For a few moments, both Sunny and Jet stood motionless, staring at the tide of enemies advancing at the damaged wall. Their faces were grim. Eventually, Soul Reaper spoke in a dark tone:
“This is bad. This is really bad…”
That was an understatement.
Currently, Falcon Scott was facing two threats.
The first one was the uncountable horde of Nightmare Creatures that had followed Goliath, and was now flowing across the killing field like a dark tide. Some of them had already reached the deformed barrier and engaged the defenders of the breaches in a furious melee, some infiltrated the city through the new fissures in the melted wall and were now rampaging in the staging area.
With the turrets destroyed and the mighty railguns heavily damaged, there was no way to slow down the advance of the horde. Even the MWPs were destroyed, and most of the soldiers had either lost their weapons or were seriously injured. The only ones who remained relatively unscathed were the Awakened — there were around seven hundred of them on the southern section of the wall, and most were still able to fight.
There were reinforcements coming from the other three sections of the wall, but it was going to take some time for them to arrive. Time that they did not have.
The second threat was the Heart of Darkness. Four rivers of dark beetles were flowing toward the ravaged wall, reaching for it like giant black claws. Each individual beetle was capable of biting through powerful armor-type Memories, metal, and flesh.
Their only redeeming quality was that the tiny vermin were not too hard to crush… which was why Army Command had planned to rely heavily on the powerful defensive armaments in case the dark swarm showed up. With those armaments mostly destroyed, the danger posed by the Heart of Darkness had risen tremendously.
There were several Ascended with Aspects suitable to face such an enemy, as well, but some of them had died in the past two weeks, while others were not on the southern section of the wall, since no one had expected the Heart of Darkness to attack this day.
‘Damn it!’
Gritting his teeth, Sunny looked at Jet.
“So… what do we do?”
At that time, a familiar flaming arrow, albeit much weaker than it had been during the battle against the Devouring Cloud, flew into the mass of beetles from somewhere much further down the wall. Winter was still alive, at least.
Master Jet let out an angry hiss.
“There is no choice but to retreat to the secondary defense perimeter and enact the following protocol. However… even that is impossible right now. If we don’t want to lose the city, we need to push the horde back and give the men enough time to run. We also need to obliterate the damned bugs!”
Push back the horde… Sunny suddenly felt cold. There were so many holes in the city wall now that it was basically useless. That meant that the only way to stall the abominations was to sortie out and face the Nightmare Creatures on the killing field, blade against claw. Needless to say, that was nearly a suicide mission.
Even if the defenders of Falcon Scott succeeded, their losses would be staggering.
…There was another option, of course.
The Awakened could abandon the mundane soldiers and run. Logically speaking, leaving mundanes to die and preserving the arguably more valuable asset was a valid strategy. War was not a purely logical affair, though… the most reasonable strategy was not always the best strategy. Things like spirit, morale, and mutual trust had much greater weight than Sunny had once thought.
Any army without these intangible qualities would be doomed.
As a colonel and an Ascended, Master Jet was the senior officer on the southern section of the wall and the person in charge. The decision was hers, and Sunny did not envy her position one bit.
She lingered for a few moments, then took a deep breath and shouted, her voice spreading far and wide due to the effects of a special Memory:
“This is Soul Reaper Jet! All Awakened, assemble in cohorts and prepare to sortie! We must push the enemy back! All mundane personnel, abandon the wall! I repeat: abandon the wall! I am ordering a full retreat to the secondary defense line…”
As soon as the echo of her voice disappeared into the cold night, Jet stepped toward a messenger that had lost his footing during the titan’s attack, grabbed the man by the collar, and pulled him to his feet with one powerful motion.
The slightly disoriented soldier stared at her with a pale face. She looked at him somberly for a moment, and then said quietly:
“Inform Army Command to prepare the Rampart Protocol and be ready to activate it as soon as I give the command. If I die… they should act at their discretion.”
The frightened man nodded and disappeared, using his Aspect Ability to run at incredible speed.
With that done, Jet glanced at Sunny. She remained silent for a moment, then smiled darkly.
“Are you ready?”
Sunny shook his head.
“Not even a little bit.”
Soul Reaper laughed and turned to the killing field, her smile disappeared like a phantom.
“Well, tough. While the Awakened are fighting off the Nightmare Creatures, someone has to deal with the bugs. They absolutely cannot be allowed to enter the city. I’ll stop the left… swarm. Send that awesome Echo of yours to face the middle-left one, and go to the middle-right yourself. Bloodwave will handle the last one. With some luck, the Ascended who were supposed to deal with them in the first place will arrive to reinforce us before everyone dies… the couple of them who are still alive…”
Sunny looked at her with a dubious expression.
“How am I supposed to fight against countless thousands of tiny bugs?”
Master Jet sighed.
“You’re resourceful. Figure something out… and if you do, let me know. I am asking myself the same question.”
With that, she turned away to give orders to her cohort.
Sunny did the same.
Belle, Dorn, Samara, Luster, and Kim were looking at him, their eyes uncertain. He forced out a smile.
“You all heard the boss. We are going to sortie with the rest, then push forward and block one of the beetle swarms. I’ll take point. Samara, you lost your rifle, so just blast any that get past me with essence. You’ll be our secondary slayer. Luster, support Sam. Belle, Dorn, and Kimmy… you guys will protect Luster and Samara. Don’t let the bugs bite through your armor.”
His soldiers looked at each other, then silently nodded.
A few moments later, Soul Reaper’s voice rolled across the battlements once again:
“…Attack!”
