Chapter 259: Act 26 – Expansion (7)
Antinna clasped her hands over her chest, quietly watching as more figures moved about in the forest. Since entering the Frostfall Month, although it would still be a while until Erluin’s first snow, the temperature at night had already dropped significantly. The thin white mist that everyone exhaled in the cold air hovered over the logging site, where soldiers rubbed their hands to fend off the chill, creating an atmosphere filled with a hint of somber tension under the cold night sky.
Almost all the mercenaries had gathered on the wooden walls, leaving no reserve team behind—despite Juliette and Crenshia’s strong objections, Brendel had told her directly that it wasn’t necessary, and for this noble lady, that was the truth.
“What will we do if something unexpected happens? This is putting everyone in danger!”
In responding to that angry question from the female commander, Antinna suddenly had a playful thought arise in her heart; she imagined that if Brendel were to deceive her, after she died, she would become a ghost and haunt that young man.
This sudden thought startled her, even causing a flush to creep up her cheeks, slightly warming her face. She exhaled and shook her head seriously, trying to banish the idea from her mind.
But Juliette, seeing the noble girl blush as if lost in thought, then shake her head in return, could only give a brief answer, “This is Lord’s command—,” regrettably throwing away the good impression she had managed to build up with Antinna.
This irresponsible response made Juliette unable to resist turning and walking away, feeling irritated as she patrolled her subordinates, internally cursing the “self-righteous noble.” If it had been before, she would have said such things in front of Antinna rather than behind her back.
In truth, unconsciously—even she had not realized it—they had long been influenced by Brendel. Because, thinking back, she had at least stopped opposing the idea of committing their forces all at once.
Since it was the command of that young lord, there must be a reason behind it.
With the same thought in mind, Crenshia also ceased his objections. He turned around and noticed a hint of a smile on the towering Leader of the Flame Earth Corps’s dark face; the silver-haired middle-aged man was momentarily stunned.
“You knew about this beforehand?” he asked with a sense of alertness instinctively rising.
Yet Vurn seemed to have seen through this scheming old fox’s thoughts, smiling unperturbed as he rubbed his nose, “That little girl is even calmer than you and I. Do you think she is someone who would issue orders recklessly? The only one who can command her here is that young lord—don’t you think?”
“You certainly do observe closely,” Crenshia snorted.
“Right back at you.” Vurn had that thought flash through his mind but did not express it. Beside him, a seasoned mercenary estimated the number of cave-dwellers in the forest periodically; he simply listened quietly to that rhythmic counting, saying nothing.
The cave-dwellers soon numbered in the thousands, stirring in the forest and raising everyone’s vigilance.
The stars in the night sky shifted, yet time had finally passed the initial hours after midnight. At first, Antinna struggled between exhaustion and Romaine’s endless strange questions, but when she blinked her tired eyes, trying to suppress a yawn, she heard a series of unusual sounds.
It was the sound of mercenaries raising their crossbows.
Our noble young lady immediately jolted. She looked up to see the cave-dwellers finally stirring, marching out of the forest in rows—between each row, one or two bear goblins lifted enormous wooden shields for cover.
“Do they have siege equipment?”
Voices of mercenaries inquired among themselves atop the city walls.
“No!”
“Nothing seen!”
Scouts’ voices quickly relayed back from the watchtower. Almost everyone exhaled in unison, “The lord guessed right—” Antinna, standing behind the parapet, thought with an expression as usual.
The cave-dwellers began to accelerate at a distance of roughly one hundred fifty yards; from the wooden walls, they simply began to jog, but the sea of massive wooden shields had started to surge.
One hundred yards.
Fifty yards.
At that moment, Juliette, Vurn, and Crenshia issued the shooting command simultaneously. When over a hundred crossbows released at the same time, a sound reverberated that made everyone’s ears tingle, as a dense shower of bolts formed a semi-transparent white line sweeping forward—like a blade.
The blade swept across the advancing formations of cave-dwellers, causing the first two or three rows of subterranean creatures to halt in unison. The cave-dwellers and bear goblins toppled together, and a clear gap appeared in their once intact formation.
But everyone understood that the true lethality of crossbow bolts against cave-dwellers was known only to the heavens. They had not yet had time to ready a second bolt when they saw the tide of creatures surge forward to fill the gap.
In almost an instant, the cave-dwellers had charged en masse to the wooden walls around the logging site.
The wooden walls were made of four layers of logs, with two layers packed with earth in between. For a logging site to construct such fortifications, the three leaders had once thought the cave-dwellers were wasting materials; but when the bear goblins charged with their wooden shields, they began to regret that idea.
