Let go of that monster girl!

It illuminated Lyme's eyes.

There are more shiny things in this world than just soap bubbles.

There is also fire.

Chapter 118 The Holy Remains Army

light.

A gleaming light.

In the eternal darkness, light is hope.

In the far north, a colossal tree emitting a dark red light stands on the earth, the entire tree resembling a lighthouse burning with dark flames.

South of the giant tree, several territories have fallen into a deathly darkness, with neither glowstone lights nor campfires lit.

A clear gap has been cut through the sprawling, luminous white fungal forest, stretching from north to south.

Where the gap was, there was firelight.

After the fire went out, even the glowstone lamps no longer shone.

North of Carrot Territory, on the front lines, the surviving nobles gathered.

This fortress was once a bridgehead for the kingdom's southward expansion, and it underwent several renovations to defend against the fearsome horse girls further south. It has towering, excessively thick walls and rune-inscribed crossbows specifically built for shooting fast-moving targets.

Throughout the entire Mouse Girl Kingdom, this is one of the most fortified fortresses.

The city wall was built of dark, massive rocks, with rammed earth mixed with blessed silver. At this time, rows of iron arrow shields had been erected on the top of the wall, revealing one dark crossbow firing port after another.

Each of the four corner towers is equipped with a giant rune-inscribed crossbow, its arms covered with pale blue rune patterns—the masterpieces left behind by witches of the old era.

On the city wall, a large number of rat girls and some other beast girls were busy reinforcing the city's defenses.

The mouse girls tiptoed to pour baskets of pebbles into the boxes that served as makeshift shelters. They were only halfway up the boxes, so they had to work in pairs, with one crouching down as a step and the other standing on their companion's back to pour the stones in.

Snow Cow Girl carried the whole log to build the second fortification behind the city gate.

In the conference room atop the castle, several noble beast girls, clad in armor, sat solemnly around a long table covered with a map.

The scratches and dents on many pieces of armor indicated that some of them had been in battle, and several helmets lay on the corner of the table, revealing tired faces.

"Those lunatics from the cult, why did they suddenly make a move?"

"I wonder what's wrong with that Holy Dragon."

"I heard that the state religion has issued an extermination order against that guy, but it will take at least ten more days for the kingdom's army to arrive to fight the cult."

After a moment of silence, the leading noble beastwoman spoke again. She was a brown-haired horse girl with her left arm draped in a cloth strip across her chest, and her left shoulder armor was long gone.

"Prepare the rune arrows, have the knights polish their weapons, and have the witches prepare all their tools. Bring out all the stored grain to form a militia."

"We will hold the city; this will be a tough battle."

Not all nobles are incompetent; those pioneering nobles who seized the southern border of the kingdom with their swords are all elites. But among those present, the only one who has truly received training from childhood is this brown-haired horse girl.

Even after taking in the routed northern army, this pitiful allied force consisted of only a few witches, forty-odd knights, a hundred-odd cavalrymen, and several thousand infantrymen of varying quality.

This number is actually quite considerable, even enough to conquer a small country.

But before the Holy Relic Army, all previous defenses melted away like wax. They moved very slowly, but their marching speed was the speed at which the battle lines advanced. Those once proud knights and arrogant witches all fled south with the defeated soldiers to this place.

This is a war involving high-level superhumans.

All courage, will, glory, and schemes are meaningless.

If you fight with all your might and still can't even pierce the skin of the opposing coach, what use are your wisdom and courage?

If the Holy Relic Army hadn't itself foreshadowed the only fate for those who surrendered, the allied forces would surely have already surrendered by now, with more than half of them surrendering at the mere sight of them.

By this point in the war, they hadn't even seen the dragon's face.

The noblewoman, Ma Niang, had already witnessed the terror of the Holy Remains Army firsthand. She pointed to the northern position on the map with her right hand.

"That dragon won't appear. The manipulator of such a monster army is the fatal weakness, even if she is a dragon."

"What is that dragon thinking?" another knight asked.

"I don't know either. That's just how legendary and extraordinary people are. They can destroy your country if they think you have too many people."

"Have the messengers sent to Dwarf Mountain Territory and Carrot Territory for help set off yet?"

