Elsewhere, within Willowdale, deep underground, Kanbu floated in a sensory deprivation tub he had borrowed from a Fog-sailor, his body covered in complex paint and talismans which directly linked him to the great statue. He didn’t have to be present in body or soul in order to render assistance, and enabling the Watcher to reach its full potential was the best manner of assistance he could think of. It was not like its siblings, the stone giant was too big to be built around a human skeleton, and as such it required human guidance to be truly effective. The approach which Kanbu took, in copying the Fog-sailors, was unorthodox at best… But it worked.

Emboldened by the sight, even those who had been paralyzed with trepidation charged ahead, led by this immortal moving monument.

Zelsys saw this work of human artifice leading the charge of its lesser counterparts and of humans alike, and a burning memory forced its way to the forefront of her mind, so intense that she briefly lost focus and all four of her active Thundersaws careened into the treeline.

It was that of the Watcher’s original position, proudly standing with its arms crossed just outside the city wall facing the east, a gleaming sword affixed to its back and a plaque at its base.

WILLOWDALE DEFENSE CORPS

ABSOLUTE DECISIVE HUMANOID DEFENSE SYSTEM

“THE GUARDIAN OF THE WALL”

There was nothing left to do but to do all in her considerable capability to match this gigantic statue, and there were more than enough Clay Soldiers for that. Heart pounding, veins bulging, silver conduits shining all over, Thundercharger flashing under her skin as if the flashes within a cloud preceding a lightning strike. She exchanged a brief look with Zefaris as the blonde fixed the skull mask to her face and opened her left eye, a handful of coins in one hand and Pentacle in the other.

“NOW BUTCHER, BRING ME THEIR HEARTS!”

With speed beyond any normal human and rivaling that of even her elders, the Newman Sect Elder burst forth and immediately began carving a path, continuously channeling Heartbreaker as she swung her blade with what, to an outside observer, seemed like wild abandon. In reality, every single swing was a combination of calculated momentum management and arcane assistance, drawing the superheated edge towards the cores of any Clay Soldier she considered a target.

Even from his perch atop a tank some distance from the fray, Crovacus could clearly discern when exactly Zelsys joined in by the path she carved. Despite the raw power conjured by some others, none carved as clear a path through the horde as she did, as if every single one of her hits by some blessing of providence struck true the Clay Soldiers’ cores.

The Stone Watchers, in their ceaseless, steady march, acted as a moving wall, virtually invincible to anything the Clay Soldiers could bring to bear short of a Gestalt, and much of the same was the case for the scant few First-model tankmen present, not to mention the more capable among the cultivator forces. Second-model Tankmen could contend with perhaps even two Clay Soldiers at once in a melee, possibly more at range, but the lack of experience for most of them was a deciding factor in reducing effectiveness. The greatest effect of their suits was as a morale booster, allowing them to form a solid line while the spear and horns pushed ahead and broke down the horde into more manageable chunks.

The slaughter went on and on and on, for hours without end, Willowdale forces pushing against the tide.

Strake struck down Clay Soldier after Clay Soldier, perpetually in fifth gear, perpetually streaking across the fields as a crimson blur, his blood pumping faster than it had ever before, the machine’s own furious anger and bloodlust against these paradoxically bloodless foes bleeding into his perception. Its sensor array effortlessly discerned their cores, its bare fists were often enough to crush their cores, the pilebunkers best saved for composite, while he left the rifle for the Gestalts.

This was terror. True chaos. Death and destruction all around, rattling his bones and threatening to blow out his eardrums even though he knew his helmet would protect him against even directed sonic attacks. It didn’t matter. Tank suit or not, Jozhe was just a particularly strong nineteen-year old, and now he had to fight both alongside and against what his panicking mind could only describe as monsters.

The Governor’s Son, too, was a monster, just not the sort he’d thought him to be up until now. That snooty brat demeanor was gone. His face was hard and pained as blue-glowing veins bulged across his forehead, his spear-arm and the spear alike enveloped in terrible blue light that seemed to make his strikes set solid clay alight, burning it away in a fast-spreading azure blaze that somehow never got out of control and left behind steaming piles of inert soil. Halxian Estoras didn’t even try to command any of the tankmen in the line, it was… Bizarre. He just stuck around the line, scowling and ruthlessly putting down any Clay soldiers that happened to get near.

Jozhe would’ve preferred if the nobleman’s brat had just been an incompetent idiot. This was somehow worse.

What Jozhe hadn’t seen was the event that had led Halxian to acting like this - his consumption of one of the phials that facilitated his use of his abilities, and his failed attempt at expressing them. The young heir had lunged headlong into the fray in Zel’s wake, thinking himself reasonable for wanting to pick off any potential stragglers in her path, and for a short while, it worked. Only, for all his legitimate skill, he simply lacked combat instincts, and so found himself fighting not to be efficient and look good, but to avoid constantly getting mobbed by the deceptively nimble and deceptively clever ambushes of the Clay Soldiers. That was not to mention the fact he nearly got stomped on twice by a Gestalt without even having garnered its attention, and worst of all, he found himself collapsing from the pain of his own inherited magic just before he could put down a five-core composite.