Those bulky creatures charged with their massive steps, colliding with the weight of their own bodies and shields against the wooden walls, which immediately emitted a cringing sound; in some places, the logs began to tilt backward—each log had been driven deep into the ground for nearly a third of its length.
Everyone heard the wooden wall beneath them creaking ominously; the sound was chilling. Compared to that, the cave-dwellers who leaped atop the wooden shields relying on their strong hind legs seemed almost harmless.
The mercenaries mercilessly pushed these uninvited guests off the wooden walls, but the cave-dwellers’ assault was clearly not over, and soon screams from the walls erupted:
“They’re digging a tunnel!”
Husher pulled Antinna back a bit, then the captain of the Lubis mercenaries leaned over the parapet to look down—he indeed saw that under the cover of the bear goblins’ raised wooden shields, the cave-dwellers were digging into the earth at a rapid pace—they were moving astonishingly fast, truly deserving of their title as the subterranean race.
However, the logging site lacked oil, and even stones were scarce; the mercenaries tried to throw logs down, but unfortunately, these “heavy logs” were utterly ineffective against the immensely strong bear goblins.
Fortunately, they still had contingency plans. Some people immediately left the city walls according to the original plan and retreated to the ditch they had dug in the afternoon.
Those ditches had been specifically dug to deal with the cave-dwellers’ tunnels. Following Brendel’s orders, each one was several meters deep, thus when the cave-dwellers had spent nearly half an hour breaking through the first tunnel, the ones at the front were immediately shoved out by the ones rushing in from behind.
These cave-dwellers all fell in a disastrous heap, instinctively raising their heads to discern what was happening, but what awaited them was the human spears. Though single cave-dwellers were exceptionally strong in combat, faced with over a dozen spears from above, they had only one fate—to be pierced like a porcupine.
After losing dozens of their own, the cave-dwellers realized this path was blocked. Thus, they had no choice but to retreat and choose a more direct and brutal method—the mercenaries on the wooden walls soon realized with grim expressions:
These guys are starting to build a human ladder!
This was indeed an effective strategy, the only flaw being they had to abandon the large-bodied bear goblins among their ranks. The bear goblins crouched at the very bottom of the human ladder, lifting wooden shields to provide a platform for the cave-dwellers—so they could reach the edges of the wooden fortifications more easily.
“Net!” After noticing this situation, Antinna raised her eyebrows and immediately shouted.
Beside her, Crenshia and Vurn swiftly passed on this command, and for the time being, the wooden walls surrounding the logging site rang with orders. The next moment, enormous nets constructed from wooden frames were raised by the mercenaries, stretching out from the city walls to cover those cave-dwellers below like a gigantic paddle.
The nets were simply woven from oil ropes, and both the material and wooden stakes used to form the frame were sourced on-site; there were plenty of them throughout the logging site. This rudimentary net might appear undeniably crude in a human-to-human siege, but it proved effective against the cave-dwellers who were not adept at siege warfare.
While the cave-dwellers struggled to climb upwards while dealing with these troublesome nets, the mercenaries could attack from a higher position, staying fresh, and the strong offensive of the subterranean creatures soon suffered significant losses.
Juliette and the others couldn’t help but marvel at this scene; simple yet effective, differing from the tactics of most regular armies; this didn’t seem like something a noble or knight would devise, but rather like an “emergency strategy” from seasoned mercenaries. However, this was precisely the “enemy defense strategy” that the young lord had previously instructed, which left them in awe, not knowing that players had invented these whimsical “techniques” during countless battles in the past.
With the aid of the makeshift nets, the mercenaries managed to repel the cave-dwellers’ charges repeatedly. But the battle’s intensity inevitably escalated; the oil rope woven nets were not impervious, and as more cave-dwellers broke through the barriers, the combat atop the wooden walls finally began to see blood.
Humans suffered losses for the first time, and the number of casualties was rapidly increasing. The strength of the cave-dwellers in direct combat was gradually manifesting.
The mercenaries retreated step by step, as an increasing number of cave-dwellers surged onto the walls, they found that their previous advantage had vanished, even worse, many defenders were being pushed down instead, and the creatures from Jotungrund seemed poised to break through the camp at any moment.
Though they were not good at sieging, their numerical advantage had obscured all their flaws.
Perspiring heavily, Crenshia and Vurn cast anxious glances at Antinna; they knew the only key to turning the tide of battle at this moment lay with this noble girl. Of course, if she did not take action, they would have to end this battle using their own methods.
Both leaders simultaneously made the same decision in their hearts.
……
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