Chapter 923: A Deliberate Provocation
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
A shrill alarm rang and grabbed everyone's attention.
"Woo—woo—"
Everyone stood agape.
It was the highest alert again!
Wendy was the first one to recover from the shock. "Your Majesty, please retreat to the castle right now!"
However, Roland did not move since he was greatly surprised by Tilly and Ashes, who came close to him swiftly after hearing the alert. The Extraordinary stood in front of them and Tilly grabbed his wrist.
He felt something as cold as a metal around his wrist.
He looked down and saw the ring on Tilly's finger shining a bright blue light. Obviously, she was ready to fly with him down into the mining area in case of emergency.
Somehow Roland forgot about the danger and focused his mind on Tilly.
Unlike Nightingale who trusted him wholeheartedly, Tilly had not yet recognized him as her brother.
She was too smart to be deceived.
She called him brother just to maintain good relations with him.
In fact, there was still an invisible barrier between them, and because of Tilly's attitude, Ashes always seemed a little restrained in front of him. He was unable to explain to Tilly that what Prince Roland had done to her back in the palace had nothing to do with him. Given that, he had lied to her and never expected much from her. However, now he felt relieved.
He found that he had already won her trust and recognition as an ally, even if she might still have a doubt about his identity.
"Yes, this place is too close to the city wall at the border. Your Majesty, please leave here as soon as possible!"
"Guards, where are the guards?"
"Come, clear the way for His Majesty!" The officials also came to their senses now and started to shout.
The people' voices, together with the alert, turned the scene into pure chaos.
The noises recalled Roland from his reflections. Seeing such a tense situation, he could not help knitting his eyebrows and thought, "Maybe the frontier guards have already spotted some demons?"
He looked to the west and was lost in thought. "Now that Sylvie is on the watch for demons, the alarm can't be false. And the frontier guards' highest alert must be about the demons. I heard that they should remain dormant for some time since they don't have enough Red Mist. Did their supplies arrived at the Taquila ruins recently?"
He wanted to go to the city wall to have a look personally, but he quickly gave up the idea. He did not want to increase the burden for the frontier guards since Nightingale and the main force of the First Army had not arrived yet.
When they walked down the North Slope Mountain, he summoned Wendy and said to her, "Regardless of the situation, send me any news from the City Wall as soon as you receive it."
"Yes," Wendy promised with a solemn face.
...
Watching the enemies approaching quickly, Sylvie felt her hands were wet.
It was not the first time for her to see demons, but they still made her feel stressed out.
"One, two, three, four, five, six." She counted the number of the Devilbeasts who were flying toward Neverwinter in a horizontal line. In the Eye of Magic, every detail of the enemies was clearly discernible. Just like Alethea had mentioned, not every Devilbeast took a Mad Demon on its back. Two of them looked just like pack horses and carried bone vessels which looked like bumps on their backs.
She zoomed in and saw the Red Mist surging inside the bumps.
Obviously, they were their mist tanks for this long-distance raid.
But... why are the demons launching an attack so early?
For the moment, they should stay close to the God's Stone mineral vein at the Taquila ruins, waiting for the Bloody Moon.
Sylvie was bewildered by the sudden appearance of the demons. Fortunately, the frontier guards' quick response made her feel relieved. They had already removed the cannon covers and gotten ready for the combat. If the enemies continued to fly in this direction, they would come within the cannons' range in seven or eight minutes.
"Miss Sylvie, someone called to ask which direction the enemies were heading for. And if they plan to enter the city, can you estimate which blocks they will fly over?" The guard who was in charge of communication asked.
In order to transmit the information about the enemies' situation on time, Roland had moved the wind-up telephone prototype, which had been made in the backyard of the North Slope Mountain, to the city wall. Apart from the telephone line linking Neverwinter and Longsong Stronghold, it was the first telephone line in the city. Limited by the length, the telephone at the other end of the line was installed at the entrance of the Third Border City. Roland had arranged two guards to assist Sylvie in communication and had sent two God's Punishment Witches to protect her.
"Road No.5 or No.9," Sylvie wiped the sweat from her hands. "But they may also fly toward the square. There're still some people left behind."
She was worried that once the Devilbeasts rushed into the crowded market, the consequences would be disastrous.
"I got it." The guard picked up the phone and repeated what Sylvie had to the person at the other end of the telephone line.
"Wait!" Sylvie suddenly raised her voice. "They're ascending!"
"Are they planning to fly over the city wall?" The guard was anxious.
"But they slowed down at the same time. Now the guards on top of the city wall should be able to see them directly."
Before she finished her sentence, she heard the vague noise of gunshots coming through the phone.
The guards of the city wall were elite soldiers of the First Army, who had taken part in the snow mountain exploration. They remained calm at the sight of the demons. Several teams took turns to fire and tried to maintain a low rate of fire in an attempt to conserve bullets.
At this moment, Sylvie noticed a problem.
For the guards, hitting targets in the sky was much harder that shooting down some demonic beasts or God's Punishment Warriors on the ground.
As they were unable to predict the enemies' movements in the sky, they had no idea which angle they should use. As a result, the Devilbeasts remained intact after several rounds of firing and now they were only about 150 meters away from the city wall
They stayed more than 100 meters above the ground and thus the guards had to lift their barrels to aim at the enemies. The soldiers drastically increased their firing rate, but still failed to hit any target.
At the moment, the Devilbeasts stopped flying forward and hovered in the sky.
The Mad Demons' arms were swelling rapidly.
"No!" Sylvie could not help crying out. "Inform the guards to retreat from the city wall as soon as possible!"
"What?" The guard was confused. "Retreat?"
Unfortunately, it was too late. The demons had already thrown their bone spears. In the blink of an eye, four beams of white light came down to the city wall and struck at the defenseless guards. The wall built by Lotus was unable to protect them from attacks coming from the sky.
Beyond Sylvie's expectation, instead of launching the second round of attacks, the demons only emitted some weird noise after their arms withered and threw several animal skins down. After that, they turned around and flew toward the grassland. That was where they came from.
This sudden attack ended just as suddenly. After a while, they disappeared over the horizon.
Sylvie could not bear to see the situation of the city wall. The guards who got impaled by the bone spears were dead. No matter how hard the other soldiers shook them, they would not open their eyes again. The blood coming from their wounds formed a pool of blood under their bodies.
The animal skins left by the demons were slowly falling through the air, turning out to be pictures.
The most striking one among them was a portrait of a big wolf.