Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 325 Battlefield
"Bowmen, prepare - raise your bows, ready, fire!"

When the beast tide rushed to three hundred meters away, the archer troops on the high ground launched a second round of attack following the exploding crossbow arrows.

In this world, the strength levels of hybrids, sub-humans, and humans are much greater than the human archers seen in the previous life. Combined with the terrain advantage and the pulley crossbows now equipped by the Ancient Dragon Dynasty, the strike range of the crossbow soldiers can already cover a large area within fifty to eight hundred meters.

Of course, it is still far from the killing range of thousands of meters of the giant crossbow, and there is a huge gap with Lucia's ideal artillery coverage, but the rain of arrows created by crossbowmen is already one of the most effective means of range killing in the current era.

The rain of arrows rising into the sky was like a dark cloud, and the density of the arrows even blocked out the sun!
The rain of arrows and the tide of beasts collided with each other like two huge waves, annihilating each other and leaving behind thousands of corpses.

But the beast tide seemed to have no idea what pain was, let alone what fear was. Instead, the flesh and blood of their own kind further aroused the ferocity of these evil god's followers. Their pupils flashed with bloodthirsty light, and they let out sharp and piercing roars, crashing head-on into the defense line built by giant shields and spears!
Lucia heard a series of indescribable muffled sounds. It was probably the sound of the spear piercing the flesh, the flesh hitting the giant shield, the giant shield hitting the armor, and the armor crushing the flesh and blood.

There has never been any truly impenetrable iron wall of defense. There is only the courage to stand up immediately after your comrades died in battle and the will that will never collapse.

Each of the orc heavy armored infantrymen in the first row had their spears pierced by more than three beasts. They nailed the bottom edge of their giant shields into the soil with their left hands, and jerked their spears back with their right hands, using the shields to pull away the beasts' bodies. Then, they fired their spears in unison as if they had been trained a thousand times, and once again pierced through the following tide of strange beasts!
The soldiers in the second and third rows placed their spears on their comrades' shoulders and held their shields against their comrades' backs, repeating the same action in unison. The soldiers behind them held their spears high, and if their comrades in the front row were killed, they would immediately move forward to fill in the gaps, ensuring that the defense line would always be like an iron wall with no blind spots and would never waver.

Thousands of beasts charging in the front were almost killed in the moment of close combat. Their corpses piled up into towering hills, the highest of which was even level with the upper edge of the shield wall!
"Push forward! Everyone push forward! Push down the mound of corpses!"

The commanders at the front shouted loudly, and the heavy infantry followed their orders and pushed forward, struggling to push the piled up corpses with their huge shields. The archers and the priests in the rear also released intensive long-range attacks at the same time to coordinate their actions.

But at the same time, the beast tide suddenly fell into madness!
A grand and majestic will appeared on the distant horizon. As the ancient power wave swept across the battlefield, almost every star beast underwent a change - the blood in their bodies gushed out without restraint, their muscles and scales proliferated and expanded at a strange speed, and their actions became more desperate!
The star beasts in the front row rushed forward with their limbs that seemed extremely uncoordinated due to the proliferation of flesh and blood, while burying their mutated jaws into the ground. They ran and gnawed on the remains of their companions, and in a flash, they transformed the flesh and blood they had devoured into new bodies and limbs at a speed that defied common sense.

When they rushed to the front of the gun formation again, those small star beasts had transformed into monsters the size of buffaloes, while the large individuals that were already similar to tigers, leopards, bears and bears further expanded into huge beasts five meters away!

The small star beasts jumped high on the corpses that had not yet fallen completely, and pounced on the prey despite the spears raised by the heavy armored infantry. The giant monsters ignored the spears that pierced their torsos and used their huge kinetic energy to drill into the spearman array!
For a moment, a surge of blood surged on the front line, and the heavy armored infantry in the front rows had suffered more than half of their casualties!
The black beast tide forced its way forward for dozens of meters in the silver armor. The orc warriors let out furious war roars. They stuck the ends of their spears into the ground and each of them pressed their entire weight on it, like human chevaux de frise, using their flesh and blood bodies to resist the charge of the beast tide!

In this tug-of-war that was like a grinding mill, the heroic forces of both sides appeared one after another without any concealment.

The Falling Star Beasts, which were over ten meters tall, drove their innate gravity magic and smashed into the crowd. The spears of ordinary soldiers were simply unable to penetrate the thick and solid scales on their bodies. Even the war hammers specially used to break armor could not cause effective damage to extraordinary individuals of this size.

On the other hand, every time they swung their hooves and swept their tails, a large cloud of blood mist would be created in the army formation. The purple lightning wrapped around their bodies and the instantaneous small meteorites were enough to destroy the strongest shield formation.

However, the ancient dragon army is also extremely experienced in facing this kind of enemy. The Fallen Star Beasts can often only wreak havoc for a few minutes. The Storm Knights and Sky Temple Priests scattered among the regular troops will find them in the shortest time possible. Three or five well-coordinated knights and priests can kill a mature beast without suffering any casualties.

In more open areas of the battlefield, the flying dragon warriors simply transformed into dragon bodies, and worked together to grab the adult beasts that were not trapped in the deep array, soared into the sky and smashed heavily into the beast tide, then swooped down again, pouring blazing dragon flames on the star beasts!
There was no tacit understanding between soldiers and generals on the battlefield. There were only the most effective means of defense and killing against the enemy. Once the surprise attack of one side was ineffective and the other side successfully broke into the formation, they would be slaughtered efficiently and cruelly. This was the case in the War of the Gods a hundred years ago, the Unification War thirty years ago, the Moon Tree War and the Dragon Tree War seventeen years ago, and the same was true in this war between the Ancient Dragon Dynasty and the evil god's followers.

After losing the initiative of surprise attack, the beast tide could only rely on its numerical advantage to forcibly fight against the ancient dragon army, and at the level of the strong, the situation of the battle had already tilted.

The dragon elders led the flying dragon warriors to tear apart most of the flying star beasts that tried to interfere in the battlefield. Every time they spewed flames, they would paint a more charred gully in the black tide of beasts.

The scorching dragon flames roasted the black soil of Gaileyd into shining crystals. The charging star beasts didn't even have time to feel the pain of the flames before they turned into crumbling ashes in the high temperature.

On both wings of the battlefield, cavalry troops totaling up to 30,000 people were still stopping their horses on the plateau, quietly waiting for orders from the central army camp.

On the general platform, Priest Karen looked down at the tragic battlefield below. There was not a trace of sadness or joy on his face, only a steely solemnity.

She was also waiting, waiting for their king to make a decision against the enemy god - if the resurrected "Esti" could be called a god.

Lucia stood on the cliff at the edge of the platform, her mental power surging out like a rushing river, firmly locking onto the vague black shadow hundreds of kilometers away. The opponent's figure was already tiny and difficult to see at this distance, but the power fluctuations emitted were like a blazing wolf smoke, mighty and mighty, rushing straight into the sky.

Ten minutes ago, scouts had brought news that the Kalia army was engaged in a battle with a tide of beasts. However, the tide of beasts on the western battlefield was far less dense than this side. Lakkad had already defeated the enemy's offensive and was advancing towards the front battlefield with his army.

As expected, the beast tide in the northeast battlefield did not approach that direction at all. The Scorching Sun Legion only sent out some cavalry to pretend to strangle the outer star beasts, and the main force has not moved an inch so far.

Marquis Taylor Jones had probably made up his mind that even if the Ancient Dragon Dynasty was well prepared and wanted to annihilate the beast tide on its own, it would inevitably pay a very tragic price in the war.

After all, there are endless creatures in the starry sky. As long as Esti is not sealed, the beast tide will never stop. No matter how powerful the Ancient Dragon Dynasty is, it will have to sacrifice the lives of its elite troops and the endless star beasts.

"Tsk, after watching for such a long time, you still haven't made up your mind to take part in the battle yourself—" Lucia looked at the figure at the other end of the battlefield and suddenly sneered.

"I was originally worried that he would attack the cavalry as they entered the arena. Now it seems that he might have been reborn in a human body and lost the courage he had a thousand years ago?"

"In that case, I'm going to have to leave."

(End of this chapter)