Chapter 93: The Defenders' Anti-Air Battle

Six days of silence were more suffocating than continuous slaughter. This was the Abyss brewing an even more extreme destruction. When the war drums sounded again, the demons' offensive was no longer a wave, but a black tsunami striking simultaneously from the sky, the ground, and the shadows.

The fortress cluster, standing at the junction of the swamp and the plains, occupied an excellent strategic position. Ahead lay the muddy, impassable swamp; behind lay the plains, favorable for the deployment of legions. In this transition zone, the dense network of rivers and lakes had thinned, causing the demons' customary subterranean surprise attacks, aided by complex water systems, to lose their natural cover.

The defenders keenly seized this advantage. During the six days of silence, they used the fortress as a core to dig a system of deep, crisscrossing anti-subterranean trenches. These trenches were not simple pits; their bottoms were paved with vibration-sensing resonance crystals, their inner walls were cast with corrosion-resistant alchemical clay, and they were rigged with trigger-based Deep Cold Runes.

At this moment, when the demons attempted to use their old tricks to attack from underground, they would find that the soft swamp silt had been replaced by hard rock strata, and they would constantly trigger alarms and freezing traps during their excavation. The defenders' engineers and mages were able to use this system to precisely locate subterranean threats and strangle them in the darkness.

The originally gloomy sky was completely obscured. It was no longer sporadic wing demons, but a dense, impenetrable flying army composed of various demons, like a locust plague covering the sky, yet radiating the scent of sulfur and brutality.

They emitted deafening shrieks and roars mixed with various tones; this sound itself acted like a mental attack, attempting to destroy the defenders' will.

In this cloud of death, the much larger Bat-Winged Vrock acted as aerial fortresses. Their strong forelimbs gripped burning boulders or fel energy crystals, preparing to launch high-altitude throws from the blind spots of the defenders' firepower.

Even more heart-stopping was the sight of several Balors appearing and disappearing within the dark clouds. The flames burning around their bodies dragged long trails in the air like moving torches, ready to dive down at any moment to purify the resistance forces on the city walls with their terrifying breath.

What made people feel desperate was that many new faces appeared this time. A large number of demons from other Abyssal planes had joined this feast, though due to information transmission efficiency issues, only demons skilled in flight had initially arrived at this battlefield.

Behind the large number of wing demons hid their cousins, the Plague Wing Demons. These bat-like demons had tattered wings and constantly shook off scales carrying potent plagues. They flew in swarms, attempting to cross the city walls and scatter disease into the defenders' rear and supply storage areas.

Shrieking Nightmares appeared and disappeared in the cloud-covered sky. They possessed twisted, humanoid-like bodies and huge leathery wings, their only weapon being the giant mouth that occupied almost their entire face. They could emit high-frequency sonic waves sufficient to shatter internal organs at close range, or cause defenders on a section of the wall to fall into dizziness and vomiting, unable to fight effectively.

Shadow Stalkers, these demons seemed to be composed of smoke and darkness, able to blend perfectly into the shadows of the sky. They were skilled in short-range teleportation and specialized in hunting officers, mages, or ballista operators on the city walls. After one strike, whether successful or not, they would melt into the shadows; they were extremely dangerous assassins.

The massive Abyssal Giant Lizards, which looked like a combination of flying snakes and centipedes, were themselves alien creatures corrupted and twisted by Abyssal power.

Relying on thick chitinous carapaces to hard-carry ordinary arrows, they spat sticky and corrosive acid nets from their mouths, which could glue defenders and their weapons firmly in place, to be gradually melted while struggling in pain.

The Torment Giant Bats, these flying behemoths comparable in size to small houses, had countless painful, moaning faces growing on their abdomens.

They were skilled in circling at high altitudes, and the faces on their abdomens would simultaneously emit wide-range mental howls, amplifying the fear, despair, and painful memories in the hearts of all living beings within range; they were mobile sources of mental pollution.

At the same time, the ground army also launched an unprecedented offensive. The demons' formation was no longer a chaotic, disorderly frenzy, but presented a chilling, clearly divided form of a war machine.

In the front row were armored Dretches, strengthened by fel energy and holding giant bone shields. They formed a rough but incredibly thick wall of advance, using their bodies and shields to consume the defenders' arrows and mana. They were always the most numerous; this initial form of demon seemed endless.

The main force, composed of Hezrou and Vrock, moved forward steadily like a black steel torrent, their footsteps making the earth tremble. Mixed among them were living battering rams dragged by Hell Beasts and desecrated catapults.

The cunning and deadly Mariliths no longer climbed the walls alone, but gathered together like a deadly dagger, looking for weak points in the defense line while the main force drew fire, preparing for a fatal thrust.

A large number of Quasits and Succubi were behind the army, pouring vicious spell-like abilities onto the city walls: corrosive energy orbs, whispers that disturbed the mind, and wide-range fear auras.

Accompanied by the low humming caused by countless leathery wings flapping, like before a storm, the demons' aerial army surged toward the fortress like a black heavenly river that had burst its banks. They gave the defenders no time to adjust, and the first wave of strikes poured down precisely.

