Chapter Fourteen: Defending the City

The battle raged on relentlessly beneath the walls of Holy Heart City, where heaps of orc corpses lay strewn about. The orcs, trampling over their fallen kin, frantically employed every means to scale the walls. Occasionally, a bird warrior would be struck down by an arrow, tumbling lifelessly to the ground.

Shouts, cries, the clash of blades piercing flesh, and the spattering of blood intertwined into a symphony of death.

Cao De, whose body was as massive as a water jar yet remarkably agile, leapt and bounded amid the chaos. Blood soaked his frame as he panted heavily. Notably, whenever he encountered a formidable orc, he would call out loudly to announce himself. For instance, when a level-three peak minotaur charged the battlements, Cao De bellowed, “I am General Cao of the Holy Army...” before being cleaved and hurled several meters away. His face scraped the ground, leaving a half-meter trail, yet he somersaulted upright, battered but undeterred, rushing back toward the minotaur. Clearly, this was not his first beating.

Wave after wave of soldiers and civilians fell within the city, the battle growing increasingly brutal.

At this juncture, the machine gunners became the mainstay of defense. Wherever the walls were breached, machine gunners would mow down the orcs surging forward. Wizards, after all, could not sustain their spells indefinitely. Organized into squads of twenty, five teams of machine gunners were assigned specifically to repel orcs atop the walls.

Watching the machine gunners unleash their fury brought a faint sense of relief. These puppets, designed for war, proved far more accurate than archers—precise and rapid-firing, they could force even the mightiest orcs off the walls.

Yet as more orcs clambered upward, the defenders grew thin. With too few machine gunners, the walls seemed ever on the verge of falling.

The fight had endured through day and night; Holy Heart City had become a slaughterhouse. Warbringer, the lion-headed orc, stared anxiously at this stubborn stronghold.

Leopard-headed and lion-headed orcs joined the fray, yet success eluded them. Though the human city teetered and orcs surged like tides breaking through defenses, the humans always regrouped and counterattacked.

By noon the next day, the walls remained unconquered. The humans’ desperate defense unsettled Warbringer increasingly with each passing hour.

He glanced skyward. A steady drizzle had fallen for over twenty-four hours. Behind the clouds, the sun peeked out as if spying. A rainbow arced across the sky, and a cluster of tiny black specks appeared on the horizon.

At first, Warbringer thought they were birds, but as they drew nearer, he realized, “Human cultivators.” A wave of unease washed over him. “Like a flock of alpacas drifting by...”

He immediately ordered the remaining five to six thousand bird warriors and ten thousand dog-headed archers to intercept them. “No choice—we must rely on numbers.”

The bird warriors’ retreat offered Holy Heart City slight respite, but it was merely a drop in the ocean.

Just as the walls seemed about to fall, three transport planes appeared in the distance, having bypassed the orc army to reach the city overhead unchallenged.

Wang Sheng’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Reinforcements from the commander!”

One by one, machine gunners, flamethrower troops, and battlefield medics leapt from the open aircraft doors, parachutes blooming in midair like divine warriors descending from the heavens.

Before touching ground, the machine gunners opened fire on orcs already occupying portions of the wall. The flamethrowers unleashed streams of fiery serpents, incinerating orcs who howled in agony. These were second-level troops; previously, the hundred machine gunners defending the city had only modestly boosted attack and defense.

At the onset of the siege, Shen Yi had dispatched two hundred machine gunners, twenty flamethrowers, and ten battlefield medics via transport to Holy Heart City.

With the arrival of these human forces, the morale of the city’s defenders soared, and they reclaimed the walls.

Wang Sheng, weary to the point of collapse, nonetheless approached the newly arrived crimson flamethrower puppets and white battlefield medics, eager to study them. New puppets always stirred his enthusiasm. Before he could reach them, beams of white light radiated from the medics’ arms, bathing ten wounded soldiers.

Iron Egg, distracted by the descending puppets, was struck in the chest by a leopard-headed orc’s blade, collapsing with a savage wound from shoulder to abdomen. The orc raised his battle knife to sever the young soldier’s head, ending his brief life. Iron Egg closed his eyes slowly. “I’m about to die, brother. I’m not a coward—I’m dying on the battlefield. Farewell, brother.”

The sharp blade never fell. Two machine gunners fired through the orc’s body, the kinetic force sending the werewolf flying like a rag, silence following his fall.

Iron Egg, expecting death, instead felt a beam of healing light. His eyes snapped open to see a white puppet medic’s arm glowing over him. His wounds healed visibly before him. “Healing magic? Since when has healing magic become so powerful? A great mage wouldn’t waste mana on a mere foot soldier! Are you an angel?” As his injuries fully mended, the light shifted to another wounded soldier. Iron Egg watched the medic save lives in awe, then remembering the battle was not over, he picked up his fallen longsword and returned to his squad.

“A laugh across the vast sea, waves crashing on both shores...” Wang Sheng’s phone suddenly rang—it was the commander calling. Hastily answering, he heard the commander’s voice: “Deputy Director Wang, this is the greatest force I can provide. Hold the line. If you can withstand until the first light of dawn, it will be humanity’s victory.”

Cao De had already informed him of His Majesty’s plan; Wang Sheng was puzzled that the commander also knew, but replied, “Thank you, senior. Your puppets arrived just in time.”

“Enough talk. Once we win, we’ll talk more.” Shen Yi ended the call.

Beside him, Cao De gazed wide-eyed at Wang Sheng’s phone, as if wondering, “What is that? Why are you talking to a metal slab?”

He even reached out his rough palm, attempting to touch Wang Sheng’s forehead, checking for a fever.

Wang Sheng waved off Cao De’s hand. “It’s a long story. I’ll explain after the battle.”

Cao De said nothing, instead observing the puppet medics healing soldiers, the machine gunners’ relentless spraying of orcs, and the flamethrowers’ fire magic. The world felt strangely unfamiliar.

“All the oil is ready?” Wang Sheng asked the approaching quartermaster.

“All prepared. We hadn’t used it earlier because of the rain; I thought it wouldn’t be needed.”

“Gather all the oil in the city. Even if we lose the walls, we must survive tonight. The allied forces will arrive tomorrow.”

“Understood. I’ll arrange it immediately!” The quartermaster hurried off to mobilize his subordinates.

At that moment, Sect Masters Qian and Ren, leading a thousand disciples, finally broke through the encirclement, leaving hundreds of inner disciples’ corpses behind.

Since the intercepting orcs mostly used bows, many of the escaping sect leaders and disciples bore arrows lodged in non-vital parts.

The fierce fighting distracted everyone, and no one noticed that Sect Master Ren had an arrow stuck in his backside until they reached the walls.

Elder Zhen suddenly noticed and shouted loudly, “Sect Master Ren, you’ve been hit!”

His voice was so loud, as if fearing no one would hear. Some disciples who had already noticed were too timid to speak. Now, the city’s defenders and over a thousand cultivators turned their heads—initially in shock, then pitying eyes cast toward Sect Master Ren.

Ren glared fiercely at Elder Zhen, then realizing everyone’s gaze upon him, wished he could crawl into a hole. He secretly thought, “Why is misfortune following me? When I return, I’ll study divination properly and check the almanac before going out. This is too eerie.”

Ren hesitated to pull out the arrow. Damn that orc brat, that shot was so precise.

Wang Sheng and the others saw the cultivators arrive on the walls but, to avoid awkwardness, pretended not to notice and continued commanding the defense.

Elder Zhen, feeling sympathy for Ren—whom he had raised from childhood—quickly reached out and, with all his speed, pulled the arrow from Ren’s backside, drawing a thin line of blood along with it.