Chapter 288 - 156: The 97-Kilometer-Long No. 7 Defense Line

Chapter 288: Chapter 156: The 97-Kilometer-Long No. 7 Defense Line

But...

By now, the surface of the City Wall was scarred in countless places. Its original color was long gone, buried beneath stains of blood and a viscous green liquid.

Atop the City Wall.

Countless people were rushing about.

Some were repairing the sections of the City Wall damaged the previous night.

Some were inspecting the turrets one by one, checking their reserves and replenishing them with enough Ghost Stones.

Others were building new turrets.

Hundreds of thousands of people bustled about on the seemingly endless City Wall, like swarms of ants building their nest.

"Hey!"

A middle-aged man, clad in Armor and covered in wounds, walked panting up to a young man and said with urgency, "What are you doing standing there in a daze? Get to repairing the City Wall! The Ghost Tide grew much fiercer last night. Tonight’s assault is sure to be even more intense."

"..."

The young man didn’t speak. He just crouched on the City Wall, staring at a corner.

There, ants had built a tunnel.

Red ants, it seemed.

It was a tunnel constructed from their secretions and grit. Tunnels like this usually appeared on the surface of tree trunks; seeing one on the City Wall was a rare sight.

The ant colony would build such tunnels to defend against their natural enemies.

The next moment—

The young man extended his right hand and pressed down hard on the tunnel, shattering a section of it in an instant.

The young man spoke, his voice distant.

"I’m wondering... does this defense line we’ve built really have any value? Maybe it’s just like this tunnel built by the ants. We think it’s indestructible, but in reality, it shatters with a single touch."

The armored middle-aged man’s brow furrowed. He didn’t reply at first, knowing that recent events had dealt a heavy blow to the young Architect.

He just waited patiently.

Soon.

Swarms of ants poured out from both sides of the break and began mending the shattered passage. In no time at all, the tunnel was completely repaired.

"You see?"

The middle-aged man smiled. "Even if the defense line shatters, more people will come to mend it."

"This defense line of ours is called the No. 7 Defense Line."

"It’s one of the most important defense lines on the Eternal Night Continent. Right now, the main force of the Ghost Tide is attacking the front lines. What’s spilling over to us is just a fraction of their numbers, so the pressure isn’t as great. But we absolutely must hold."

"If our line breaks,"

"Behind us is nothing but open plains."

"The countless factions and civilians there would be powerless against a Ghost Tide of this magnitude. Innumerable people would die."

"I know."

The young Architect stood up and walked to the edge of the City Wall, gazing out at the coastline several thousand meters away. "Of course I know," he said softly.

"I just don’t understand something."

"The No. 7 Defense Line keeps them safe. Without it, everyone on the Guandong Plain would die. They should be grateful to us."

"So why aren’t they? Why won’t they even spare some Ghost Stones to help us?"

"..."

The middle-aged man was at a loss for words, unsure what to say. This front line was built by the Eternal Night Hall, and the Ghost Stones used to maintain it were also allocated by the Hall.

The Eternal Night Hall was not a faction.

It was an organization.

Any faction could join this organization, which had been jointly established by the strongest powers on the Eternal Night Continent. It brought a multitude of factions under one banner, pooling all their resources to deploy several defense lines across the continent to fend off the Ghost Object invasion.

Many people only knew one thing:

When eternal night fell, Ghost Objects would appear.

But what they didn’t know was...

...the Ghost Objects that appeared within the Eternal Night Continent were merely small fry. The truly terrifying ones were in the sea, constantly trying to storm the mainland, only to be held back by the defense lines established by the Eternal Night Hall.

If any one of those defense lines were to fall, the resulting disaster would be catastrophic.

"..."

After a long silence, the middle-aged man spoke, his voice hoarse.

"Actually..."

"The situation on the Eternal Night Frontline isn’t good. Many Ghost Objects have developed intelligence, making them much harder to deal with. Several defense lines have already fallen."

"The Eternal Night Hall has paid a heavy price to build temporary defense lines behind the fallen ones, managing to hold the Ghost Tide back once more."

"But we’ve lost a lot of territory in the process."

"A lot of people have died."

"The losses have been staggering."

"The Eternal Night Hall no longer has the resources to send people to help us with these matters. Even the Ghost Stones they sent were scraped together. We’ve already sent men to the major factions in the Guandong Plain to collect Ghost Stones. The results haven’t been great, but we managed to gather a small amount."

If the Eternal Night Hall could send their own people, there wouldn’t be so much trouble.

Hand over the Ghost Stones and live.

Refuse, and die.

With the Eternal Night Continent facing annihilation, no one had the luxury of debating morality. The defenders of the wall wished they could operate this way, but they clearly lacked the power. They were only responsible for guarding and maintaining this defense line, with the authority to use its installations. They had no way of marching into the territories of those other factions and forcing their hand.

"..."

The young man said nothing, merely gazing out at the sea.

If a forest is struck by a heavenly fire,

the best way to stop it is to cut down a swath of trees ahead of its path, creating a firebreak so it can’t spread with the wind.

If a defense line is breached,

the emergency protocol is the same: establish a temporary defense line further back.

Of course, the price is immense.

And—

—everyone between the old, fallen line and the new, temporary one is left with almost no hope of survival.

The strongholds of those other factions might be enough to handle the usual Ghost Tides that appeared on the continent, but against a Ghost Tide storming ashore from the sea, they would be a laughable defense.