218 Defending Kara-Goth

"Fire! Shoot the Ballista!"

TWHOOSH! A runic bolt slammed into the Skeletal Serpent at point blank range, causing it to roar and fall back, but where one withdrew, two more rushed in, and charged at the defenders' formations.

A chorus of gunshots rang out at the same time, but they barely made dents in the Skeletal Serpents' carapaces. The creatures hissed, then charged.

"Not good!" Max raised his shield as the tail of an attacking Skeletal Serpent rammed into him. The impact threw him backwards, squashing him against the formation of Legionnaires trying to hold their position against the smallest Tier 5 they'd ever seen.

It did not go well.

"OOMPFH!" Markus received a similar blow on his shield and likewise was hammered into their own formation, which itself was beginning to look rather shaky. Even with their trained muscles, even with heavy armor, their combined might flailed against the Skeletal Serpents' overwhelming physical strength. A couple more hits like that and everyone might very well fall over.

"Pull back!" someone from the newly arrived Reserves started to panic. They barely even joined the back of the formation before the next crash sent them reeling.

"No! Hold the line! HOLD!" Markus roared, throwing a javelin at the nearer Serpent.

His aim was true, but to no avail; the javelin didn't even leave a dent on the bone carapace of the Skeletal Serpent. They weren't kidding when they said these things were Tier 5. They were on the same level of power and defense as DD or…

"Aargh!" the legionnaire beside Max was sent flying. Where Max had simply crashed into their formations, this guy was tumbling through the air in a broad arc high, high overhead...

What were they thinking when they tried to stop Tier 5's with formations of heavy infantry? Even with Tier 3 and 4 gear, the men themselves simply didn't have the kind of strength it took to stand up to the likes of DD and Spike head on.

It was their smaller size, Max assumed. They all thought they'd be easier to handle because they were smaller.

Fat chance. With another heavy tail strike, the entire formation started to collapse. The two Serpents charged in head-first, fangs and teeth chomping.

"Hold the line!!" Markus roared. "Reform!"

"Pull back!" Max contradicted. "We're getting killed out here! If we pull back to the tunnels, we'd be able to hold them off better!"

"Don't!!" Markus shouted. "We need time for the ballista to reload! It's our only Tier 5 weapon… we just need to hold out a little longer…!"

The Serpent body-slamming five legionnaires into mulch made him eat his words.

"We're not going to make it!" Max protested, even while he tried to take up a position in the reforming line…

BAM! This time he was headbutted. Shield or no shield, Max saw stars before he realized that everything had turned quite black and that he was actually rolling around on the floor.

"Pull back!" George shouted. George was here? Why was George here? "That's an order!"

Markus protested. "But…!"

"Clear the way!" George shouted again, and Markus started to feel rhythmic thuds, like a dozen heavy cavalry charging down the hallways.

Wait a minute, they didn't HAVE heavy cavalry! Then what…

"MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" George yelled then, a lot nearer than before.

Markus' sight cleared enough to see George and a dozen other guys in ME-Frames ram into the Skeletal Serpents. Frame-powered Tier 4 weapons crashed against the Serpents' carapaces with sounds comparable to mining explosives. Warhammers, halberds, broadswords… George's unit all used the heaviest of weaponry, and the ME-Frames' strength made great use of their weight.

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Wait a minute, weren't there over twenty of those guys in ME-Frames? Why were there only twelve or so around now? Where were the others?

Max didn't know it at the time, but the others had been sent to different breached entrances. Twelve mechanized troops were all they had to work with, and they were basically the only ones around here who were able to block the Serpents.

At least, for a few more seconds.

"Ballista ready!" the crew called.

"Clear!" George sprang away from the Serpent.

POW! The shot fired hit the Serpent right in the face. The Serpent screamed, and suddenly went berserk. It lashed out wildly, knocking George and several of his squad over in a matter of moments.

"Pull back! Everyone get back!!" Now even Markus was running for cover.

"George!" Max grabbed him and tugged him to his feet.

