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Unto the Ages: Chapter 117
🕑 Added 2024-07-11 15:53:23 +0000 UTCAs the arrows stopped pelting him, Grud lowered the arrow-riddled corpse he was using to soak up the arrows, only to see warriors a wave of warriors charging him with swords, spears, clubs, and all manner of weapons, some of them were even improvised weapons.
When the warriors came into range of his spear, Grud held the base of his spear, empowered it with his mana, and performed a mighty horizontal swing.
In that one swing of his spear, many things suddenly became airborne, there was the dirt, grass, and leaves that were lifted off the ground in the wake of Grud’s violent swing, but there were also blood, body parts, and broken weapons and armor that was sent flying.
But despite the sudden death of all the warriors within the reach of Grud’s spear, the warriors of the Blazebringer village charged forward without hesitation because beyond the open gate and the monster in human form, was a sea of torches in the distance, and they were quickly multiplying and getting closer.
“PUSH HIM OUT! PUSH THE MONSTER OUT AND CLOSE THE GATE, OR ELSE WE ARE ALL DOOMED!” someone in the back lines of the warriors shouted, and threw the warriors into more of a frenzy, for they all could see the doom that was approaching them and their loved ones of they failed to close the gate.
More warriors swarmed toward Grud, all with murder in their eyes, but it mattered not to Grud, he knew if he was to end this conflict fast and minimize the casualties on his side, he had to hold the gate.
Grud cut down a few more rows of warriors before one of them ducked under Grud’s mighty swing and charged Grud, sword first, only to have his sword slapped away with Grud’s offhand, but this did not deter the warrior. He willingly released his sword that flew off into the distance and instead got lower and tackled Grud.
But the only thing that resulted from tackling Grud was the feeling of running into a stone pillar. This took Grud’s attention and Grud punched down and caved in the warrior’s head, but futile as the warrior’s death looked, it did accomplish something, it bought time for others to take action.
Killing that warrior took Grud’s attention away for a split second, which was more than enough for some of the surrounding warriors to follow by example, and tackle Grud from multiple angles.
These men knew what they were doing and resigned themselves to death in the hopes of bringing down this monster. They cling on to Grud’s waist, legs, and arms while trying to restrain his movement and push him out the gate.
In response to this, Grud lashed out by throwing punches and kicks at those clinging on to him, and shortening the grip on his spear to kill any who was trying to restrain him, but with every person he struck down, two were ready and willing to throw themselves at Grud to burry him in bodies, but worst of all, Grud currently felt that some of them were currently stabbing him in between his armor.
‘I need to get free!’ Grud thought as he released a pulse of mana from his whole body. This pulse threw men in every direction, but when he looked down, there were still three men holding onto him.
Grud stabbed one with his spear and caved another’s skull in with his bare hands, but just before he was about to finish off the last one, the wave of warriors was on him once again.
Grud waved his hand, sending a blast of mana that sent the charging warriors sprawling to the ground, but he was suddenly tackled from the back as many arms wrapped around his body to try to pull him out of the village.
This gave others time to tackle Grud from the front and sides to assist with their pushing. At this point, none of them even bothered stabbing him with their swords or daggers, instead, they dedicated all the strength in their bodies to try and push him out of the village, and the only reason they were unable to carry Grud was because he was thrashing around too wildly.
Slowly but surely, the warriors started gaining momentum by pushing Grud out of the gate.
‘No! I must hold the gate. I did not want to do this so soon, but I will need to burn a lot of my mana to stand my ground!’ Grud thought to himself as he released another pulse of mana to little effect, there were just too many men and they were all holding on to each other, so they could not be thrown back.
So in conjunction with releasing mana pulse after mana pulse in an effort to get the warriors off him, Grud started flexing not only his muscles but his mana as he empowered his whole body and started swinging.
With every swing of his empowered limbs, blood spilled and bodies were broken, but despite that, the warriors stood fast, if they still drew breath, they clung on to Grud to at the very least hold him down.
But as Grud was killing those who were impeding him, he saw better-armored warriors approaching and assumed them to be their elite warriors, and when they did, they did not bother to join the crush of bodies, instead, they used their fellow warriors as stepping stones and stepped atop their heads and shoulders to get to Grud.
When these elite warriors got within striking range of Grud, they started stabbing at Grud from all angles.
Grud tried to defend himself, but even when empowered, it was still rather cumbersome to move his arms with three men hanging off each. Fortunately, they were not holding on to anyone and were sent flying when Grud pulsed his mana.
As Grud was quickly regaining ground, someone from the back called out, “Get some of his blood to the Witch Doctors so they can Hex the monster!”
Immediately after that, Grud heard and felt many hard tips hit his armor as those around him drew their knives and started stabbing him. On the upside, this sudden break of formation made it easier for Grud to move and throw people off of him, but the downside was that he was surrounded and being stabbed at, some of them once again getting between his armor.
The moment blood was drawn, the bloody daggers or stabbing implements were thrown in the direction of their backlines where warriors picked them up and ran deeper into the village.
“Shit!” Grud cussed out loud as he kept on fighting, but as he fought, he realized that not all of the warriors got the message and were still stabbing him, and the only thing keeping their blades from hitting anything important was his dense muscles, but everything had a limit and Grud did not want to know how much his muscles could take if stabbed in the same wound multiple times.
Luckily for Grud, he did not need to wait much longer as he could hear the war cries of his army closing in on the open gate. This caused more panic among the Blazebringer command as they shouted out more orders.
That was until a few of the elite warriors got an idea and picked up the square beam that once barred the gate, they shouted at each other and the surrounding warriors picked up the square beam, pointed it at Grud, and charged him like a battering ram.
“Move if you want to live!” the lead warrior holding the battering ram shouted as warriors dived aside to avoid the battering ram. Unfortunately, not everyone in the way could avoid the battering ram and were trampled.
When the battering ram hit Grud, there was one unfortunate warrior who was alive but too injured to move and got crushed between the battering ram and Grud’s abs.
The sudden impact of the battering ram along with the efforts of those still pulling Grud from behind and pushing from his sides, pushed Grud a few meters back as his feet dug furrows in the ground as he resisted. But the moment Grud stopped, he started stepping forward again.
As the Blazebringer warriors started to lose hope, a stream of mana that Grud was too busy to pay attention to, reached out from somewhere in the village and touched Grud, and the moment it did, Grud felt it.
That foreign mana seeped through his skin and into his body, and try as he might, Grud could do nothing about it.
A few seconds later, the mana he was using to empower his body sputtered out and Grud felt weak, all the pain from the wounds he endured now felt more pronounced, and he was quickly getting overwhelmed.
“Now! PUSH!” a voice called out and as one, all the warriors heaved in effort, and this time it yielded great results as Grud lost his footing and was swept away in a wave of bodies well outside the gate.
“NOW PILE ON HIM! KEEP HIM THERE!!” the lead elite warrior shouted, and those around Grud literally threw their bodies on him. And while Grud was getting dogpiled, he saw the elite warriors carry the square beam back behind their walls as the gate closed, leaving the men on top of him as a sacrifice to buy them time.
Seeing that he was about to fail his task of holding open the gates after enduring so much pain, Grud raged as he continued throwing warriors off of him, but by the time he sliced, punched, and killed enough warriors to escape their clutches, the gate was closed and barred, and atop the walls was the silhouette of archers lined up.
“FIRE!” a command was shouted and arrows rained down on Grud and the surviving warriors.
Grud wanted to send a pulse of mana to blow away the first wave of arrows but realized too late that he could not feel his mana. The only thing he could do in time was raise both arms to cover his head and trust that his armor would protect anything truly important.
