Chapter 207: The Beast Tide (II)
After repelling the first wave of sea beast attacks, the soldiers were too quick to rejoice—most of the high-ranking officials, including Donald, were by no means relaxed. They all knew this attack was merely a probe by the sea beasts; such losses of pawns meant nothing to them. Sure enough, the next wave of sea beasts arrived soon. This time, in addition to those the size of sea cats, there were also many larger sea beasts with long snouts. With the corpses from the first attack as a foundation, many of these sea beasts climbed over the stone walls. Some clever ones even knew to bypass the defensive walls, avoiding reckless charges like their less intelligent counterparts, and instead attacked the walls of Leyton Port from the edges.
“Ji Jian, prepare—fire!”
At Commander Laint’s command, the hundreds of medium-sized crossbows purchased at great expense by Leyton Port for two-person operation were all activated. They were drawn back and aimed. With a buzzing sound, hundreds of iron-tipped wooden arrows, each three feet long, were shot out like streaks of gray-black lightning toward the area behind the stone walls.
These two-person operated medium crossbows were more than ten times more powerful than ordinary longbows, with an effective range of 800 meters and an optimal range of 200 to 400 meters—exactly the distance between the walls and the ditches in front. More than a hundred sea beasts that had just climbed over the walls were instantly pinned to the ground, screaming in pain.
The crossbows targeted the larger sea beasts. Although their accuracy wasn’t high, the high density of the sea beasts ensured a decent hit rate.
“Draw back and fire again!”
After two more rounds of arrows, the archers needed to rest. By then, many sea beasts had reached less than 200 meters outside the walls—just the range where longbows could achieve their maximum lethality.
So the commander issued another order.
“Longbow teams, prepare!”
“Aim straight ahead and fire!”
“Fire!”
Arrows rained down like a storm, killing at least hundreds of sea beasts in this barrage. Though many wounds weren’t fatal, on this land battlefield, these injured sea beasts were doomed not to survive the night.
More than ten minutes had passed since the sea beasts began their assault. Aside from many that died en route, at least tens of thousands of them reached the base of the city walls alive. However, these lower-tier sea beasts were not well adapted to land battles, their strength undoubtedly reduced by a significant amount. Most of them were only first or second-level magical beasts without any spell-like abilities, so they naturally couldn’t deal with the ten-meter-high city walls.
By now, the third wave of sea beasts had arrived. The leaders of this wave resembled giant elephants, with long tusks but no trunks. Their limbs were thick, webbed feet rather than hooves. Compared to the previous sea beasts, these giants were even larger and far stronger. The only good news was that there weren’t many of these three-story-tall elephant-like sea beasts—only a hundred or so in total in this wave. Moreover, though they had superior physical strength, their level was still only that of third-level magical beasts. Marine creatures tend to be larger than those on land.
Yet even though their numbers were small, hundreds of these massive creatures charging toward Port Leyton caused the people on the city walls to feel the ground shake from their heavy footsteps. Under the power of these beasts, the sturdy stone walls built by Donald and his team soon developed several large gaps after this assault.
The ten-meter-high city walls of Port Leyton seemed impregnable to humans, but to these giants, they were merely a height that could be reached by standing up. If these elephant-like sea beasts, which were like siege weapons, reached the base of the walls, Port Leyton would be in danger.
Seeing these giants suddenly appear among the sea beasts, the commander immediately ordered another round of fireballs and crossbow arrows to be fired.
Fortunately, though these walruses had thick fat, their defenses weren’t as strong as they appeared. After two rounds of fireballs and crossbow arrows, nearly half of them were eliminated. Their huge bodies made excellent targets. Even though crossbows had lower accuracy than longbows, most arrows still managed to hit their targets. The three-foot-long, powerful crossbow arrows could pierce deep into the walruses’ bodies, causing fatal injuries.
As for the larger number of smaller sea beasts, fireballs and arrows would take care of them.
Seeing that there were still many remaining sea beasts, Donald said to the person beside him, “Kelsas, go help!” The blood elf mage responded and stood alone on the city wall, raising his hands to summon his most loyal companion—the Fire Phoenix.
