Chapter 71: The Vanguard’s Anvil
Deep within the central spire of the city, the Bastion Command Center was bathed in the glow of ergency crimson lights.
The room was a massive, circular amphitheater filled with holographic projection tables.
Dozens of military tacticians frantically barked orders into their headsets, but the true authority in the room emanated from the two figures standing at the primary tactical board.
Lady Logcheville stood perfectly straight, her hands resting on the edge of the holotable.
Her face was an absolute mask of cold, calculating ice. She was the Tactical Commander of Bastion Seven.
She watched the millions of tiny red dots swarming across the digital map.
Standing right beside her was Lord Tokks, the Chief Scout of the Vanguard. He had both of his scarred hands pressed firmly against a massive, glowing sensory orb.
His eyes were closed, his breathing heavy as he extended his perception ten kiloters out into the Wildlands.
"The periter is entirely saturated," Lord Tokks reported, his gruff voice tight with strain.
"The dust cloud is masking their exact forms, but the seismic signatures are unmistakable. I am registering Goliath-class Siege-Turtles at the vanguard. Hundreds of thousands of Abyssal Razor-Hounds on the flanks. And the skies..."
Tokks gritted his teeth as a sharp spike of static feedback hit the orb.
"Corrupted Storm-Vultures," Tokks growled.
"They are going to try and rain acid on our backlines. We are looking at a Class-S threat."
Lady Logcheville did not flinch. She rapidly tapped the holographic interface, shifting blue digital blocks to intercept the red swarm.
"Divert the 4th and 7th artillery battalions to the Eastern and Western parapets. Tell the anti-air mage squadrons to load their mana batteries. No one fires until they cross the two-kiloter threshold," Lady Logcheville ordered coldly.
Suddenly, Lord Tokks gasped. His hands trembled against the sensory orb.
"Wait," Tokks whispered, opening his scarred eyes.
"I am picking up three massive anomalies. Right at the edge of the spatial rifts."
"Boss monsters?" Lady Logcheville asked.
"No," Tokks breathed out, a bead of cold sweat running down his temple.
"They are humanoid. The sheer density of their mana is sickening. They are on the sa levels as the Heads of the Noble Lords. They are commanding the horde itself. "
Lady Logcheville imdiately pressed two fingers against the comms device in her ear, opening a direct, encrypted channel to the frontlines.
"Lord Commander. Guildmaster. Patriarch," Lady Logcheville’s voice cut through the static.
"Sensors confirm three Alpha targets anchoring the rear of the horde. They possess the highest threat auras we have ever recorded. They are the generals of this slaughter. Do not let them near the walls."
---
Out on the top of the Great Wall, the wind howled.
Lord Commander Helion Goldmane tapped his earpiece, acknowledging the transmission. The Sun-Crowned Commander stood at the top of the colossal concrete barrier.
Resting casually on his broad shoulder was The Bastion’s Anchor, a colossal War Hamr forged from a fallen teorite.
To a normal man, it weighed three tons. Helion held it like a piece of rolled-up parchnt.
To his left stood Guildmaster Seraphina Vance. Her pristine silver armor glead under the bruised, dark sky.
In her hand rested the Silver Requiem, an elegant rapier that humd with a terrifying, liquid-silver edge.
To his right stood Patriarch Vance Hennessey. The nobleman’s face was twisted in a mask of pure, venomous spite.
Holy, burning golden mana violently cascaded off his body. He did not care about the city. He only cared about butchering the Cultists he believed had killed his son.
"Three generals," Helion rumbled, his silver eyes fixed on the approaching dust storm.
"One for each of us. How poetic."
"I call the one on the left," Seraphina smirked, stretching her neck.
"I have so pent-up aggression to work out."
---
Behind them, the Great Wall was an ocean of tense, terrified humanity.
The Vanguard Knights stood in lockstep formations, their heavy shields forming a continuous wall of steel.
Behind the knights were the Academy students.
Aegon Logcheville stood with his Blood Fire Spear, the heat of his Crucible warming the freezing air around him.
Reina gripped her ice axe, her knuckles white. Estella held her staff, her violet eyes wide but unblinking.
Further down the line, Student Council President Sharika paced behind the student battalions, her silver eyes blazing with the sa fierce authority as her father.
"Lock your stances!" Sharika barked, slapping the shoulder of a trembling second-year student.
"Mages, keep your barriers up! Do not break formation! If the person next to you falls, you step up and take their place!"
The atmosphere among the students was suffocatingly low. They were looking at the massive, apocalyptic cloud of dust swallowing the horizon.
Many of them rembered the devastation the Hennessey Clan had caused in the slums just days prior. Trust in the nobility was fractured.
"Are we actually going to survive this?" a boy next to Kael whispered, his wand shaking so hard it rattled against his armor.
"The nobles just caused a civil war in the streets. Will they even protect us?"
Kael gripped his own wand, staring at the broad, immovable back of the Lord Commander standing at the edge of the wall.
"We don’t need to trust the nobles," Kael said, his voice steadying.
"We just need to trust the Commander."
Standing quietly in the shadow of a heavy anti-air turret, Draven Mordis watched the horde approach.
His pitch-black eyes calculated the exact distance, speed, and trajectory of the incoming monsters.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The rhythmic, earth-shattering footsteps of the Goliath Siege-Turtles finally pierced the fog. The silhouettes of the massive, four-story-tall beasts beca visible.
Swarming around their legs were hundreds of thousands of bone-spiked Abyssal Razor-Hounds, their red eyes glowing in the mist like a sea of embers.
The sky darkened further as a massive flock of Corrupted Storm-Vultures broke through the clouds, screeching with unnatural, corrupted voices.
The Beast Wave had reached the visual threshold.
Helion Goldmane took a deep breath. He did not activate a magical gaphone. He did not need one.
He drew upon his imnse, sun-crowned aura, and his voice bood with the concussive force of thunder, washing over the entire fifty-mile stretch of the Great Wall.
"SOLDIERS OF BASTION SEVEN!" Helion roared.
Every single Vanguard Knight, every terrified student, and every rcenary on the wall snapped to attention.
"Look out into the dark! Look at the monsters that wish to tear down your hos, eat your families, and erase your history!" Helion’s voice vibrated in their very bones. It wasn’t a speech of false hope. It was raw, brutal truth.
"For decades, we have bled to keep these walls standing! They think because we bleed, we are weak! They think because we are pushed to the edge of the world, we are broken!"
Helion lifted The Bastion’s Anchor off his shoulder. The massive teorite hamr began to glow with a blinding, incandescent solar heat.
"We are not broken!" Helion bellowed, raising the hamr high into the bruised sky, turning himself into a beacon of absolute, unyielding defiance.
"We are the anvil upon which they will break their teeth! We are the fire that will burn their shadows to ash! Today, we do not just hold the line! Today, we remind the darkness why it fears the light!"
Helion swung the massive hamr forward, pointing the blazing head of the weapon directly at the charging horde.
"VANGUARD! CHAAAAAAARGEE!"
"HRAAAAAAGH!"
The answering war cry of fifty thousand soldiers shattered the heavens.
FWOOSH!
The Vanguard Knights unleashed a blinding volley of artillery magic into the advancing tide.
In the chaos of the opening volley, Draven Mordis took one step backward into the shadows of the turret.
[Skill Activated: Blank Canvas]
His physical presence completely vanished from the wall. The ti for the Extra was over.
The First Finger of the Embracing Hands was about to enter the board.
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