Chapter 48 Magical Beast Horde (1)

Samiel and Yvraine rushed at the city walls that were enveloping the entirety of Zephystrand City, as runes inscribed around the walls lit up, creating a translucent runic dome around the entire city. This was one of the defensive measures of Zephystrand City, if not the best one.

"You have this place really well defended..."

Samiel said absent-mindedly as he looked at the runic barrier enveloping the entire Zephystrand City and all of the other defensive measures which were showing themselves at this time.

Yvraine once explained to him that all cities on most floors had some sort of defensive barriers and wards around them in case of situations like this or other attacks. Of course, as a member of the 13 Gates, the cities of the Nesser Dynasty had one of the best protections and fortifications in the entirety of the Cosmos.

But those protections too could be breached because they mainly aimed at the high-tier enemies, not the low-tier ones, because that would be detrimental to the growth of the population.

It was the first time Samiel experienced Monster Invasion or Magical Beast invasion of some city, and even Yvraine looked no different from it. He could see that she was nervous, probably because this would be the first time on the front lines, not behind the safety lines, protected by peak Legendaries.

City Guards and Silvermoon Knights were running to the walls to fend off the invasion of the Magical Beasts, as Magical Towers were active by their Magicians, and even weird steampunk-looking mana cannons were being loaded by up bunch of dwarves that were living in the Zephystrand City.

Ordinary citizens were ordered to either stay in their homes if they were well warded and if not, then there were various evacuation shelters across the city for those who couldn't fight.

That was mainly for the ill, children, or weak, which meant those at the Iron-Tier or unawakened, though there were very low numbers of unawakened, meaning those who didn't practice because, in the Tower, it was rare due to high Mana density.

"What is coming that everyone is so nervous?"

Asked Samiel absentmindedly, as he could sense everyone on the walls was pretty stressed. Even Yvraine looked stressed up about what was to come, as she felt some malevolent aura in the air, something that was not present here on the 3rd Floor for a long time already.

"Spiders!"

Shouted some soldiers on the top walls as thousands upon thousands of giant spiders appeared from the forest. It was evident that nobody awaited them as the main attacks in the Magical Beast Horde, and Samiel could see that something was not playing according to the rules.

They started crawling from the ground, and soon enough, one could see thousands upon thousands of them. The majority of those spiders were only Iron-Tier, and approximately a third were Steel-Tier, so their immediate presence was not threatening the existence of the Zephystrand City.

And together with the spiders were other creatures, something weird and abomination that Samiel didn't recognize, but they were dangerous and powerful just by a single look, and one could tell they would be the problematic enemy.

"Those are Ettercaps. They are more dangerous than your usual Monster Spiders, not only through their individual power but, most importantly, due to their ability to command various types of spiders. Basically, humanoid spiders tend, feed, and watch over the spiders and could control entire spider hordes. If such a large spider horde appeared on the third floor, then it must be a work of Drider, fucking Drows..."

Cursed Yvraine as the situation instantly became more ugly.

As an Eldritch, or rather a partial one, Samiel could easily sense emotions from people when he was standing close to them. He sensed so much hatred and anger right now in Yvraine, so much that he refrained from mocking her for her language as he usually would.

Samiel knew that the eternal enemy of the Silvermoon Elves were Drowes, basically the same equivalent of what were the Silvermoon Elves to ordinary elves; only that the Drowes were royalty among the Dark Elves, aside from Svart??lfar.

Driders were formerly drows that had been transformed from the waist down, so they had the spider's body; they were the monstrosities and abomination of nature itself, created by the Spider Goddess.

This transformation was typically a punishment from their Goddess, Lolth.

Still, some mad Drowes took this on themselves voluntarily just to increase their power, even if it meant becoming an abomination. While it was punishment, it still substantially increased someone's power and gave him some cool abilities in Samiel's view of point.

Drow Gods were a very cruel bunch that loved to torment even their own followers into insanity. Because of that, their Pantheon was often called Dark God Pantheon because many of their gods represented darkness that put to shame even many sadistic Devils and bloodthirsty Daemons.

Drows had their own faction or were part of a faction among the 13 Gates, called Underdark, and it was the bitter enemy of the Nesser Dynasty. Similar to the Nesser Dynasty, it was backed up by the Drow God Pantheon and was a powerful faction on its own.

,m "I don't sense the drider... meaning this is just a test wave or god knows what."

Stated Yvraine as the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps were ferociously charging at the walls of the Zephystrand City. The tricky thing about spider-type enemies was that they could climb the walls, so they would be forced to fight them on the walls.

