“Don’t let them get a foothold on the walls!” resounded Sir Marsten’s yell as the soldiers fought against the demons that were clambering up the walls and tried to enter the fort that way.
As it turned out, the demons did have some siege engines hidden in their camp, things that reminded Alissa of trebuchets, as well as large ballistas that hurled large spherical rocks at the wall like cannons. They were placed a good distance away, though, which somewhat reduced their power, but it was necessary for safety as if they were placed closer some of the fourth tiers might be able to wreck them with a quick strike.
The way it was, the fourth tiers on the human side were kept busy defending against the boulders that happened to fly above the walls, while at the same time keeping watch over the demon side’s fourth tiers as well. As for the boulders that struck the fort’s walls, they just let those be. The wall was designed to take such a bombardment to begin with, so there was no reason to waste their energy to prevent those strikes from landing.
Where the boulders launched by the demon siege engines struck the fort’s walls, the outermost layer was gouged out, but the projectiles rarely managed to even touch the true main wall behind it, its momentum killed off by the impact against the outer layer and the soft, sandy cushion that awaited behind it. Some of the projectiles were even stuck in the wall’s outer layer.
Surprisingly – or perhaps unsurprisingly – the demons showed minimal self-preservation instincts and placed ladders against the walls and tried to climb up even while the projectiles from the siege engines slammed against the wall from time to time. Arrows rained from both sides, which further added to the chaos of the battle, and it was not a particularly rare occasion for a climbing demon to be struck down by an arrow from their own side, or for a siege projectile to land a bit too close to them.
Yet they kept coming, seemingly unbothered by the risk of friendly fire, with their morale strangely high. It made Alissa wonder if the [Champion] that supposedly used mass buffs was present amongst the demon army or not.
In contrast, the human side mostly guarded the walkways of the fort’s walls. Their focus was on preventing the demon army from creating a beachhead atop the walls. To that purpose, they rained down arrows on the climbing demons mercilessly, while other soldiers used long-handled bidents to push away the ladders from the walls, toppling the ladders and the demons clambering along its length over the throng below.
Other demons attempted to assault the fort from above, from the mountains to the sides. Unlike the cliffsides of the valley, however, the demons were wide open during their approach to the fort. As such, they were often shot down by the waiting human archers before they could get anywhere near the fort. Those who did manage to get close typically just found their ends on the tips of waiting spears.
So far, despite the seemingly intense battle, the demons had yet to commit their true forces to the fight. Most of the attacking demons were only second tiers and early third tiers, far too weak to actually pose a threat to the human forces defending the fort. They were being sent to die so the humans would waste their energy killing them.
And those demons probably knew it, yet they still rushed towards certain death with gleeful abandon regardless.
It was something that Alissa found rather disturbing, to say the least. She and the other members of her party were interspersed along the walls to match their skills to the needs of the defense. The direct combat members like her were mostly positioned on the southern wall, which faced the heaviest assault from the demons.
On the other hand, people who were skilled at ranged combat like Osmond and Joshua were positioned on the western and eastern walls, respectively, where they made full use of their skills to wipe out the demons attempting to strike from the mountains. It was something they both proved particularly adept at, given the circumstances.
Alissa and the rest didn’t have much to do during these early stages of the siege, so they mostly helped along with the suppression efforts as they hurled the javelins and other throwing weapons they carried down at the throng of demons below, or at the ones climbing up the wall. Their throwing weapons often either had enchantments that would allow them to return to their owner after a while, or were cheap, mundane consumables, so nobody really minded using them that way.
They only had to take action on the times when a stone projectile from the demon trebuchets sailed too high and would have fallen inside the fort itself, if they were the closest one to the projectile. Ethan struck one such projectile head-on with the hammer end of his pollax and sent it flying back towards the demon army where it fell upon the crowd of demons below the wall.
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“Not quite a home run, huh?” teases Alissa with an amused chuckle. Neither of them played baseball but they had seen some games before, so were relatively familiar with the game and its terms. The way Ethan struck at the rock had looked like a batter swinging hard at a pitch, but the result of his swing was far more disappointing than expected.
“That rock was unnaturally hard,” countered Ethan with a frown on his face. “You’d think that if I struck it with my weapon and used enough force to throw it back some distance, the small surface area would have driven my weapon into the rock and broken it instead, but it didn’t. Something magical has got to be holding it together.”
