Three runic circles placed on the right side of the steel rectangle powered the burst laser, while three on the left were being charged in Damian’s mana cloud. And then vice versa.. giving a continuously working laser cannon as long as there was enough mana in the environment.
***
[The Pigmen City, Current Time, Sariel’s POV.]
The giant shimmering waygate flickered for a while and disappeared. That was the last of the reserved tank of liquid mana for Sariel to use for waygates. Now, he would have to use his own two mana containers if he wanted to continue, but it wasn’t necessary.
Laser cannons were going off wildly from all over the northern army camp as the large number of flying monsters had reached the city. The entire outer city had relocated all the citizens inside the giant stone shrine. The massive stone doors had been closed and locked from the inside. There were secret places on each step of the giant shrine, though, from where pigmen could come and go. Only pigmen soldiers were allowed to make use of them.
They were coming and going as the defense line required, or the exhausted ones came back to rest inside the city. But for an hour now, pigmen soldiers had stopped coming back and were only going to the ice wall. Seventy percent of all 80,000 pigmen had gone to the ice wall to stop the enormous charge of the dark army. The king of pigmen finally sent an order to not send any more.
The rest were needed to man all the laser cannons placed on each step of the giant shrine. The pyramid-shaped, massive structure had all four sides covered by steel cannons.
The king wouldn’t have sent so many if Damian had not sent a pigmen warrior with a steel spatial storage back through the waygate. It had the papers with instructions on how to set up and power something called “The Mana Disperse System.”
Mindseer had been setting it up on top of the shrine for the last forty-plus minutes—since she saw the vision of thousands of flying monsters coming from high above the Ice Wall. Their people on the wall were doing their best to not let many slip by, but it was impossible to stop creatures who could soar really high in the sky.
For the past fifteen minutes, “The Mana Disperse System” had been activated, powered by Mindseer herself—she was the only human third ranker among them, after all, and could use the maximum number of mana threads. Heather was protecting her and the northern laser cannons placed on the second-highest step of the shrine. There was a dome of light barrier covering the top of the stone shrine that housed these giant steel pillars.
The thick mana clouds could pass through this barrier without any problem. The dense mana gradually traveled down from the top of the shrine, powering all the cannons on the way—giving maximum power to the cannons on the top three steps.
However, this thing Damian had made—Sariel wanted to kiss the guy for it. In one fell swoop, he had lessened the burden of manpower required to defend the shrine. The only thing they had to do now was protect these cannons with all their might and keep shooting for as long as they could.
One pigman per cannon, no matter the rank, was like a miracle to all the pigmen warriors and citizens. Even now, the civilian women and children had lined up to be called upon when necessary. They didn’t need a lot of people for all the cannons situated on the four sides of the stone shrine, but without these new additions, they wouldn’t have been able to defend against the enormous horde of flying monsters that were destroying the city.
The massive shrine had indeed become a truly unconquerable giant castle. The hundreds of laser cannons lined up on the steps, shooting down flying monsters, truly gave it an intimidating, aggressive look—replacing its normally peaceful, sleeping, harmless giant appearance.
Four sides of the shrine—and they had to defend against all the clever ones who came down to target these specific laser cannons. The busiest northern side’s cannons and the operator pigmen were being protected by Heather and an army of pigmen soldiers armed with powerful hand cannons. The slightly less intense East was being protected by the King himself, who was fighting with his royal guards and royal family members.
The West was where Sariel and Amy had come. It was less crowded but still, if left unattended, would result in countless casualties. The two of them were no transcendents, though, and could only pick up the enormous giant cannons built by Damian and placed at each of the four corners of the giant shrine every two steps.
Sariel and Amy, both stationed on two corners of the Western side of the shrine, felt goosebumps operating the powerful weapons in their hands. The more powerful laser mode was not appropriate to defend the normal cannons, but the burst mode was perfect to shoot down any flying creature that landed on this side—or even thought about landing or coming closer.
Sariel put countless burning holes in their black flesh in seconds as they descended, killing even Emperor-rank monsters within moments.
***
[The Battlefield Near The Ice Wall, Current Time, Damian’s POV.]
With the help of Maelor and Alex, Damian put down all twenty-seven Legendary-class monsters that had come within two kilometers of the wall. But now, the millions of black army monsters moving faster than these giant monsters had blocked the path and were making it harder for the giant Legendary-class monsters to get near the wall.
However, just as Damian put down two of these giants and considered this point in their favor, the black army suddenly started moving out of the way of these giant Legendary-class monsters and gave them an open path to run straight.
Damian looked back at the figure in the distance riding atop a Legendary-class black pigman walking on all fours.
Shadecaster.
It was about time anyway. The only way to deal with this issue was to kill that guy.