"Mmph! Mmph!"
No matter how much he struggled, Tabbris just couldn't free himself from his grasp without resorting to his trump cards. Luckily for him, Gerald released him soon after.
"Huff, huff! What the hell man, I was just joking, relax bro!" he huffed, catching his breath. "I'm sure it was just a coincidence!"
"Of course," Gerald rolled his eyes in annoyance and turned around. He gripped the spear tighter and stepped up to the barrier. He seemed to be contemplating something just before he jumped up and over, landing on the other side. It would have been a shame if he burned his clothes if he simply barged through.
"What are you doing?! Stay behind the barrier!" Tabbris shouted. He pulled out this sword and took a low combat stance in anticipation of a fight.
The beasts were soon to be upon them.
"You can just stay there. Tell the rest to get ready! This is not going to be pretty!" Gerald shouted back and took out his shield. He was now like a Spartan warrior. A shield in the left hand and a spear in the right.
"Stone Armor!" He shouted a spell, and stones stuck to his body, covering him head-to-toe. He charged forward.
"Elemental Avatar!"
Rumble!
The ground shook under the weight of countless Orcs and the sky was rent asunder with tongues of magic flame. The quiet night turned into one full of screams and roars, of explosion and dying life. The beasts and men clashed at the dividing line that was the Flame Barrier and yet... the line broke.
Like punching through wet paper, the Orcs broke through the defenses, crushed the towering shields, and tore apart the humans hiding in the armor.
Hobgoblins flooded the streets, jumped on the roofs, and shoot every living being, except for one of their own. Chaos ensued.
Out on the grasslands, now turned to mud from all the blood and gore, Gerald held his ground, cutting, stabbing, and slashing at the monsters. His spear shoot forward like a bullet, breaking the weak bodies of his enemies to pieces with each swing he took.
He made himself heavy, five times the normal weight, just so he could withstand the constant strikes all over his body, without faltering.
It was basic physics. Super strength was useless in battle if you didn't have a place to anchor yourself. Building powerful momentum in your strikes was important when doing damage, and in that regard, bigger foes held the advantage.
There was a reason weight classes existed in sports. Just a few extra kilograms of mass could already make a big difference in a fight, even more so when the opponent's weight was double or more.
As such, what would be the best gear for someone with super strength? Well, it's super heavy armor, of course! Amazing protection with added mass to power your strikes.
Fighting with powerful momentum was the name of the game in physical combat, and the beasts here were masters at it! So Gerald responded in kind.
He covered himself in thick rock and even increased gravity, all so he could do the most damage possible! Even weighing nearly half a ton, he was still fast. Not as nimble, of course, but still swift enough to make bodies of weaker Hobgoblins explode with a single strike.
Add to that Earth magic and dangerous spikes coming from everywhere, he was basically a walking tank! Blood sprayed on his armor and the guts of the fallen were smushed under his feet.
The smell of blood was nauseating.
Actually, no… Blood by itself didn't actually have much of an odor except for a slight metallic scent. It was more the entrails of the dead and the rotting corpses that contributed to the deathly fragrance.
In any case, no matter how many he killed, or what magic he used, Gerald was after all a single human. In an ocean of monsters, his efforts amounted to little more than nothing. Even just the Orcs carelessly trampling over their own kin was more impactful.
Boom!
There was an explosion in the city, and a pillar of flames rose to the sky momentarily, after which a column of smoke took its place.
"Oh, fuck! That's where the guys are at! And my stuff!" Gerald suddenly realized.
The monsters took the opportunity to gang up on him the moment he got distracted and almost buried him beneath the weight of their bodies.
"Damn it!" He created a sudden burst of magic and Stone Spikes rose from the ground like the petals of a lotus, creating a dangerous defensive formation. He has torn apart a few Hobgoblins that were still stuck to his body and then shook off the bloody Stone Armor, before flying up.
On his return path, he rained fire from the sky in a form of Greater Fireballs, carpet bombing the ground like a world war bomber. He left a trail of fiery destruction in his wake.
As for the source of the massive explosion in the city…
It turned out that the monsters breached one of the warehouses of the military where they had stored Bottled Thunder. As the attack was so swift, many of the flasks were mixed and armed, ready to be used to defend.
Unfortunately for the defenders, a stray Fireball of an Orc Shaman, who managed to pass the barrier, managed to find its way inside, resulting in a dreadful chain reaction, blowing up the entire building and collapsing a few nearby houses.
More than a few dozen soldiers lost their lives in that instant and even more were incapacitated. It was the same for the attacking monsters, however, their advance didn't stop just because some of them died.
Wave after wave of Orcs jumped through the barrier, which barely slowed them down for a second, and started a slaughter behind the enemy lines. Screams of pain were drowned by the sounds of spells and massive explosions going everywhere as hacked-off limbs and dismembered bodies started filling the streets.
Gerald landed on the roof of his warehouse under which his friends were battling with the Orcs. It was bad!
The dozen or so people were being pushed back by the unending waves of monsters, and even with the help of the rest of the warriors and city guard, the situation was dire.