“Groooar!” The lindwyrm howled as it took a blow to its relatively unarmored flank.
The creature flailed about, stomping and lashing out at anyone around it.
“Have no fear, men! We’re the One-Eyed Black Wolves! This isn’t enough to do us in!” Konrad shouted, prompting his men to shove their ram into the lindwyrm’s flank a second time.
I had to wonder if they could actually take it out, but just then, the walls crumbled once again. To make things worse, another lindwyrm turned its head toward the mercenaries and blew a jet of flames at the battering ram.
“Blast it! This is as far as we go!” Konrad said.
Yeah... It was close. You were this close to taking it out all on your own.
“Your Majesty, you must evacuate!” Sérignan shouted as she cut down her tenth lindwyrm. “It’s too dangerous!”
She was right. I was standing directly in the lindwyrms’ path. I had to run. I ran across the walls in an attempt to get down, feeling pitiful every step of the way. The only thing I could do right now was run.
But then the ground shook under me. The rumbling threw my body off the walls, sending me in a free fall toward the ground. My crash landing knocked all the air out of my lungs, and pain shot through my body.
I was sure I had died right there and then.
“But...”
As that happened, I saw something amazing. My ace in the hole—the unit I’d had on standby—had made it here in time.
“Now, come forth, Dreadnought Swarm,” I whispered, my lips curling up into a smile despite my aching body. “Crush them all.”
♱
The Dreadnought Swarm was basically a ground-based battleship. It looked like a rhinoceros beetle with countless, centipede-like legs. It was four times the lindwyrm’s size, and it moved thirty times slower from a Genocide Swarm.
But its offensive power was the highest in the game, outmatched only by hero units.
It was too slow to have been of any use in the battles up until now, but this time was different. We were not here to invade, but to defend. That meant a prolonged fight in one spot. Thanks to that, the Dreadnought Swarm had arrived right when we needed it most.
Having descended upon the ideal battlefield, it charged toward the lindwyrms trying to tear through the walls with heavy, rumbling footsteps. The creatures clashed, creating a violent shockwave.
The Dreadnought Swarm bore down on a lindwyrm, pushing it down and threatening to crush it. The lindwyrm struggled for a few moments before blood billowed out of its mouth and it was squashed into a splatter of flesh.
“Your Majesty, I believe we have a chance to win now!” Sérignan exclaimed as she finished off her eleventh lindwyrm.
I managed a nod. “Yeah, I think so too, Sérignan!”
The Dreadnought Swarm slowly approached the lindwyrms. Realizing now wasn’t the time to focus on the walls, the lindwyrms turned their focus to attacking the Dreadnought Swarm. Giant monster clashed with giant monster.
Of course, even the Dreadnought Swarm froze up when it was attacked by nearly fifty lindwyrms at once, but it soon resumed its charge, crushing everything in its path. As the lindwyrms tried to fight back, they were caught beneath the giant insect’s feet and crushed under its weight. A few of them tried to come at it from the flanks. But even within the game, the Dreadnought Swarm had a defense stat high enough to put the lindwyrms to shame, and it wouldn’t die that easily.
“Go, go, Dreadnought Swarm!” I offered support through the collective consciousness. “Crush them all! Bury Nyrnal’s forces!”
A force of wyvern reinforcements joined the battle, plunging down toward the Dreadnought Swarm. Their fiery breath lightly charred its black carapace, but compared to the Dreadnought Swarm’s mighty defense, their flamethrower breath was no more potent than match fire.
“Haaah!”
Sérignan pounced on the lindwyrms crowded around the Dreadnought Swarm. With her help, the lindwyrm numbers were steadily shrinking. Blasts of fire shot at her now and again, but she quickly avoided them and cut down the weakened, poisoned lindwyrms.
Using her unique ability, Sérignan produced threads to swing and leap from one lindwyrm to another, slaughtering them as she went. The Dreadnought Swarm trampled the others underfoot, and soon the great lindwyrm force was reduced to less than twenty.
“I think we won,” I said.
My sigh of relief, however, came too soon.
“One of the enemy’s big lizards is charging at the wall! It’s trying to knock the walls down!”
The remaining lindwyrms made a beeline for the walls. They must’ve realized that trying to fight the Dreadnought Swarm was a reckless endeavor.
“Blast these lizards! Just let that big bug crush you into paste!” Konrad raged as he walloped a lindwyrm with his battering ram.
The creatures ignored him and rushed the remains of the first layer of walls, completely crumbling it to bits. Then they busted through the second layer and finally appeared before us.
“Genocide Swarms, forward! Kill the enemy!”
But I knew a Genocide Swarm couldn’t beat the lindwyrms one-on-one. There was somewhere between ten and twenty of them left, so my Genocide Swarms wouldn’t win easily. Their strong fangs tore into the lindwyrms’ flesh and throats. The lindwyrms shook their heads, trying to force the Genocide Swarms off, but my Swarms held fast.
With the Genocide Swarms chomping on their necks, a few lindwyrms keeled over. But other lindwyrms walked over their corpses and engaged the Genocide Swarms. This time, the lindwyrms breathed fire, killing the Swarms in their path, but they were eventually bitten to death in much the same manner.
One lindwyrm managed to nudge its head just over the breached wall, only for its neck to be bored through by a pair of fangs. It perished. Two more lindwyrms soon stepped over its body. They swept aside the Swarms pursuing them, blew fire from their mouths, and stormed through the Genocide Swarms’ line of defense.
“Sérignan, we’re short on hands here! Can you come over?!” I called out to her.
“Of course!”
She dashed over to us and swung her sword, slaying a rampaging lindwyrm in one blow. After enduring the poison for so long, the lindwyrms had very little stamina left.
“Dreadnought Swarm, take care of any remaining enemies!”
On my order, the Dreadnought Swarm hunted down the surviving lindwyrms. It stomped on them, crushing the reptilians with its hulking weight. There were none left to stop it. Before long, every last lindwyrm was wiped out.
“So the lindwyrms are all dead...”
Sérignan, Konrad, and the Dreadnought Swarm had won us this battle.
“Genocide Swarms, forward! Find and destroy all the remaining enemies!”
The Genocide Swarms chased down the remaining heavy infantry. The Dreadnought Swarm was too slow to efficiently kill any foot soldiers, but the Genocide Swarms could easily catch up.
“You won’t escape, you measly peons!” Sérignan bellowed.
With fluid grace, she made her way across the battlefield, catching up to two fleeing infantrymen and preparing to cut off their heads. My knight was just so reliable.
“The enemy’s falling back, men! Forward!”
“Yes, sir!”
The mercenaries excelled at fighting other humans. They swung their halberds down upon Nyrnal’s fleeing soldiers. They slew one, two, four, and soon eight of them.
“We won,” I breathed when the last of the enemy units had fallen. “A complete victory.”
The enemy had no way of breaking through our defensive line.
We won. Victory is ours. We did it!
My joy rippled through the Swarm, and they clicked their claws together in a gleeful gesture.
“We’ve done it, Your Majesty!” Sérignan said.
“Yes, and it’s all thanks to you,” I told her. “It’s a victory for all of us.”
Upon seeing our combat prowess, Nyrnal’s soldiers had turned tail and fled. It was clear they had no intention of attacking us again.
It’s finally over. We won. We won this war.
At the time, I had no idea that the enemy had left us a terrible parting gift. And in Khalkha, of all places...