Chapter 279
Chapter 279 – We Live Together, We Die Together (2)
The envoy, oblivious to everything, reported in a fit of vanity that he had succeeded.
Now, he began to clench Gillian’s legs, pleading.
“Please, spare me. If I can’t take you with me today, I’m as good as dead. Didn’t I clearly say I would surrender? You haven’t given me enough time!”
“I said I’d do it if I could persuade everyone. Just give me another week.”
No matter how much the envoy begged, Gillian remained immovable.
Ultimately, the envoy returned with a pale face to report.
“Ah, there are still some who haven’t been persuaded… I ask for just one more week.”
Harold glared at the envoy with eyes full of life. He wasn’t a fool. He grasped the situation by observing the envoy’s reactions and the time spent so far.
Swish.
He immediately drew his sword and growled.
“Because of your blundering, I’ve been mocked by those insignificant beings again.”
Harold’s pride lay in his high honor and dignity. Yet, experiencing such humiliation rekindled the anger he had felt when Ghislaine had previously insulted him.
The envoy prostrated on the ground, begging.
“Please, spare me! I will definitely persuade them this time….”
“Persuade? You already wasted a crucial week and smeared my face, and now you wish to persuade me again?”
“Yes, yes! This time, I truly—”
“Shut up!”
Thud!
Harold was also a knight of high rank. As he struck down with his sword filled with rage, the envoy’s head burst open in an instant.
Yet, even after that, Harold’s fury wasn’t satisfied, and he continued to slash at the envoy’s body.
“What a pathetic fool!”
Thud!
“Unable to persuade such lowly beings!”
Thud!
“Am I! To endure this humiliation from Ghislaine and those followers! How long must this continue?”
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
No one dared to stop Harold as he butchered the corpse with a monstrous expression.
Everyone understood that the accumulated rage and anxiety of time ticking away had exploded.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
“Huh…”
It wasn’t until the corpse was entirely reduced to pulp that Harold finally brushed his hair back and ceased his actions.
In stark contrast to his usual dignified self, he appeared quite disheveled.
A dangerous glint began to form in Harold’s eyes as he looked at the corpse.
Not aimed at the envoy, but directed at the Penris army holed up in their fortress.
“How dare these lowly beings try such shallow tricks….”
It wasn’t Harold’s fault. Although he held assumptions, he hadn’t met them directly, so he had no choice but to rely on the envoy’s report.
He had trusted the capable-looking envoy, who had spoken confidently, and granted time.
But ultimately, the envoy had failed to mediate. Thinking that these lowly scoundrels had mocked him and wasted precious time, he could barely contain himself.
In the meantime, the Penris army must have reorganized and fully recovered their injuries and stamina.
Clank.
Throwing down his sword, Harold glared at his deputy beside him.
“Destroy that fortress immediately.”
“Understood.”
“And capture those scoundrels, tearing them limb from limb.”
Now, he had no choice but to win decisively, even if it took some time. He planned to stomp the fortress itself using his overwhelming advantage in forces.
It was also a necessary process for capturing Ghislaine, but more so, it was about instilling fear into those lowly and arrogant scoundrels who had mocked him.
Harold gritted his teeth and continued.
“I will give you three days. And let Willow know. They surely won’t be able to perfectly defend against our magical attacks, so kill everyone you can.”
Following Harold’s furious orders, the catapults and wizards moved out once more. They did bring in a siege tower, but it wasn’t used.
There was no need to forcefully break through the narrow castle gate and conduct a phased insertion. They would just tear down the walls and encircle from all sides.
He planned to calmly utilize the advantages of his vast army to apply pressure on the Penris forces.
“Fire!”
As the commanders of Desmond’s army shouted loudly, the attack commenced.
Bang! Crash! Bang!
The spells cast by the wizards and the boulders shot by the catapults relentlessly hammered on the fortress walls.
The Penris forces quickly took up a combat stance as soon as the enemy moved.
“Fall back!”
As Gillian shouted, everyone hurried down from the wall. There was no point in being on the walls during such a tremendous attack.
They couldn’t retaliate anyway, and it was obvious they would be killed if they faffed around nearby.
Gillian breathed a long sigh as he stared at the troops of Desmond.
“This works out well.”
The enemies appeared to be planning to destroy the fortress to minimize damage. But Gillian’s objective wasn’t to protect this fortress. It was to hold the enemy down and buy time first and foremost.
“For a while, at least, it seems we can avoid direct combat.”
