While climbing the staircase to the top of the wall, Asher could barely hold back his growing smirk. At the top of the wall, he looked down at the wolves that were trying to sink their claws into the wall but couldn’t even make shallow marks and chuckled.
He looked at his right and left and saw his archers ready to fire. Their bows were fully drawn, and they were ready to rain arrows on these wolves, which once had the upper hand.
“Fire.”
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Whimpers and pain-filled growls came from the wolves as they fell to their deaths, while some wounded ones tried to escape but were struck down by an arrow accurately piercing their heads, necks, or other vital parts.
“Kill them all!”
Soldiers roared as they watched the wolves run back toward the forest.
Awoo!
Suddenly, a fierce howl shook the air with shockwaves, and a wall of ice spikes rose up from the other end, sealing the wolves escape route into the forest. Sirius emerged from the forest, shaking its head gently. Its thick white fur shook majestically as it looked down on its kind with ice-cold eyes.
“Kill!”
After the bonestrike rangers spent a long time shooting, the gate opened, unleashing the bladebreakers for the first time. Their morale was high, and their cloaks fluttered in the northwind as they rode their horses with their lances ready to slay their prey.
The powerful neighs and tremors brought along by the 100 cavalry strongmen frightened the wolves, but some tried to fight back, yet it was futile. A sweep of the lance was all it took to pierce through a wolf’s thick skin.
Sirius walked through the slaughter, looking from side to side, but didn’t touch one wolf.
“Seems like Sirius must have filled his stomach.”
Alex chuckled.
Some hours later, the battle was concluded, and a few soldiers went about dragging corpses into the town for skinning and preservation of the meat. During this period, they got lots of meat, which made the miners excited.
From the first wave, they had been eating so much meat that they knew when people in Nineveh heard of it, they would be filled with envy.
Asher left the wall and stood at the gate to welcome Eritrea and her rangers.
Upon arrival, Asher took a step and embraced her. “You did good.”
He said it sincerely.
“I… I was just doing my duty, My Lord.”
“I deem it necessary to reward you for the idea of the second fire. It was like you knew we would not understand the first one.”
‘I actually saw you people jubilating and returning back to working on the wall.’ Eritrea said inwardly. Her eyes gleamed at the mention of reward.
Asher had scanned his troops, and none of them had filled the criteria for an upgrade, but he felt they were close. As for his Vanguards? They would not exceed the gold rank except they had a talent grade higher than D grade.
Grades determined how far any individual would go, be it a lord, adventurer, mercenary, or commoner. This was the reason why most of Silverleaf’s soldiers were unable to upgrade anymore. Their talent could only take them to bronze rank.
For this reason, Asher was more selective when it came to picking his soldiers. He had already set a requirement of having a D-grade talent to join any of his special forces. As for ordinary forces, having an E-grade talent was allowed but definitely not F-grade, as that would only allow the warrior to reach bronze rank, and to Asher, it was negligible.
He wanted an army of at least silver rank upwards. That way, his forces would be feared throughout the entire continent. A wall couldn’t be built instantly; it had to be built brick by brick, the same for droplets of water, which would cut through stone.
Consistency was key. If he wanted to grasp his dream of having the most feared forces in the entirety of Boundless, he must bear the pain of having few men for now.
Asher took Eritrea into Ark White’s forge, where hundreds of bone skeletons were heaped. There was also the tendon of a once powerful ovok that died at the hands of the bear beside the heap.
According to the system, ovoks had a tendency to possess lightning affinity because of their habitation, and since it was dormant inside of them, Asher decided to have this prepared tendon added to improve Eritrea’s bow.
Maybe the dormant lightning element would become active.
“How would you like to have a more powerful bow?”
Eritrea’s eyes grew wide.
Alex’s jaws almost dropped, but he looked at his diamond-ranked sword and sighed in relief.
“Give me your bow.”
Asher said.
Eritrea quickly handed it over to him.
Asher dropped the bow on top of the heap, and a notification popped up in his retina.
[Ding! Sensing the host’s intentions. Would you like to upgrade the white furry bow to a diamond-ranked Great Thunder bow? [Yes or No?]
‘Yes.’
Swoosh!
When the light came down, a bow that looked like it was made from golden bones appeared. It was elaborately forged in such a way that it had two bowstrings, which were meant to be drawn together.
There were symbols of lightning on the bow’s upper and lower limbs, while the grip, which was carved to balance the fingers, was properly wrapped with a soft cloth.
As Eritrea caressed the bow with so much love flowing from her eyes, Asher and Alex shook their heads.
“Why don’t you try it?”
Ark White came out of the inner room. “I do hope it won’t be inside this room, Your Lordship?”
Asher chuckled.
They went out, and Eritrea aimed at a strawman, 200 meters away.
Swoosh!
Poof!
The arrow burst through the strawman’s forehead, traveled over 250 meters more, and pierced the wall. Blue crackling spread within a small radius and subsided, but the soldiers around that vicinity distanced themselves from the arrow that was able to pierce the reinforced ice wall that gold-ranked knights couldn’t damage easily!
The lightning made them a lot more scared.
Lambert approached the wall and looked at the beautiful markswoman walking over with a brand new, eye-catching bow.
“Was this you?”
He touched the arrow, and a sudden current traveled into his veins. Lambert could only hear the shouts of soldiers as his body dropped to the ground. His mind was in a dimension of its own, but his body was trembling and shaking badly.
“Take that arrow away from his hand!”
Eritrea yelled.