"Fucking gorilla..." I muttered as the brute was about to destroy the barrier. However, it wasn’t time for that yet.
Two bullets of extreme velocity penetrated right through the massive brute’s shoulders, ripping both its arms off in an instant and eliciting a wail that shook the very souls of everyone in the city. At least, those who were still conscious.
The people inside the cities had been panicking and fear-stricken, so I had to lower their ’hype’ a bit by adding a sleeping poison into the air. I also sent several puppets to check on the people in case any incidents occurred. Sleeping in the open isn’t really safe, you know.
For the cultivators that remained conscious and understood my intentions, they all jumped up to the walls, simply observing. They weren’t allowed to join the fight yet, by my orders. They were to remain within the city and protect themselves.
The puppets would handle the bulk of the work, while the cultivators were tasked with saving the civilians and each other in case any buildings fell from the damage. Additionally, I asked some of them to help stockpile and carry ammunition where it was needed.
Speaking of ammunition, holy fuck, I was burning through it so fast. At this rate, I’ll have no ammo left before the enemy is defeated. I need to figure things out. Thankfully, the poison from the former explosions was constantly dropping the rakshasas dead like pesticide does to mosquitoes.
The King-Kong-sized brute was brutally—pun intended—destroyed as more railguns manifested from the outside area of the city, which I had purposefully hidden in the sand a few days ago. These railguns were the same ones I had on my personal ship, heavy and powerful, but they needed a bit of time to activate and could only shoot two projectiles at once.
That’s why I had four of these dual railguns installed around each city, protecting them from each of the four cardinal directions.
My worry was never the big monsters; it was the smaller ones, the silver rakshasa, which I was constantly on the lookout for. These guys could easily camouflage themselves and penetrate the city’s defenses in case of a breach. So far, the barrier has remained strong and would only need a bit of patching to restore full functionality. A few puppets were already taking care of that.
"X, what’s the situation on the sand?" I asked.
"None of our traps have been activated besides a few that were detonated because some of the corpses landed directly on them. The enemy has yet to fully land; they’re still in flight all over the twelve cities."
"I see. Keep me updated. Also, which of the cities is losing the most ammo and which is using the least?" I began asking more specific questions to better formulate a strategy on how to use the bullets we had left. But I was rudely interrupted by the explosive titanfall of another brute, not onto the dome, but right outside the gate.
But not everything was bad. As a matter of fact, this rain had begun affecting the rakshasas. They were drenched in Qi-sealing seawater, which slowed their movement incredibly and made their flight almost impossible, forcing them down. They began falling to the ground and creating more and more explosions upon impact.
And that wasn’t all. The heavenly thunder had yet to stop, and as it fell down, it made contact with the water and spread all over the place. Where before it was electrifying a few dozen rakshasas at a time per bolt, now it spread to hundreds.
The situation was becoming extremely favorable for us, and I wasn’t about to waste this opportunity when the enemy was confused and unable to act properly. I called down more pillars that fell like a meteor shower, exploding all over the Sea of Demons, creating crystallized explosions that cooled off instantly, forming massive spreads of rapidly cooling glass.
Statues and even what one might call artistic sculptures of crystallized rakshasa were forever encased in bits and pieces of these fiends, trapped in hard, impure glass.
The rain kept falling, the thunder followed, and the rakshasa began landing in droves, rushing toward the city walls. The puppets on the walls aimed their weapons and began the fight to protect the city against the incoming rakshasa. Confused by the effects of the formation, the rakshasa couldn’t get into the city and were stalled, fighting among themselves as they mistook each other for enemies.
Meanwhile, my puppets rained down hell from above. Endless bullets penetrated them, and finally, the cultivators began joining in.
"Don’t physically engage in the fight!" I shouted as loud as I could. "Keep them at a distance! If you are captured, you’ll be brutally murdered, and your soul will be stolen! Keep them at bay, and use all of your long-ranged abilities!"
This order was given to every cultivator who wanted to fight. All over the Sea of Demons, the cultivators had noticed and understood that while the puppets were powerful and the protection was great, it wasn’t invincible. They couldn’t just hide away and wait for someone to save them; they had to act.
Anyone who reached their level of cultivation knows well the price of life and the cost of death, and they diligently joined in.
Unbothered by loyalty to the new emperor or the crown, but for the sole purpose of survival. And that goal was enough to make anyone give more than they already had.
The fight was rising in intensity, like a crescendo about to reach its climax. Until a sudden turn of events happened.
Tens of thousands of arms emerged from under the wet sands in an instant. These arms belonged to former humans turned walkers. Without missing a beat, the arms latched onto rakshasas far stronger than them in both cultivation and power. But by sheer numbers, the arms overwhelmed and pulled the rakshasas down into the sands without another sound ever echoing from them again.
The walkers had finally awoken.