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Pretty long Chapter and it was amazing to write so I hope you also enjoy as we once again delve into madness!

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Chapter 60: Full Fledged Battle

Like the cry of a hundred different birds, arrows flew through the air, lodging themselves into the bodies of unsuspecting men in only a moments notice.

Screams of pain filled the air and his Soldiers drew back their bows, arrows nocked and ready.

Makoto's arm fell down a second time as his gaze showed cold determination and the cries of the birds of death once again filled the air.

The next salvo was soon enough met with iron shields from the Sarachec Soldiers and an animalistic howl of carnage flew his way as he felt the killing intent from the enemy army on his skin.

After quickly turning around to the other men on the wall and seeing every gaze lying on him he opened his mouth while already descending the stairs.

"Keep shooting until your quivers are empty and protect the wall at all costs."

Immediately each and every one of the Archers replied with a "Yes Sir!" And continued to rain down hell on their hated enemy.

The other Captain quickly followed Makoto as he returned to the plaza below and examined the work of his other men who had indeed built a mighty barricade in only a few minutes and were still improving and reinforcing it.

Would this be able to hold against a force of over 10 thousand?

It was unlikely, Makoto was fully aware of this fact but he still hoped that it would be enough to at least delay them until more reinforcements arrived or even Bharfas who was a lot more experienced than him in warfare turned up.

He himself only took command of the entire situation because there didn't seem to be anyone capable around that could get them through this predicament.

With a grim expression on his face he once again ascended the stairs leading atop the wall and he could quickly see that the picture below had changed from a reckless charge to a slow but steady advance.

Shield bearers had appeared at the frontlines who were now more valuable than ever before in the Sarachec army as they were the only reason that the situation had not turned in a scene from hell with dead bodies littering the street.

Only a few arrows made it past the gigantic square shields and even less actually penetrated the hard steel.

With a nasty expression he told his Archers to stop shooting and instead looked at Lilliana and the other few mages on the wall.

"Light em up!"

Without any further command each and every single one of them casted fire magic which showed its true devastating effect soon enough.

Bunched together in a narrow street that was only wide enough for 10 or so men to stand shoulder to shoulder, fire magic with its small range flourished like never before.

Dozens of Sarachec soldiers got enveloped by flame snakes or flew through the air from fiery explosions, utterly decimating the before tight ranks.

Faced with a hellfire that rained on them from above the 10 thousand Soldiers finally stopped advancing and instead kept their distance but this allowed Makoto's archers to once again rain a volley on their heads.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place while being fully aware that no matter what they did, many would die in the process, the enemy army once again retreated back, out of the range of even Sharon who was by far the strongest archer on the wall.

"Archers, restock on arrows, Mages refill your Mana as best as you can.

This is not the last time that we have seen them."

Makoto fully believed that the short time of repreive would indeed only be short.

Aided by this narrow and only way to the gate together with their simple strategy to switch between Magic and long ranged arrows it would only help them stall for the time being.

No matter how loyal the Soldiers were, only a select few were loyal to the point of storming against an enemy that would surely kill them.

This was more of a psychological strategy than anything else as the Mages would be unable to use their magic after only a minute or two and arrows were also a finite resource in times of war.

But who would really want to be the cannon fodder used to empty the enemies reserves?

This kind of strategy was quite efficient at stopping forward approaches right away as even the enemy Soldiers would turn against their Commander if ordered to charge into their certain doom and this also only worked in unique situations were the enemy had no other choice of approach.

Still, would that really be all until nightfall?

He saw it as unlikely as any Commander would have at least one or two aces up his sleeve to deal with a psychological strategy like this.

The easiest way would be to bring up the moral of his men to a point were they would be willing to throw their lives away and this kind of fanatic behavior was also what Makoto feared the most.

Just like you always hear in stories, if pushed to a certain limit the human body was able to do the most incredible things and the trigger was always reaching a cornered state of mind were you had no other way out but to push through.

After half an hour of quiet he once again checked below and was for a moment stunned by the gigantic change that had taken place.

Not only had the iron door been reinforced by more iron bars and wood but his men had also prepared the surrounding area in case that the gate or wall fell.

Wooden spikes, nasty traps and makeshift walls had been erected in a very short time.

It is as they say, necessity is the mother of all creation.

"Good work."

