile spearmen in the rear!
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The defense was no longer a defeat; it was a slaughter.
Dozens of goblins and ghouls screamed as they poured into that gap, instantly throwing the spearmen’s formation in the rear into chaos.
This gap was like a lit fuse; panic and confusion began to spread rapidly. More and more warriors were isolated, submerged by the ocean of monsters. The entire front line began to show signs of a total collapse.
Grum, a veteran who had served in the Iron Guard for twenty years, was right beside that gap.
Before he even had time to fill the position with his shield, an ogre’s massive morning star had already brought with it the sound of rushing wind, smashing down upon his head.
He felt his helmet shatter like an eggshell. His head spun, and the world before his eyes turned into a blurred, bloody red. He could no longer hear the shouts and killing around him; in his ears, there was only the voice of his wife, gently calling him home for dinner.
"...It’s... almost ready..." he murmured, lying in a pool of blood.
Then, a giant foot—larger than his entire body and covered in filthy, long hair—stepped down heavily.
The world fell completely into darkness.
On the command platform, Eric's face, which was always written with fortitude and authority, now held only pain and ferocity. He watched his most elite troops being swallowed, piece by piece, by that black tide. He let out a heart-wrenching roar at the messenger beside him:
"Quick! Have them use the shield’s runic skills to steady the line! Tell them, not a single step back is allowed!"
But his command seemed so small amidst the sky-shaking sounds of battle. He knew that, relying solely on the troops outside the city, they could no longer hold on.
At the same time, inside the half-opened main city gate.
Hag Ironmane and the nearly two thousand elite counter-attack troops behind him also witnessed this terrifying scene.
"...Plan canceled!" Hag was the first to snap back from the shock. On his face, there was no longer the previous battle-lust, only an icy, steel-like resolve. He knew that thinking about any decapitation tactics now was a fantasy. Their only mission was to use their own flesh and blood to plug that gap that was about to swallow the entire city!
He turned around and let out a heart-wrenching roar at the elites behind him who were still in shock:
"What are you still dazing for?! Do you want to wait for death?!"
He pointed to the ramp on the left side of the city wall.
"Sarah! Roric! Your 'Heart of Twin Blades,' along with 'Crimson Battle-axe' and 'Storm Raven'! Take five hundred 'Shield' troops! Go up from the left wing and plug that gap for me! Plug it even if you die!"
He then pointed to the right.
"Yggdrasil! Balin! You take five hundred 'Shield' troops and go up from the right wing! Same thing—guard your area, and don’t let a single monster in!"
Finally, he turned to Gren Ironbeard, the captain of the "Shield of Khagurem."
"Gren! The remaining thousand men, follow me! We are going through the dead center to push those pieces of trash back by brute force!"
There was no time for any further mobilization. Under Hag’s command, which was filled with the sense of a death-defying resolve, this elite force—which was supposed to be a "surprise trump card"—was instantly split into three tragic "reinforcement" units, heading toward three different directions to meet that flesh-and-blood battlefield that had already spiraled completely out of control.
The "Heart of the Forge" is gone, and the line is breaking. Grum's final moment reminds us that behind every suit of armor is a person with a home they’ll never return to. The plan for a counter-strike has turned into a desperate struggle for survival.
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