Chapter 166: Chapter 145: Hobia’s Meat Grinder
Over a dozen Cold Lizards had already burst through the city gate. Their eyes glinted with frenzied light as they bared their sharp teeth, charging straight for the Heavy Armor Soldiers.
The soldiers on the walls saw this as well, and their hearts filled with shock. If the Cold Lizards got inside the city proper, they would cause immense destruction.
Moreover, it meant that if the defense at the gate was crushed, the men on the walls would be caught between enemies in front and behind.
At the same time, the Cloud Ladders carried by the Giant Lizards were slammed against the walls. Agile Spirit Lizard Scouts and Scouts followed close behind, shrieking wildly as they scrambled up the ladders in an attempt to storm the ramparts.
"Archers! Concentrate your fire! Shoot those Lizardmen climbing the ladders!" the Third Prince’s voice rang out again, tinged with anxiety.
The other soldiers on the walls attacked the climbing Lizardmen with longspears and stones. Some Lizardmen were struck and fell from the Cloud Ladders, but even more continued their ascent.
This was a battle for survival. They had to hold their ground and prevent the Lizardmen from taking the walls.
The Third Prince’s breathing grew ragged. According to Henry, there were a hundred of those monsters, massive compared to humans, and they had only just managed to kill four or five of them.
"Baron Henry! By order of the Third Prince! Take your soldiers and reinforce the city gate! We’ll take over here!" A large group of soldiers in Cotton Armor, with a few wearing Chain Armor, rushed over. Their leader, an officer clad in triple-layered heavy armor, looked up at Henry and shouted.
Henry looked at the troops, clearly a unit cobbled together from local Militia, and asked, "I have nearly three hundred elite soldiers here. Are you capable of replacing us?"
The officer immediately replied, "Those giant beasts have broken through the gate. The defenders on the west, east, and north walls have all diverted forces to the south gate. The Legion’s soldiers from the encampment outside are now entering the city through the north gate."
Henry said no more. He immediately led his soldiers off the wall and charged toward the city gate.
The officer immediately led the Militia to take over the defense. Watching the Lizardmen climbing up, he roared, "Brothers! Defend our homes!"
Longspears, stones, and hot oil rained down in turn on the Lizardmen climbing the Cloud Ladders. The battle on the walls grew exceptionally fierce.
The charging power of the Cold Lizards was indeed immense. Relying on their massive bodies, they smashed directly through the front rank of the formation of Heavy Armor Soldiers.
Under the beasts’ impact, the soldiers in the first rank were crushed, armor and all. Some were knocked down and trampled to death by the Cold Lizards. The scene was utterly gruesome.
However, as anyone who has fought in sieges knows, a gateway is a narrow chokepoint, and there were simply too many Heavy Armor Soldiers.
They were tall and powerfully built. While the average Imperial citizen stood at 1.6 or 1.7 meters, these warriors averaged 1.8 meters tall.
As elite veterans, their rations were of a very high standard. While it wasn’t a feast of fish and meat every day, they were at least guaranteed a daily serving of meat broth, dried meat, potato flour, millet porridge, and some fruit.
A hundred years ago, this was the lifestyle of a landed Knight.
A thousand of these strapping men, clad in heavy armor and wielding high-quality steel weapons, managed to stubbornly block the giant beasts inside the gateway after withstanding their initial, ferocious charge.
In that moment, the soldiers’ counterattack erupted with astonishing power. A forest of steel-tipped spears stabbed into the Cold Lizards’ bodies. Behind each frantic thrust was a warrior’s desperate will to live.
The Crossbowmen in the rear used iron-reinforced heavy crossbows, concentrating their fire on the Cold Lizards’ heads. Every shot was unerringly precise; even the Cold Lizards’ tough hides and scales couldn’t stop them.
Some of the Heavy Armor Soldiers frantically hacked at the Cold Lizards’ legs with battle axes, warhammers, and Two-Handed Swords, trying to make them lose their footing. Whenever one of the great beasts fell, a swarm of warriors would descend upon it, chopping wildly.
Every second, Heavy Armor Soldiers were bitten to pieces or sent flying. The power of a great beast like the Cold Lizard against humans was self-evident.
But before these desperate Heavy Armor Soldiers, the momentum of their charge gradually weakened.
Meanwhile, Spirit Lizards were continuously climbing the Cloud Ladders, trying to storm the top of the wall.
These defensive units, composed of Imperial Skilled Infantry, regular Imperial infantry, and elite Militia, were all light and medium-armored soldiers.
Now, they faced the onslaught of Spirit Lizard Warriors and Spirit Lizard Scouts.
The Spirit Lizard Warriors braved a hail of arrows, stones, and hot oil to get onto the wall-walk. They darted across the ramparts with incredible agility, their movements so fluid the soldiers could hardly track them.
Each of their attacks put immense pressure on the soldiers. The Militia were often isolated and forced to fight back with only longspears and shortswords, but against the speed of the Spirit Lizard Warriors, they were usually forced onto the defensive.
They hadn’t undergone long-term military training; they were essentially being forced into a role they weren’t prepared for. They performed well enough during their crash course, but froze up when the real fighting began.
