Shadow Slave novel Chapter 3048

After a year of a calamitous siege, the walls of the city were finally breached, and the warriors of the Steel Horde poured inside along the dry riverbed.

The river was gone, and the great iron grate blocking the passage lay as a wreck in the mud. The makeshift barricade built in front of it had been dismantled by the axe of the King of Kings, and the gap was already being widened by the adversary soldiers.

Nothing stood between the defenders of the city and the besieging horde anymore. However, if Azarax hoped to win an easy victory, he was going to be disappointed. Even with the impregnable barrier of the city wall breached, the mercenaries hired by the Mason had no plans of surrendering. On the contrary, they were prepared to fight to the last man.

The Steel Horde held an absolute numerical advantage, yes, and among its innumerable warriors, there were far more powerful Awakened than there were among the defenders of the city. Azarax had previously conquered innumerable realms, after all, subjugating and enthralling their most powerful champions.

However, Effie and her companions were not without an advantage, either.

First and foremost, there was no Saint more skilled and deadly than any of them among the champions of the Steel Horde. They had come from the Age of the Nightmare Spell, after all — a terrifying era of calamity and bloodshed, born from the corpses of dead gods. Not only that, but they were also the strongest and most revered warriors among the vicious children of that nightmarish epoch.

So, none among the champions of the Steel Horde could claim to be their equal. Second, while they themselves could not consciously command the Will, their spirits were augmented by the power of the Mason — the Supreme ruler of the besieged city. And while the Mason was not suited for the battlefield, his Will was as stalwart and impregnable as the stone walls of the city he had built. This was his Domain, and within the boundary of his Domain, no foreign authority could be expressed or asserted unimpeded.

The warriors of the Steel Horde were not only invading a city — they were invading an enemy Domain. That meant that the Will of Azarax, which bolstered and empowered them, was all but nullified by the city walls. The defenders, on the contrary, enjoyed the boon of fighting on their native soil.

That was the dire challenge of a war between Supremes. The aggressor had to overcome the resistance of the defending Domain, fighting an uphill battle — and while Azarax had crushed more than a few Supreme adversaries, the tenacious nature of the Mason King's power was difficult to deal with.

He could have overwhelmed the Mason easily, since no amount of defense had value in the absence of offensive power. However, the War Maiden and her warriors made up for the fatal flaw of this peaceful Domain's defenses... and now, these warriors were about to prove their worth.

The battle for the walls of the city was nearing its fiercest stage. The ocean of steel had already reached the moat, which had long ceased to be an obstacle. It was filled with corpses, and in a dozen places, the corpses piled so high that one could cross to the other side by stepping on them.

Now, the warriors of the Steel Horde were lowering wooden boards under a hail of arrows, making the crossing even easier. Those who survived retreated, while those who were struck down by the arrows fell and rolled into the moat, adding their bodies to the towering piles of corpses. Next came the soldiers bearing enormous ladders, as well as the shield-bearers protecting them. The walls of the city were imposingly tall, so mundane humans lacked the strength to raise these ladders — let alone climb them to the distant battlements under the constant barrage. Their job was simply to drag the ladders to the base of the city wall and die for it, many of them perishing to accomplish that deadly task.

But they did accomplish it, and only then, finally, Azarax sent his true warriors forward. Usually, the middle-rank Awakened and Ascended soldiers of the Steel Horde would raise the ladders and attempt to ascend them — but this time, he bypassed the core forces of his vast army and commanded his most elite troops to advance instead. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

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