BAM!

The Molten onyx infected swarm slammed into the advancing allied armies' shield wall causing it to halt its advance. The warriors and their commanders stood firm with the white holy lights covering the very front line of soldiers in the shield wall.

The strength of the shield wall's defense was largely due to the three main commanders, Varbu leading the left, Akira at the center, and Zundar on the right.

Even with their strength, they would not be able to stand long without Klyn and the holy shaman who were risking their lives fighting so close to the front line to provide buffs and what little preventive protection they could against the infected.

Tanner stood behind Akira fully transformed and ready to fight. Behind him was the large flag of Kodria on its long spear-like pole that was now planted in the icy ground. The flag fluttered in the winter wind high above everyone's head letting them know where Akira and the center of the army was.

“How many more are we going to have to kill? We've killed several thousands of them already!” shouted Tanner as he slammed his blunt spear into a crystal of a grunner cracking it.

“Yap!” said Fluffball before shooting an ice ball at the feet of a pair of molten onyx infected, freezing them to the ground allowing Grarr to swipe with his front paws and shatter their legs.

Akira finished them with his warhammer, smashing their heads and torso to rubble.

Standing tall, Akira raised his furry arm that was holding his glowing white warhammer and growled in a booming voice that echoed over the din of battle.

“Any infected we don't kill today we'll have to kill tomorrow! SMASH THEM ALL!”

“Awwooooo!” several howls rang out from all along the shield wall acknowledging Akira's words.

The two armies battled each other for several minutes before Akira saw a large swarm of black bats shoot into the sky from inside the east fort and watched the swarm head out to the lake towards the naval ships.

Seeing this Akira finally noticed the battle happening on the river's edge.

He was unable to do anything about it since he was stuck in a fierce battle with the massive swarm of molten onyx infected.

“Piii!”

Akira looked up into the sky and watched Pii'per flying towards the lake. As she passed by overhead Klyn quickly chanted a holy buff and sent it towards her.

Thud! Thud!

The loud thudding footsteps coming from the rear of the Molten Onyx infected swarm drew Akira's attention away from the river battle.

A large GaiAnt was pushing its way through the swarm, destroying anything that got in its way without a care. It was headed straight for Akira wanting to stop him from interfering with the river crossing.

On its right shoulder stood a dark-robed figure and on the left shoulder was a man that Akira had never seen before. The man was not hiding his face.

Grarr plowed through the nearby infected and jumped into the air slamming into the chest of the GaiAnt stopping its charge forward, the attack did little damage.

Akira and Mileena jump off Grarr and up onto the giant. Fluffball continued to shoot ice balls at the dark-robed figure on the shoulder allowing Akira to climb up.

From behind the shield wall, Klyn chanted a quick holy buff and covered Akira in white light.

The GaiAnt roared in pain as Akira scurried up his right side with the holy light biting deep into its large stony body. Its large hands tried to smash Akira, but he jumped into the air and grabbed onto the giant hand as it was descending.

Akira swung around the large arm and landed on top of its arm, he used it to climb up to the shoulder where the dark-robed figure was dodging fluffball's ice balls.

“So I have to fight you instead of that Bonestringer?” asked Akira as he used his skill [Sword Slash] sending a blue crescent flying towards the robed figure.

The blue crescent was blocked by the arm of the GaiAnt as the robed figure jumped into the air flipping backward onto the head of the GaiAnt.

“You take care of that girl and the mutt down there and I will fulfill your request,” said a flat female voice that came from the dark hood.

“Are you looking down on me? I am a top-ranker! Any guild would love to have me helping them!” asked the large muscular man.

The dark-robed figure ignored the man and focused on Akira who was readying another attack.

The demigod male slammed his two metal fists together and shouted, “Bulk!”

Upon using his skill his already large muscles exploded out once again making him grow even larger and thicker. His red skin emitted a large amount of heat into the winter air.

“Triple punch!” shouted the demigod as he aimed his large metal fists at Mileena and punched down three times.

Three red fists flew down towards Mileena slamming into her body.

“Ha! Too easy!”

Poof! The body disappeared into smoke.

Mileena used blink to sneak attack the demigod from the rear.

Her daggers stabbed the demigods back but it felt like she was trying to pierce metal. There was only a little blood leaking out of the small cuts which quickly healed.

The GaiAnt swung its stony arm at Mileena forcing her to jump into the air to dodge.

“Ten Punch death!”

As Mileena landed on the stony shoulder ten red energy fists shot towards her. With her agile movements and help from her clones, she was able to dodge 9 of the attacks.

The tenth slipped through her defenses and slammed into her stomach knocking off the shoulder and into the open air.