Having already bought time for a week due to the skirmish with the envoy, now they were set to buy more until the walls crumbled. Such a situation was most welcome.
The only problem was.
There were also monsters on the enemy front capable of attacking allies retreating within the fortress.
Boom!
Willow soared high in the air, looking down upon the fortress as she began casting spells.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Countless stones rained down from the sky, starting to devastate the inside of the fortress.
“Damn it! That bastard is back again!”
“Shit! If Vanessa hadn’t come, you would’ve been dead!”
“Stop showing off, you bastard!”
As the Penris army merely spat insults and chaotically dodged, Willow snickered.
“What a bunch of bugs. Why on earth did I waste time trying to persuade those kinds of fools?”
It was pathetic that lowly beings thought they could act arrogant just because they could fight a little. Though she wouldn’t oppose Harold’s orders to negotiate, Willow couldn’t help but feel exasperated by it.
Such bugs should have been exterminated from the start.
It was regrettable that she hadn’t ended them in the previous battle. At that time, Gillian, the enemy commander, and Baron Hutton’s skills were at a stalemate, preventing her from intervening.
But today was different. It was much easier to use magic without allies around.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
As Willow continued to shatter the insides of the fortress, she meticulously observed the surroundings. The attacks from the catapults and the wizards were gradually breaking down the fortress walls from the outside.
“I guess I’ll just take care to catch a few bugs while leaving the other side to themselves.”
However, at that moment, she saw several of her magical projectiles disappear after hitting the area around the knights in black armor.
Thanks to the disappearance of the spells, the soldiers gathered around the knights seemed to be unharmed. The stones merely destroyed buildings and supplies inside the fortress.
“Hmm, interesting. They seem to have some preparations against magical attacks. Though it certainly isn’t magic, how did they manage that? Do they carry several artifacts? It’s frustrating not being able to see closer.”
As a wizard, Willow showed great curiosity about the current situation. However, she never imagined that every piece of armor of the Penris knights was an artifact.
Who would think that one knight wears the budget of several years from a small lord?
Trying to find answers within her common sense, she might find a close approximation, but certainly not the exact truth.
As she leisurely observed, Gillian gritted his teeth.
“If only that guy weren’t here, we could hold out longer.”
Always, it was such wizards that caused trouble. The higher-ranked the wizard, the more they could tilt the battle in their favor.
When one attacks a wide range with tremendous destructive power, it becomes incredibly challenging to counter.
Especially when they are at a distance like that while being protected by their allies.
If there had been a wizard among their ranks, they could have kept each other in check through counter-magic. Unfortunately, there were no wizards here.
“Just shoot!”
At Gillian’s shout, the soldiers launched arrows. Nearly a thousand arrows flew, covering the space where Willow was.
But Willow merely scoffed as she watched the oncoming arrows.
“Pathetic.”
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
The arrows failed to pierce the shield spread in front of Willow. Normal soldiers’ attacks could never breach the magic power of a 6th Circle Mage.
Willow laughed at the Penris army and began gathering magic in her hands once more.
“I’m getting bored with the viewing. I can just kill all the interesting ones and have a look afterward. Why don’t you try to block this?”
With large-scale area-effect magic, the power of each attack would inevitably be lesser.
But what about a powerful spell that concentrates all magic into one point? Could such trivial tools block it then?
A little ashamed that her previous magic had partially been blocked a few days ago, she poured an immense amount of magic into this new spell.
Creak!
A powerful lightning energy started to concentrate in one of Willow’s hands.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have used magic that consumed such tremendous power. But in a safe situation under the protection of her allies, there was no need for her to hold back.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Detecting that an enormous amount of magic was converging at one point, Gillian shouted.
“Throw the spears!”
Swish!
The knights threw spears, filled with mana, with all their might.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
“Oh?”
Willow’s eyes widened at the surprisingly strong attack.
With every impact against her shield, the magic power surged, weakening the shield’s intensity. Each attack held significant destructive power.
“Are all of them really at least mid-level knights?”
To deal this much damage to the shield of a 6th Circle Mage, one would need to at the very least reach that level. Willow was astonished by the potential of Penris once again.
Soon, her gaze sharpened.
“Just as the Count said, I must make sure to kill as many as I can.”
The Penris folks had all hidden inside the fortress. They couldn’t kill anyone from the attacks they were launching from outside the walls. The more she could kill now, the less damage her allies would sustain when they faced the enemy directly.
Creak!
Now, the lightning energy in Willow’s hand had grown exponentially compared to before.
