972 Unleashing Their Cards (2)
Qiel couldn't help but furrow her eyebrows, wondering how many people Noel had won over. There were the Gem Lord, Water Lord, Duke Briton, Milfa, and Faust already. As his former superior, there was no way Clara wouldn't help him.
Looking to her right, the demons had been closing in on the barrier, and they would start gnawing the barrier to exhaust Saintess Layla's barrier. The same occurrence happened on the left side.
It would be in her best interest to lower the enemy's morale. If the citizens thought that the demons were so easy to defeat, it would raise their morale even higher. There was no way Qiel could easily destroy the city.
Hence, there was only one way to pummel their morale. It was to attack those citizens they were trying to protect.
"It's time!" Qiel shouted to the Superior Demons. "We'll make this city remembered as a tragedy!"
At that moment, all fifty thousand demons on the north side began moving forward.
*Aoooo!*
A group of wolves let out a howl and rushed first.
"Shoot!" Noel shouted, informing the bowman. A volley of arrows flew into the air and fell right at the wolves, raining them down.
Low level demons couldn't protect themselves from these arrows as a lot of them died in the first volley. However, Noel noticed a few Mid Level Demons, whose hide actually deflected the arrows with its toughness alone.
And surprisingly, two of them leaped into the air. There was no way the wolves would be able to leap over the wall since their jumps weren't high enough.
However, one of the wolves actually positioned itself underneath the other, letting the latter make a second jump.
"What?"
"It's coming!"
"The wolf is—"
The soldiers panicked as this was the first time they saw the demons working together in this way.
Suddenly, two shield bearers moved to the front and stood in the wolf's way. The wolf had no choice but to slam its body toward them, but surprisingly, the momentum wasn't enough to push back these people.
Only a loud *bam* impact was produced by the clash, drawing everyone's attention. After the failed attempt, it looked like the wolf was about to go down. However, the shield bearers actually thrust their spears at the same time, piercing the wolf.
*Aooo!*
It was screaming in pain before falling into the ditch. Its blood began to dye the water.
These two shield bearers were normal soldiers. They didn't have the strength of the elite soldiers that Howard had trained, but that was precisely the reason why it was even more convincing.
When they succeeded in killing a Mid Level Demon, they couldn't help but say, "Yes! We really killed a demon!"
"Even if we don't have the strength, we can still block the demons and stab them before letting them die from the fall!"
The other soldiers couldn't help but widen their eyes in shock.
However, this was actually Noel's scheme. He took advantage of that result to inspire the men. "Don't look away from your enemies! This is what it means to protect your land. Don't be afraid, we have the advantage here and we'll show them that they should fear us instead of the other way around!"
"Oohhhh!" The soldiers got pumped out after seeing the first success. They knew that even if their strength was minuscule, the enemies wouldn't have a lot of strength or momentum left when they reached the wall, so they could defeat them.
The battle soon shifted to melee. The demons began to run toward the walls, following the wolves.
The archers kept releasing their arrows to kill as many demons as possible before reaching their walls. A lot of demons also died from the gem explosions that the Gem Lord had planted prior to the fight.
Those who managed to reach the walls had to climb up the walls. Unfortunately, a lot of demons didn't have the ability to climb the wall, especially since the ditch was filled with water.
They ended up submerging into the water. The drowned demons even fell into the deep water wall Noel had made. The overall ditch was also quite deep, so it would take a lot of demons to fill up the ditch with their bodies.
Even though they were an army, they weren't able to be used completely like a human army. After all, if they could, Qiel would have pushed the dirt into the water, doing their best to fill up the ditch first.
What actually happened was that the demons simply rushed into their deaths. The demons behind them tried to step over their dead bodies, only to drown like them.
"Qiel. That ditch…" Laufey frowned.
"Yeah. It seems to be deeper than I originally thought." Qiel knew that they shouldn't waste too many demons in the beginning. Hence, she gave another command. "Call the big guys."
The people on the wall saw the approaching demons. These demons were different from the demons that had been rushing to their deaths. Each of these demons had a big body, at least four meters tall and either a robust body or a big wingspan. This way, even if they fell, they would fill up the ditch pretty quickly.
"…" Faust couldn't help but aim his bow at them. If he made his move, he could take down several of them. But before he could shoot, Noel waved his hand to him, signaling him not to do it.
"Master!" Dimitri glanced at Noel. They had to stop these demons from reaching the ditch.
"Let's begin!" Noel nodded. Dimitri blew out a horn.
Qiel couldn't help but furrow her eyebrows, wondering what they had. These giant demons were covering their heads and bodies with their big arms while moving toward the walls.
At first glance, the experts of the Ardagan Family could unleash their strength to strike them down, but to fight with this many demons, they couldn't spend their spiritual energy easily. Hence, they had to rely on their weapons first before the experts entered the combat.
Besides, the powerful demons would also make their moves if that were the case. That was why Noel had prepared his weapons.
"Get ready!"
Qiel dropped her jaw when she saw an opening on the wall. "Those are…"
"Qiel?" Laufey tried to see what was going on and saw some glints on the wall.
