Devil's Apocalypse

The constant peppering of arrows seemed to never end. By this point, it was impossible to tell whether the glinting light in the sky came from the raindrops or the arrowheads, and with the monsters sprinting ever closer, it only made them clearer targets.

With the now much shorter distance, John could see that a large portion of the beast horde happened to consist of different evolutions of the strange deer-like creatures.

"MANA IS SPIKING, BRACE!"

The warning from the mages was repeated down the line, quickly reaching the ears of all the defenders who watched in anticipation as a dense pressure seemed to choke the air in their lungs. With a blinding flash, countless deer, all the lighting variant, released arcing bolts from their antlers aimed at the large obstacle in their path.

Streaks of arcing blue danced through the air, intertwining and branching off as a multi-faceted web of electrical power thundered into the wall, superheating the immediate gases and material, resulting in a barrage of explosions that shook the structure to its frame.

When the smoke cleared, the wall was peppered with blackened spots, the metal even being gouged out in some sections but, despite the sheer magnitude of power gathered in that attack, the wall wasn't breached, bȧrėly even scratched if the damage was compared to the sheer size of it. This was a clear demonstration of the unorganised nature of the horde. Instead of focusing all that mana onto a single spot, which might have breached the wall, it was spread across a wide area, dampening the impact. Even so, John observed that not all of the defenders got off free of damage from that either. Thanks to the shotgun-like nature of the attack, some of the lighting arced off into the shield bearers ranks and, while the attack of one deer can be shrugged off as a minor inconvenience, the combined might of 10 or even 20 lightning bolts merging mid-flight has a less than positive effect, at least if ones continued existence is deemed as positive, as shown when half a dozen shield bearers went down with smoke rising from their bodies.

Fortunately, the all-out attack from the lightning deer was attributed to them all coming into range at the same, and, now that they were in range, they kept sending out smaller bolts, no longer all shooting at the one time. Unfortunately, that now meant the shield-bearers had to do their jobs, which suggested that the defenders were finally in danger.

With nothing to personally do himself, John continued to stand attentively, closely observing the monster horde as it grew ever closer.

'Why don't they just run away?'

Glancing towards the edges of the wave, John narrowed his eyes. Occasionally, while squinting through the obscurity of the rain, he could see some of the creatures drift slightly further out than the others but, every time they did, they'd always jerk back into the mob, much like an animal after touching an electric fence. It was almost like there was some sort of invisible barricade in place which the beasts either refused to, or couldn't, pass.

"SPEARMEN, READY YOURSELVES!"

After the smoke cleared, the monster horde was practically on top of their position, and the spearmen were in charge of keeping them from toppling the wall. All too quickly, the wet, squelching sound of spears tearing through flesh, splashing blood across the walls, and scraping across both antlers and bone, started rising from the base of the wall, accompanied by a cacophonous screech from the air.

"ARCHERS, TAKE AIM AND FIRE!"

A large portion of the archers diverted their attention away from the horde in front and started taking shots at the strange bird and bat-like creatures now attempting to terrorise them from the air.

Drawing his sword, John looked up, squinting against the rain as he made out the blurry images of the ȧssailants he was in charge of dispatching. While quite a few of them were taken down by a few precise arrow shots, many more of them managed to swoop down to the top of the wall.

As soon as they were within range, all of the swordsmen on the wall started hacking them to pieces. There were no particularly large flying monsters in this area, with most of them being comparable to a bearded vulture in size, which was partly the reason why a base was set up here in the first place. Now, that decision was being rewarded since they could easily fell the creatures with one or two swings from their swords.

A monster stretched out its clawed talons, diving for John's head, who raised his sword and then brought it up and around in a clean arc, bisecting the creature whose blood splashed onto all in the vicinity, though none complained since they were all performing similar actions and becoming equally covered.

Another bird-like monster swooped for John, who performed a similar action to his first right as another came. Cleaving down, he felled the third, but then came the fourth and the fifth.

With both diving towards him from two opposing sides, he was forced into a difficult situation that any other combatant present wouldn't have had a problem with.

Taking a step towards the bird on his right, he performed a swing which it avoided, right as the other was about to reach him, attacking him from his undefended left side and forcing him to take a step both back and to the side.

The bird swooped past, narrowly missing his shoulder before attempting to gain altitude again, though he hindered its efforts by slicing towards its back and carving a line, not enough to kill it, but sufficient to make it no longer a threat.

The other bird was circling around, but right as it tried to take another dive, an arrow took it out of the air.. However John had no time to relax as the one thing the birds didn't lack was numbers, and he was once again attacked.