For hours, wave after wave of beasts emerged from the forest, storming the defenses of Tabraga's first defensive wall. At first, they were agile and swift creatures, shadows darting among the fallen trunks as if the earth itself were spewing them forth in an endless frenzy. Felines as tall as men, canids with jaws large enough to tear off a head with a single bite, bony quadrupeds as swift as arrows; all with eyes burning with instinct, driven toward the fortress like an unstoppable river.

  They leaped, climbed, clawed, and bit. Many reached the black stones of the outer wall and managed to propel themselves high enough to graze the top with their claws… but they never made it inside.

  The demons knew exactly what they were doing. With over a century of experience, they precisely adjusted the force fields that lined the edges of the first wall. These barriers shimmered upon contact, deflecting the beasts as if they were flies beating against an invisible pane of glass. Each impact resonated with a deep echo, as if the defenses themselves fed on the violence to grow even stronger.

  After the swift ones came the heavier beasts: enormous creatures with armored hides that advanced like living blocks. Their bodies were covered in natural plates, some resembling volcanic rock, others like shells woven from hardened roots. They withstood arrows, magical projectiles, chemical fire, and even the concentrated beams from the crystal spheres atop the towers.

  Their objective was clear: to get close enough to crash into the walls, break them… or simply die against them, piling up corpses to create ramps for those coming behind.

  On their backs and between their horns ran small, green-skinned, half-human, bipedal creatures, wearing masks made of bark and bone, hurling explosive projectiles or spears coated in poisonous toxins. They were the forest goblins, primitive creatures that live in large groups in the densest forests of the continent and are savage enough to be influenced by the call of the druids. They are not particularly strong, but they possess an agility, cunning, and bloodlust that can make them lethal under the right circumstances.

  At the same time, flying creatures burst forth from above: enormous birds of all kinds, bats the size of wolves, feathered serpents descending in spirals, harpy-like creatures covered in moss and fungus. Their purpose wasn't merely to kill, but to harass and force the demons to deflect their shields and distract their attacks.

  For a moment, from a distance, it seemed as if hundreds of thousands of beasts were about to overwhelm the defenders… but in the end, it was all an illusion. The actual damage was minimal.

  More than a hundred years of continuous conflict had hardened the defenders of Tabraga. They knew when to press forward, when to yield, when to let the enemy wear themselves down. They had turned the art of resistance into an exact science. The rate of fire never stopped: units rotated every ten minutes, replacing each other like a perfectly functioning machine, and the barrage of projectiles never diminished. If a demon fell, another took its place before the body even touched the ground.

  The beasts were countless, but not all could attack at once. The terrain and the shape of the wall limited the number of creatures that could reach the defensive line simultaneously, and most died long before they could get close.

  The demonic commanders knew this was merely the opening salute. The demonic towers, the four colossal structures that dominated the heart of Tabraga, remained silent, saving their power for the true enemy.

  The beasts' initial attacks served no purpose other than to wear down, confuse, and test the waters. It was a traditional tactic of the forest. A prelude, a probing exercise.

  And this was proven when the ground began to tremble. First as a murmur, then as thunder. Until it transformed into a deep vibration that made the stone of the outer wall creak.

  From the shadows of the forest, the true siege weapons of the forest, the so-called sacred beasts, began to slowly emerge.

  The druids considered them ancient entities, natural guardians, living weapons capable of altering the course of entire wars. This time there were more than twenty. Each one was a mountain on legs. Colossal turtles over fifteen meters tall and forty meters long, with shells hardened by centuries of life and natural magic. Their scales seemed formed from layers of metal, and their eyes glowed with an unnatural yellow, like embers inside a reptilian skull. They advanced step by step, each movement making the ground rumble as if the world were taking a deep breath before screaming.

  All kinds of demonic attacks rained down upon them… but they barely left any surface marks. Their skin seemed to absorb some of the damage, and the rest simply bounced off. Some, the largest, even carried wooden structures on their shells, forming natural platforms where sorcerers and warriors stood, magically protecting the creature and firing projectiles at the walls.

  And the great beasts did not come alone, for the first inhabitants of Gaea also began to appear. Massive columns of warriors emerged from the forest like an army built of roots, metal, and flesh. Humans, elves, dwarves, and a great variety of demihumans deployed in broad fronts, advancing alongside the giant reptiles.

  But in the sky, four presences eclipsed everything else.

  An enormous blue dragon, with a long, elongated body and hundreds of meters in length, glided through the clouds like a celestial river. Riding on its back were a dozen humans, all wearing blue robes marked with runic symbols, radiating a presence so dense that even the most powerful demons within the walls sensed it. They were the members of the Sect of the Rising Dragon, one of the oldest and most feared sects in the world.