"All giant demons, hurry up! Forget about your defense and charge at the walls!" Qiel gave an order, albeit she was a tad too late.
There was a room within the wall where they stationed some of their heavy weapons. In this one particular room, there were a total of seven giant ballistas, each equipped with a giant javelin.
"Aim at the giant demons!" Tristan shouted. "Shoot!"
The people released the arrows. Due to their size, the arrows pierced through the enemy's arm, causing the demons to scream in pain. Some of them with a thinner frame ended up with a hole directly in the back of their bodies, killing them.
They hurriedly loaded the ballistas for the second volley. However, Tristan noticed one of the giant demons. It was a giant bull that was ready to charge and ram its entire body into the wall.
"Sir!"
"There is a giant bull going to come here." The soldiers panicked while pointing at the bull. It was thoroughly following Qiel's command.
"I will stop it." Faust clicked his tongue, aiming at the bull. The ballista was good, but it wouldn't be enough to stop this bull. But once again, Noel stopped him. "It's not the time yet, Captain Faust. Don't underestimate my Ardagan Family."
"Huh?"
In the ballista room, Tristan remembered his assignment from Noel as he said, "Ballista A! Charge the arrow with the rune!"
"Roger!" Two people hurriedly grabbed demon crystals and poured them into the ballista. The rune absorbed its energy to charge Ballista A's arrow. The ballista began to vibrate as if it had a hard time containing the arrow.
"Release it!"
The ballista finally released the arrow. Its speed was much faster than even Qiel's arrow. All that momentum clashed with the bull's head and instantly pierced through it. Even the head was slightly deformed due to its momentum, causing the bull to fall to its side, still a bit far away from the ditch. The arrow continued and impaled a demon before almost all its body penetrated the ground.
"What?!" Qiel and Faust dropped their jaws. Both of them had the same thought. Although they believed that their arrows were stronger, they couldn't deny that the ballista had more speed than their arrows.
"Look!"
"The giant bull is dead."
"That's right. We don't need to be scared. We have been preparing for this the whole time."
"Our weapons are superior!"
"Ooohhhh!"
The fact that they managed to kill the bulls with a weapon that they all could utilize inspired their hearts even more. That was right. Even if they were normal people, as long as they had the weapons, they could fight back.
More than twenty giant demons fell under the ballistas' attacks without being able to reach the wall.
"Incoming!" Some of the smaller demons utilized their giant bodies as ladders and jumped toward the walls.
With a lot of confidence, the soldiers hurriedly placed their shields at the edge of the wall, bracing for impact.
*Roar!*
*Roar!*
*Roar!*
The shields stopped the demons one after another as spears started piercing their bodies in rapid succession, letting them fall to the ditch.
This was what Noel wanted to achieve. He boosted their morale until they were fearless enough to do the things they had been instructed to do. This way, he could train them in the first few engagements and turn all these people into proper soldiers.
"Uooo!"
Qiel looked at that ridiculously high morale and frowned. It looked like she was out of options, but amidst their celebration, Qiel had started another notion.
The first ones to be affected were Duke Briton and the Water Lord.
"Hmm?!" Both of them couldn't help but furrow their eyebrows.
Some of the demons from the south actually moved toward them. They jumped into the air and used their bodies to destroy the water elemental's humanoid body. On the other side, the demons also released their spiritual energy to hinder the movements of Duke Briton's summoned creatures.
"What?" Duke Briton and the Water Lord couldn't help but glance to the side. They didn't expect that the demons from the south would divide their number into two so that they could overwhelm the duke and the Water Lord.
However, this wasn't the only thing they were planning to do. Qiel had also assigned multiple giant demons to both sides.
"Are they…" The Water Lord gasped while the Duke Briton gritted his teeth. "Not good!"
The giant demons actually looped around from the two sides to reach the north wall. The demons also began to follow.
"So, that's how it is." Noel clicked his tongue. Before he could order the soldiers to kill them, the giant demons fell to the ditch and filled it up with their giant bodies. This way, the smaller demons could use their bodies as a foothold to climb the wall.
The star-shaped wall had one big advantage. It was that they had five pointed tips, meaning that there would be a 'V'-shaped wall that connected each tip.
On the left side, the Water Lord and Paladin Aurelia controlled both tips so that the demons would be trapped in the V-shaped wall between them.
However, due to the demons from the south moving toward the Water Lord to overwhelm him, the Duke lost control over his tip, allowing the demons around that area to loop around and reach the north wall.
This also showed the weakness of the star-shaped wall. The pointy tip made the people on it look more vulnerable due to them standing out more than the rest of the wall, unlike the rectangular shape. At the same time, it also meant the demons didn't have to go directly to the center if they wanted to aim for Noel.
Once they managed to loop around, they simply had to fall right away to create enough space for the demons to reach Noel's position.
"But aren't you underestimating me too much?" Noel suddenly smiled as the walls connected to the tip once again opened, showing another room filled with Noel's new weapons.
