Chapter 86: Intense Swamp Defense Battle

Initially, the demons’ vanguard continued pouring into the trenches along their original charge path, immediately falling into the expected chaos, struggling among spikes and venomous vines, exhausting strength and time as they repeatedly climbed, becoming living targets for the lizardman sorcerers and crossbowmen behind.

Yet this delay did not last long. From behind the abyssal fissure came even more furious mental commands; the demonic aura on the battlefield suddenly grew more aggressive and… organized, as they began to violently breach the fortifications through sheer mass and numbers.

The front-line low-tier demons seemed to have lost all fear of death; they no longer attempted to climb or find paths, but instead, like suicidal fools, roared and leapt directly into the trench filled with spike traps. Their bodies were pierced, demonic blood soaked into the soil, while those behind stepped without hesitation over their comrades’ corpses, using their flesh and blood to forcibly fill the deep ditch.

One by one, “bridges” woven from twisted limbs and shattered carapaces rapidly extended across the death path. Upon the flattened corpse-road, the massive Judgement Demons and Rage Demons began to surge forward. Like living battering rams, they slammed their heavily armored, horned bodies against the relatively fragile earthen bridges connecting different trenches.

The sound of collapsing earth rang continuously; one after another, the earthen bridges were shattered and trampled flat, forcibly leveling the complex zigzag trench network into a relatively flat but debris-strewn zone of death.

Dozens of Balor Demons hovered low, swinging their flame whips to unleash blasphemous walls of hellfire over the trench sections most densely packed with traps. The violent hellfire turned wooden spikes and venomous vines to ash, performing a thorough purification and clearing all obstacles.

Swarms of Winged Demons and Flamer Demons, enduring harassment from harpies, forcibly suppressed the second line’s ranged firepower. They dove down, attacking crossbowmen and sorcerers on the walls with claws, fangs, and spell-like abilities, forcing the defenders to raise their heads in defense and preventing them from calmly delivering covering fire on the trench zones.

Meanwhile, certain demons with brief teleportation or burrowing abilities—such as Shadow Demons and Gargantuan Devouring Worms—began attempting to bypass the front lines, infiltrating and launching surprise attacks. In the end, after suffering mountainous and oceanic casualties, the demonic tide, though thickened and slowed, finally surged over the death trench zone.

They marched over roads paved with the corpses of their own kin, smashing through flattened ruins, their bodies wreathed in unextinguished demonic flames, like a blood-red tide crawling from the deepest pits of hell, once again standing before the city walls, pressing the terrifying stench of brimstone and decay firmly upon the hearts of every defender on the second line.

When the demonic tide finally crashed against the sturdy rampart, composed of countless marsh ironwood fortresses and stockades, exhaling the scent of damp wood and resin, the true bloodbath between both sides had only just begun.

This line was no longer merely a delay—it was a true fortress of slaughter. Stationed atop the stockades and fortresses were lizardman warriors and sorcerers clad in thick scales, their bodies muscular and powerful. They stood silently behind the parapets, gripping heavy spiked clubs and long-handled battle axes taller than a man, their cold eyes showing not a trace of fear.

On the higher wooden arrow towers behind the stockades, the number of ballistae increased, their arms thicker, firing bolts so massive they could pierce through two or three demons at once. The lizardman crossbowmen wielded even more powerful composite bows and heavy crossbows; their arrows formed a dense, penetrating hail like lethal locusts.

The fortresses were connected by sturdy stockade walls, allowing defenders to rapidly maneuver between them. Any attack on one point would draw crossfire from adjacent fortresses, trapping demons in a three-dimensional net of fire.

Faced with such a stronghold, the demons no longer relied solely on low-tier cannon fodder. From the abyssal fissure emerged a towering Balor Demon, its terrifying roar signaling the deployment of true core forces.

The fifteen-foot-tall horror known as the Judgement Demon replaced low-tier demons as the offensive core. They ignored the rain of arrows striking their bodies, marching with steps that shook the earth, charging straight toward the wooden stockades.

They slammed their heavily armored shoulders against the walls, tearing wood with massive claw-blades; each strike made entire sections of the wall shudder violently, sending wood chips flying.

Some furious Warlord Demons, leveraging their incredible leaping power, directly bounded onto lower stockades or fortress platforms. Upon landing, they spun wildly with their weapons, becoming living flesh whirlwinds—only multiple lizardman warriors, surrounding them with heavy spiked clubs, could crush or hurl them off the walls before they caused greater destruction.

More flying demons appeared in the air, swarming the arrow towers, using claws and fangs to sabotage ballista mechanisms, and employing spell-like abilities to harass crossbowmen, striving to erode the defenders’ ranged advantage. Succubi did not directly join the assault; instead, they prowled the battlefield’s edges, using their charm abilities to induce confusion among the defenders’ commanders or ballista crews.

The battlefield instantly ignited into white-hot chaos. On the walls, the lizardmen’s roars, the dull thuds of spiked clubs shattering bones, the demons’ bellows, and their dying shrieks intertwined.

Judgement Demons continued to collapse under countless arrows and sorcerers’ curses, yet sections of the stockade also cracked under relentless battering; frenzied demons poured through the breaches, immediately colliding with the armored lizardman warriors atop, engaging in the most bloody close-quarters combat.

On the arrow towers, ballistae roared; each shot cleared entire zones, yet operators constantly faced surprise attacks from flying demons and falling hellfire orbs. Quasits exploited their small size and invisibility to infiltrate the towers from behind, attempting assassinations or creating chaos.

