The Mystic Demon Sect arrived the next day, late afternoon. It was as Lionel Jonson had predicted. They were far too close, and elements of their own scouting forces had finally located the dwarven dungeons, despite the were-beasts' best attempts to eliminate them and delay their reconnaissance. I had made sure to ask the were-beasts to be careful because I didn't want the Mystic Demon Sect to turn their full attention upon them and annihilate them while they were still spread out throughout the forest.
Fortunately, they had taken my advice, though they seemed to be cutting it close, from what messages we received from the forward scouts. Eventually, the Mystic Demon reached the Hel-Moran Combine despite their best efforts, but it meant that they weren't spending too much time and energy exterminating the poor were-beasts.
Besides, it was preferable to have them throw bodies at the dwarven fortress and recklessly expend the lives of their minions wastefully. Inwardly, it didn't sit well with me, but I was neither a pacifist nor a saint. I wasn't a ruthless murder hobo who went around eradicating entire lineages and clans because they offended me or because just one or a couple of their family members decided to kill me. But I wasn't some pushover who would refuse to fight back even though their entire army was knocking at my gates.
The less dwarfs' lives were lost, the better. And I wasn't naïve. Ensuring the survival of my new allies meant killing as many of the enemy as possible.
"Fire!"
The moment the Mystic Demon Sect came into view, the commander of the dwarven legions barked an order. I could see hideous warriors that resembled bloated ghosts, demons with iron black skin and multiple heads and deadly claws, evil spirits that were a lot less ugly and had much finer control over their demonic powers, and their accompanying steeds and other monsters. There were massive cyclops monsters with one eye, probably known as Yi Mu, with burly muscles and towering over us at four meters.
However, there was no sign of Mystic Demonic Divine. The sect leader himself was nowhere to be seen. I supposed he either wasn't the type to lead from the front or he simply planned to test the waters, probing our defenses with a few waves, search for weaknesses or gaps in our defenses, and then exploit them when he finally came forward himself.
There was no point thinking about it, other than to keep checking out from messages from the Moran Dungeon, just in case he had changed his mind and suddenly decided to attack from another angle. Until he showed up, I had to focus on the enemy right in front of me.
"Hmm…"
I watched as the cannons spewed mana beams and artillery-type projectiles that arced upward before crashing against the first wave of demonic cultivators with meteoric force, blowing them up and hurling bodies high into the air. The cannons mostly resembled fireball spells, their fiery contrails making them seem like comets as they slammed into the enemy lines. Those demonic cultivators directly hit by the blasts were instantly disintegrated, their bodies vanishing in reddish-orange light.
Several of the larger demons survived, especially the titanic Yi Mu tribe. Their muscular bodies withstood punishing barrages, their thick, iron-black skin or dark hides impervious to the elemental projectiles that hammered them. With roars and bellows, they retaliated by generating demonic qi and firing malicious volleys or destructive bursts.
None of them worked.
I watched, impressed, as the eruption of demonic qi fizzled out ineffectively against shimmering barriers. Magic circles had ignited to a fierce glow around Sylvie and Silvia, and they were activating the barriers and forcefields that further augmented the fortress's already formidable defenses. Arrows and qi blasts dissipated harmlessly against the glowing screen of qi, which tapped into the ley lines the dungeons were built upon and supplied the forcefields with never-ending power.
Taking advantage of the situation, I joined the fight, unleashing a hail of azure arrows that pierced even the thick hides of the Yi Mu tribe. They were Mystic ranked demons at best, though most of them were surely Yellow ranked like the demons around them. Being an Earth ranked cultivator, my arrows had enough power behind them to penetrate their armored hides and perforate them. I particularly singled out the stronger demons and sniped them from safety, ignoring the outrage from the foes as they yelled something about me being a coward or dishonorable.
Call me whatever you wanted. What mattered in the end was results.
It was only a matter of time before the first wave was annihilated. As I said, the ends justified the means, and while the enemy had taken substantial losses, the dwarves hadn't suffered even a single casualty.
"Good job, everybody," I said.
"It's not over yet," Angus said, having personally taken command of the cannon corps. He was manning a laser battery himself, charging it with a mana battery and unleashing ruby lances of light that were capable of punching through the thick hull of a battle tank. More than a few huge demons had fallen to his precise shots, including the Yi Mu, their chests punctured with cauterized craters.
"Yeah, but it went better than we thought it would. Just keep it up."
"The next wave is coming!" One of the dwarf sentries called from another tower, using binoculars to study the enemy movement.
"Brace!" A dwarven officer bellowed, thumping the shaft of his hammer against the metallic floor of the ramparts. "And wait! Do not fire until I give the order!"
The dwarves watched, tense, as they waited for the enemy to form up. Not at all demoralized by their losses, more demons were gathering a distance away, just outside the effective range of the cannons and making use of the cover of the forest. There was an empty no-man's land between the dungeons and the forest, a place without any cover that the enemy would have to sprint through to reach the fortress and where they would inevitably have to suffer losses, but we already knew that the Mystic Demon Sect had been amassing a massive army and that their forces were beyond number.
Fortunately, we had the defender's advantage and we were massacring them. But I was aware that the Mystic Demon Sect had yet to commit their elites to the fray. So far, they had only been sending their fodder. The fact that even the Yi Mu tribe was counted among what they considered expendable troops sent a chill down my spine.
Just how deep were their reserves?