A green wind appeared under her feet stopping her tumble towards the ground. Mileena used the green wind to jump up into the air twice heading straight for the demigod that had hit her.

The demigod was not going to let her rise back up. He jumped off of the stone shoulder and aimed his large glowing red fist, straight at her.

Mileena used her last wind step to jump backward and lightly land next to Fluffball on the snowy ground.

BAM!

Snow exploded into a geyser high into the sky as the muscle demigod slammed into the ground.

“Hey big guy, that cult is both the human and demon race's enemy, they will betray you as soon as they see an opportunity!” shouted Mileena as she readied an attack.

“Shut up!” roared the meathead.

“Why is the Cult of Science working with the Demigods?” asked Akira while battling with the dark-robed figure.

“You talk too much. All of this is nothing personal, you just keep getting in our way, so please die,” said the low female voice. It was muffled slightly because of the black veil that covered her full face under the hood.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Her hand snaked out towards Akira's head but was blocked and knocked away by Akira's shield.

Akira could feel a dangerous suction coming from her hands and knew that he could not allow her to grab onto him.

Tibia continued to grab for Akira with both her hands. Whenever Akira used a skill she would somehow squirm out of the way just barely dodging it.

During one of the GaiAnt's fits Akira was forced to dodge the flying fists targeting him, Tibia used this as a chance and tried to flip around to Akira's unprotected back to grab him.

As she jumped forward to latch onto his back...

Thump!

“oof!”

She was hit in the stomach with Akira's tail knocking her off of the GaiAnt... his short victory was spoiled as she was quickly grabbed out of the air by the GaiAnt's large hand.

Akira sent a cross attack after her forcing her to jump off the hand and into the crowded swarm of infected below where she blended into the swarm and disappeared.

The Meathead demigod was causing havoc on the frontline wounding and killing several of the demon race soldiers.

Mileena and Fluffball were trying to keep him in check while Akira handled the dark-robed figure and the GaiAnt.

“Die! Ten punch death!” shouted the Meathead demigod punching towards Tanner who was still standing his ground and guarding Kodria's standard along with several other nearby warriors.

Fluffball jumped in front of Tanner using his holy ice armor to take the full attack that would have killed Tanner. Loud ice cracks were heard as Fluffball was knocked back into the crowd of soldiers behind them.

The dark robbed female jumped out of the molten onyx swarm and grabbed onto a low-rank officer who was holding the line and shouting out orders for those around him.

“Get off...” the officer weakened at an alarming rate and fell to the ground where he was grabbed by one of the molten onyx infected and dragged into the swarm to be torn apart.

The dark-robed figure slunk back into the swarm to find a new target. Akira saw this happen but he was still fighting with the large GaiAnt stopping it from plowing through and collapsing the shield wall.

While all this was happening on the ground, two Bryers flew into the air and headed towards the outer city walls and started harassing the soldiers on the wall by dive-bombing and garbing a few of them and then dropping them from high in the air.

On their next pass, the tower ballistas fired their large projectiles at them, knocking them off course of their dives. The new blunt projectiles were able to pierce into the rocky bodies and leave large cracks.

The pain from the attacks caused the two Bryers to turn their attention away from the wall soldiers towards the towers that were reading more bolts to fire at them.

“Pii!”

Pii'per swooped down from high and slammed into one of the Bryers knocking it off course and out of the sky.

BAM! It slammed into the ground sending up snow and ice as it rolled through hundreds of the molten onyx infected, sending them flying in the air.

The second Bryer rolled to the side and turned its attention to yet another enemy that was interrupting its attacks.

High above the outer city Pii'per and the second Bryer started an acrobatic battle of diving, slamming into each other, and using their claws to try and rip apart each other.

The soldiers on the walls all cheered for Pii'per after seeing her knock one out of the sky and engage the second. The holy shamen that were not occupied with supporting those on the battlefield sent buffs towards Pii'per while the towers supported her by constantly shooting their blunt bolts into the enemy before the two clashed again.

Akira was repeatedly hammering its core causing the GaiAnt great pain, Akira was forced to scurry out of the way of the flailing arms of the enraged GaiAnt as it stomped through the infected and werewolf soldiers. It did not care who or what it crushed or kicked out of its way.

Smash!

With one last heavy attack, Akira managed to crack the core and jump into the air as the GaiAnt stopped its rampage and fell forward with a loud thump!

Unfortunately, several people who were too slow were crushed under its large body along with tens of regular infected.

With the GaiAnt now out of the fight, Akira turned his attention back to trying to find and stop the dark-robed cultist that was slinking around and surprise attacking the front-line officers.

Several minutes of battling on the front line passed as he searched for her, but he could not detect any trace of her. Akira decided to put the hunt on hold and help Mileena and Fluffball who were still struggling with the Meathead demigod.