Alissa nodded in contemplation as she listened to what Ethan said. The stone projectiles from the trebuchets were huge, easily a meter and a half in diameter, so what he said had a point. A blow with enough force to throw the projectile away, concentrated on such a small surface area, should have indeed shattered the rock or driven his weapon into it.
Her musings were interrupted as a moment later another projectile sailed through the air directly towards the section of the wall she was stationed at. Alissa immediately took a close look at the projectile with her skills, and [A Critical Eye] showed her that there was indeed some kind of force that seemed to be holding the projectile together.
And that force had a weak point.
Alissa reared back as she prepared to intercept the projectile, the other fourth tiers nearby turning their attentions elsewhere as they noticed that she would be taking care of the matter. As the projectile neared the wall, she leapt up and forward towards it, her left arm sending a punch that drove the upper point of her shield directly into the spot where she saw the weak point previously.
The impact that followed shattered the large rock into hundreds of pieces that flew to the sides and back like so much shrapnel, while Alissa herself borrowed the recoil from the impact to land back on the battlements.
She almost missed her landing and it was only the fact that a quick-thinking soldier offered his bident for her to hold on to that prevented her from falling face-first outside the fort’s walls.
“Nice move there, Allie! Though you kinda botched the landing,” said Ethan from his section further to the right. They were close enough that just raising their voices was enough to allow them to converse over the distance despite the din and clamor of the ongoing battle. One benefit of increased stats, amongst many others that they had discovered and enjoyed so far.
Normally one would think that the sensitivity of hearing needed to hear a voice from that far away – raised or not – would cause a case of sensory overload since they would also have to listen to every voice within that distance. However, the higher stats also meant that their minds were more able to selectively filter what they heard, which caused that issue to end up being a non-issue in the end.
Somehow, the higher stats allowed Alissa’s mind to listen to every voice in her now-extended hearing range clearly, all without overwhelming or distracting her. At the same time, she could still pick out Ethan’s voice from the clamor with ease, which was what allowed them to converse so easily in the midst of the fighting.
Sir Inolet had mentioned that what they could do was common amongst fourth tier people in general, as it was a function of their increased stats. Their improved Body allowed them the superhuman auditory range and sensitivity, while their improved Mind allowed them to process it all without them being overwhelming. Things like that were another reason why the norm in Ephemera was to go for a relatively balanced build.
Because even without any examples or explanation Alissa could see how being able to hear everything that went on in a two hundred feet radius could be utterly maddening if their minds were unable to handle the sensory load. Definitely a practical reason why most people would still want to invest quite a bit in their Mind and Soul even if they focused primarily on the Body.
After the small episode with the rock, Alissa returned to a vigil on the battlement, while hurling her short javelins from time to time. She always chose demons who were at the top of their respective ladders for her targets, so that when they fell, they ended up colliding with those below them, which often resulted in a domino effect that sent a whole group of demons back to the ground, with assorted injuries from the fall.
Her javelins would return to its holster after a short while anyway, so she never ran out.
Ethan did the same on his side, though unlike Alissa, he made full use of his greater strength and aimed for the ladders themselves instead. His javelins struck with such force that the wooden siege ladders would snap into halves around the point of impact, which in turn naturally sent the demons on it falling haphazardly on those below them.
Despite their effectiveness with the javelins, they weren’t positioned at the side walls, because there the distances involved were a lot greater than what they could hurl their javelins accurately at. Even if they managed to hurl their javelins accurately at a hundred yards or more, they would have lost quite a bit of force in the process.
Something that Osmond and Joshua had far less issues with.
A war bow was designed to shoot arrows to far greater distances to begin with, and with Osmond’s set of skills, he boasted near pinpoint accuracy and effectiveness up to seven hundred feet away. While his arrows could only fell a demon at a time, he fired fast enough to do the job of a squad of regular archers all by himself.
In Joshua’s case, he was a lot less accurate over such a distance, but made up for it by simply resorting to spells that had a large area of effect. It didn’t matter if he missed his target by ten feet when the fireball he threw ended up engulfing a whole thirty feet around it in flames, after all. Similarly, he didn’t need to be too accurate with lightning spells as their nature would lead them to home onto things that could transmit electricity better, like demon bodies.
Throughout the morning and all the way until near the evening, the fighting raged at the fort outside the valley’s mouth. Thousands of demons perished by the defenders’ hands, yet they continued to charge, unafraid. It was only when darkness began to fall that the offensive abated and slowly came to an end, as the demons retreated back to their encampment, allowing the humans to rest as well.
Even so, the human defenders of the fort kept a vigilant watch through the night, just in case.