He commented to the surrounding men in armor that looked at him with a tired but proud face.

"I really hope we won't need this kind of preparation but it can never be bad to have it.

Any word from Commander Bharfas yet?"

He asked one of his trusted Soldiers from Squad 40 who was called Jackson.

"No Sir, the only thing I know is that he said he would come here personally to assist us but that was over half an hour ago.

It should have taken him 5 minutes at most to come to the first South-East gate so my guess is that another gate is also in a dire situation similar to ours."

Nodding once Makoto silently cursed his bad luck but at the same time had to admire the genius move.

If they pressed at two fronts like this for an extended period of time, the egg would soon enough crack.

The Stronghold in itself was able to easily repel any and all attacks without problem but that heavily hinged on having the same amount of defenders as the attackers.

As far as Makoto knew, there was not even 10 thousand men defending but there was 30 thousand enemy Soldiers.

Sure, with the support of walls and having the height advantage they should still be able to defend it easily but Kernim was a gigantic castle with many gates.

If the enemy attacked two gates heavily and forced them to use nearly all their men to defend only these two points of interest, then a small force would surely open another gate during the battle.

This meant that they couldn't abandon the other gates no matter what and even had to leave quite a high number of soldiers stationed there which in turn made it even more difficult to defend the two focused gates.

Grinding his teeth in anger with his mind racing for a possible answer to this dangerous situation, Makoto's thoughts were interrupted by a loud shout from one of his men on the wall.

With quick steps he once again ascended the narrow staircase, the other Captain still sticking close behind him.

"What is it?"

He quickly asked, unsure what the problem was as even before they just kept on attacking without his instructions whenever an enemy appeared.

Without saying anything together with a sickly pale face the Archer simply pointed down on the street below and Makoto's gaze instantly fixated on whatever it was that he wanted him to see.

It didn't take long for him to understand.

Countless shadows with a size of 10 foot high quickly ran towards the gate, evading any and all arrows or fireballs that flew their way and ascended the wall with an insane tempo.

Stunned after witnessing them climb this 80 foot high monster of a wall without losing too much speed or falling off he quickly put his hand on his sword and unsheathed it while letting out a loud roar.

"Prepare for melee combat!"

Immediately, half of the men on the wall dropped their bows and instead also took their respective weapons for close quarter encounters to hand.

The rest of the Archers and Mages immediately fell back from the edge of the wall and Makoto as well as the other melee combatants stood at the front to welcome these strange shadows first.

They didn't have to wait long as a dozen or so of them shot up in the air with a low growl only to then tower above each any every one of them with frenzied expressions and completely black eyes.

Mad War-Beast: Elite Monster lvl 31

Just reading the letters above its head sent a shiver down his spine and he was not the only one.

The War-Beasts looked like a failed attempt of creating a Frankenstein Chimera.

Each and every one of them was originally from different species of monster with extra appendages or muscles roughly attached to their body while their original appearance was incredibly hard to even make out anymore.

Something that seemed to have been a simple giant snake possessed four limbs that seemed to all come from different monsters as all kinds of colored scales or fur appeared on random parts of these patch work bodies, held together by rusted nails or iron clips.

It was obvious that some kind of magic was used to keep everything from falling apart but how they could move so fast with these strange bodies was far beyond Makoto and he also didn't have the time to ponder about this either as a Boar-Lion hybrid tried to bite his head off in a moments notice.

With a quick step to the side Makoto was able to evade the attack and instead rammed his sword into the monsters body as it passed him.

A pleasing scream of pain reached his ears and guts as well as blood spilled on the wall from the belly of the disfigured monster.

Even its intestines seemed to be put together from different kinds of monster as he could clearly see at least two gigantic hearts and three livers spilling out on the ground together with a disgusting stench that one would only associate with rotten bodies.

"Necromancy, could that be it?"

He pondered loudly while evading yet another attack from the frenzied beast.

Something which also disturbed Makoto in this fight was that even though the beast howled in pain when he attacked it, its HP bar was not lowered by much and neither did its movements slow down even after losing large parts of his inner intestines.

His 'Curse Blade' Skill was able to inflict a few random status effects like 'Slow' or 'Cripple' but for some reason they would only last for a few seconds and afflicting 'Bleed' was completely impossible too.