As he made his way over to Mileena and Fluffball he cast [Shadow-chains] which grabbed onto meathead and held him still.

Mileena, Fluffball, Tanner, and the other soldiers around them all ganged up the meathead and started attacking him with their full power.

They hacked and slashed at him but his bulky muscles cushioned the attacks and he continued to heal quickly. But as the attacks continued to rain down on him the healing speed became slower.

Mileena used her skill Blink and stabbed at Meathead's heart, opening a deep gash.

Fluffball followed the attack with an ice attack that pierced the rest of the way through the opened wound.

“Ughhh...,” Meathead grabbed his chest, falling to his knees before turning into several light fragments and disappearing.

The nearby soldiers all cheered, happy to have vanquished the demigod.

“Quit your celebration! We are still in the middle of a battle!” growled Akira as he arrived next to them.

Tibia used this moment to launch another sneak attack successfully dragging down another officer.

“That damn witch!” shouted Mileena.

“Keep focused! We need to push these infected back. You and Fluffball should take a few soldiers and start tracking her down to see if you can bait her out so we can attack her or at least be able to react and try to capture her,” ordered Akira as he tried to calm the shield wall that was growing unsteady.

Akira looked into the air and saw Pii'per still battling with the two Bryers now high above the battlefield. Although neither side had been defeated yet the side that looked the worse for the wear was the bryers. They were not out of the fight yet as it was still a 2v1 battle.

Several grueling hours passed with an unending swarm of molten onyx infected showing no signs of stopping their push forward. The dark-robed cultist had been quiet ever since Mileena and Fluffball had started their hunt for her.

As the sky was darkening from the approaching winter storm, Akira was trying to give it his all and rally the soldiers who were fighting with their last bit of energy.

The battle was far larger than any of the previous battles. The waves were not going to stop until one of the two sides was whipped out.

“ROAAH!”

A loud startled roar from the right-wing of the allied army rang out. Akira turned to see the shout coming from Zundar.

“Your sneak attacks won't work on me!” Roared and enraged Zundar.

Tibia had managed to surprise Zundar and grab onto his muscular arm that was holding onto his large two-handed warhammer.

Zundar hand let go of his weapon and grabbed onto her arm before she could jump back.

BAM! CRACK!

A loud crack could be heard as his other fist slammed into her stomach and sent her flying through the air breaking several of her ribs.

Tibia landed far away in the swarm of infected which blocked Zundar's path stopping him from being able to finish her off.

Akira could see that Zundar's complexion had turned a shade whiter as a lot of his energy had been sucked out by Tibia.

Several of the nearby infected crumbled next to tibia as she used them as an emergency repair for her broken rib bones.

Akira looked to the south and saw the stormy winds growing faster as the blizzard rushed north, it would soon reach the battlefield.

No matter how hard they tried they would be unable to finish this fight before the blizzard reached them. Fighting in such a blizzard was a recipe for utter disaster.

“AWOOOO!” Akira howled out an order to consolidate their forces and slowly move back towards the city walls so they could at least protect their rear and know that the enemy was only in front of them and give them a better chance at fighting in the blizzard.

The infected sensed the change in the werewolf's formation and started pressing harder at the shield wall trying to break it.

Those that had been heavily wounded by the Molten onyx infected knew there was currently no cure and they would die sooner or later...

...so they put it all on the line and stood their ground to hold back the infected to buy some time for the rest to retreat.

Swoosh!

The fierce blizzard winds rushed past them followed by the whiteout of heavily falling snow.

The werewolves continued to fall back even though they could barely see anything in front or behind them.

Crack! Smash!

Loud sounds started to sound farther out in front of them as they continued to battle the infected in their slow retreat.

Clang! Crack! Kaching!

“Did a group get stranded out there!” asked Mileena as she stranded her ears to hear the sounds of fighting.

Krack! One of the bryers fell from the sky with a large ice chunk piercing its body and pinning it to the ground.

“Tooot,” the sound of a loud tooting came from the southeast where the new battle sounds were coming from.

Soon the pressure on the retreating allied army started to lessen.

After several hundred more steeps Akira and the army reached the outer city wall and everyone was surprised when they stepped right out of the blizzard.

Looking around them Akira found that the blizzard was swirling around the entire city but no snow or wind was blowing inside the city.

The sound of battle to the south-east was growing even louder as the cracks of ice slamming into the infected in front of them were being pelted mercilessly.

Looking to the south wall Akira saw a large army of combined demon races engaged in battle with the Molten onyx infected.

Seeing this, Kodria's allied army received a second wind and once again charged forward to deal with the nearby molten onyx infected.

The tables had turned!