When the first undead creatures jumped over the river or simply ran across its surface without sinking and weren't carried away by the rolling water, it showed that whatever magic was in their bones, it was still there, even if just for enough to allow them to cross any rugged terrain they may come across. Even if their bones had no etching originally, now there was at least one, usually on their skulls, glowing, filled with the will and with the energy from the Guardian, creating these bony automatons.

As they rushed and jumped across the river, if they could have felt surprise, maybe they would have shown it, for the first thing they met was a similar sight: skull-shaped faces looking back at them with glowing, red eyes.

The elites of Avalon stood ready in the frontline trenches, weapons at the ready, many having flame swirling across their blades, or frost emitting clouds of white air along their halberds' heads. Then, there were the cracking of arcs of lightning, covering hammers, mauls, and maces. But they weren't alone, as beside them, mixed between their ranks were the regular army, soldiers mostly from Ishillia and Khulman. With the signal of their officers, they raised their tower shields and spears, drew their bows, and held bone-made arrowheads at the ready, releasing them in the hope of hitting their marks.

Then, the first wave jumped into the trenches, many of them being dog-sized creatures, skittering along impossible angles.

"Strike!" One Avalonian yelled, waving a lightning-covered maul, smashing the beast into powder, scattering most of its bones to all the cardinal directions.

"FOR AVALON!" Roared another, waving his weapon clutched between his fingers.

With one sweep of a flaming sword, he cleaved through three at once, the fire spreading out in a cone shape, burning the bones and reducing them to dust before they even hit the ground. At another junction, a frost-enchanted spear pierced a rib cage and shattered the creature's spine, right where it glowed with a bright image of a rune. The shattering of the rune from the inside was followed by the fragments of the monster dissolving into a blue haze. It wasn't long before the first findings began spreading among the soldiers, who noticed the most significant factor in killing the undead.

"Destroy the glowing runes! It stops them from moving!"

"AIM FOR THE RUNES!"

Many, activating their short-range, anti-magic formations in their helmets, found that although it worked on the horde, many beasts had more than one glowing rune, and only disabling one wasn't a permanent solution. Yes, some of the creatures stumbled, losing control over part of their bodies, but they had to disable them all to truly stop them from getting back up. They had to be robbed of the control of the Guardian.

With the new information, they kept carving at the incoming beasts like scythes through wheat, but there was no end in sight. Their armor, at the start, deflected most claws and fangs, the black plates holding, but more and more marks and damages began appearing on them, until one finally cracked and the first death cry echoed through the inner coms of all the helmets of the Avalonian troops.

"FOR THE SOVEREIGN!" He cried out in pain and zeal as the warrior slammed his hammer down, unleashing all the power in his blood tattoo at once, creating a small, electric bubble, spreading outwards like an aimed explosion, taking down a dozen bone-made horrors before falling to the ground, no longer moving.

But he was not the first to go. Neither the last... as amongst the regular troops, casualties were constantly climbing up and up.

Those monsters who leapt into the trench found themselves landing and skittering on the surface of shield-walls, as if they were spiders with scorpion-like tails, using it to stab through metal as if it were paper. A Sar soldier braced his tower shield and rammed forward, when the bone tip of the beast got stuck in his shield, pinning it to the dirt wall as his partner drove a spear through its spine, breaking both the bone and his weapon. By then, another skeletal abomination lunged low at them, crawling beneath the shields, its sickle-like arms severing limbs along with any armor they wore, tearing and chopping like crazed butchering cleavers. Screams were now a constant background crescendo, accompanying the most brutal fight in recent history.

"Hold the line!" their captain roared, using a bone-reinforced sword, as he knew that even if they retreated, if the monsters weren't stopped, nobody else would be able to do it. They had to stand, even if it meant sacrificing everybody... No matter the cost, they had to end it here. Turning, he saw bone-made claws scraping at his men, teeth gnashing against their throats and limbs, watching as even the Avalonians were falling as there were black-armored figures, lying in the sea of bones, blood, and dirt. Then... a maw was jumping up from the corpses of five dead Sarian soldiers, aiming directly at him. "DIE BEAST!" He roared back at it, ready to meet his end, unwilling to die as a coward.

Yet, before it could happen, an Avalonian dropped into the trench from somewhere, like a black demon of their own. His lightning-charged blade swept in a wide arc, incinerating half a dozen skeletons at once, not just the one aiming for the commander.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Hold! Make sure they break before you do!" He yelled, and the officer could hear the heavy breathing through the helmet he wore, yet the man simply rushed into the fray, fighting alongside the regular troops. There was no step he took backwards... only forward. Forever forward.

It was all they needed as a second wave of roar came as more soldiers appeared from behind, simple, regular troops, willingly jumping into the fray, sacrificing everything for the future of every human on the continent.

... .... ......

The battlefield at the opposite bank of the river was just as chaotic as the one amongst the trenches and fortifications.

