The sun didn’t rise over Bastion that morning. It was choked out by the smog of war.

Red hovered silently in the Void, his hands clasped behind his back. The interface was cluttered with red dots (Enemies) and blue dots (Allies).

[ BATTLEFIELD ANALYSIS ] [ DEFENDERS (BASTION): 120 COMBATANTS ]

→ 40 Shell-Kin (Heavy Tanks)

→15 Mangrove Treants (Siege/Crowd Control)

→40 Grey-Fin Lizardmen (Spearmen)

→25 Kobold Skirmishers (Flankers)

Although red had around 260 followers, the rest were women, children and elderly.

[ ATTACKERS (OBSIDIAN-CLAW): 340 COMBATANTS ]

Equipment: Heavy Mining Picks, Sledgehammers, Pneumatic Drills.Strategy: Blunt Force Trauma.

Red didn’t click a single button. He didn’t activate a miracle. He simply watched.

—

–

.

BOOM.

The first impact against the main gate was a synchronized strike of fifty sledgehammers. The living stone groaned. The Treants holding the wall shivered, leaves falling like rain.

Outside, Elder Korg stood at the front of his wedge formation. He wasn’t holding a sword. He was holding a Pneumatic Drill salvaged from the deep core, hissing with steam.

“BREAK IT!” Korg roared. “THEY ARE SOFT! SMASH THE SHELL, EAT THE MEAT!”

CRACK.

The wooden reinforced gate didn’t burst open; the Treants opened it.

Korg blinked. The gate swung inward on its own.

“They surrender?” a Troglodyte shouted.

“NO!” Korg realized the trap too late. “CHARGE! OVERWHELM THEM!”

The 340 Troglodytes surged forward like a landslide of grey fur and iron. They poured into the kill box of the Plaza.

But they didn’t hit soft lizards.

[ THE IRON WALL ]

They hit the Shell-Kin.

The forty tortoises had formed a concave shield wall, locked side-by-side. Their restored, calcified shells gleamed like polished hematite.

CLANG-THUD-CRACK.

The sound was deafening. Sledgehammers slammed into the shells. A normal tortoise would have been paste. But these were [ Restored Iron-Backs ]. Their shells were denser than concrete.

Sparks flew. The impact shockwaves rippled through the Shell-Kin’s bodies, but they held. They groaned, digging their claws into the stone pavement, refusing to give an inch.

One Troglodyte brought a pickaxe down on Old-Shell’s head. Old-Shell retracted instantly, the pickaxe skidding harmlessly off his nose-plate.

“PUSH!” Korg screamed from the back. “THEY CANNOT HOLD FOREVER!”

The weight of 300 bodies pressed against the 40 tanks. The Shell-Kin began to slide backward, their claws carving deep furrows in the stone.

“Now!”

From the gaps between the Shell-Kin, death emerged.

The Grey-Fin Lizardmen were smaller, but they had reach. They thrust their long, bone-tipped spears through the small spaces between the tortoise shells.

Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.

The Troglodytes, pressing hard against the shells to use their short-range hammers, were impaled. They couldn’t dodge. They were packed too tight.

“Shields up!” a Troglodyte captain yelled. “Block the spears!”

But they didn’t have shields. They had two-handed hammers. They had sacrificed defense for power.

The front line of the Troglodytes dissolved into blood and confusion.

“Hold the line!” Korg roared, smashing a Grey-Fin spear shaft with his drill. “Climb over them!”

The Troglodytes began to scramble over the Shell-Kin, using the tortoises as stepping stones to jump into the backline.

One Troglodyte landed behind the wall. He raised his hammer to crush a surprised Kobold.

WHOOSH.

A net fell from the sky.

High above, in the branches of the Cypress trees and the roofs of the huts, the Mud-Skippers were waiting. They dropped weighted nets on the climbers.

The Troglodyte struggled, entangled. The Kobold didn’t hesitate. He jammed a rusty shiv into the Troglodyte’s throat.

[ SYNERGY BONUS ACTIVE: +10% EFFICIENCY ]

Red watched the kill feed scroll by.

→Shell-Kin absorbs damage.

→Grey-Fin deals damage.

→Mud-Skipper applies crowd control.

The Troglodytes were dying, but there were too many of them. They were stepping on the bodies of their dead to smash at the defenders.

A Shell-Kin on the left flank cracked. A sledgehammer shattered its spine. The tortoise collapsed, screaming. The line broke.

“THROUGH THE BREACH!” Korg howled, seeing the gap. “KILL THEM ALL!”

Fifty Troglodytes poured through the gap in the shell-wall. They raised their hammers, ready to slaughter the soft infantry behind.