The Skilled Infantry, on the other hand, focused more on teamwork. They formed small squads to support each other, ganging up on the Spirit Lizard Warriors.
Shields, Heavy Swords, and war-blades were their primary weapons. They used their shields to block the Spirit Lizard Warriors’ attacks, while their Long Swords and war-blades delivered fatal blows at opportune moments.
In addition to the short-spear-wielding Spirit Lizard Warriors, the moment the Spirit Lizard Scouts leaped onto the wall, they unleashed a volley of Javelins that rained down upon the soldiers.
Their skill with the Javelin was superb, as if they had mastered the weapon from the moment of their birth.
The soldiers had to remain constantly vigilant, relying on their shields and sheer luck to dodge the deadly projectiles.
The Militiamen forced into single combat were usually at a disadvantage. Lacking the speed and strength of the Spirit Lizard Warriors, they would most likely have their chests or abdomens torn open, left to lie on the ground and wail in agony.
They would bleed out until they finally died.
The fight involving the Skilled Infantry, in contrast, was a chaotic brawl. The soldiers formed ad-hoc teams of five or six to engage the Spirit Lizard Warriors in fierce close-quarters combat.
Both sides searched for an opening in their opponent’s defense, trying to find a breakthrough amidst the chaos.
The soldiers capitalized on their temporary numerical superiority on the walls, continuously trying to surround the Spirit Lizard Warriors. The lizard-like warriors, in turn, used their agility and strength to try and break the encirclement.
When the Skilled Infantry managed to corner a lone Spirit Lizard Warrior, the creature’s death was always gruesome.
Limbs were hacked off, heads were severed, and green blood sprayed everywhere.
Disgusting...
At the gate, Giant Lizards began dragging away the corpses of the Cold Lizards. The bodies of the great beasts had piled up in the gateway, forming a barricade of flesh that, while hindering the Lizardmen’s advance, actually provided cover for the humans.
The Lizardmen shifted their tactics, moving the brunt of their assault from the savage charge of the Cold Lizards to their Giant Lizard Warriors and Lizardman Warriors.
While these warriors weren’t as large as the Cold Lizards, their strength and combat skills were far superior.
The Giant Lizard Warriors swung heavy mauls. Each time one struck a Heavy Armor Soldier, it caved in a large section of their armor, causing the soldier to spit up a mouthful of blood and collapse, unable to rise.
The Lizardman Warriors, for their part, leaped directly into the soldiers’ formation, fighting with their sharp Obsidian Weapons.
Henry often employed this very tactic himself, enjoying sending his Heavy Armor Soldiers crashing into groups of lightly armored foes to inflict massive casualties.
’I never expected to be on the receiving end,’ he thought.
The mangled remains of fallen Heavy Armor Soldiers were quickly dragged away as reserves from the rear promptly filled the gaps.
Unfortunately, the Lizardmen had already breached the gateway, breaking the line the men had defended so desperately. More and more of them were pouring through.
To retreat now would mean the fall of the city and the death of everyone inside.
Henry and his troops were in the rear, serving as the reserve force.
Watching the brutal battle, Henry could no longer bear it. He felt nothing but rage, the power in his body boiling!
Without waiting for orders from the officer in charge, he hefted his great axe and charged forward alone.
The attacks from the Lizardman Warriors and Giant Lizards could damage Henry’s armor, but none were fatal.
In contrast, whenever Henry’s great axe struck a Lizardman or a Giant Lizard, if the creature didn’t die outright, it was left critically maimed.
His figure cut across the battlefield like a black thunderbolt!
Henry’s technique was exquisite; he could pinpoint the weaknesses of the Lizardman Warriors with unerring accuracy.
His great axe carved perfect arcs, hacking the Lizardman Warriors to pieces and leaving no chance for them to recover.
The heavy mauls of the Giant Lizard Warriors could easily dent the armor of the Heavy Armor Soldiers, but against Henry, their attacks only left insignificant pits in his armor.
However, the immense strength of the Giant Lizards was still jarring, and the impacts sometimes staggered him.
Against the Giant Lizards, Henry’s attacks were even more vicious.
The strength and Endurance of these brutes were astonishing. If he couldn’t kill them in one blow, they would simply keep fighting.
"ROAR!"
A Giant Lizard blocked Henry’s great axe, then tried to claw at his face with its massive, sharp talons.
But Henry was faster. He jabbed his armored gauntlet directly into the Giant Lizard’s eye, instantly crushing it.
Green blood and ocular fluid splattered as the Giant Lizard let out a piercing shriek, writhing in agony on the ground.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Henry wrenched his great axe free and swung again, severing the Giant Lizard’s head.
The soldiers who witnessed this were frightened at first, but they quickly began shouting wildly—things like "Kill!" and "Cut them down!"—and their morale surged.
They roared "Baron Henry!" and continued to fight the Lizardmen. At that moment, Henry had become a dazzling sight on the battlefield...
After losing over a hundred of their number, the Lizardmen were once again forced back into the gateway by Henry and the other soldiers.
’The way they’re looking at me, the ferocity of their attacks... it’s completely different,’ Henry suddenly realized. ’Could it be because of my Chaos Armor and weapon?’
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