Catastrophe.
"Sarak! Fire! Forget accuracy, just hit that moving mountain!" I roared down the acoustic pipe.
"I'm trying! But this damn thing is harder than my ex-husband!" Sarak’s shrill scream echoed through the tube, followed immediately by the heavy, mechanical TWANG of the truck-spring ballista.
A two-meter steel rebar whistled through the air.
Sparks rained down. The heavy projectile, capable of skewering two Wolf warriors at once, slammed into the lead Siege Beast’s sloped shoulder armor. But there was no blood. The rebar simply bounced off the thick steel plating like a toothpick, spinning harmlessly into the frozen dirt.
The beast didn't even blink. It lowered its heavily armored head, locking its bloodshot eyes onto our perimeter wall.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT!" I screamed.
BOOM————!!!
The world went deaf for a split second, followed by a bone-rattling shockwave. The entire fortress groaned like a sinking freighter. Dust and loose gravel rained from the parapets, knocking several Vulpine defenders off their feet.
I gripped the observation railing.
Looking down, my stomach dropped. At the base of Bastion Alpha, a jagged, ugly fracture had spider-webbed up the meter-thick concrete.
The beast shook its massive, dizzy head, let out a low, rumbling growl, and began backing up. It was gearing up for a second charge.
"It's coming again!" Brad yelled from below. He raised his shield, desperately trying to stand between the beast and the cracked wall, but against that behemoth, he looked like a plastic toy. "Alex! The concrete is compromised! It won't hold!"
"It doesn't have to hold the impact, it just needs to transfer it!"
"Bjorn! Brad!" I pointed frantically at the heavy steel I-beams stacked near the gate—the 500-kilogram structural supports we hadn't installed yet. "Grab those beams! Jam them against the fracture line! Angle them at forty-five degrees!"
The massive one-armed Ursine didn't hesitate. With a deafening roar, Bjorn heaved a massive steel beam onto his shoulder, charging toward the cracking wall, Brad rushing to support the other end.
"If the wall stays rigid, it shatters!" I yelled, sliding down the ladder to the ground level. "We build a makeshift buttress! Transfer the kinetic load into the bedrock!"
They slammed the heavy steel beams against the damaged concrete, digging the opposite ends into the frozen dirt at a sharp angle. But the ground was too hard; the beams were slipping.
"The soil won't hold the friction!" I cursed.
Suddenly, Ela stepped past me. Her white robes fluttered in the freezing wind.
"I cannot mend your gray stone, Builder," the Priestess said, her eyes glowing with an intense, emerald light. "But I can anchor your steel."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She slammed her wooden staff into the dirt beside the steel beams.
A surge of pure, raw mana flooded the ground. Thick, incredibly dense magical roots erupted from the permafrost, wrapping violently around the base of the I-beams. The roots calcified instantly, fusing the steel directly to the bedrock like heavy-duty industrial bolts.
THUD—THUD—THUD—
The ground shook as the Siege Beast hit its top speed for the second charge.
"Get clear!" I roared, dragging Ela back.
CRASH————!!!
The beast slammed into the fractured wall. The concrete splintered, raining dust and debris. But this time, the wall didn't cave in.
The immense kinetic energy hit the concrete, traveled straight down the heavy steel I-beams, and slammed directly into Ela's magically reinforced bedrock. The 500-kilo steel beams screamed and bent slightly under the terrifying pressure, but the roots held. The geometry held.
The rigid force bounced right back into the beast.
With a sickening CRACK of shattering bone and buckling armor, the Siege Beast let out a short, agonizing squeal. Its own momentum, with nowhere else to go, had snapped its armored neck.
The massive bio-tank collapsed into the dirt, twitching once before going completely still.
I let out a ragged breath, pushing up my dust-covered glasses.
"Like I said," I muttered, staring at the bent steel and the dead monster. "Physics doesn't lie."
Battlefield Rear.
Through the peripheral vision of the mono-telescope, I saw movement in the distance.
Wolf King Garza sat on his bone throne. He watched me flashing blue light on the wall, expression unchanged.
But I saw his gesture.
He wasn't angry that physical impacts failed. Instead, as if expecting this, he waved his hand indifferently, pointing in my direction.
Immediately, a row of figures standing behind him stepped out.
There were a dozen Wolf Shamans wearing robes and white skull paint.
"That is... a Mage Unit?"
Alarm bells rang in my head.
Through the lens, I saw the Shamans didn't attack directly. Instead, they planted their staves into the ground and began dancing around several huge totem poles.
Though I couldn't hear, I saw their lips moving fast, chanting some extremely vicious spell. With their movements, a visible green ripple began to agitate the air.
The sky changed color.
The originally grey clouds rolled, turning a weird pale green, like the sky had gangrene.
A pungent smell quickly filled the air—a mix of sulfur, rotten eggs, and industrial waste acid.
HISS—
A drop of rain landed on my face, instantly smoking white. A burning sensation came from the skin.
"This is..."
I touched my face, looking at the red spot corroded on my fingertip, pupils shrinking.
This wasn't rain.
This was a high-concentration strong acid.
SPLASH—!!!
Pale green storm poured down.
The entire battlefield instantly turned into a giant acid chemical plant.
Wolf warriors without protective gear seemed resistant, but the defenders on the wall suffered.
"Ah! My eyes!" A Cat-kin archer fell screaming, covering his face.
"Shields! Shields are smoking!" Brad looked in horror at his proud tower shield, the surface sizzling and becoming pitted.
The scariest part was the wall.
I watched in horror as the concrete surface began to bubble and soften under the acid rain, as Cheddar Cheese microwaved too long.
I had to withdraw my hands, hiding under cover. Watching the sky full of green poison rain, pushing up glasses blurred by acid mist, a deep sense of powerlessness welled up.
Below the wall, the Siege Beast roared excitedly.
Its black iron armor was corroding too, but obviously more durable than concrete. It stepped back, stomping on the mud, preparing for the third, and fatal, impact.
And this time, in front of it was a wall softened by acid rain, defenseless.
We just went from a construction simulator to a chemical hazard survival horror. The wall is melting, the healer is down, and the tank just decided to become a DPS.
Question of the Day: If you were in Alex's shoes, how would you counter the Acid Rain?
(Click to deploy countermeasures)
?? A) Build a giant glass roof.
Result: The Minecraft Solution. Theoretically sound. Unfortunately, Amazon Prime doesn't deliver industrial-grade tempered glass to active warzones. Feasibility: 0%.
?? B) Dump tons of baking soda (Neutralization).
Result: The pH Balancer. Science wins! We just need to mine, refine, and transport a literal mountain of sodium bicarbonate in the next 30 seconds. Chemistry: A+. Logistics: F-.
?? C) Launch Brad at the Wizards (The Kinetic Solution).
Result: The Interrupt Mechanic. Wizards can't chant spells if they have a 200lb barbarian screaming in their face. It's crude, it's violent, and it's our only hope. Efficiency: Max.
Follow and Rate! The "Hail Mary" play starts in the next chapter!