The Order launched the assault at dawn.
We woke up before the sun rose, packing up the camp and herding the horses forward in several columns. Once again, both Lin Xue and I borrowed the same horses from yesterday. They were well trained and didn't try to throw us off or anything, simply obediently allowing us to ride on their backs and following their brethren in front without needing much direction.
That was quite the lifesaver because neither Lin Xue nor I had ridden a horse before. Cars, yeah, but not horses. There was no need for us to ride horses in contemporary Hua Xia, and we weren't from rich, aristocratic families who had such…uh, cultured hobbies.
Honestly, it was pretty uncomfortable. I understood why humans discarded horses in favor for vehicles as the main mode of transport. Well, there were a lot of other reasons too – cars required less maintenance than horses, who needed food, water and latrines. You couldn't just leave them alone.
Even though it was still dark, I could make out the dark, Gothic architecture of the Carleon fortress in the distance. Its spired towers punched through the canopy of trees, and crenellations lined its walls and ramparts. I squinted through my glasses, wondering if I was imagining the grotesque features of sculptures that hung atop the arched roofs. Surely, they wouldn't be carving gargoyles into buildings from this time period, right?
Then I realized I was mistaken about the historical context. This was neither Earth nor the medieval ages. I was applying irrelevant presuppositions to something entirely different.
As we drew near, though, I realized that they weren't gargoyles. Several of them moved, serpentine beasts or scaly tails uncoiling along the arches as they eyed the approaching knights. None of them made to move yet, probably because we still weren't within range. Or maybe their owners had not seen fit to unleash them and were waiting for a more opportune moment to attack.
"Knights of the Order! We stand at a precipice!" Rex Luther, the ever-charismatic lieutenant, was delivering a speech from the front. His voice carried across the forest, reaching even to the rear. He drew his sword and held it high up, pulling the reins of his horse to bring it to a halt. "This here is a turning point for all of us. The fate of our world rests on this single battle. Either we break the enemy upon the foul rocks they call their home or we fail and they spread their corruption to our homes and loved ones. We cannot fail here!"
"Yeah!" His men chorused, also throwing their gauntleted fists into the air.
"We cannot afford to be complacent and underestimate the foe!" Luther had adopted a solemn air. "We may outnumber them a hundred to one, but the Knights of Romulus are known for their despicable tricks. Some of you may have heard whispers and rumors of the enemy's dishonorable attempts at casting witchcraft. You have witnessed the hideous monsters they send to fight us. You are right. They will unleash their full corrupted hand of devilish trickeries and demonic cards. They will send every mutated beast they have caged up within their foul fortress at us. They will attempt to sap our courage by beguiling us with wicked witchcraft! However!"
He swung his sword with such force a branch some distance away fell, cleaved cleanly into pieces.
"We will not let such evil warlocks stop us, shall we?!"
"NO!"
"Then prepare ourselves for the fight of our lives!" He then turned to Lionel Johansson. "Lord, we await your order."
The Knight-General of the Order maintained his impassive expression, his emerald eyes riveted on the haunted fortress ahead. Several of the beasts wrapped around the architecture shrank back and hissed, intimidated by his mere presence.
Just what manner of a being was he? He truly was a demigod.
Then Johansson uttered a simple sentence. Just a couple of words, and he didn't even raise his voice. Yet everyone heard them as clearly as if he was speaking directly to them.
"Destroy them."
As one, the Knights of the Order charged. That broke some spell that was holding the demonic beasts back, and they lurched from their perches, springing from great heights to fall upon the massed horse-riding cavalry of the Order. Men yelled and shrieked as bone snapped and organs were pulped, even their archaic techno-armor affording little protection against sheer mass and weight of the hideously mutated creatures.
"Commander!"
Aegis hollered a warning straight into my mind and I leaped away. My poor horse vanished with a screeching neigh underneath a flurry of claws and wings the size of a wall. A gargoyle like creature snarled and reached for me with its talons, only for its apish face to explode into blood and fragments of bone when the bolt from my borrowed pistol struck it.