But before that.

"Send them back to the Abyss! Fire!"

Shouted muscular heavy armored dwarf with a long brown beard, as tens of mana cannons started firing spells as magic circles appeared in front of them, and the barrage of 1st Leve, 2nd Level, 3rd Level, and 4th Level spells rained at the incoming spider horde.

Thousands of Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps were torn into shreds, burned, blasted, or killed from the rain of hundreds of spells. The barrage from the walls was slaughtering hundreds of them with each second, as they couldn't defend against the incoming spells.

Though in the greater picture, it seemed like no matter how many Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps were killed, more new ones always took the place of the killed ones, but the same could be said about the preservance of the defenders and other measures that the Zephystrand has prepared for those who would dare to attack it.

"Recharge!"

Shouted the dwarf in charge of the mana cannons. Dwarven Technology was really wondrous, as they were able to take any tech from scientifically-oriented civilizations and rework it, so it functioned on mana instead.

The problem with technology in the Tower was that standard technology didn't work here. Apparently, the reason for that was that in environments with extremely high Mana Density, electrical devices often malfunction due to dense mana disrupting the electromagnetic waves.

Meanwhile, all elven archers readied their bows and cast their enchanting spells on the arrows. Elves were species known for their skills in archery, and practically every elf, from the lowest and weakest Wood Elf to the noblest Silvermoon Elf were natural-born archers and sharpshooters.

"Archers fire!"

Ordered Elven City Guard Commander, as thousands of Elves, released their bowstrings and fired their arrows at the incoming spider horde, which despite losing thousands of spiders, looked still the same as they steadily advanced towards the city.

After the archers killed a whole bunch of Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps, the mana cannon were recharged once more and fired instantly, killing more than 6,000 enemies altogether in one go, from what Samiel could see.

But the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps were pretty fast and had already arrived near the walls and started climbing the walls. Because the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps were what they were, aka, spiders, they could easily climb the walls and fortifications.

Even though these walls were inscribed with protective Runes and Spells, it was not enough to dispose of all the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps that started climbing the City Walls. It was to be expected some percentage of the Monstrous Spiders would climb the walls, and they would be forced to combat them head-on.

"They have reached the walls! Squat 1 immediately annihilate them all!"

Shouted Sarun Daragan, as he was in charge of the Silvermoon Knigth Squires on the 3rd Floor. Samiel turned around and could see enormous Ettercap pricing through Elven Archer with his claws. Ettercaps had two shart black chitinous claws instead of hands and feets.

Samiel immediately summoned all of his undead and unleashed them at the Ettercaps and Monstrous Spiders as he conjured several Ice Weapons and shot them towards the nearest Monstrous Spider, piercing their skulls and killing them instantly.

[3rd Level Spell, Void Strike]

He cast several of these spells, all aimed at the incoming Ettercaps that were about to engage his undead, as suddenly space twisted and their heads burst, killing 5 Bronze-Tier Ettercaps in one go.

The Void Magic was weak at the start, as its spells often lacked high destructive power, but that changed the higher level the spells were. Like just now, the 3rd Level Spell was enough to kill powerful Bronze-Tier Ettercaps instantly.

Other Ettercaps and Monstrous Spiders turned their attention to this, but soon, Samiel acted before they could.

Immediately after, he flipped backward as he dodged an incoming claw from Monstrous Spider, who managed to sneak up on him. Samiel stretched his hand forward as a small wave of frosty energy burst out, turning enormous more than three meters tall Monstrous Spiders into a huge icicle; with one punch, it was shattered into countless pieces.

"Damm, these things are troublesome."

Samiel cursed as he watched how the Elven City Guards and Silvermoon Knights slowly regained their ground and were killing one Monstrous Spider and Ettercap after another, and his undead were unstoppable machines on the battlefield.

They didn't feel pain, were clad in the best armor that he had, and were armed with the best weapons. The combat efficiency the Undeads were exhibiting when they were properly armed with good armor and weapons was tremendous, compared to the state when they were armed with just scraps from the battlefield.

No matter how injured the undeads were, they still continued to fight and were slaughtering the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps with relative ease. Due to the strength and quality of armor, they were wearing, the Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps were having a hard time destroying even a single one of them.

When one of them fell, he just created new undead, and due to this battlefield, he had 240 Undead under his control. Samiel kept resurrecting deceased Bronze-Tier Ettercaps and replacing the killed undead through the process of attrition.

Basically, heaven for Necromancer, as no matter how many of his undead were destroyed by Monstrous Spiders and Ettercaps, he could always create new almost instantly.