As Karl’s team advanced, the Hill Giants retreated, creating a proper defensive formation behind their barrier wall.
It wasn’t going to matter for long, as the Spider Golems were headed for the side of the group furthest from the wall, with Thor between them and the Warriors.
The chances that something was going to get past that moving steamroller were slim to none, especially with [Earthquake] and [Thorned Vines] pulling giants to the ground every second.
The vines were spreading faster than Karl was walking, making it nearly impossible for the Hill Giants to move freely, and leaving them vulnerable to the attacks of the Golems and Karl’s arrows.
The radio on Morgana’s coat was silent as they fought, with the leadership not wanting to miss a call for support due to unnecessary chatter.
The Witch Doctor was really coming into her element as she advanced, and after she had Remi fill a bottle with venom, her curse turned from simply being necrotic to being venomous, leaving the affected Giants in convulsions or screaming in agony.
Karl reminded himself not to get into any serious fights with that woman. Her magic was insidious, and if it made it past your barriers, even carried on the air, you were done for.
Over and over, the Hill Giants brought up stone barriers to slow the humans, but they were just as quickly shattered to gravel by the Golems, while Dana and Colonel Wilkes worked together to keep an umbrella barrier up over the group to deflect thrown stones.
Even if the [Refreshing Lightning] barrier held, it would be a mess if someone was knocked to the ground and off their rhythm.
A horn sounded in the distance, and Karl sensed the shift in the Giants as they began to attack the advancing teams instead of focusing on moving toward his group.
Doug’s voice echoed through the group, amplified by his magic.
{Push faster. Double time, and we will break the defence in front of the next group.} He announced.
His attunement to nature made it easier for him to tell where living things were, and nobody questioned his judgment as they focused on making progress and not just steadily pressuring the Hill Giants.
{Attack the wall on your left. Shatter it with the Maul.} Doug called half a minute later.
Karl followed the instruction, and found that there was a group twenty metres away, running toward him.
“Good to see you all. Take your positions.” Karl called to the closest warrior.
This team had no mages in it, only one druid that was in Owlbear form to run faster.
Karl suspected that would be the case for many groups. The mages couldn’t keep up with the pace, so they wouldn’t have volunteered to come along and drag the group down.
The Owlbear surged in size as he approached Karl, and [Brutality] was extended to encompass his group.
Unfortunately, none of them were animal type berserkers, so it was only the druid that was enhanced, but nine more warriors, all close combat sorts with heavy armour and shields, made the progress even faster.
“The groups are staggered. If we can make the next spot in two minutes, we will be able to pick them up as well.” One of the warriors shouted as he moved past the Golems to join the fight.
“Got it. We will keep up the pace as much as we can.” Bob called back, as Karl was focused on his archery.
They were just passing the new gap in the wall when Karl heard more shouting from the human side of the lines, and Hawk relayed him an update.
[It looks like there are Spellblades here. These ones are wearing Red. I wonder if that means they’re all Tessa?] He asked.
[I think it’s just like the colours of our uniforms, not like the clerics.] Karl replied as he kept up his attack speed.
More mages would be a wonderful addition to their group, but he had no idea when the Academy force had gotten Spellblades as reinforcements.
Karl’s team wasn’t that far along the line now, barely up to even with the main camp, so they weren’t coming from some remote location.
The mages moved swiftly with their magic, and fell in behind the group, reinforcing the weakening barriers over the team before sending a few of their members forward to use ranged sword attacks from the second line, where Karl was firing his arrows.
No words were spoken, just an increase in the volume of attacks and the pace of the fight, with each Hill Giant only lasting for a few strikes before the massed attacks cut them down.
With thirty of them in the team, they were no longer struggling, even when the Hill Giants started to try to encircle the group.
The Spellblades moved to intercept them, creating a defensive semicircle, with the wall on one side, while the vines surrounded the group and progress momentarily ground to a halt.
The Giants were falling in record numbers, but they still hadn’t found the leadership group, so Karl began to check faces as he fought.
Hopefully, these weren’t groups of clones, sent to cause chaos before they died.
Karl could sense the worry from their lines as the group halted, and then the relief as they began to push forward again.
The vampiric blade waiting in the mental space where bonded gear went while not in use was thrumming with energy, so Karl took it out and slung it across his back with a loop of leather on his armour.
It wasn’t properly secure, and it would swing about as he ran, but the energy began to flow from the blade to him, flooding his space with power as the blade shone with power.
Finally, he couldn’t ignore the pull anymore, and Karl put away the bow, taking the blade in his hands to charge into the Hill Giants.
The blade looked like it was better quality than Karl remembered, and the flood of power that it was absorbing was causing Karl’s body to sing with refreshing power.
Water vortexes swirled through the Giants as Lotus activated the enchantment on her staff, and Karl laughed as water ran down his face from Remi’s [Thunderstorm].
The whole area was turning into a swamp, complete with Thorned Vines, and the Giants were starting to sink in the mud as the earth softened.
It had been churned by weeks of battle and artillery fire. There was no unturned dirt here, and the constant downpour was turning it all to a thick and sticky soup.
Even the humans were having a hard time moving through it, while the Giants were barely mobile as they sunk to their shins.
Then, it was suddenly easy to walk again as one of the Spellblades cast a movement spell on the team, allowing them to step lightly on the soft ground.
More shouting was coming from the line, and it sounded like it was a little behind them.
[Hawk, where is the next team coming from?] Karl asked.
[Behind us a little. But they have a huge guy with a smashing tool as well.]
That was good enough for Karl. There were no Giants behind them, so the team could make a breach and storm in to join the group at their own pace.
The wall shook and rumbled as the warriors hammered it repeatedly, then it slowly crumbled, letting them through, but already thirty metres behind the advancing force, and late enough that the mages running behind them had caught up.
Karl knew they were frustrated, and he decided to hammer a hole for the next group, no matter how much Hawk thought that they should be able to deal with it themselves.
Five layers of Royal Rank Flaming Body was far more damage than most Ascended or Commander Rank warriors could do, even without the buffs or [Shatter].
The next few kilometres of the Hill Giant lines were already in motion now, rearranging themselves and creating rows of defensive fortifications behind the main barrier wall between them and the human lines.
It would slow the advance of Karl’s team, but if they weren’t going to send large numbers of reinforcements to the front, that was all it would do. Slow them and not stop them.
The primary objective of the assault, to stop the Hill Giants from throwing boulders from their protected position, had been largely achieved. Now, they just needed to keep them from going back to it the moment that the human team retreated.
A few minutes worth of delay wasn’t going to change the pressure of the advance, and the rest of the suicidal charge plan had been altered to join the main force already pushing through the Hill Giant lines.
With the holes in the wall, they could retreat and return to the main force any time that they wanted, leaving a large portion of the Hill Giant defences empty, or allowing a change of shifts, with new fighters coming in to replace them.