I whirled around when I sensed another enemy at my back, and unable to bring my pistol in time to bear against my assailant, I instead drew my sword and swung it in the same stroke. A hybrid chimeric beast that looked like a cross between a panther, baboon and a raptor bellowed in agony as I eviscerated it, but it wasn't dead. Not yet.
A second later, it fell, its head obliterated by a bolt from my gun. Though my blade had not killed it, it had bought me enough time to adjust my aim with my heavy pistol.
There was a howl to my side and I turned around to see Lin Xue electrocuting a dire wolf with her lightning gun. Unlike me, she hadn't lost her ride and was easily guiding her steed across the clearing, bowling over smaller beasts that snapped at the bellowing stallion's heels. I helped by shooting whatever I could and cutting down the bird-like creatures with wings too short and hooked beaks too oversized for their grotesque forms. Sludge covered feathers fluttered, severed from their owners.
My perception narrowed down to my surroundings, and aside from Lin Xue, I was only vaguely aware of Aegis drifting by my side, intercepting slashes and jaws aimed at me. She floated between me and a dire wolf, effectively batting it aside so that I could finish it off with a shot. She intercepted an eviscerating blow that would have opened my stomach wide and send my guts spilling out, and I responded with a riposte from behind her that thrust straight into the mouth of the panther-like creature and through its skull and brain.
Aegis's AI was smart enough to recognize threats and act accordingly, but she wasn't truly sentient. She was simply obeying my directive, to protect me from bodily danger. She couldn't make any decisions by herself, just operating within the parameters of her programming, just like how a laser identified and shoot down missiles. She was sophisticated and advanced to be sure, but not sentient and self-aware.
She shielded me from what would otherwise be a lethal blow once more, allowing me to counterattack and blow the head off the enemy, and then intercepted the jaws of a dire wolf. As its fangs broke against her indestructible bulk, I decapitated it before it could withdraw with a whimper of pain.
The beasts weren't the only enemies. Along the ramparts of the Carleon Fortress, knights in red and brown armor were rushing to ledges and firing down explosive bolts that penetrated techno-armor and exploded messily inside Order knights' bodies. A knight fell from his horse beside me, his torso ruptured from the violent detonation. Another lost his head completely, his helm turning into shrapnel that harmlessly clanged against the armor of his comrades. The horses weren't as fortunate, though, whinnying as the metallic fragments stabbed into their bodies. Rearing up, they almost threw their riders off them, nearly resulting in casualties among their own ranks.
"Fire! Provide covering fire!"
In the desperately dueling masses of knights and monsters, sergeants and company captains barked orders, redirecting the rearguard to aim for the shooters above. A volley of bolts answered those from above, dropping a few snipers on the ramparts and sending their armored bodies tumbling down the walls and crashing among the milling beasts and human warriors.
I winced as the muffled crump of a detonation shocked me, but Aegis had moved to intercept the bolt, projecting a shimmering, thin energy field that neutralized the deadly projectiles. She provided a mobile shield for me to move underneath, allowing me to move under cover.
Step by agonizing step, I waded through the mire of blood and guts, stepping over the corpses of both friend and foe alike, and made my way toward the gigantic gate looming ahead. Ducking under a pouncing dire wolf, I swept my sword up and stabbed, nearly cutting my attacker in half. The dire wolf whined as it slid past over me, landing in a twitching heap, its intestines leaking out of the thin, long slit that my blade had left along the entire length of its torso.
This was brutal, bloody work, and our progress had slowed to a crawl because of the sheer mass of bodies and the rising death toll. The defenders had the high ground advantage and though our own snipers were retaliating and providing suppressive fire, I could see that we had incurred a high cost in the butcher's bill.
