Chapter 93

Six days of silence were more suffocating than constant slaughter. The Abyss was brewing an even more extreme destruction. When the war drums beat again, the demons’ assault was no longer a wave, but a black tsunami striking simultaneously from sky, ground, and shadow.

The fortress complex standing at the boundary between marsh and plain held an ideal strategic position. Ahead lay muddy, impassable swamps; behind stretched open plains ideal for troop deployment. In this transitional zone, rivers and lakes had thinned out, depriving demons of their natural cover for subterranean ambushes via complex waterways.

The defenders seized this advantage. During the six days of silence, they excavated a vast, intricately interwoven anti-subterranean trench system radiating outward from the fortresses. These trenches were no mere ditches: their bases were lined with resonance crystals sensitive to vibrations, their walls cast with corrosion-resistant alchemical mortar, and inscribed with triggerable deep-cold runes.

Now, when demons attempted their old tactic—attacking from below—they found the soft marsh mud replaced by hardened earth, and triggered alarms and freezing traps at every dig. The defenders’ engineers and sorcerers used this system to pinpoint subterranean threats and crush them in darkness.

The once gloomy sky was now completely obscured. No longer scattered winged demons, but a layered, impenetrable aerial host composed of countless demon types—like a plague of locusts covering the heavens, yet reeking of brimstone and brutality.

They emitted ear-splitting, cacophonous shrieks and roars—a sound that itself was a psychic assault, aiming to shatter the defenders’ will.

Amid this death-cloud, larger bat-winged Soulrender Demons rose like airborne fortresses, their powerful forelimbs gripping burning boulders or demonic crystalline cores, ready to drop them from blind spots in the defenders’ fire.

More chilling still, several Balor Demons flickered in and out of the cloud, their blazing bodies leaving long trails of fire in the air like moving torches, poised to dive and cleanse the ramparts with their horrific breath.

Despairingly, many new faces appeared—numerous demons from other Abyssal planes had joined the feast. Due to poor information dissemination, only the flying demons had so far reached this battlefield.

Behind the mass of winged demons lurked their kin, the Plaguewing Demons—bat-like creatures with tattered wings shedding potent plague scales with every flutter. They flew in swarms, attempting to cross the walls and scatter disease into the defenders’ rear and supply zones.

The Screamnight Nighmares flickered in and out of the storm-laden sky. Their twisted humanoid forms bore vast membranous wings; their only weapon was a mouth nearly spanning their entire face. They emitted ultrasonic waves capable of shattering internal organs at close range, or inducing dizziness and vomiting among defenders on the walls, rendering them combat-ineffective.

The Shadowstalker Demons seemed woven from smoke and darkness, perfectly blending into the sky’s shadows. They specialized in short-range teleportation, hunting officers, mages, and ballista operators on the ramparts—striking once, then vanishing into shadow, deadly assassins.

The colossal Abyssal Lizard, a hybrid of flying serpent and centipede, was an alien creature warped and corrupted by Abyssal power.

With its thick chitinous carapace, it shrugged off ordinary arrows and spat nets of highly adhesive, corrosive acid that pinned defenders and their weapons in place, slowly dissolving them in agonizing struggle.

The Torment Bats, flying beasts the size of small houses, bore countless agonized, moaning faces on their bellies.

They excelled at circling high above, their belly-faces emitting synchronized psychic wails that amplified fear, despair, and painful memories in all living beings within range—mobile sources of spiritual corruption.

Meanwhile, the ground forces launched an unprecedented assault. The demons’ formation was no longer a chaotic tide, but a chillingly organized war machine.

The front line consisted of armored Lesser Demons, enhanced by demonic energy, wielding massive bone shields. They formed a crude yet immensely thick advancing wall, absorbing the defenders’ arrows and mana. Their numbers were endless—this demon’s original form seemed inexhaustible.

The main force, composed of Berserker Demons and Soulrender Demons, advanced like a black steel flood, shaking the earth with each step. Among them were living battering rams and profane catapults dragged by hell-beasts.

The cunning and deadly Serpent Demons no longer climbed walls alone. They clustered like lethal daggers, waiting for the main force to draw fire, then striking at weak points in the line for fatal thrusts.

Behind the ranks, vast numbers of Quasits and Succubi hurled toxic spell-like energies—corrosive energy orbs, mind-disrupting whispers, and wide-area fear auras—at the ramparts.

Amid the thunderous drone of countless leathery wings—a low hum like the storm before a tempest—the demonic aerial host surged forward like a ruptured black river. They gave the defenders no time to adjust; the first strike landed with pinpoint precision.

