"Prepare the crossbows!" Caesar barked out another command.
Immediately, a series of holes spanning a foot wide opened up within the walls, and upon further observation, there were about a hundred of them.
Then one by one, strong looking men began to prepare the crossbows as intense looking bolts protruded from the holes. The tips of the bolts looked like they were made with steel, even the shaft resembled that of a superior metal.
Each one of these bolts were two meters long, and because of that, they required an extremely strong and big crossbow to fire. These weapons were able to pierce through the body of a Knight Level Beast, even the ones at the Peak Knight level would be tremendously harmed.
Next, the city magicians casted their spells on the tips of those bolts, filling them with more destructive and piercing power.
When the thousands of wild beasts were three kilometres away, Caesar gave out an order, "Fire the Primary Tier Magical Cannons, let them feel the pain!"
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
With a slightly less loud explosion, the ten Primary Tier cannons fired straight at the wild beasts with an extensively large amount of firepower. The bursts of energy landed firmly against the incoming crowd, completely obliterating large amount of groups.
After a short period of time, the Primary Tier cannons were ready to fire once more, and with another bang, a large amount of energy exploded forth toward the crowd of wild beasts. The blast sent a good few of them flying away while the remnants of a several wild beasts could be seen spinning through the air.
The Magical Cannons fired a few more rounds before the wild beasts were only 500 meters away.
"Fire the crossbows!" Caesar cried out.
With Caesar's command, the men stationed within the walls began to fire the crossbows at a lightning quick speed. The bolts flew through the air with a whistling sound that left the onlookers quite terrified.
*Pch! Pch! Pch!*
With the tremendous penetration force of the bolts, many of the Apprentice Level Beasts were instantly speared through. Even as the bolts flew straight through the beasts, they did not slow down in the least. The bolts continued to fly through another three or four Apprentice Level Beasts before finally losing their initial momentum, embedding themselves in one final beast. Some ended up burning away, some were frozen, some exploded, while others were poisoned.
This volley of firepower had shot over 200 crossbolts which ended up taking the lives of over 500 Apprentice and Knight Level Beasts.
After that, the second volley of fire immediately mowed down the front most wild beasts and filled the air with howls of pain and gunfire. From overhead, the cannons continued to fire down upon the mass of wild beasts and took even more lives.
However, it did not deter the lesser intelligent beasts at all. The scent of all the blood in the air had roused their bloodthirsty nature as they continued to roar out loud while increasing their pace toward the walls despite the continuous volley of fire directed at them.
*Boom!*
The wild beasts were now so close to the wall that some of them were now firmly striking at the steel plating covering the walls. Following each blow, the steel plating began to tremble and vibrate while some parts of the metal defences had began to dent a little.
A few of the wild beasts had begun to make use of their claws in hopes of damaging the steel plating while some had resorted to biting the walls. Some had even managed to take advantage of the various cracks on the plating to climb up.
Seeing the wild beasts approach, Caesar's eyes flashed dangerously as he shouted, "Douse them in hot oil! Fire mages light them up!!"
A vat of scalding hot oil was suddenly poured down from the walls and splashed down onto the beasts below. Next, countless fireballs were coming down from the sky. Immediately, the fur of those who got splashed by the oil caught fire before turning the wild beast into a moving bonfire.
Underneath, countless beasts howled miserably in pain as their entire bodies were submerged in the burning oil. As their fur caught fire, the fire and the oil began to cause a tremendous amount of damage to their bodies.
There was an abundant source of hot oil thanks to the various stoves working to create some more. As the streams of hot oil fell down the walls, the entire ground below had became a sea of fire and misery as the beasts roared in pain. Afterward, a putrid smell wafted up and invaded everyone's noses.
Mirage City had no moat around so the wild beasts had no chance to find a source of water to douse themselves in to remove the flames and oil. There were many beasts in close proximity and with their fur being extremely flammable, the fire had quickly spread out to encompass everyone.
Underneath the walls, the wild beasts were in chaos; even though they lacked intelligence, even the dumbest of wild beasts could tell that they were on fire and would die if they stayed there. Consequently, more and more wild beasts scattered and trying to get away from the splash radius of the oil.
Unfortunately, Mirage City's oil supply was not endless and eventually ran out. In the half hour of warfare, the oil supply had all but ran out, but the damage had been done; the fire had damaged plenty of wild beasts and burnt a good amount of them to death.
Now that there was no more threat of the oil, the still alive wild beasts quickly stamped out the remaining fire and continued to charge at the wall once more. The more nimbler beasts began to climb up the walls once more alongside a large number of vipers.
Those who ran up the walls were immediately cut down by the soldiers stationed on the top of of the walls, sending their bisected bodies flying back down to the earth.
At the same time, a soldier quickly ran to Caesar and reported, "A report for the lord, the crossbows are all finished firing, not a single bolt is left!"
Looking at the scene below, Caesar nodded slightly before crying out, "Open the gates and attack!"
Mirage City's most terrifying weapons against the beast waves were the Magical Cannons, oil, and crossbows. The cannons were for long ranged fighting and were used to target and kill the strongest beasts. Once the beasts approached, then they would switch to the oil and crossbows. After a good amount of time past, both the oil and crossbow ammunition had been all used up. At this moment, the only thing left to do was to attack the beasts directly from close range.
Slowly, the gates creaked open as the wild beasts changed directions to charge in between the opening gates. However, the moment they stepped inside, the various mercenaries inside blocked them.
"Fellow brothers, charge! Work hard to collect those ears!"
"Charge! The sparkling allure of a gold coin will soon lay within our pouches!"
...
Every single warrior was boiling with excitement as their will to make battle soared into the air. One by one they charged through the open gates with their weapons leading the vanguard. With each swing, a beast would fall to the ground, be split in two and rain down blood everywhere.
Mages and archers kept staying at the back and would aim at the backline of the beasts.
"Hou!" A few wild beasts cried out in pain as they received multiple attacks to their bodies. In a flash, many more wild beasts were cut to pieces and a few of the more nimble men quickly grabbed at their ears before happily storing them into their storage rings. Few of them were thieves, however nothing could be done to prevent that in this chaos.
"Hurry up and charge everyone! A huge pile of gold coins await us!"
"Don't waste any time and hurry up…"
"Charge!"
A shout emerged from each mercenary as they charged toward the savage beasts almost as if they were pieces of coins. Because of the allure of money, these men were not afraid of death.
Underneath the power of every mercenary, every single beast was swiftly harvested and stored away for future use.
Over 200,000 mercenaries stormed out from Mirage City to fight with the wild beasts in intense close combat. Every second a beast or a mercenary fell to the ground and never got up again.