"Max, get back! Everyone without a ME-Frame, protect the Ballista, but stay back!" George raised his glaive and charged the berserk Serpent.

BAM! The Serpent's tail slammed him face-down into the dirt before he could so much as nick it.

POW! The other Serpent whacked George farther into the ground while the first one rampaged through the faltering ME-Frame Squad.

As if recognizing that George was the one in command, the non-berserk Skeletal Serpent reared its entire body up, and deliberately crashed itself down on top of George.

BOOM! The impact sent pieces of metal flying everywhere.

"George!!" Max dashed forward, only to be swept aside with the flick of the Serpent's tail.

Blast it, he was totally useless out here! If he survived this Tide… if they all survived this Tide… Max swore he was going to save up and buy himself a ME-Frame! Against the likes of these Wilds, all the training the Legion put themselves through were as good as rubbish! What strength training? What stamina training? They couldn't even hold back a single Skeletal Serpent! If not for the ME-Frames, Kara-Goth would already be overrun!

In the end, humans were weak. It was by relying on their innovation, and by building tools and devices that they managed to prosper at all. Legion training might hype about independence and minimalism, but here, helplessly tossed about by a monster magnitudes of times stronger than himself, Max keenly felt just how important equipment was to mankind.

To think they thought to build a kingdom in the Wildlands! How could they possibly have made it even this far without equipment? This was a land of the strongest creatures in the world, and they were but a kingdom of the weak.

But it was this very weakness that spurred them to create strength for themselves, fashion tools and weapons and vehicles. It was this very weakness that urged them to join hands and put aside their differences and work together for common goals. It was this very weakness that, in searching for ways to overcome it, became the very strength of mankind.

That strength would one day conquer the Wildlands. Max believed it from the bottom of his heart. They had wisdom, and they had inventiveness. They had the drive to improve themselves, and their equipment. It was only a matter of time, Max knew.

Time, and enough ME-Frames to get the job done.

Spitting out dirt from his mouth, Max rallied himself and got back on his feet.

"I'm definitely going to have to get myself on of those!!"

"Ballista!" Markus called.

"Ten seconds!" came the reply.

"George!" Max made another run to get him free.

This time, four guys came in on all sides to help. The Serpent struck; its tail swept two aside, its head rammed one more into the wall.

But of the five of them rushing, two of them made it to George. Max grabbed him, tugging the little guy right out of the wreckage of his broken Frame. The other guy jumped on the Serpent and tried to wrestle it down.

The Serpent thrashed about, trying to get the human off its neck. Max ran for it, hauling George to safety despite having to literally drag him through the dirt.

"Ballista ready!" the crew called.

"FIRE!" Max yelped.

"But there's a guy on the Serpent's neck!"

"Not that Serpent! The other one!"

TWHOOSH! The bolt nailed the berserk Serpent down, and with a terrible shudder, it suddenly fell still.

The other Serpent hissed, backing away as the remaining six ME-Frame troopers surrounded it. Legionnaires with pole-arms supported them, forming a ring of threatening Tier 4 weapons all pointed at the weary Serpent. They left it only one way to retreat; that way was out.

Having lost its prisoner and its allies, the last Serpent looked about, considered its options, weighed potential gains and risks, and finally backed away until it exited completely.

"Barricade the doors." Max ordered as the last of the Serpent slithered out of view. "This is just the advance scouts of the Beast Tide. We may have fended them off, but the main bulk of the Tide is still yet to come."

"We can't hold them. We can't handle another attack like this, much less a fiercer one." Max groaned.

"We can't." Markus admitted. "We're going to have to use Plan D."

"What's Plan D?" Max asked.

"We'll have to destroy all the ground entrances. We're going to seal ourselves in." Markus told him.

Max gaped. "But if we do that…"

Markus nodded. "From that point onward, there will no longer be ground access to Kara-Goth. The only ways in or out would be by air… and if anything happened, if the worst would occur…"

"If the worst happened, we won't even be able to run. We would have literally no way out any more." Max summarized grimly.