NOVEL WEB Chapter 65: Hold!
The day the lifeless body of a myriad race was found, all hell broke loose. Apparently, the location where the body was found was close to the center of the city, or as of now, the stronghold. The panic it brought only meant one thing. There was less and less manpower, and so loopholes in the security could be found, and finding a body this deep in the stronghold could only mean one thing. They are already heavily compromised.
Which means they need to add additional fortifications or add new barriers and recalibrate the routes the soldiers will take on patrols. Most likely, there would be some parts that would have to be shut down in favor of other areas, and so more fortifications would be done to accommodate the decreasing manpower. Which basically means, less manpower, more defenses, more barricades, more shields, more chokepoints, to support the less-than-ideal number of soldiers.
With that in mind, the soldiers and workers around the stronghold worked double time throughout the entire day. Unfortunately, there was something wrong in the atmosphere around the city. Observing closely, they were fixing defenses hastily as the night started to dawn upon them. Based on their actions and desperation, they seemed to be waiting for something, or at the very least expecting something to come this night, and whatever comes would not be kind enough.
Every kind that is part of the myriad races looked over their surroundings with suspicion. Even when the sky darkened, they were still restless as the day they were born. However, their suspicion was right, as moments when midnight fell, to the horror of everybody, a fiery explosion erupted and consumed the northern gate.
With the explosion, it lit up the night sky, as the ground shook in despair with a back-and-forth motion, due to the incredible movements happening above it.
In the midst of the explosion, a soldier with basic equipment, a basic sword, and basic armor made of leather. Contrary to the more buffed soldiers who carried chain mail and more solid armour ranging from iron and pig iron to even boiled leather. This one seemed to have only recently been conscripted or a newly volunteered soldier.
Almost immediately, upon seeing the situation. The soldier immediately went to help, he brandished his sword, and slowly closed his eyes, he spoke a few unreadable words. Then it finally happened. The sword he brandished earlier glowed blue in color, all the while increasing in temperature, whilst at the same time it was contained in the blade of the sword.
He dashed forward, with quick and precise steps he took, for only that he was as light as a feather and as graceful as a goose. In his peripheral vision, there was a group of workers that were about to be massacred by two ghouls.
He lunged forward into the front of the enemy. Then he glanced over the workers and told them to evacuate immediately, as they would not be able to fight. The group of workers hastily went out of the way. Upon having their prey stolen, the two ghouls were visibly agitated.
Thus, with a force of a dozen humans, they lunged toward the incoming enemy. The soldier raised his shield, and when the first ghoul got nearer, he slammed the shield into the ghoul. The ghoul was effectively knocked off and fell to the ground, disoriented, but the damage was too big to be handled alone.
As the ghoul was immobilized. He swiftly raised his sword and swung it down at the incoming ghoul. The ghouls, whose frail bodies could easily be destroyed and succumb to nothingness. As the second ghoul lunge itself, it saw the first one get pummeled, and when it saw the blade being raised upward, it instinctively dodged to the right.
Thankfully, it did that, as this action actually saved itself from being split apart. The ghoul dodged, but not enough to save its entire body, as half an arm was sliced off. The soldier, upon seeing the actions of the ghoul that was sliced, immediately refocused himself on the confused ghoul from earlier that he had pummeled with his shield.
The soldier once again hid behind his shield and aimed it once again. Once finished, he brought his face out partially so that he could aim and fire almost at the same time. Once confirmed, like the Roman legions, it pummelled the face with the shield.
The confused ghoul became even more confused. Just earlier, it could start moving partially, but now it is immobilized again. Thankfully, the ghoul does not need to think about this kind already. As soon as it got pummeled by the shield, from behind it, a sword was protruding.`With a single moment as it pierced through the ghouls' body, he also began to slash it from any direction so that it would get decapitated faster.
With that, before the ghoul could even understand the gravity of the situation, it found itself decapitated. The head flew over the night sky, all the while being illuminated by the starry sky. With a ghoul now killed, he glanced from the side, and almost immediately, he realigned his body and prepared for the confrontation.
The ghoul, the final one among the ghouls that attacked the workers, had half of its arm slashed, its face hopeless. Yet it growled aggressively, determined to fight till the end. Not letting the enemy move first, he moved with precision almost immediately.
All the while, the ghoul, despite being exhausted, kept on dodging the movements. Meanwhile, he, the soldier, kept up the speed, and would sometimes make resisting his attacks much more difficult. He did it by putting in more weight. Once the ghoul could no longer keep up, he struck it with a final slash. The defenses collapsed, and the ghoul fell to the ground.
Unfortunately, the soldier finally realized the situation he was in, and with that realization, the ghoul was finally sliced off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, there was not enough time, as the first line of defense needed to hold, or the stronghold that the ghouls desperately tried to take. With that in mind, he rushed to the front.