Leading the charge were swarms of winged demons—mere cannon fodder. The real threat lay hidden among them: the Plaguewings. Like mobile clouds of calamity, they shook their bodies as they passed over the fortress, scattering a skyful of glowing, ominous green plague scales.

These scales corroded armor, burned skin, and rapidly bred lethal pathogens upon contact with water or food. Their primary target: contaminating the defenders’ supply lines and inflicting mass casualties.

Behind them came the twisted Screamnight Nighmares. They hovered at the extreme edge of the defenders’ ballista range, opening their repulsive maws and unleashing directional ultrasonic waves—invisible hammers slamming into the battlements.

Defenders caught directly in the waves, even if not bleeding from nose and ears or rupturing organs, were thrown into violent dizziness and disorientation, instantly losing combat effectiveness and halting the entire wall’s firepower.

As defenders struggled under plague and sonic assault, true death arrived silently. Shadowstalkers used the chaos created by their kin as cover, flickering through light and shadow, teleporting onto the ramparts.

Their targets were clear: officers directing troops, mages chanting protective spells, soldiers operating heavy ballistae. A shadow passed—and a key defender fell silently, clutching a severed throat or pierced heart.

When the rampart defenses descended into chaos due to broken command and weakened firepower, the demons’ aerial main force moved.

The Abyssal Lizards shrieked piercingly, braving sparse arrows, and unleashed torrents of sticky acid nets onto weak sections of the wall. Soldiers caught in the nets screamed as they fused with the ramparts, dissolving rapidly—tearing horrific gaps in the line.

Simultaneously, low-tier winged demons dragged living aerial drop-pods to the rear of the walls. The pods burst open—like dumplings dropped into boiling water—releasing frenzied Lesser Demons and fire-spewing Hellhounds directly into the fortress interior. They attacked everything in sight, aiming to sow panic and chaos from within, forcing the defenders to fight on two fronts.

The sky was no longer a distant backdrop—it had become a vertical waterfall of death. The demonic aerial assault, with its diverse troop types and precise tactical coordination, delivered a comprehensive and devastating test upon the defenders from the war’s first moments.

Facing this three-dimensional, precise flood of aerial death, Akuilong’s orders moved like cold bronze scriptures, clearly transmitted throughout the entire defense system. The defenders’ counterattack became a meticulously woven three-dimensional anti-air fire net, integrated with tactical countermeasures.

Lizardman shamans stationed across the fortress had already driven their staves into the earth. Chanting ancient prayers, they channeled the natural forces of the marsh. Purifying auras spread from them like ripples on water, dissolving and neutralizing plague scales into harmless ash wherever they passed.

Behind the ramparts, gnomish engineers operated low-humming “Sonic Disruptor Drums.” These specialized sonic weapons emitted phase-opposite shockwaves that effectively canceled out the Nighmares’ lethal frequencies.

As the Shadow Demons teleported onto the ramparts using shadow-jumps, their shadows suddenly solidified like glue—the “Shadow Binding Trap” pre-set by the Boar-headed Sorcerers.

Though unable to hold them long, even a few seconds’ delay was enough. Nearby, lizardman warriors wearing helmets enchanted with True Sight immediately swung their flaming battle-axes, tearing the deadly assassins apart.

Meanwhile, all anti-air heavy ballistae on the walls and towers roared to life. Their bolts were massive-headed “Cloudburst Bolts” or “Lightning Bundles” filled with alchemical substances. They detonated within demonic flight formations, creating zones of fire or leaping electric nets for area clearance.

The magical crystals atop five defense towers blazed brightly, no longer maintaining full-cover shields, but concentrating all energy on anti-air defense.

They unleashed thick storms of arcane missiles—like self-tracking swarms—homing in on the massive, heavily armored Abyssal Lizards, blasting them out of the sky, or summoning tornado beams to shred the living drop-pods along with the winged demons dragging them.

When the Balor Demons, the aerial overlords, finally could not hold back and began their dive, ready to cleanse the ramparts with flame, Akuilong had prepared a “gift.” Atop the central tower of the fortress, the “Skyshatter Cannon”—requiring multiple mages to channel—had been fully charged.

It fired a hyper-compressed stream of pure magical energy—a reverse meteor—striking the diving Balor with pinpoint accuracy. This forced the demon to evade or defend, disrupting its devastating breath attack and draining its energy. Simultaneously, long-range fire immediately concentrated on the wounded Balor, forcing it to retreat in disarray.