Free Web NovelChapter 203: The Battle for Herald City - Part 8
With Starlight’s speed, it didn’t take more than a minute for Vanessa to cross the wall, where she saw the rest of the city’s defenders heavily engaged in a back-and-forth battle with the beasts.
The soldiers, guards, and militia were still somewhat scattered and disorganized, many of them fighting independently or in small groups rather than as a unified whole; this left them vulnerable and resulted in casualties continuing to pile up.
It was only thanks to the few Mortal Realm elites and the Spirit Initiates that the line still remained relatively intact; however, it was clear that the situation was tenuous and could turn for the worse at any moment.
Teacher was right, if the enemy’s fliers were to attack right now, the city would be at serious risk, Vanessa thought to herself as she gripped her bow a little tighter.
Up ahead, on the dark horizon, Vanessa could just barely make out the form of approaching aerial beasts. They were still too far off to get an accurate count, or identify their species, but from what the veteran Commander could tell, there were probably about 600 enemies in total.
It was a slightly higher number than expected, but given the night’s conditions and the distance between them, it was only natural for there to be a wide margin of error in such estimates.
Under normal circumstances, Vanessa wouldn’t have even tried to take on 600 flying Wild Beasts alone, even if they were all in the First Order; after all, her strength and stamina were not inexhaustible.
Even a mighty High-Rank Adept like Celestina could be overwhelmed if confronted with enough weak but determined enemies, much less Vanessa in her current half-depleted state. However, the humans of Herald City literally had their backs up against the wall right now, so Commander Clark had no choice but to engage.
Urging Starlight forward, Vanessa swiftly closed the gap between her and the enemy.
Ordinarily, she would have started shooting arrows from a distance of 1,000 metres, as that was about her maximum effective range; but given her depleted Internal Qi and lack of arrows, she decided to hold her fire until she got to within 500 metres of her targets instead.
Lifting her bow and aiming at what she perceived to be the lead flying beast, Vanessa momentarily regretted not gathering arrows from her allies; however, she knew that was impossible to begin with.
As a Peak-Rank Spirit Initiate, the arrows Vanessa used were naturally not ordinary. They weren’t Spirit Armaments of course, but in order to withstand the force being applied to them, and the Spirit Qi which was injected into them, Peak-Rank Tier 2 Mortal Grade materials were the absolute minimum requirement.
Any arrow made from weaker materials was likely to just snap when she tried to fire them; in fact, all the arrows Vanessa was currently carrying were fashioned from at least Low-Rank Tier 3 materials.
While there were over a million arrows in Herald City at the outset of the battle, less than 1% of those met the minimum standard for Vanessa to use in combat, and the majority of those had already been shot by her and the other Spirit Initiates by the time the enemy air forces appeared.
Vanessa actually had the most arrows left of any of the Spirit Initiates because, as an Aerial Cavalry Commander, her primary weapon had always been the bow. All the other Spirit Initiates only used a bow as a secondary weapon, even if they were highly proficient with one.
If Vanessa had gone around and requisitioned all the arrows the other Spirit Initiates still had, she probably would have ended up with another 200 at the very most. That might have been enough to make some difference in the air, but it also would have left the Commanders on the ground without any real means of launching long ranged attacks.
Which of these two scenarios was more advantageous to the city’s defence was unclear, so it might still have been worth it for Vanessa to make that request.
The real problem, however, was time. freewebnσvel.cѳm
Given that the other Spirit Initiates were all spread out and engaged in combat, the time needed to gather arrows from even some of them would have allowed the enemy fliers to breach the city.
Stopping the enemy before the reached the walls was the highest priority in this situation, so Vanessa had to proceed to the battlefield with all haste.
There was, of course, Celestina, who Vanessa was with just moments before she set out. As a Complete High-Rank Adept and master archer, Celestina naturally had a large reserve of arrows left, but the thought of borrowing those from her former teacher never occurred to Vanessa.
While it was debatable whether it was better to take the arrows from the other Spirit Initiates, there was no such question when it came to the General. Those arrows were far more useful in Celestina’s hands than Vanessa’s.