  A crimson wooden vessel, nearly three hundred meters long, emerged, floating above the clearing with a magical hum. At its prow stood a burly dwarf, clad in scarlet armor so thick and ornate he resembled a living iron statue. They were the engineer-mages of Irmwood, the most technologically advanced force on the continent.

  From the depths of the forest, a gigantic raven ascended, its wings spanning nearly one hundred meters, whipping gusts of wind like tempests. On its back, unperturbed, sat the Druid King, an ancient and immensely powerful elf who had participated in every incursion against Tabraga since its very beginning. His aura was so vast that the forest itself seemed to breathe with him.

  Finally, a creature emerged from the sky, obliterating the light around it: an enormous skeletal bird, similar in size to the Druid King's raven, but composed solely of bones enveloped in a black miasma that rippled like living smoke. It was the mount of the Sect of Eternal Night, representative of the continent's group of dark sects, practitioners of the dark arts among cultivators. It was impossible to discern how many members of the sect rode upon the creature, as the miasma completely obscured them. But its aura was comparable to that of the Sect of the Rising Dragon.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  While these four were the most conspicuous, countless lesser forces had also appeared in the sky, represented by individuals of all races, in all manner of means of flight, from sizable flying beasts and magical artifacts to even some individuals with their own wings—clearly demihumans of the winged races. Undoubtedly the most numerous were the warriors of the great central kingdoms, who could use their swords to fly through the skies. A technique that only advanced members of the sects could master.

  It was then, for the first time since the battle began, that the demonic towers sprang into action. Raumir, the western tower, seemed to vibrate for a few moments. A faint orange aura rose from its summit, condensing like a tiny sun before being unleashed as a gigantic fireball. The projectile streaked through the air at tremendous speed, leaving behind a luminous trail that bathed the battlefield in warm, aggressive hues. Its target was one of the giant sacred turtles.

  But just meters from its objective, the attack was deflected by an opposing force. An incandescent blue sphere emerged from a nearby point, colliding with the demonic fireball and completely altering its trajectory. The resulting explosion shook the air, and the fireball ended up veering several kilometers into the forest, crashing into a hill and raising a column of smoke in the distance.

  Those responsible for countering the attack were more than a hundred elves advancing on one flank of the sacred turtle, all channeling their power in unison through a technique that demanded absolute concentration and placed enormous stress on their bodies. However, that collective effort was capable of generating an attack powerful enough to deflect even the attack from one of the demonic towers.

  That first clash marked the beginning of the true battle.

  Raumir and Ilshara, the eastern tower, then unleashed their full fury upon the attackers. Raumir continued to spew fireballs of varying sizes, each with the power to obliterate hundreds of warriors. Ilshara, for its part, was capable of launching multiple beams of pure energy, concentrated and capable of burning or piercing their targets. Their destructive power was not on par with the fireballs, but they were so fast that dodging them was nearly impossible.

  However, the attacking forces knew what they were up against, and thus employed every means to defend themselves against the towers' attacks, using their sheer numbers to intercept or withstand the onslaught. Countless magical formations utilized the power of hundreds of warriors to somehow match the force of the towers' attacks.

  The battlefield transformed into a vast kaleidoscope of shifting colors, where clashes of all kinds of magical affinities illuminated the sky and stained the ground with violent flashes.

  Even the sacred turtles, despite their slow advance, defended themselves. Each one was capable of emitting deep roars from its jaws, releasing gusts of concentrated wind dense enough to shatter the impact of a fireball or deflect other, smaller attacks.

  In the sky, the situation took on a different scale. Gaea's forces had completely surrounded the fortress, launching a sustained barrage of projectiles toward the walls and the heart of Tabraga. It was there that Arvok, the northern tower, displayed its power. The blue shield it manifested covered a large part of the fortress and absorbed the impact of thousands of attacks with barely any fluctuation, as if the energy were inexhaustible.

  In the heat of the exchange of attacks, as the sacred beasts slowly advanced toward Tabraga's first defensive wall, the four great entities in the sky finally displayed their true power—a rare occurrence compared to recent years. For during every attack on the fortress over the past century, the continent's great nations had almost always offered only token support: funds, supplies, and scattered groups of volunteers. Only on rare occasions had the major sects or the most powerful kingdoms offered substantial support, and never more than one or two elite forces acting simultaneously.

  But this day was different. This day, three of the continent's colossi had arrived. And that changed everything: it transformed just another assault into one of the most ambitious in decades.

