The Heart of a Guardian (Elsword)

Chapter 15: The Assault

A flash of orange and yellow from distant cannons. Then came the thunderous crack. Like geysers of rock and fire, the ground burst from the explosive impact as artillery shells hit the castle's large courtyards like iron rain. A second flash. A second crack. Again the ground was devastated in a symphony of explosions.

The demons who were lucky enough to survive the first volley were torn to shreds by the follow up. And then came the flood. Like a tide, the full might of Velder's forces poured through the collapsed first layer in a single resounding battle cry.

Still they resisted. Like a shadow growing at the absence of light, the demons flooded out from the safety of the stone walls to meet them. The Velder soldiers welcomed it. Steel met claw. Arrows and bolts of magic clashed as the continuous battle cry was then accompanied by the clash of blades and spines.

Velder's mounted cavalry led the charge into the first courtyard, picking off targets of opportunity and breaking the defensive formations of the regular demon foot soldiers. The demon line in the first courtyard began to crumble as the men and women on foot arrived to back them up.

In response, mounted demon striders were deployed to pursue the cavalry, leaping from the high second walls and pouncing on top of the unaware bird mounts. Each successful jump resulted in the demon tearing off the necks of the giant birds with the ferocity of a giant panther. The sentinels upon their backs picked off the surviving bird riders with expertly placed shots, giving the demons time to form a defensive response.

Velder's spearmen filed in, forming a wall around the flanks and limiting the strider's movements while the standard swordsmen brought up the middle. Crushers were ready to meet them, swinging their giant fists wildly about and decimating their ranks with each blow. Yet every swing of their fists were met with dozens of blades to their torso as the Raven-trained soldiers stabbed, sliced, and gutted their way through them.

"Hold the line!" A soldier shouted as a crusher was cut down by the sheer number of steel that came its way. "We have them!"

Two more crushers went berserk. Emitting a desperate roar, they used their enormous arms as battering rams and charged headlong into the spearmen. Spears were driven into their softer torsos, yet they were relentless in their charge. Breaking the flanks on either side, the striders finished off the last of the mounted cavalry and dove into the pockets of Velder's defensive line, breaking the formation from the inside as they clawed and maimed their way through the Velder troops.

One of the crushers came to a screeching halt in the middle of its charge as something stopped it midway. Moving its large fist aside, it spotted a black-haired man with a Nasod core on his back. The core's spines were driven into his limbs, reinforcing his strength as he was able to completely stop the towering beast with just his left arm. The crusher roared, raising its arm to crush him but the arm was quickly severed with a precision cut at its shoulder joint. Before it could even roar in pain, Raven had already severed its second arm, and before it could even reel from it, it had already lost its balance from its severed leg.

Raven landed, ridding his blade of the sick purple blood with a quick swing of the sword before the Nasod core detached itself from his limbs. A low growl caught his attention and he spun around, blade pointing at a mounted strider.

A twig struck the strider's flank, digging into its scales and catching its attention as it shrieked, looking for the source. A second resounding shriek came from the strider at the opposite side as a green twig dug into its neck.

The sentinel glanced down, noticing yellow sap bleeding from the twig. She reached over to pull it out only to have her arm completely destroyed from the following explosion. The strider fell over, a large hole in its side where the twig used to be.