Chapter 635 - First Wave
Chapter 635: First Wave
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
On Month 12, Day 7, Year 8 of the new Dawn Generation, at 2:04 AM, the Holy War which had been brewing for so long finally exploded in full force. The pitch-black clouds which had shrouded the Moonwheel Capital for the past four days suddenly dissipated. However, the elves didn’t see the bring moonlight and night sky as usual.
Blood-red moonlight illuminated the land. Powerful gusts brought nothing but the stench of sulfur and rotten flesh. There were also faint sounds of demonic laughter in the sky.
Not far away, it appeared as if the stars themselves were falling. Starlight kept gathering everywhere. This was the protective starnet that the God of Fate and Goddess of Moonlight had previously created together. Every invader who came uninvited to the mortal plane would be marked by the starnet.
This was a forbidden spell that caused two High Gods to directly decrease in power level to Mid Gods. Not only would the starlight mark all dimensional invaders, the brightness and density of the starlight could also indicate the strength and number of the enemies.
Dimensional invader scouters were a very common item made available through the Justice Points system. All Contract Heroes possessed these small compasses that aided them in hunting down their targets. Still, the overly large number of flashing red dots on the large-scale compass in the Moonwheel Capital’s elven palace meant that this item wasn’t even necessary.
Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. The numerous dense red dots constantly increased until the scouter compass showed nothing but bright red. Since the number of demons covered the entire map, all calculations would be meaningless.
The overly corrupt aura of Chaos here naturally caused everyone’s vision to become tinted with red. When fighting under this blood-red moonlight, there would be much higher chances than normal of losing all sense of reason and going berserk. At the horizon of everyone’s vision, countless berserk demons with fire element power were casually wielding their flames. Any forest they stepped through became a sea of fire. Yet, even the most nature-loving druid didn’t dare to go chastize the demons for their destroying nature.
“Starlight Meteors!”
The first defense magic spell was activated. The skies opened up yet again as countless meteors rained down. Constant sounds of pain and anger could be heard from the demons. Yet, the next instant, everything returned to normal again. However, all the blood-red demonic eyes kept flashing in the dark night as if the demons were scoffing at the elves’ helplessness.
When the light of the forbidden spell faded, two bright stars flashed with red light in front of the elves. But, when the fire of the meteors faded, even the bravest elven ranger dropped his bow in fear.
Those were no bright stars at all. Those were the eyes of a black giant!
The gigantic black creature was as large as a mountain. He slowly proceeded forward. Even though he was still clearly more than ten kilometers away, every single elf on the Moonwheel Capital’s walls could see the black giant clearly. Every single step the giant took caused the earth itself to tremble in fear.
A black wind filled with the corrosion of the Chaos Abyss blew away the dark clouds, and blood-red moonlight illuminated the pitch-black plains. Behind the black giant, countless demonic beasts born from nightmares crawled out from the portal. Some of these monsters were from myths and legends, while others were unimaginable. Yet, they were all real.
There was a centipede giant with one hundred legs and one hundred heads. There was an inferno demon whose steps left sulfur everywhere. There was a gigantic white wolf whose breath brought tornados. There was a disgusting lump of rotten flesh. There was an inferno dragon which breathed thunder. Not a single demonic beast was identical, but it was evident that they were all at the top of the food chain.
All the brave elven rangers inhaled cold breaths. Even the ones among them who had previously slain dragons were trembling in fear. Such a demonic beast army was far beyond their comprehension. This was an enemy that only Gods could face!
The black giant, who was Donatis, raised his head and glanced at the blood moon which seemed like an observer. Finally, Donatis pulled out his black obsidian sword and pointed towards the distant elves.
“Kill them.”
His thunderous voice echoed everywhere. Even though he was just making a plain statement, it sounded as if it was an indisputable fact that would happen. The elves that his sword pointed to all lost their will to resist in this moment.
The black sea of demons around Donatis finally moved at this time. They appeared like countless tiny insects at this distance, but the rangers’ Eagle Eye skill left the elves with a hopeless conclusion—each tiny insect was actually a large demon more than three meters tall.
Those demons and demonic beasts kept following their master. However, Donatis and his army had far too much of a presence, standing out to the point where all the elves watching him ignored the other similarly dangerous existences.
Gigantic war beasts and demons walked out from the crowd of demons. Their bodies were covered with black demons that seemed like ants. Even the shortest of these larger demons were more than a dozen meters tall. These larger demons needed no equipment to besiege city walls. All they needed to do was reach the walls, and then they could toss the demons on their bodies up over the walls.
A violent Demon Lord seemed to be annoyed with how other “ants” were blocking his path. He grabbed up some demons and stuffed them into his mouth and devoured them with one hand while tossing out other demons with his other hand.