Shaking off all these distracting thoughts, Vanessa drew her bow, aimed, and began rapidly firing.
10 seconds into the fight, Vanessa had shot nearly 20 arrows, striking down 12 beasts. It was an impressive kill-count, beyond even Commander Clark’s expectations, but such good fortune wasn’t destined to last.
The opening volley had simply caught the enemy off-guard.
None of these Wild Beasts had the necessary experience or intelligence to realize that the enemy before them could effectively attack from such great distance; however, once they became aware of the threat, they naturally began to scatter and dodge.
As the cluster of aerial beasts broke up and began taking evasive action, Vanessa’s rate of fire dropped to around 1 or 2 shots every 5 seconds, and her accuracy also sank to around 25%.
Undeterred, Vanessa urged her partner to increase speed and charge straight into the horde.
Plunging into the enemy ranks, Vanessa swung her bow left and right, trying to target the Third Order Beasts first as they were undoubtedly the biggest threat to the city and its defenders. The problem was that these particular beasts were also the strongest and fastest in this swarm, making them the most difficult to hit.
At the same time, Starlight didn’t just fly in a straight line and instead swerved back and forth, picking off some of the smaller, weaker beasts which failed to get away in time.
Golden Hawks were both swift and powerful hunters, even compared to other Fourth Order flying beasts, so it wasn’t difficult for Starlight to tear apart a few First and Second Order Beasts. No beasts below the Third Order could survive a hit from Starlight’s tough wings or sharp talons.
Although his kill-count was nowhere near as impressive as his rider’s, every downed enemy was one less foe the humans on the ground had to worry about.
About half-way through the mass of flying beasts, Vanessa shifted her weight, signaling her partner to wheel right, a command Starlight followed without any delay. The two of them had fought together for several decades, so their cooperation was flawless and even subtle gestures and movements could convey their intent to each other.
As the pair made a hard right banking turn, Vanessa leaned back as far as she could and aimed at the beasts closest to the city.
Ordinarily, she would have plowed straight through the entire flight of beasts to further disperse them, easing the pressure she was facing, but in this situation, her objective was to keep the beasts as tightly packed as possible.
Her priority wasn’t to defeat the enemy, but to prevent them from reaching the defence line.
Despite her awkward posture, Vanessa was now firing at her targets from much closer and from their rear blind-spots, so it should have been easier to score hits; however, after her initial charge, the enemy had seemingly been spooked and the beasts were now flying both frantically and erratically.
There was also the fact that the leading beasts of the horde she was aiming at were now over 500 metres away and accelerating, making it difficult for Vanessa, who was still in the process of turning, to shoot them down.
Vanessa completed her high-speed maneuver and was adjusting her aim again when she suddenly sensed an unusual gust of wind approaching from right behind her. Startled, she whipped her head back just in time to see a massive fleshy wing sweep towards her.
Ducking hurriedly, Vanessa kicked Starlight into a nosedive, narrowly avoiding the surprise attack.
Damn it, I must be more exhausted than I thought! Vanessa cursed to herself.
She had been caught off-guard by the enemy, a mistake she would normally never have made, but it seemed the strain on both her focus and Soul Qi had been too much tonight and her awareness had suffered as a result.
Grabbing the reins again and pulling hard, Vanessa halted Starlight’s descent and flicked her head up to get a better idea of what she was dealing with.
Roughly 100 metres up and slightly in front of her, she spotted an enormous pitch-black beast flapping it’s wings hard yet oddly quietly. Against the moonless night, it was almost impossible to spot this creature with the naked eye, so Vanessa had to lock her Soul Sense onto it while it was still close.
As she probed this new enemy, Vanessa frowned as she recognized it as a Sickle Bat, a predator known for swift, deadly attacks and silent movements. In short, it was a stalker, specialized in hunting at night.
A High-Rank Fourth Order Beast, Vanessa quickly determined the strength of her new foe. However, just because this creature was weaker than both her and Starlight didn’t mean Vanessa relaxed, because she knew this Sickle Bat wasn’t alone.