Then, the ground shook.

[ UNIT: MANGROVE TREANT ]

[ ACTION: SWEEP ]

The Root-Father unmoored himself from the gate. He was fifteen feet of angry, rot-free hardwood.

He didn’t use a weapon. He used his arm—a branch as thick as a barrel.

SWOOOSH.

He swung it low, at knee height.

The sound was like a bowling ball hitting pins. CRUNCH-CRACK-SNAP.

The fifty Troglodytes didn’t just fall; they were launched. Bones shattered on impact. They were ragdolled across the Plaza, smashing into the stone walls of the Temple.

The Root-Father stepped into the breach, plugging the hole with his own body. A Troglodyte hit him with a pickaxe. The pickaxe stuck in the wood. The Treant didn’t even flinch. He just grabbed the Troglodyte with a vine-hand and squeezed until the ribcage collapsed.

Elder Korg stood amidst the carnage.

The orange dust of the Rust was everywhere, mixed with red blood. His army was broken. The front line was impaled. The flankers were netted. The breach squad was broken by the trees.

And walking through the chaos, untouched, was Krug.

The High Priest wore armor made of white Hydra scales. Blood slicked off it like oil. He held his new greataxe—a heavy, brutal thing forged from the recycled iron of the Troglodytes’ own failed delivery.

Korg revved his pneumatic drill as the steam hissed.

“I am Korg of the Onyx Hall!” he screamed, charging. “I will drill your heart out!”

Korg thrust the spinning drill tip at Krug’s chest.

Krug didn’t block. He stepped into it.

He caught the drill shaft with his left hand—his armored gauntlet screeching against the spinning metal. Sparks showered his face, but he didn’t even blink.

With a roar, Krug twisted his hips and swung his axe with his right hand.

SHING.

The axe bit deep into Korg’s neck. It didn’t stop. It cleaved through the collarbone, through the ribs, and buried itself in the lung.

The drill stopped spinning.

Krug ripped the axe out. Korg fell to his knees, blood bubbling from his mouth.

“Your… steel…” Korg gurgled.

“My iron,” Krug corrected.

He kicked Korg over.

The silence that followed was heavy. The surviving Troglodytes—maybe 150 of them—stopped fighting. They looked at their dead Warlord (in the pit). They looked at their dead Elder (on the ground).

They dropped their hammers.

“Mercy!” one shouted. “We yield!”

“We go back!” another cried, backing toward the gate. “We leave the mountain! We leave!”

They turned to run. They huddled together, a broken, weeping mass, waiting for the victors to let them flee. It was the custom of war. The defeated ran, the victors looted.

Red watched from above. ‘Victory achieved,’ he thought. ‘Now they let them run to spread the fear.’

But Krug didn’t lower his axe.

He looked at the Shell-Kin who lay dead, its shell cracked open. He looked at a Grey-Fin clutching a crushed arm.

Krug looked at the gate.

“Close it,” Krug ordered.

The Treants at the gate shifted. Their roots interlocked. The exit was sealed.

The Troglodytes froze.

“No…” one whispered. “We yielded! We yielded!”

Krug turned to his army. His voice was low, vibrating with the absolute authority of the Apex.

“They came to eat,” Krug said. “They came to break the Temple.”

He pointed his axe at the huddled survivors.

“Do not let them leave. The North must know that we do not take prisoners. We take Tribute.”

Iron-Scale grinned, raising his spear. “For the Void!”

[ COMMAND: TOTAL ANNIHILATION ]

The massacre began.

It wasn’t a battle anymore. It was an extermination. The Shell-Kin advanced, pushing the screaming Troglodytes into the corners. The Treants smashed anyone who tried to climb the walls. The Grey-Fins stabbed systematically.

There was no honor. There was no glory. There was only the wet, butcher-shop sound of slaughter.

Red watched the counter drop. 150 Enemies… 100… 50… 10… 0.

When it was over, the Plaza was painted in crimson. Not a single Obsidian-Claw soldier was left alive.

Krug stood in the center of the lake of blood. He raised his axe to the sky.

“IT IS DONE!” Krug roared.

“IT IS DONE!” the army screamed back.

In the Void, Red felt a chill go down his spectral spine. He looked at his Faith Counter.

[ BATTLE WON: THE SIEGE OF BASTION ]

[ RATING: SSS (ANNIHILATION) ] [ FEAR GENERATED: IMMENSE ]

[ FAITH TRAIT EVOLVED: MERCILESS ]

“I created a monster,” Red whispered, looking at the carnage.

He paused, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“G.G”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep