120: Duke's Palace Battle 2

"Vera!" I twisted my head and screamed towards the back, my voice torn to shreds by the explosions on the battlefield.

The Water Sprite's slender fingertips glowed with frost, and the moment the three-edged ice crystal leaped in her palm, a hexagonal ice crystal shield suddenly condensed above the siege ram squad's heads.

"Boom... crackle, crackle, crackle... hiss..."

A crimson fireball, accompanied by the shriek of distorted air, slammed into the ice shield. The crisp sound of ice shattering and the roar of flames erupting intertwined into a teeth-grinding wave of sound.

The melting ice shield transformed into boiling steam, yet it enveloped over twenty warriors in a milky white purgatory like a scalding shroud.

Amidst the continuous screams, the sizzling sound of scorching skin mixed in. Vera's pale lips pressed into a blade-like line, and her ten fingers intertwined to draw a summoning rune.

The surging steam suddenly solidified, turning into a spiral water vortex that was sucked into the belly of the Water Elemental, which appeared out of thin air like a whale. Droplets of water along the way scalded tiny indentations into the snow.

"Sally!" My throat tasted of rust.

The Forest Dryad Sally's emerald hair billowed without wind, and over a dozen tender green vines burst from the ground at her feet, gently wrapping around each scorched body—new flesh beneath the blistered, swollen skin flowed like a stream thawing in early spring, instantly washing away all traces of wounds.

At the same time, Dawn Priest Brann's Eagle Eye took effect.

"Behind the courtyard gate, fifty shield soldiers are arrayed directly in front! Forty soldiers on each of the castle's left and right flanks! Three mages are casting spells on the balcony!" Dawn Priest Brann's pupils, enhanced by Eagle Eye, constricted to pinpoints, his voice hoarse with urgency, "Two! Two Fireballs have launched!"

Before he finished, two incandescent fireballs had already torn through the smoke above the courtyard gate.

Kovenreid's roar exploded almost simultaneously: "Scatter! Siege Ram squad! Retreat to the left and right! Thirty feet apart! Retreat at least thirty feet to each side! Quick!"

The warriors of the Siege Ram squad thundered to both sides, their burning boot prints branded into the pristine snow.

"Sally! Vivofen! Vera! Protect the siege ram!" My roar collided with the sound waves bouncing off the alley walls, "Roof Mage Corps! Two Fireballs, blast the enemy's mage balcony!"

The Forest Dryad Sally's fingertips burst with emerald light, and the wood grain on the siege ram's surface suddenly twisted into a grotesque face. The giant log let out a low roar.

Tree Animation! This giant log had gained temporary consciousness.

Immediately after, the Druid Vivofen's oak staff struck the ground heavily, and three layers of thorn runes spiraled up the ram's body. The green-light-wrapped surface of the giant log gleamed with fire-resistant resin.

Three-ring Abjuration spell: Protection from Energy! It enhanced its fire resistance.

Vera's Water Elemental disintegrated with a roar at this moment, its liquid barrier flowing like mercury to envelop the entire siege ram.

Her frost-colored hair danced wildly in the magical torrent, and five ice shields vertically impaled the ground from mid-air.

"Boom... crackle, crackle... hiss, hiss, hiss..."

Each ice shield was angled at a precise sixty degrees—the first shield exploded into an icy mist, weakening the fireball's momentum; the second shield cracked, deflecting its trajectory; the third shield collided with and annihilated the fireball shot by the enemy mage; the remnants of the fourth and fifth shields landed exactly three yards in front of the soldier formation that had completed its dodge.

At the same time, two of the mages who had reached the rooftop cast Fireball.

Two orange-red fire shadows shot out, narrowly missing the enemy's fireball spells.

The crisp sounds of ice shields bursting merged into a continuous roar, and the Water Elemental's shattered body and steam were swept skyward by the shockwave.

As the white mist ascended a hundred feet into the air, our Fireball happened to explode in the enemy formation.

The diffused steam in the air suddenly compressed into a perfectly round giant body. Boiling bubbles churned on the surface of the sixty-foot-diameter Steam Water Elemental, looking like a scorching white meteorite suspended by invisible threads.

This roaring cloud of mist plunged directly towards the southeast tower, and the stone crenellations hissed like hot iron in water upon contact.

Before the wails dissipated, it had already snaked along the east wall, and from the arrow slits it passed, the wails of enemy archers and the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground could be heard consecutively.

"Siege Ram squad, reposition!" Kovenreid's sword hilt struck the end of the siege ram, and the iron-clad giant log rolled over the still-smoking flagstones.

When the Steam Water Elemental completed its death tour around the courtyard wall, the archer watchtowers and stone walls above were like an ant hill licked clean by a giant beast, with only a few scattered crossbow bolts crookedly embedded in the battlements.

"Thud!"

The fire-resistant resin-coated ram head kissed the iron gate for the first time, and the iron sheet in the center of the door twisted upon impact.

"Thud!!"

The second blow caused the bronze hinges around the door frame to emit a death rattle like a dying giant beast. Falling rust reflected the lingering rainbow glow of the Steam Water Elemental in the rising dust.

Twenty minutes later, the sizzling sound of acid corroding the bronze door hinges suddenly turned into the ear-splitting sound of metal fatigue and fracture.

The two multi-ton iron-clad oak doors, like giant beasts with their spines removed, slowly tilted inward with a teeth-grinding creak.

The moment the doors slammed into the ground, the raised dust, carrying shattered stones, swept across the scales of the front-line enemy troops. The roar of half the defenders being crushed into meat paste was mixed with the crisp sound of bones shattering.

"Roll over them!" Kovenreid's sword cut through the dust curtain, and the sound wave of two hundred pairs of armored boots simultaneously stamping shattered the last few precarious stained-glass windows.

The Flame Fist Soldiers' scarlet cloaks formed a tide of blood, instantly sweeping over the porch steps, while the enemy's former mage balcony remained as silent as a dead eagle's nest, only charred stone railings retaining the scorch marks of fireballs.

When Vivofen's vines crushed the last two ballistas in the west tower, the wails on the east wall had turned into scattered pleas for mercy.

I stepped over the still-uncongealed pool of blood on the porch. The newly hired mage was injecting silver-blue light of magic-breaking into the castle's main door's arcane lock. Amidst the clicking of gears, twenty black iron door bolts snapped off consecutively like dead branches broken by an invisible giant hand.

Kedas's oak holy staff sparked against a pillar in the main hall, and the Dawn Holy Emblems of the priestly order illuminated the murals on the arch ceiling.

Holy Knights, with their giant shields, guarded me, who held twin tusked swords, as I crossed the threshold. The elite squad followed behind and also entered the Duke's Mansion.

The moment I stepped into the hall, the roar of metal collisions exploded under the arch ceiling, echoing continuously.

I had not yet adjusted to the dim light stained red by the blood mist when the crisp sound of the connecting corridor's stone railing collapsing came from above my head.

The massive body of a hostile Orc warrior, carrying a Fishy Wind, fell, obscuring the crystal chandelier. The wind pressure from its leap overturned an unsecured candelabra ten yards away.

"Lord!" Randall's steel shield, emblazoned with the crown holy emblem, preemptively moved into my blind spot.

The black iron heavy blade striking the shield face erupted in sparks like a furnace backfiring. The Holy Knight took a half-step left, rotated to dissipate the force, and the shield edge grinding against the blade produced a sharp, skull-numbing metallic shriek. The Orc's bulging arm muscles almost burst through its leather wrist guards.

"Grrr-ah!" Saliva carrying a bestial stench sprayed from the Orc's tusks. The heavy blade suddenly spun upward at an angle defying physics, and the blade wind ripped off the golden tassels of Randall's left shoulder cape.

That seven-foot-long weapon now transformed into a steel hurricane. Wherever it passed, carpets burst, and the surface of stone pillars instantly became covered with spiderweb-like sword marks, forcing all of us to alternately retreat and block.