Unfortunately, this wasn't some wish fulfilment power fantasy story where I was some overpowered godlike cultivation protagonist who effortlessly scythed down dozens of beasts in a panel or two. I was an ordinary human being with only about a year's worth of training. Even so, I could hear screams from the comment section as juvenile readers raged about me being "weak" and "pathetic." What in the bloody fuck? Not only did I survive in this chaotic mess of combat, I had shot and cut down every opponent that threw itself at me. Still, they weren't satisfied unless I was curbstomping them like a god?
Shaking my head in disgust, I ignored the toxic comments and focused on making it to the gate. While I cleaved another dire wolf into two and shot a swooping gargoyle before it could rake my head with its talons, I caught sight of a majestic figure elegantly slicing a path through the ranks of the enemy.
Lionel Johansson cut a glorious silhouette, rallying a contingent of bloodied and battered knights to him as he effortlessly dispatched monster and man alike. In one hand, his gleaming sword cut apart beasts in graceful yet efficient strokes, without even a single wasted movement. In the other hand, his pistol barked ferociously, his unerring aim homing into the shooters above and annihilating their ranks with explosive rounds.
Not wishing to be found wanting in the presence of a god of war, his knights fought harder and more furiously, redoubling their efforts and forming an impenetrable ring of steel. Precise volleys of fire brought down swarms of gargoyles and packs of dire wolves, while synchronized thrusts and slashes from blades and lances speared into charging panther and leonine chimeras, preventing them from closing in. The knights fought with the experience of men who had fought at each other's sides for long years, almost reading each other's minds as they coordinated wordlessly and flawlessly to cover each other's flanks and saving each other's lives several times over.
Any beast or enemy knight who attempted to break that formidable formation found themselves broken like an egg against stone, ruthlessly cast down and trampled upon by metallic boots marching in step.
In the midst of it all, Lionel Johansson and Rex Luther fought back-to-back, their blades a blurring circle of silver and swift streaks of sharp death.
Well, whining readers, there's your godlike Mary Sue protagonist. Happy now? Wait, what? Why can't he be the protagonist instead of me? Then go read your favorite trashy cultivation stories instead of this one. Jeez. There's so many of them on the Internet for you to enjoy, you don't need every single story to conform to what you want, right?
Shaking my head in disgust, I loped off the limbs of a slashing panther thing and then shot it pointblank in the face, wincing when its blood and ruined flesh splattered me. Kicking its corpse aside, I finally made it to Lionel Johansson's side. Lin Xue too caught up, no longer on horseback. At some point, her horse had been shot by one of the Knights of Romulus, though the currents that she generated all over her body served as an electrostatic barrier that shielded her from the explosive bolts from above.
My senior didn't need a shield like Aegis…she was pretty much a walking forcefield herself. I didn't know if I should be jealous. Was that what it meant to possess special abilities?
Johansson didn't pay any attention to us, not because he was dismissive, but because we were simply two among a few dozen who had reached the gates of Carleon. Instead, he focused on breaching the fortification, waving a couple of specialist knights over.
"Thermites!" He bellowed.
The two knights hurried over and attached a couple of blinking devices to the thick adamantium gates. I was reminded of C4, but they looked simultaneously archaic and hi-tech. The esoteric explosives clamped stubbornly onto the surface of the gates and produced a paste of aluminum, magnesium and iron oxide that spread across the metal. Then the two knights hastily retreated, waving the others away.
There was a roar and a hiss of steam as the magnesium ribbons attached to the thermite devices ignited. Not with the force of a conventional explosion, but a generation of extreme heat that melted the gates into slag, the metal disintegrating and leaving red-hot jagged edges around a newly opened maw several meters wide. Even so, the specialist knights shook their heads and signaled for us to wait for the steam to dissipate and the area to cool.
Walking through such scalding heat would be lethal, even for those clad in armor.
Johansson, though, didn't wait for more than a few more seconds before he was moving through the melted remnants of the gate. Without pausing, he fired his pistol into the interior, and there was a muffled sound and a thud as his target fell. Brandishing his sword, he yelled and plunged into the castle.
As one, his knights followed, with me and Lin Xue hot on their heels.