The javelins crash into the energy shields and after shattering those, they hit the real shields held by the soldiers below. From what I can see the attack was mostly ineffective, safe for a wounded soldier here or there.
However, there is one effect. To mount their defense and minimize losses, the human soldiers had to stop advancing. By the time they continue for a few steps, the next wave of javelins is already in the air.
Again, the soldiers halt their advance and focus solely on defending against the rain of javelins. After this happens a few more times, I can tell that the soldiers are beginning to suffer some losses. They have yet to reach the halfway point of the one hundred meters separating them from the legion and still have about sixty meters to go. Meanwhile they have endured at least a dozen waves of javelins.
The undead legionaries look unbothered by the energy expenditure of constantly creating and throwing those javelins and throwing them with deadly accuracy. Probably something to do with it being an innate skill that they are using. Well, the energy shield skill of the soldiers isn't an innate skill so using it over and over in a high pressure situation along with a physical shielding skill and whatever else they need to use to survive, it's exhausting them.
And with exhaustion comes trouble. I can't make out details from this distance, but I see a number of soldiers be carried away from the back of the group, looking as if they were wounded pretty badly.
The soldiers have reached the fifty-meter mark just as the next rain of javelins hits and this time I can clearly see that some of them are running out of gas. The energy shields appearing are still too many to count but there are places where the energy shields are less densely packed now.
Those areas suffer as the javelins easily break through the fewer energy shields and hit the targets below with greater intensity. Dozens of soldiers are hit by the javelins, getting stabbed deeply only for the javelins to dematerialize and leave huge bleeding holes in them.
I hadn't noticed the javelins disappearing before since they had always dropped past the shields of the soldiers and disappeared after lying below their feet. However, now that there are patches of soldiers that were all heavily wounded and have dropped their shields, I can spectate as the javelins turn illusory before vanishing completely.
These bleeding messes, still considered soldiers while they struggle to stay alive, have caused the soldiers to lose their already precariously loose formation. They rush to fill the gaps left by those who were heavily wounded and fail to advance by even a step as the next wave of javelins descends on them.
They weather this one better than before. With the weakest links removed and the others desperate to not end up skewered by javelins, the wall of energy shields is restored to its previous density.
They march on and it becomes clear to me that the ones hit after the fifty-meter mark won't be rushed back to the healers or medics like before. I assume they think the risk of getting hit by javelins while carrying their wounded compatriots is too high.
After they reach the twenty-meter mark, there is another instance where dozens of soldiers fail to mount a strong enough defense. More lethally wounded are dropping to the ground but, unlike last time, the soldiers do not rush to close the gaps.
Instead and to my great surprise, they rush at the enemy! Why didn't they do that before?
My question is answered as the legionaries throw the next wave of javelins. These javelins are different. The javelins thrown this time look much bigger and heavier. Their flight trajectory is also much lower but they fly way faster.
Those heavy javelins tear through everything in their way. First, the energy shields of the soldiers, then the physical shields of the soldiers, and then through their armor and bodies. Every javelin skewers multiple soldiers. The entire front line is dead, close to death, or heavily wounded and unable to move.
At first, I think the battle is over. However, the soldiers behind the skewered ones quickly push past their immobile comrades and keep rushing toward the undead legionaries.
What kind of suicide tactics are these?
Do they not have a reserve force?
Then why not just keep pushing and conquering more floors?