This once again confirmed his suspicion that there was some form of Necromancy at work here but even Zombies could be slowed so why was it that the status effect just disappeared with them?

Unable to solve this rather strange riddle and forced to put his entire attention on killing this one abomination he quickly glanced to his right and left and what he saw was not good at all.

Makoto was currently fighting one of the 15 War-Beasts that had ascended the wall but unlike him, his men had real problems with them as they were a lot less agile and most of their strikes did little to nothing to the undying atrocities.

Already he could see a good dozen or so Soldiers lying on the ground, either dead or dying while Sanja tried her best to heal them before their health was too low.

Seeing this Cleric really in action for the first time and watching the holy light that descended on so many different wounded Soldiers, Makoto had an idea how to possibly deal with these monsters that even he could not kill in a quick fashion.

"Sanja, use your Heal on one of these undead freaks!"

She naturally heard his words and stared at him with a confused expression until it clicked and with a shout that seemed to silence everything else she pointed her Coral staff on one of the monsters in her proximity.

"Light of Heaven!"

Following a buzz that rang in everyone's ear, she had used a holy type of attack that could also be used as a great heal for allies and the clouds above them broke apart as a blinding light enveloped the Snake-Tiger hybrid.

With a blood curdling scream from the War-Beast, Makoto watched a great chunk of its health disappear each second until it had nearly lost 2 thirds of its health with this one attack from a Cleric that specialized in healing and not attacking.

After seeing her great success Sanja showed a beaming smile and quickly used the attack on each and every Monster to make the battle easier for her allies and it really was a great help as it not only hurt the monsters but also slowed them down tremendously for a good period of time.

After putting his entire weight into the attack and hitting the muscular neck of the Boar-Lion, Makoto lopped its gigantic head off and the monster finally stopped moving and soon enough disappeared in a cloud of light particles.

After finally disposing of his own enemy he helped in defeating the others and finally took a few steps back to look at his men.

They were tired but only a few had really died during this tough battle which was good as they still would need to defend the ga-

Right away his mind halted as he realized something and with a panicked expression he looked below, only confirming his fears.

How could he not have thought of it?

Was he too enticed in the battle that he had completely forgotten their current situation?!

The War-Beasts had only been meant to distract the men standing on top of the wall while the rest of the Sarachec army approached the gate, without even receiving a single scratch and worked on breaking through the iron gate.

This short battle with the War-Beasts had only lasted a few minutes but it was enough for a disaster to happen as Makoto could feel the wall tremble each time the battering ram nocked the gate further down.

"Archers and Mages, concentrate your fire on the gate!

All Warriors come with me, they will break through any second now!"

Everyone present had the same terrified expression as him but they quickly did as they were told and a barrage of Arrows and Magic descended on the Soldiers below.

Practically flying down the stairs, Makoto reached the bottom in record time and Jackson and the others from Squad 40 were already in position, their eyes shining with incredible determination.

Only 30 seconds later the First South-East gate could no longer support the constant damage and broke down with an ear piercing noise.

Silence followed for a short two breaths before hordes of Sarachec Soldiers spilled forth with mad shouting and roaring that was directed towards Makoto and his men.

The crimson light in his eyes increased just like it had many times before but he was not the only one as he noticed every Soldier from Squad 40 showing a savage red emerging in their eyes.

His emotions had been in a turmoil the entire time and only now did everything calm down as he faced imminent death.

With a wicked smile blossoming on his face and no longer caring for anything else he casually walked forward while rallying his men.

"Don't let a single Sarachec dog past!

Slaughter and kill them until they know their goddamn place!"

Following his roar Squad 40 walked just like Makoto in a casual manner towards the ever increasing number of enemy Soldiers, their bodies emanating an incredible killing intent and each and every one of them had the same savage smile as well as crimson light in their eyes.

His lips parted and moved on their own, accompanied by an even deeper voice that didn't seem to be his anymore and Makoto could feel the beast inside of him slowly take over.

"Brothers, death may follow but let us show these dogs what it means to piss on the wrong tree.

United by Blood we stand!"

And with the same bestial roar escaping the throats of his men, they started to run without any care for defending, only filled with the desire to let their enemies bleed and scream in agony...

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Hope you are already just as excited as I am and if you got any questions, comment below like always. :P

United by Blood we stand!!! >:3 *raises cookies*