To my surprise, I saw that the delay wasn't simply because the Mystic Demon Sect was gathering troops. There was some argument going on there, one that I could only see because I had magnified the view on my enchanted glasses. A couple of demonic warlords had come to blows as they quarreled over what was likely the decision over who got the "glory" of leading the charge.
Heh. So the Mystic Demon Sect wasn't united. They still were prone to internal conflict.
However, one of them was immediately obliterated by…something. I realized that I wasn't even able to see what killed him, other than a blur that cleaved through his body and reduced him to a mess of blood and guts. The other warlord jumped back, horrified, his eyes bulging. Immediately, he fell to his knees and bowed his head, presumably begging for mercy.
"What in the world…?" I murmured.
I didn't know who he was talking to, since the other party was deep inside the forest and obscured by dense foliage. The next thing I knew, the demonic warlord had risen back to his feet, his head still lowered in compliance, and then he took off. A second later, he was leading the charge, pointing a crudely fashioned saber and gesturing for his troops to join him in the second wave.
My lip curled at that. No wonder the Mystic Demon Sect was aiming to conquer the Hel-Moran Combine. With such rusty, poorly welded weapons, they would benefit greatly from plundering the armory of the dwarves. They were already a terrifying force to reckon with…and if they got their hands on the master crafted weapons that the dwarves forged…
I didn't want to imagine what kind of nightmare they would become. Not just on the surface world, but also in the Celestial Labyrinth. Perhaps the only place that would remain out of their reach were the dungeons in the Abyss…where it was rumored that Heaven ranked dungeon masters resided in.
I shook off those thoughts for now and focused on the present. The second wave was much larger than the first, almost double the size, but they were literally using the same strategy. Once again, the dwarf officer yelled an order, and the cannons opened up the moment they were in the open area between the dwarven fortress and the cover of the forest.
Fireballs arced up and crashed upon the second wave with rippling detonations that tore the demonic bodies apart and sent corpses wheeling in flames. The larger demons such as the Yi Mu staggered, embers sliding down their scorched hide, but they withstood the barrage like before. Once again, I sniped them from afar, though concentrated barrages from the relentless dwarven soldiers obliterated a few of them. Angus, for example, was manning one of many laser batteries that were perfectly capable of slaying the larger demons like the Yi Mu. As powerful as they were, they were still walking tanks of demons, and thus still susceptible to anti-tank weaponry.
"You got any railguns?" I asked. Angus spared me a glance, his brow furrowed in confusion.
"What's a railgun?"
"Never mind." Clearly, the dwarves had no contact with human technology. Then again, they appeared to have lived their whole lives underground…in the Celestial Labyrinth, so they rarely interacted with us. Their complete confidence in their own weapons and craftsmanship meant they weren't likely to look at the technology of other races.
We continued bombarding the second wave until it was annihilated. The commander who had been "persuaded" to lead the charge lay several dozen meters away, his body half obliterated by a laser beam. Poor guy. No wonder Mystic Demonic Divine let him live, despite the dude stirring up conflict earlier. He was going to die anyway.
While I rested, I remembered the mission that the system had issued me this time. It had been right before the demonic cultivators had appeared, but I still vividly recalled the text that was written across the window.
-New quest issued. Defense of the Hel-Moran Combine: Aid the dwarves of the Hel-Moran Combine and ensure that their dungeons do not fall into the hands of the Mystic Demon Sect. Defeat the Mystic Demon Sect and drive them away from dwarven territory. Completion of this mission will grant the appropriate rewards. –
Nice. I wasn't sure what the system would reward me with this time, but I was looking forward to it. However, I couldn't help but feel uneasy. What if this mission was impossible to complete this time? I wasn't very confident of defeating a superpower like Mystic Demonic Divine. He was known as one of the three Supreme Evils known to the orthodox cultivators, among the strongest of demonic cultivators. He was only one step away from Heaven rank, and was at least peak Earth rank. If this was a cultivation story, they would invent some weird "pseudo Heaven rank" or "half-step Heaven rank" to classify him, but because this was reality, that made no sense whatsoever.
"It's like shooting fish in a barrel!" One of the dwarves whooped as he fired at the third wave. It was bigger than the second wave, testament to the sheer numbers that the Mystic Demon Sect had recruited, but not by a large margin. Once again, the cannons opened up and began blowing holes in the enemy's ranks, massacring them.
"This makes no tactical sense." Angus frowned, even as he squeezed the trigger of his laser cannon. "They're needlessly throwing lives away. Are they trying to exhaust our ammunition? But we have unlimited mana from the ley lines under this dungeon. There's no way they'll be able to starve us out or outlast us in a battle of attrition."
"No, he's studying our defense for any gaps," I replied with a shake of my head. "Once he finds an opening, he'll lead the charge himself."
"He?" Angus glanced at me. I nodded.
"Mystic Demonic Divine."
"He really is one callous bastard, ruthlessly throwing away the lives of his followers like that." Angus winced as he cored another demonic commander with his laser cannon. "Well, I can keep this up all day until they finally run out of men."
"I doubt it will come to that. He's probably seen enough. Once they start committing their elites, that's when the real fight begins."
"Their elites? Like the Earth ranked demonic cultivators?"
"Yeah. Have you seen any of them yet?"
"Now that you've mentioned it…no." Angus admitted, shaking his head. "Where could they be?"
"Just wait." Clenching my fingers around my bow as I sniped another high-level demon in the rapidly dwindling third wave, I scanned the forest. "I wouldn't be surprised if he sends them out in the fourth wave."