After drawing power from the geothermal magma last time, this Fire Phoenix grew even larger, its wingspan reaching six meters. The flames covering its body were as scorching as those in a steel furnace, causing ripples in the air. With such a powerful Silver-tier summoned beast of level seven appearing, the sea beasts below were in trouble. Although the Fire Phoenix didn’t have any large-scale group attack capabilities, its flames could cover a wide area. Combined with fireballs, any sea beast that got within 200 meters of the city walls became roasted meat in the flames. The defenders on the city walls frantically launched attacks, and most of the third wave of sea beasts was eliminated. Those left were no longer a significant threat under the protection of the city walls. Looking at the sea beasts continuing to surge from the water in the distance, Donald was very pessimistic about the defense capabilities of Port Leyton. Even with the defensive fortifications he had set up, it seemed unlikely for the outnumbered and weaker Port Leyton defenders to withstand this invasion, unless reinforcements arrived in time or they fought with all their might. Without further hesitation, Donald decided to take action against the sea beasts. It wasn’t for anything else—Donald wasn’t willing to abandon the tens of thousands of civilians behind Port Leyton or the soldiers right in front of him. If the sea beasts breached Port Leyton, all of them would be slaughtered, and that was a scenario he didn’t want to see. Moreover, his own territory relied on trade with Port Leyton! For both public and personal reasons, Donald couldn’t allow these sea beasts to destroy Port Leyton. So, after the third wave of sea beasts was dealt with and the fourth wave was about to arrive, Donald took action against them for the first time. When an expert takes action, its skill is immediately evident. Without much preparation time, Donald cast a level-five spell, Funeral Flames. This range attack spell, favored by elemental mages among level-five spells, was extremely powerful. Having obtained a scroll for Funeral Flames, it was one of the first level-five spells Donald learned and mastered. In an instant, a beam of fire struck a wounded walrus-like beast that had rushed dozens of meters away from the city walls. Once enveloped in flames, the beast acted like a giant torch, unleashing intense flames in all directions. All sea beasts within twenty steps were affected. Those closer to the walrus were instantly burned to death, while the rest suffered severe burns and writhed in pain on the ground.
A level-five spell wiped out nearly a hundred sea beasts, earning cheers from those on the city walls. Yet Bown, the top mage of Port Leyton, remained unconvinced, muttering under his breath, “What’s the point of showing off now? Even if you have spells, you should save them for critical moments. Why waste magic on these low-level sea beasts that these soldiers can kill easily?” Donald didn’t hear Bown’s complaints, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. He wasn’t satisfied with the results of this attack.
Although killing almost a hundred sea beasts at once seemed impressive, he knew these sea beasts could number in the tens of thousands. More than thirty to forty thousand had already appeared, with countless more hidden in the distance.
The ocean was dominated by fish. Though there were many sea beasts, their numbers paled in comparison to fish and other aquatic magical creatures. As a result, relatively few sea beasts could make it onto land. This was good news for Port Leyton.
But this was only relative—after all, the ocean was vast, capable of nurturing an incalculable number of sea beasts. Just the ones that had rushed ashore so far numbered in the tens of thousands, giving an idea of the situation.
Even with the support of potions, a level-five spell could theoretically allow him to cast dozens at once, but in reality, his physical and mental strength couldn’t sustain such intense spellcasting. He could manage at most a dozen before needing to rest.
So for the second attack, Donald didn’t use Flaming Requiem again but chose another area-of-effect spell he mastered: Ball Lightning.
Also a level-five spell, unlike Flaming Requiem’s short-term, explosive effect, Ball Lightning created concentrated electric balls using magic power. The number of these balls depended on the caster’s level, and they could release powerful high-voltage electricity, dealing fatal damage to targets.
What Donald valued most was that these balls could be moved at the caster’s will at extremely high speeds—up to 100 meters per second. Though they couldn’t move too far from the caster due to mental energy constraints, their power was still quite formidable among level-five spells.
With Donald’s strong magic power and mental energy, the number of Ball Lightning balls was much greater than when he first learned the spell. Eight balls moved swiftly within 100 meters ahead. Any sea beast struck by their electric beams turned to charcoal, as few could evade such speed.
Aquatic monsters are even more afraid of lightning attacks than those on land. Due to their inherent traits, most sea beasts can only launch attacks such as water arrows and water balls; only a few possess rare abilities like spewing venom or lightning. As a result, their resistance to lightning attacks is naturally very low. Underwater, these sea beasts can use their environment to mitigate the power of lightning, but on land, they are left helpless and doomed.
The sustained lethality of spherical lightning is much greater than that of Flaming Requiem. After just over ten seconds, when the spell ended, roughly three hundred sea beasts perished under this terrifying lightning.
Seeing Silver Mage Donald use another fifth-level spell to wipe out the sea beasts near the city walls, everyone couldn’t help but cheer again.
Yet Donald was still not satisfied. He thought to himself, “When will this ever end? We must take the initiative and lure those behind them out. It seems my ultimate spell is necessary!”
So he said to the commander of Port Leyton, “Commander Laint, I’m going to go down and fight. I can’t use my full power from the city walls. I hope you’ll cooperate by temporarily stopping the firing of fireballs and arrows!”
Hearing this, the commander of Port Leyton’s defense forces paled slightly and quickly consulted Lord Rein. When the lord heard this, he approached Donald with a worried expression and said, “My lord, isn’t this a bit risky? It would be better to cast spells from the city walls to kill the sea beasts…”
Donald waved his hand and said, “My lord, no need to persuade me. If I dare to go down, I’m confident I can return. Instead of worrying, prepare the magic cores I need—they’ll also increase our chances of defeating the sea beast horde!”
Moved by this, Lord Rein didn’t dare delay. He immediately ordered that the magic cores stored in the vault be brought up to the city walls without further counting and handed over to the young silver mage.
Without hesitation, Donald gathered a box of magic cores with a wave of his hand, then flew out of the city walls with Uther and landed on the defensive stone wall ahead.