After the demons broke through three fortresses in succession, Aqilong, atop the command platform, his bronze vertical pupils flickered with cold calculation. He knew it was foolish to trade losses with abyssal demons.

“It is time.” His voice, carried by magic, reached three separate combat units instantly.

As the demons’ follow-up forces crowded onto the landing beach, preparing to pour endlessly into the front, the seemingly calm areas on either side of the shore—filled with rocks and withered red mangroves—suddenly erupted with thunderous war drums and earth-shaking roars!

The hidden boar-headed heavy cavalry, like two iron hammers held back for too long, slammed into the most vulnerable “waist” of the demonic army. These massive warriors, clad in heavy plate armor and mounted on armored war boars, formed an unstoppable steel tide. Their charge was not meant to kill individual demons, but to disrupt the entire formation.

The thick iron hooves of the giant-tusked boars crushed demonic fiends and abyssal hounds into pulp; the boar-headed knights’ heavy spiked clubs and flails swept through enemy ranks like scythes through grass. Their goal was clear: sever the link between the front-line demons and the rear landing points, turning the demonic vanguard into isolated “islands,” and creating unprecedented chaos and panic among the reinforcements.

Almost simultaneously with the heavy cavalry’s charge, from the clouds came a roar that made every flying demon tremble—a roar blending five dragon breaths!

Led by the white dragon-beast Zelas, a mixed host of fifty chromatic dragons and dragon-beasts dove from above, striking directly at the demonic air force entangled with harpies. At this moment, the nature of aerial combat changed utterly.

The red dragons’ fire breath became sheets of burning clouds, engulfing the winged demons. The green dragons’ toxic breath corroded the leathery wings of the flamer demons. The blue dragons’ lightning chains leapt and danced through the demonic ranks.

The black dragons’ corrosive beams precisely eliminated high-tier targets. Zelas and her white dragon kin unleashed frigid frost breaths, turning vast swathes of airspace into frozen domains of death; demons moved slower, then were torn apart by dragon claws—the tide turned instantly.

Yet the deadliest, most brilliant strike of all came from the blue dragon Vex. He received Aqilong’s order: “Vex, target: the master-class Balor Demon on the beach. Execute the decapitation.”

Without hesitation, Vex’s massive body, wrapped in a storm, plunged straight from the clouds like a living lightning bolt tearing through the sky. His target was clear: the Balor Demon who had just stepped onto the beach, swinging its flame whip, attempting to restore order to its chaotic troops.

“Roar!!! You burning insect, Grandpa Vex is here to take your life—die, ha ha ha ha ha!” The blue dragon’s snarling laugh, charged with dragon might, drowned out all other noise on the battlefield.

The Balor Demon sensed the threat. It raised its grotesque head, hellfire burning in its eyes, and lashed its flame whip toward the sky with the will to destroy all. Lightning and hellfire—two ultimate forces—collided violently in midair above the blood-blackened beach!

But the Balor underestimated the blue dragon’s breath. The brilliant white lightning, like a spear cast by a god, crushed its hellfire and struck precisely on the demon’s shoulder. “Roar—!” The demon bellowed a roar of pain and fury; its armored shell shattered, revealing burning flesh beneath.

The demon abandoned technique. It flared its wings violently, charging straight at Vex with reckless fury, attempting to close the distance and tear apart, burn, and melt this “sky-born mongrel” with its massive claw-blades and inner flame. Its entire body erupted in hellfire, forming a ring of death as it ignited the surrounding air.

Vex remained as calm as the eye of a storm. He used his superior agility to execute a sharp turn in midair, his massive tail swinging like a battering ram, slamming hard into the demon’s spine.

“Crack!” The clear sound of bone breaking briefly drowned out the battlefield’s clamor.

The demon staggered, plummeting from midair and gouging a deep trench into the charred sand. Yet it used its fall to spin back and spit a concentrated blast of blasphemous hellfire at Vex. Vex shot upward rapidly; the edge of his wings still brushed by the hellfire, sending searing pain through him.

Now the Balor Demon’s left wing twisted unnaturally, its back collapsed, its entire body covered in lightning-scorched marks. It was grievously wounded, clearly at a severe disadvantage. Yet its madness reached its peak.

It ceased trying to fly. Standing firmly on the ground, it compressed all its hellfire energy into its core. Its massive body began glowing with an ominous, dark red light—like a furnace about to explode.

It was going to self-destruct—to drag Vex and everything around it into the abyss of annihilation!

“Foolish.” A flicker of contempt passed through Vex’s cold vertical pupils.

He did not retreat. Instead, he dove again. But this time, instead of scattered lightning, he gathered all his storm energy before his dragon maw, forming a wildly unstable sphere of destruction energy, flickering with annihilation.

Just before the Balor’s core energy reached its critical threshold, Vex fired the sphere like a breath—precisely into the shoulder wound, still surging with energy, that the lightning had torn open.

External heat met internal fury. There was no earth-shattering explosion—only a dull, muffled “puff,” as if from the earth’s depths.

The Balor Demon’s massive body froze rigid. Its uncontrolled energy was utterly detonated by the incoming lightning, unable to vent outward. Its body was torn apart from within; countless blinding white lightning bolts erupted from every crack in its carapace.

It opened its jaws wide—but emitted no sound. Finally, like a mountain collapsed from within, it crumbled silently into a heap of still crackling, smoking, charred remains.