"We set off a long time ago."

"We must hold this last line of defense until reinforcements from the north or south arrive."

But everyone knew that even if they made it, such overwhelming reinforcements wouldn't be a good thing.

Everyone could see Aishan's ambition to continue expanding northward.

After this war ends, the victor will receive the entire dark zone of the Rat Girl Kingdom as a reward.

But nobody cares about that now.

The tent flap was suddenly flung open, and a mud-covered scout with rabbit ears stumbled in, knelt on one knee, and hurriedly reported:

"Report! The vanguard of the Holy Relic Army is less than ten kilometers away from here!"

There was no need for scouts to report anymore; all the allied leaders went up to the fortress's terrace, leaned on the battlements, and looked north.

At the edge of darkness, rows of white banners stood tall in the windless night, embroidered with the golden emblem of the Incubation Society of the Holy Egg.

The snake-woman nuns covered their faces with white veils, raised their flags, and their lower bodies, snake tails, slid slowly across the ground.

Beside them, snow-white wolf-shaped chimeras marched with heavy steps. Each one was the size of a war elephant, wrapped in a pure white holy shroud. The muscles beneath the shroud bulged and contracted abnormally, and long drool dripped from their mouths.

Mixed among the chimera beasts were giants five or six meters tall, whose faces were also covered with white veils and whose bodies were covered with black bone thorns several meters long. With each step they took, the ground trembled slightly.

In front of them, fully armed ghouls stood in neat square formations, including infantry, cavalry, and crossbowmen.

Its gray skin was covered by bloodstained armor, its cloudy eyes stared straight ahead, and it held a spear, a crossbow, and a shield in its hands. Its twisted and deformed mount moved forward silently, its steps so precise they were chilling.

That terrifying, deformed dragon was circling in the distant sky, its sacred remains fluttering in the wind.

There were only a few hundred ghouls and a hundred or so chimeras, but the sense of oppression they brought far exceeded that of an overwhelming horde of chimeras.

On the terrace, the nobles' hands trembled and their knees went weak; they could barely stand by leaning against the battlements.

The noblewoman drew her sword from her waist, the blade gleaming under the fluorescent light.

She raised her sword high above her head, her voice drowning out the gasps rising and falling on the city walls.

"Don't panic! Our city is well-fortified and our arrows are sharp, outnumbering them by more than ten times. Everyone, return to your posts!"

"The advantage is in my hands!"

Chapter 119 (3k) The Fall

The city wall, a towering and sturdy city wall.

The fortress walls, repeatedly improved by countless craftsmen, are extremely difficult to breach. The kingdom's legions usually have to use giant cannons with a caliber of several meters, which only rune colossi can operate, to have any chance of breaking them.

But in the constant confrontation between the spear and the shield, the shield ultimately prevailed.

This turned the siege into a long, bloody tug-of-war, with catapults, battering rams, sieges, and digging.

Typically, it takes months or even years to conquer a fortress.

That's generally true.

The two giant rune crossbows on the corner tower, facing north, fired simultaneously. Two-meter-long rune arrows shot out with pale blue trails, so fast that they tore through the air and exploded into a layer of white sonic boom cones.

The two wolf-shaped chimeras were struck by the runic arrows and shattered into a spray of blood mist under the enormous impact.

Small crossbows from various sections of the city wall followed suit, firing in unison and unleashing a deluge of iron arrows.

But the chimera pack quickly dispersed, and the wolf-like monsters dodged to the sides at incredible speed. Their movements were precise and coordinated, completely unlike the blind, frenzied charge of ordinary chimeras.

Arrows rained down on the open ground, creating a dense thicket of iron rods.

The runic giant crossbow fired again, its arms bursting with runic light, and a second pair of arrows whistled through the air, instantly shredding the two giants' towering bodies into dust.

However, the Holy Relic Army's formation had rapidly approached to within 300 meters of the city wall.

The runic giant crossbows were designed to instantly kill that horse that was too fast to see; they possessed astonishing speed and magical accuracy.

However, after each shot, it takes several minutes to reload, and this fatal flaw is now fully exposed.