  The druid king, mounted on his enormous raven, maintained absolute control over the sacred beasts of the forest. Its aura could be felt even from the walls: a serene yet indomitable force that sustained the giant turtles, suppressing their hesitation and any natural impulse to flee. Furthermore, using its mastery over air and its affinity for earth, it deflected a surprising number of attacks from the demonic towers. Every gesture, every word in that ancient tongue only true druids could utter, shaped natural defenses impossible to replicate.

  The gigantic blue dragon snaked around the wall like a living river. Its icy breath rained down ceaselessly upon the towers, weakening the energy shields protecting the defenders and opening fissures that allowed numerous projectiles to pierce the barriers. The creature moved with a speed impossible for its size, and any attack directed against it was immediately repelled by the warriors of the Ascending Dragon Sect who stood firm upon its back.

  The Sect of Eternal Night, for its part, aided the siege in a different way. The skeletal bird they rode soared through the air above the walls, releasing dense clouds of black miasma. The gas was so thick that it devoured the light and completely obscured the defenders' vision, and so toxic that many demons began coughing uncontrollably after inhaling it for just a few seconds. Only skilled practitioners of wind magic could dissipate these clouds, and almost always too late for the less resilient demons.

  However, it was the dwarves of the Irmwood Technocracy who carried out the most audacious and unexpected action of the entire siege. They maneuvered their enormous red vessel directly over the center of the fortress, defying the demons. Then, at nearly a thousand meters in the air, they opened a gigantic lower hatch and dropped a metallic sphere more than twenty meters in diameter. The load was so heavy that the ship itself momentarily lost stability, teetering in the air due to the sudden weight shift.

  When the sphere collided with the fortress's main shield, the northern tower, Arvok, shook from its base to its peak. The shield flickered, distorted by the enormous amount of energy required to absorb the impact. But the true horror arrived a second later, when the sphere exploded.

  The blast was so devastating that even many of the attacking forces flying near the second wall were swept out of the sky by the shockwave. The roar reverberated across the battlefield, shaking trees, walls, and structures alike.

  Even the spectral bird of Eternal Night momentarily shed its miasma cloak, revealing its crew—figures shrouded in black robes—who nearly plummeted to the ground.

  But the most significant event was the complete weakening of the fortress's shield systems, a total and abrupt fracture that exposed the first two defensive walls. The vast energy network, which until then had stood like an impenetrable bulwark, simply collapsed, as if something had devoured it from within. The demonic forces, accustomed to fighting in the shadow of their impregnable defenses, were momentarily paralyzed, unable to grasp the magnitude of what had occurred. For the first time since the siege began, a sense of vulnerability spread through their ranks like a silent poison.

  In that moment of bewilderment, the tower of Vorgath, which until then had merely observed everything, awoke with a violent jolt. A searing glow erupted from its peak, illuminating even the blood-red mist that shrouded the battlefield. And, without warning, it unleashed a lightning bolt that bore every resemblance to the most powerful lightning of a storm. The target was the Irmwood dwarves' ship.

  The dwarves, rarely caught off guard, had anticipated a counterattack. As soon as the tower's light intensified, their ship raised a massive energy field, a radiant dome forged from black and silver runes that crackled as if trying to grasp at the very fabric of reality. But Vorgath's lightning was no ordinary attack; it was one unleashed with the full force of the tower.

  The clash of the two energies reverberated like a piercing thunderclap. The electrical discharge pierced the dwarven shield, shattering it like tempered glass, and struck the ship's hull with terrifying violence. The roar echoed throughout the valley. The vessel was hurled more than a kilometer away, leaving a trail of embers, broken planks, and black smoke. His hull, reinforced with Irmwood timbers and layers of runic metal, had been perforated as if it were made of common wood.

  The ship still retained its ability to fly, but barely. It teetered in the air, tilting precariously toward the ground, every rune on its structure flickering as if pleading for help.

  But the tower of Vorgath was not finished with its vengeance. Once again, its pinnacle crackled with energy. A deep vibration coursed through the air, as if the earth itself were holding its breath. The light grew, pointing mercilessly at the wounded ship, preparing another barrage that would undoubtedly destroy it completely.

  But this time, something stood in their way. The great blue dragon descended from the heavens like a living avalanche, deploying an energy shield so vast it momentarily obscured the ship's silhouette. The shield wasn't a single technique, but the perfect unity of more than a dozen warriors from the Rising Dragon Sect. The lightning struck the shield, generating an explosion of light that shook the surrounding air. Part of the attack was absorbed, another part deflected toward the ground, where it exploded, raising a column of earth and rock.

  The dragon roared, its deep voice echoing above the devastation, as the lightning's radiance slowly faded.

  For an instant, both heaven and earth were suspended in expectant silence. A new stage of the battle had begun.