Sometimes, the tallest monsters let loose a magical attack, either in the form of a beam or a fiery spell, only for it to get dispelled and blocked by the pylons they had laid down. Whenever it happened, a blue, glass-like dome appeared around the fortifications, dispersing the magic, protecting the continuously roaring artillery, and sending its own spells towards the Guardian's location. Mages, from all regions of the Union, were standing with the pylons, chanting, standing in formations, using their magic to keep them linked and powerful. It was all they could do, because if the shields failed... one such spell would mean the end of any kind of chance they had.

As for the battle against the massive beasts, it was already happening.

Along the left side of the mechs' formations was the Valiant, Veron's own machine, and the only thought he had before focusing on the battle was that this one was nothing like assaulting Ishillia. With that in mind, he raised his shield high, a wall of thick metal plating, painted black with reinforced shield-magic as he strode forward. The flamethrower that was currently built into its other arm snapped to the cutout on the tower shield's right end, and then, with a squeeze, it came alive with a guttural hiss, vomiting out a wave of almost white-colored fire that swept across the nearest horde of beasts, consuming them all. Hundreds of skeletons, rushing between his legs, heading towards the trenches, were turned into ash, their runes flickering out in seconds, disappearing from view. Behind his shielded body, from the ground up, the Valiant looked like an immovable fire-breathing dragon, a bulwark against the tide.

Yet, its target was not the small ones, but the mech-sized, two-legged creature with axe-shaped arms, coming straight at it. It was clawing through his fire curtain, and although it hadn't turned to ash yet, its bones were already glowing, close to losing their magic and finally shattering.

But the Valiant wouldn't wait for it to happen, as he was not alone. Its partner, the Shadow, was already there, acting as its executioner's blade. Corinne's mech appeared from nowhere, coming around the Valiant with unnatural speed for something so big. Her sword crackled with energy as she cut through the flames just like the beast tried to do, but unlike him, Cronnie managed to do it. She not only cut the flames, but she sliced through the melting ribs and spines with immaculate precision. It was what pushed it through the breaking point, finally shattering and crumbling into dust under the Valiant's continuous onslaught.

At one point, another, towering, tusked monster swung down its bone club to smash down the Valiant, coming at it from its left side. Veron raised his shield, bracing as the blow cracked against it and the blue magical reinforcement popped up around the shield, while the earth beneath their feet cracked, almost making the mech sink a meter down into the ground. As a response, the Shadow used its own formation, nulling its weight as it vaulted over Veron's shoulders, her sword glowing as it severed the monster's arm at the elbow, followed by the Valiant's flamethrower coming online and burning away the rest.

Further along the battline of the mechs, just as the Valiant and the Shadow had eliminated their latest target, thunder crackled, quite literally. It was Edrine's sniper, held by his mech, the Thunder, its weapon firing one after the other in quick succession. Each shot was loud, piercing through the giants in his sight with impeccable marksmanship. A glowing bolt lanced through one thirty-meter-tall monstrosity's right legs, shattering the pelvis above it, causing the monster to topple forward, its runes on that end blinking out before it hit the ground.

And then, his partner, the Leviathan, was already on it. Tiburon's brawler mech crashed into the incapacitated beast, its enormous gauntlets spinning with screeching chainblades of hundreds of tiny CCs. The noise itself alone was deafening as the blades bit into bone, grinding arms and skulls into powder, sounding like a dentist's drill, going a bit deeper than it should have. There was nothing the monster could do, as, despite being called a meathead, Tiburon was aiming to drill away and eliminate the glowing runes, disabling the puppeteering magic as fast as possible, doing the least damage to its own armor to make sure it could keep fighting.

Whenever the Thunder's weapon hit its mark, the Leviathan was there, like a shark smelling blood in the water, ripping and tearing, throwing bonedust everywhere. It was savage and it looked animalistic, but it was effective. Just as effective as the battle at the other end of the mechs' battleline.

Empress Mirian's mech, aptly named the Spear, wielded the artifact of the Goddess Ariana, the Spear of Death. And in the battle, it finally showed its true powers. Each thrust of its blade made the bone of its targets disintegrate where it struck. It wasn't shattered nor was it broken. It was more than that, as the material, along with the magic in it, was erased from existence. There was not even a trace of dust left behind, nor any residue. Where the head of the spear landed, the bones suddenly distorted, as if they began to glitch in real life and then abruptly faded, disappearing as if they had never been there.

She wasn't alone, of course. Beside her, Yuri fought with no less brilliance, fired up and wanting to match the Empress of Ishillia, as she was the wife of Leon. She wouldn't let a foreign woman outshine someone who runs on the essence of THE Sovereign... Her Sovereign. At least, that was what she was thinking, grinning from ear to ear, seeing red only.

As if agreeing with her pilot, the Princess moved with an actual dancer's grace, something that was surprising to see, using her own spear, darting towards the biggest targets and spinning in perfect arcs before aiming towards the glowing runes on its body. Where Mirian's strikes were more like cold, precision-based, and calculated attacks, Yuri was acting through simple instincts, sweeping and stabbing in an unpredictable rhythm, constantly adapting to what her enemy was moving to do. She only saw the runes... and she was going to hit them all.

Nevertheless... no matter how many they made fall... more were coming.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.