Chapter 344: Third Wave

Kael’s contribution rose rapidly. Every goblin killed by his ballistae added to his total, while every creature he burned, struck, or threw from the wall increased it further.

That was good. He needed currency.

The moment he thought it, one of the Leonard’s ballistae began changing. Light spread across its frame as the cheap structure reinforced itself, gaining a stronger base and an additional drawing mechanism. Its firing arm rose slightly, and an ammunition feeder unfolded behind it.

The Leonard had upgraded it.

Kael looked toward him just as the Leonard pulled his axe free from a goblin’s chest and glanced back. He snorted, making it clear that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Even while fighting, he continued using the turrets placed in front of Kael’s defenses to gather contribution. Every upgrade made them taller, more durable, and more effective at obstructing the ordinary ballistae behind them.

"Son of a bitch," Kael cursed.

He checked his own total but had not yet reached ten thousand. His two tower ballistae were killing efficiently, while the remaining weapons continued to suffer from restricted firing lines. If Kael wanted to raise the others high enough to shoot over the Leonard’s defenses, he needed more currency. Until then, there was nothing he could do about the obstruction.

So Kael used the weapons the Leonard could not block...his fists.

A goblin jumped from the top of one turret toward him. Kael caught it in the air and slammed it into the battlement, bending the creature’s spine beneath the impact. He lifted the broken body and hurled it into two more goblins climbing over the wall.

He kept moving, crushing skulls with his punches and sending bodies over the edge with his kicks. Fire erupted from his right gauntlet whenever too many creatures gathered in one place.

At one point, a dense cluster of goblins began climbing below an exposed section of the northern wall. They were spread too widely for a single fireball to remove, and Kael did not want to spend more internal energy than necessary.

He activated Frost.

Cold spread through his left gauntlet as Kael slammed his palm against the side of the rampart. Ice raced outward, and a thick layer of frost covered the stone exterior, spreading across the seams the goblins were using as handholds.

Claws and fingers froze the instant they touched it. Some creatures found their arms locked against the wall, unable to climb or release themselves, while others lost their footing as the surface became too slippery to support them.

They fell.

The first goblins knocked down those below. A chain of bodies peeled away from the wall, tumbling through the climbers beneath them before striking the packed army at the base.

Kael deactivated Frost before the rune drained too much internal energy and continued running.

There was something cathartic about it. These creatures had plagued the first days of his climb. Goblins had hunted survivors, butchered civilians, and turned entire streets into feeding grounds. Kael remembered the fear of moving through ruined buildings while red dots gathered on his map. He remembered needing to plan every encounter because even a small group could become dangerous if he made a mistake.

Now they felt like pests. He could crush one with a punch, burn several with a gesture, or freeze entire sections of their climbing route and watch them fall.

Yet enough pests could still strip a field bare. Enough insects could bury something far stronger than any one of them.

Kael could kill goblins constantly and still fail to make the army look smaller.

He considered going down into their lines. With Fire, Heft, and his physical strength, he could tear through the creatures without much difficulty. A path would open wherever he moved.

That was not what he was built for, however. Kael excelled in close combat and dealt enormous damage against individual targets. By exploiting weaknesses and layering his runes correctly, he could kill powerful creatures far above his level. Against hundreds of thousands, killing several dozen personally meant almost nothing.

Someone specialized in wide-area destruction would gain far more, and the proof stood on the wall to his right.

The mage raised her staff, causing a ring of symbols to form above the battlefield. Wind descended and struck the goblin ranks as a broad, rotating wall, lifting hundreds from the ground and throwing them into those behind them. Before the creatures could recover, shards of compressed ice rained into the disrupted formation.

Another wave of magic followed moments later, and then another. The mage’s side of the battlefield disappeared beneath flashes of elemental force. Her contribution increased with every spell, while her upgraded defenses continued firing without obstruction.

Kael checked the rankings. His own score had passed eight thousand, but the mage had already exceeded twelve thousand, even after spending part of her earlier currency on defenses and keeping the reserve they had agreed upon.

The spear wielder and the burly man were also ahead of Kael. Their turrets had clear firing paths, and their cannons continued blasting into the tightly packed army. They could focus on killing anything that reached the wall without needing to compensate for deliberate sabotage.

Through no fault of his own, Kael had fallen to the second-lowest position. Only the Leonard remained below him, and that difference was shrinking quickly.

The Leonard killed constantly with his battle-axe. His basic ballistae fired from directly in front of Kael’s weapons, earning contribution while reducing Kael’s available targets and obstructing the defenses behind them.

Another one began transforming. Its wooden frame rose as a second drawing arm unfolded, and then another turret beside it upgraded.

Kael watched the structures climb higher in front of his ballistae, his jaw tightening.

"Fuck it, then."

He turned and rushed toward the golem cannon. If ordinary attacks would not close the gap, he needed something that could.

The goblin army was packed tightly enough that the amplified Fire Rune could erase an enormous section in one shot. The blast should earn him several thousand contribution points, enough to raise more ballistae over the Leonard’s obstruction and restore the killing power of his defenses.

Soldiers cleared the path as Kael approached. The dark cannon rested on its reinforced wheels, its self-repairing barrel pointed toward the center of the goblin tide. Kael reached for the metal, already imagining the red matrix spreading beneath his gauntlet.

Before his hand could touch it, a notification appeared.

[Third Wave will begin shortly]