The demons struggled helplessly in midair. Since the distance of more than ten kilometers was still too far away, the great majority of demons was smashed into smithereens before they arrived at the walls. However, a few demons managed to survive as they flew over the walls, causing much chaos amongst the elves.
A gigantic Inferno Demon Lord used this opportunity to transform into a meteor which landed on the city walls. However, before he could unfurl his body again, a streak of moonlight pierced through his forehead, and shattered his meteor form into tiny stones.
“Warriors! Even Chaos War God Donatis shall be unable to destroy our final home!”
Under the blood moon, on one of the tallest towers on the city walls, a white-robed elegant figure attracted a great deal of attention. The silver bow in her hand was covered in moonlight. This bow had powerful magical wavelengths emanating from it. It was obvious that it was an incredibly powerful piece of God Equipment.
“Empress Afina!”
The elven warriors recognized their Empress Afina in her. Their morale was instantly restored.
At the same time, various mage towers suddenly lit up as fireballs and fireblasts shot towards the wave of demonic beasts. Every single magical attack was more powerful than a nine-circle magic spell.
When the demon wave began, this meant that Eich’s mortal plane had entered a period of high magic. The same magic spell from before would have more than twice the power compared to the period of low magic!
There was still far too much distance between the elves and the demons. The elven archers had no intention of wasting arrows. However, thanks to the buffs from the mage towers, the elven mages started casting the simplest and most practical combat fire magic spells. Constant onslaught of fireballs ignited the demon wave.
However, the Chaos War God in the distance seemed completely unaffected. His sculpture-like expression didn’t change one bit, just as if the opponents before him were completely unable to attract his attention. However, the pitch-black demon wave around him seemed to start moving quicker in the direction he gazed in.
Before the first demon wave could arrive at the city walls, countless tall treants stood up outside the walls. They blew on ancient horns as the entire forest started moving. Numerous trees all transformed into living treants that would defend the city.
Rangers jumped into the treants’ branches. Some even brought ammo carts filled with arrows. The rangers all knew that they were nothing more than ants in comparison to the demon wave. However, the rangers would fight their very hardest before they died to make up for the treants’ critical weakness of being slow and lacking ranged attacks.
Both sides got closer, closer, and even closer to each other. When the black demon wave and green elven wave were about to crash into each other, all elves forgot to breathe.
Countless arrows rained down from the treants’ branches. The arrows’ elegant arcs marked the start of battle. Every single arrow pierced right through the head of a demon. However, the elven rangers didn’t even have time to be proud of their outstanding accuracy, as the demons whose heads were pierced hadn’t actually died. These demons furiously pounced on their enemies. No matter if they met an enemy or not, or even if they crashed into an obstacle, they all unhesitatingly used the most powerful self-destruction possible.
A thousand-year-old treant was the first treant to fall over. He hadn’t died from the demons’ attacks. Instead, this treant had been fully covered in demon war slaves crawling over him, so he was no longer able to maintain his balance and collapsed. The elven ranger on this treant had long been torn into tiny pieces before the treant died.
The rampaging demon war slaves continuously self-destructed at the feet of this treant. Although war treants were renowned throughout all dimensions for their incredibly high durability and defense, this war treant was instantly vaporized by all the self-destructions.
Yet, these demon war slaves could only be considered trash among trash, cannon fodder among cannon fodder in this first demon wave. Under the heartless commander Donatis’s orders, these demon war slaves unhesitatingly self-destructed, giving up their own lives.
Five minutes. It took only a short five minutes. The demon war slaves unhesitatingly self-destructed, causing hordes of hundred-year and thousand-year-old treants to perish. These war treants, which were supposed to be the elves’ final defense line, were as fragile as paper in front of the demon wave.
Finally, the moon elves blew their warhorns, and silver-armored knights rushed out, riding on silver unicorns and divine beasts. Meanwhile, the allied treants began to retreat back behind the city walls.
The elves had originally intended on using the powerful treants to stop the demon wave’s charge and make a sacrifice in order to raise their side’s morale. However, the reality was that the elite treants were being exchanged for the lowest-rank demon cannon fodder. This was obviously a tremendous loss for the elves.
In just a short five minutes, more than 30% of the treants had died. Almost 500 treants had died on the retreat back to the city walls. There were also more than 1000 elven rangers who had died together with the treants.
Even a human city would be unable to sustain such losses, not to mention the elves who had a much lower overall population despite being individually stronger than humans.
In this one exchange of blows, the demons had concretely showed the elves what the eternal Holy War really was, along with why the first demon wave would always be unstoppable.
“...Can we really win?”
If this was Donatis’s strategy to intimidate the elves, he had indeed succeeded. Right now, even the most optimistic elves were beginning to doubt if they could survive.