Charging at the very front were swarms of wing demons; of course, this was just cannon fodder to attract attention. The real killer move was the Plague Wing Demons hidden among them. Like moving clouds of disaster, they shook their bodies violently when flying over the fortress, scattering a sky full of plague scales shimmering with ominous green light.

These scales could not only corrode armor and burn skin, but also rapidly breed deadly bacteria upon contact with water or food. Their primary goal was to contaminate the defenders' logistics reserves and create large-scale attrition.

Following closely behind were those twisted Shrieking Nightmares. They hovered at the edge of the defenders' ballista range, opening their uncomfortable giant mouths, and the directional high-frequency sonic waves slammed into the battlements of the city wall like invisible heavy hammers.

Defenders directly enveloped by the sonic waves, even if not shaken to the point of bleeding from ears and noses or rupturing internal organs, would fall into severe dizziness and imbalance, instantly losing combat effectiveness, causing the firepower of the entire section of the wall to stall.

Just when the defenders were overwhelmed by plague and sonic waves, the true grim reaper arrived quietly. Shadow Stalkers used the chaos created by their peers in front as cover, their figures flickering a few times between light and shadow, and they had already teleported onto the city wall.

Their targets were clear: those officers commanding troops, mages chanting protective spells, and soldiers operating heavy ballistae. A shadow swept by, and a key defender would fall silently, clutching a slashed throat or a pierced heart.

When the defense on the city wall fell into chaos due to interrupted command and weakened firepower, the demons' aerial main force moved.

The Abyssal Giant Lizards emitted shrill hisses, braving the sparse incoming arrows, and spat large areas of sticky acid nets toward the weak sections of the wall's defense. Soldiers covered by them merged with the city wall amidst shrill screams and were quickly corroded away, tearing a terrifying gap in the defense line.

At the same time, living airdrop pods dragged by groups of low-level wing demons flew over the rear of the city wall and burst violently. Like dumplings being dropped, violent Dretches and Hell Hounds spitting flames fell directly from the sky into the fortress, attacking everything they could see, attempting to create panic and chaos from within, leaving the defense line under attack from both front and back.

The sky was no longer a background that needed to be looked up at, but had turned into a waterfall of death pouring down vertically. The demons' aerial offensive, with its diverse troop types and precise tactical coordination, gave the defenders an all-around test and huge casualties at the very beginning of the war.

Facing this three-dimensional and precise aerial torrent of death, Aequilon's orders were passed through the entire defense system like a cold bronze code, clear and logical. The defenders' counterattack was like a meticulously woven three-dimensional anti-air fire net, combined with tactical countermeasures.

The Lizardman Shamans located throughout the fortress had long since inserted their staves into the earth. They chanted ancient prayers, guiding the natural power in the swamp. Waves of purification light spread out with them as the center, like ripples on water; wherever they passed, the plague scales were quickly decomposed, neutralized, and turned into harmless dust.

Behind the city wall, Deep Gnome engineers operated "Sound-Breaking War Drums" that emitted a low hum. This special sonic weapon released counter-oscillating waves with a phase opposite to the Nightmares' sonic waves, effectively canceling out the deadly sonic waves.

Just at the moment when the Shadow Demons used shadow jumping to appear on the city wall to assassinate, the shadows under their feet suddenly became as solid as glue; this was the "Shadow Imprisonment Trap" laid out in advance by Ogre warlocks.

Although it could not trap them for long, even a few seconds of delay was enough. Lizardman warriors standing by, equipped with helmets enchanted with True Sight, immediately swung their burning war halberds, hacking these deadly assassins into pieces.

At the same time, on the city walls and towers, all heavy ballistae dedicated to anti-air roared. These bolts were "Cloud-Burst Bolts" or "Lightning-Beam Bolts" with huge arrowheads filled with alchemical substances. They exploded among the demon flight formations, forming patches of fire airspace or jumping electric nets, clearing the area.

The magic crystals atop the five defense towers shone brightly, no longer maintaining the full-coverage shield, but concentrating energy on anti-air.

They spat out storms of thick arcane missiles, like automatically tracking swarms, precisely pouncing on the massive, thick-carapaced Abyssal Giant Lizards, blowing them up in mid-air, or releasing tornado beams, taking the living airdrop pods along with the wing demons dragging them.

When the Balors, these aerial overlords, finally could not hold back and began to dive, preparing to baptize the city walls with flame breath, Aequilon had prepared a "big gift" for them. At the top of the main tower in the center of the fortress, a "Sky-Shattering Cannon" that required several mages to guide together had already finished charging.

That was a highly compressed torrent of pure spell energy, like a retrograde meteor, precisely shooting toward the diving Balor. This was to force it to evade or defend, interrupting its destructive breath, and greatly consuming its energy. At the same time, long-range firepower would immediately focus fire on this frustrated Balor, forcing it to retreat from the front line in a sorry state. ===== CHAPTER 94 =====