“Let’s see what I can hit?”
Just as Willow casually surveyed the inside of the fortress, contemplating her targets…
Whoosh!
“Huh?”
An axe flew through the air at terrifying speed. In that moment, she thought that if it hit her, it would mean certain death.
“How dare you!”
Scowling, she released lightning toward the direction the axe had come from, aiming to kill that insolent scoundrel who dared to attack her.
Boom!
As the blue lightning surged forward, the axe that had been flying from below struck Willow’s shield.
At that moment, an earth-shattering noise erupted as if heaven and earth would tremble.
“AAAH!”
Willow screamed, clutching her left shoulder.
The shield had already shattered, and her left arm was now gone, taken alongside the axe.
Bleeding profusely, Willow plummeted to the ground. If not for the waiting knights and mages of Desmond below, her body would have shattered completely.
“Aaaaaah!”
Willow, who had always lived elegantly, could not comprehend the pain she was feeling for the first time in her life.
At that moment, she couldn’t think of magic, war, orders, or anything else.
“Hurry, get Lord Willow to the back!”
A 6th Circle Mage was a precious asset. Everyone around rushed in to safely carry Willow back to their ranks.
They immediately poured the highest-grade potions and the medics rushed in to tend to her shoulder.
The Penris army inside the fortress looked on blankly at Gillian.
Hiss!
Gillian was also in a bad state. Having taken the brunt of a 6th Circle lightning spell, steam was billowing off his entire body.
“Kugh….”
Gillian could no longer hold on and knelt.
Bubbles were forming all over his body, and the stench of burning flesh pervaded the air.
“Captain!”
The knights rushed to support Gillian. Yet, he waved them off with urgency, standing on his own strength.
‘So powerful.’
As expected of a high-circle mage. He had drawn attention to himself while sensing the immense gathering of magic.
Fearing that the knights and soldiers might sustain great losses, he had desperately drained all his mana to throw the axe.
Simultaneously, he stepped forward and used his body to absorb the magic being released. The injury he sustained from Baron Hutton had yet to heal, and he barely escaped death.
Had it not been for the dispel triggered from the armors of the knights around him, he might really have died.
“Ha….”
Gillian’s body was now far from normal. He had been punctured by Baron Hutton, and having taken Willow’s magic, he was barely able to hold himself upright.
Still, his eyes burned fiercely. There was a strong will felt in him to hold the enemies down no matter what.
That’s why the knights around him found themselves unable to speak.
“Retreat a little more. There’s nothing we can do until the walls completely collapse.”
Bang! Crash! Bang!
The enemy’s attacks were still fierce. Occasionally, spells and stones continued to fly into the fortress, destroying buildings and supplies.
There weren’t many weapons capable of counterattack in the first place, and after the first skirmish, they had all been shattered.
The Penris army withdrew a bit more, giving themselves time to reorganize.
Gillian also took a moment to heal his injuries. His body was now wrapped fully in bandages.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The assaults from Desmond’s army continued day and night without relent. The noise was so deafening that they couldn’t even sleep properly.
“Just hold on a little longer…”
Gillian fervently gazed at the fortress walls. The longer the walls held, the more time they would buy.
In the face of that overwhelming army, the only thing he could do was continue to endure and fight back.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As three days passed, the upper part of the fortress walls had now completely crumbled.
However, it was still too much for the soldiers to easily enter. Harold grimaced as he muttered.
“Impressive. It wasn’t this tough when Count Cabaldy ruled. Just how much reinforcements were made?”
Even after three full days of open assault, with the enemy’s weaponry exhausted, the walls remained standing.
Ghislaine’s first command upon expanding the fortress was to enhance its durability. Especially a fortress at a key point like Stonehaven was far sturdier than others.
Harold clicked his tongue. He hadn’t expected this delay at such an unexpected location.
“Don’t stop, keep pouring it on.”
Thinking of pressing in again now that the walls had lowered, Harold shook his head. It was clear that merely repeating the first day’s fight would yield no different results.
While it was sturdy, it wasn’t a fortress that couldn’t be broken. Desmond’s army was persistently casting their attacks against the fortress.
Boom!
Finally, as one part crumbled, other sections began to show strain as well.
After several more days of incessant attacks, the fortress started to show signs of collapse, looking ghastly. It held out longer than expected, but ultimately, it was destined to fall.
Harold ordered without delay, wearing a fierce expression.
“All troops, seize the fortress immediately.”