The chimera herd rushed to the front of the city gate. A dozen wolf-shaped chimeras crashed into the heavy iron-clad wooden city gate at full speed, and the dull impact made the entire section of the city wall tremble.

The guards above the city gate poured buckets of rubble down onto the backs of the chimeras, while scalding hot oil poured down from the spouts between the battlements.

But these pain-insensitive monsters did not slow down their movements at all, each strike causing the door hinges to emit a tooth-grinding metallic creak.

"Push the log down!"

"Pour in another bucket of oil! Light it!"

The ghoul army, under the cover of the chimeras, steadily approached. The gray square formation marched in orderly steps through the area covered by the rain of arrows. The front row raised their shields, and the rear row held their spears. There were no shouts, no battle horns, only a suffocating silence and oppression.

The giants behind them stopped, stretched out their thorn-covered arms, grasped the longest black bone spike on their shoulders, and pulled it out sharply.

Blood gushed from the pulled wound, but the giant did not react. He raised the bone spike, several meters long, above his head, twisted his body sharply backward, and then hurled it at the city wall!

The huge black spikes whistled through the air and pierced the city wall!

Gravel flew everywhere, and dust filled the air.

After the smoke and dust cleared, the black stone walls, mixed with blessed silver, showed no cracks whatsoever.

"The wall is fine!"

"They have absolutely no way to deal with this wall!"

A brief cheer erupted from the city wall, but the laughter quickly died down.

More long spikes pierced the wall, from bottom to top, the front of the city wall was covered with dense bone spikes.

The wolf-like chimeras immediately changed their attack direction. They abandoned their attempt to ram the city gate, and instead used their six legs to nimbly step onto the bone spikes, climbing up at an astonishing speed. Their bodies leaped between the bone spikes, and in a few leaps, they had already reached the top of the city wall.

The moment the first chimera beast scaled the city wall, the nearest ratgirls immediately dropped their bows and crossbows and turned to run, screaming in terror as they went.

The rat girls behind saw that the ones in front were running, so they immediately started running too, and the entire defensive line on the city wall collapsed within seconds.

A fox-eared nobleman wearing half-body armor roared angrily.

"Don't run away! Stop right there!"

She drew the sword from her waist, pointing the blade at the nearest fleeing ratwoman, intending to make an example of her.

She looked up.

A wolf-like chimera was crouching on the battlement in front of her, its blood-red maw wide open.

The chimera horde surged onto the city wall, their movements carrying a chilling order, completely ignoring the screaming and fleeing cannon fodder rat girls around them, even nimbly leaping and weaving through the gaps between the densely packed fleeing rats.

Just as the witch operating the runic crossbow on the corner tower pulled a glass bottle from her belt, before she could even pour out the liquid inside, a chimera beast leaped onto the tower, followed by the muffled sound of flesh and blood shattering.

The ghoul army surged toward the already crumbling city gate, squeezing through the cracks one after another.

On the city wall, a knight covered in blood finally saw the entire battlefield clearly, and she roared:

"Shoot those snake girls! They're the manipulators!"

But no one had time to operate the ballistae anymore. Chaos reigned on the city walls. Without anyone to supervise them, the rat girls scattered and ran into the city, crying and screaming.

The soldiers who were still resisting raised their weapons and fought a chaotic battle with the Chimera Beasts and ghouls. Their swords and blades could not pierce the sacred shroud on the Chimera Beasts, but the ghouls' spears could easily pierce their leather armor.

Inside the city wall, the second line of defense, behind the barricades.

Hundreds of cannon fodder rat girls lined up in several rows, each holding a spear with the spearheads pointing forward.

A nobleman, clad entirely in gold-plated rune plate armor, stood at the very back of the ratgirl formation and raised his voice:

"You stinking rats! All of you, get them!"

Before he could finish speaking, a very poor-quality arrow flew out of the city gate and, with unbelievable accuracy, pierced the eye of the nobleman's rune plate armor mask.

She didn't even have time to let out a wail before she fell straight backward. The ratwomen in front, having lost their leader, immediately dropped their spears and fled in panic.

On the observation deck atop the fortress, the remaining nobles wore expressions of despair.

The fortress that had held out for years was breached in minutes, and the dragon hadn't even shown itself.