Chapter 70: Chapter 69: Flesh and Blood Flying

The Feder Warriors present couldn’t bring themselves to laugh. They gripped their longspears, knuckles turning white. Only the cold weapons in their hands offered them the slightest sense of security.

If a few hundred people were just a dense crowd, then an army of over four thousand covered the mountains and fields, stretching as far as the eye could see.

The Feder Tribe was like a lone boat in a storm, in danger of being capsized by a single wave at any moment.

The Feder Warriors, unaccustomed to such large-scale battles, were all incredibly tense. The mountain wind lifted their distinctive white hair, a stark contrast to their pale faces and tightly pressed lips.

"Zat, I remember you took a lover back in Kolon?"

the Lord suddenly asked with great interest.

Zat scratched his head. ’Didn’t the boss already know about this? Why bring it up now?’

An astonishing number of bandits were already visible, stirring restlessly and ready to attack at any moment.

The surrounding Feder Warriors were sick with tension. They couldn’t understand why their Lord had the leisure to make small talk at a time like this. While keeping their eyes fixed on the front, they couldn’t help but prick up their ears in curiosity.

After all, a Beastman taking a lover—what a novel idea.

"Mhm." Zat didn’t think too much about it and just nodded.

Even though he was a Beastman, as a male, he naturally had his needs.

"I’ve met this... enormous lady. I believe her name was Lady Malin. What I want to know is, how many bed frames have you two broken?"

Levi made an exaggerated gesture in the air, his tone mischievous. Before Zat could even reply, he added with a theatrical sigh:

"I bet at least half the money you earn goes toward that. What a huge expense!"

It was an absolutely terrible dad joke, but the corners of the Feder Warriors’ mouths all curled up slightly.

Especially when they pictured Zat’s herculean frame, they could just imagine what the so-called Lady Malin must look like to be described as "enormous."

The tense expressions of the Feder Warriors were gradually washed away by their Lord’s confident and uniquely relaxed demeanor, and they began to calm down.

Zat, standing to the side, pouted aggrievedly.

Everyone else was amused, but he was the only one who got hurt.

A few beast-like howls rang out from the bandits charging from the forest. The sound spread like a plague, growing from sparse to dense, from sporadic to a continuous roar, until the entire sky echoed with their cries.

The shouts of these different Races merged into one, filled with greed and bloodlust. Like Undead returning to the world of the living, they swarmed toward the defenders in a dense mass.

Levi leaped up from the Giant Sword he’d been using as a bench and struck it against his shield, creating a loud, clear clang of metal on metal to ensure all the surrounding warriors could hear him.

"Alright, my boys, idle chat is over."

"Now, let’s send these clueless Jackal Wolves to Hell!"

"Prepare to engage!!!" Levi roared, raising his Steel Shield before him.

SWOOSH!

The Feder Warriors raised their Tri-Blade longspears in unison, holding Round Shields before their chests to form a glittering forest of blades. Any enemy who dared to charge their line would be skewered like a hedgehog.

HUMMM!

On the walls, the Feder Shooters drew their bows, aiming high into the sky, ready to loose a volley at any moment.

The bandits began to move, surging forward like a tidal wave. They had no formations, no waves of attack, just a chaotic black mass. The sheer visual impact of several thousand men charging—Giants mixed among them—was suffocating, like a lone boat about to be swamped by a storm-tossed sea.

Leading the charge were the Goblins and Kobolds. This horde of bandits may have had no discipline or tactics to speak of, but driving these two rat-like species to the front to exhaust the enemy’s stamina first was a subconscious instinct for every Wilderness Native.

WHOOSH!

Countless arrows launched from behind the ramparts, filling the sky in a dense, scalp-numbing cloud.

The arrows reached their apex and then plunged viciously downward, striking the more powerful Races behind the Goblins and Kobolds and felling countless towering bandits.

The Goblins and Kobolds weren’t even worth wasting precious arrows on.

The Giants, who were like living targets, received special attention. Even though they swung tree-trunk-sized logs to swat the arrows away, some always slipped through to bite into their flesh, making them grimace in pain.

However, an arrow storm that would be fatal to others was merely a minor injury to a Giant. It wasn’t enough to bring them down; instead, it only provoked their ferocity.

They snatched up head-sized rocks from the ground and hurled them at the Barbarians, which shattered against the Steel Shields with a series of loud CRACKS.

"Charge! Charge!"

The Beastman Barbarians roared, hefting the Steel Shields that had been planted in the ground and crashing into the oncoming bandits, kicking off the full-scale melee.

The strength of the Beastman Barbarians was self-evident, especially now that they had all been enhanced by the System Power. They were no longer the backwater rabble that used to roam the untamed lands.

Screams and blood were as cheap as weeds. The Steel Shields, specially forged for the Barbarians, weighed over thirty pounds. When wielded by these titans in a charge, the oncoming Kobolds and Goblins were sent flying like they’d been hit by a speeding car, their bodies tumbling through the air like broken sacks before crashing hard to the ground.

The Goblins and Kobolds stared in terror at the advancing Shield Array, which to them was no different from a high wall.

Their wooden clubs and rocks couldn’t even scratch the shields, and the wall of shields stood over two blades tall, too high for them to simply leap over.

Unfortunately, pressed forward by the surging tide of other bandits from behind, they had lost any chance of retreat and became the first sacrifices of the war.

On the wall, Sam, who had been temporarily conscripted, was assigned the task of casting the Stone Skin Technique on the front-line warriors of the Burning Corps from High Cliff Castle.

Area-of-effect enhancement Magic was often more effective the closer the caster was to the target. Sam had wanted to hide at the base of the wall and just go through the motions, but one glance at the brawny, powerful Muto beside him, and he sensibly climbed onto the ramparts.

Sam had never witnessed such a massive battle before. The Tribe wars of the past were like children’s squabbles in comparison. His legs went soft with fear, and it took him two attempts to successfully cast the Stone Skin Technique.

Only after the Casting was successful did he feel the cold, hard stare that had been fixed on him finally disappear.

’It’s here?’

Levi, who suddenly felt as if he were wearing a layer of Leather Armor, spared a glance toward the wall.

The Stone Skin Technique greatly increased the defense of his skin, but it inevitably came with a slight loss of flexibility. This loss, however, was negligible.

It was like changing from a T-shirt and shorts into a long-sleeved shirt and pants.