Dust started rising in the distance. At first, it was barely visible, but in a few minutes, the horizon was covered in an approaching dust cloud.

  A flurry of activity consumed the wall. The last groups of soldiers arrived as fireteams of Ents marched to join their assigned squads. It was the special kind of organized chaos reserved for the military.

  Coworkers wished each other luck, friends shared a last dark joke and the artillery never stopped firing.

  Hopkins grunted in affirmation. He must've gotten an order from HQ.

  He started pointing people to locations where they should set up. Soon there was no more movement in their section of the wall.

  Guardsmen were crouching behind the wall, their rifles pointed into the distance. The melee fighters stood behind them protectively.

  Their Ent fireteam arrived while they were conducting last-minute preparations. These nine-foot-tall giants were towering above everyone else in their shiny plate armor.

  Eerily glowing eyes stared out from behind their outdated helmets.

  They looked every bit like the old-school knights making them look comical next to a group of gunmen.

  Except for them, the melee squad had a dual-wielding axe wielder and a swordswoman. The wall didn't see much combat at close quarters, but caution was what kept them alive.

  “HQ sent me a preliminary report on the monster wave. The information might be incomplete, so keep it in mind, but don't count on it," warned Hopkins

  "The attack consists of mutated beetles, most of them no bigger than a humanoid. Both much bigger and much smaller variations are spread throughout the force."

  "The bigger bugs are tougher, while the smaller ones are frighteningly agile. Be wary of their mandibles, and the occasional stinger. They are venomous."

  "Their carapace offers effective protection against smaller caliber. Your rifles shouldn't have a problem with it if you target their weak spots..

  The obvious ones are the head, the legs, and areas surrounding the joints."

  "Understood?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the soldiers answered in unison. The deafening artillery shots played an orchestra in the background.

  The communication earrings proved their worth once again.

  Kerek's mana-enhanced eyesight could make out the first bugs in the distance. Barely dots in the distance for someone not blessed with mana.

  Not that anyone like that existed in Korgadar.

  A bug as big as his bedroom led the charge. It held its head proudly and clicked its mandibles strong enough that they heard it on the wall.

  Its challenge didn't go unanswered and its head got vaporized by a cannon shot. It seemed that the beetles were now in their range too.

  Its lifeless body fell to the ground. Yet, it elicited no reaction from the rest of their would-be attackers.

  The defenders cheered, the canons fired, and the monsters inched ever closer.

  The bugs crawled over the fallen bodies of their comrades. Uncaring they continued with a fearlessness that humanoids could never display.

  No soldiers would voluntarily rush to their death, but the beetles didn't seem to have any qualms about it.

  Sniper shots rang true throughout the battlefield, the most dangerous mutants were dropping dead in droves. The monsters reacted instantly, weaving their bodies at unpredictable intervals.

  They spread out too and what at first seemed to be a formation of sorts now looked much looser. Are they spreading out as a reaction to the bombardment?

  All the explosions made it hard to see. Every blast eviscerated many of the bugs, but at the same time made clouds of sand rise.

  It made the visibility horrible.

  With the monsters hidden under a thick layer of sand, Kerek had to count on his mana sight.

  He didn't practice the technique much and his cultivation offered no benefits with it. Now he had to pay the price of its neglect.

  While before he could see every detail with his mana-enhanced sight now he only saw vague blue blobs.

  It's not that the Way of the Tiger boosted his sight, but the more you cultivated the more mana seeped into your body.

  A cultivation technique used this energy to achieve specific results. Nevertheless, more modest overall improvements were to be expected.

  A strong mage for example could easily best a novice knight in a brawl.

  The beetles were still too far away for their rifles, so their squad held fire. Hopkins's careful gaze analyzed the battlefield, while the bugs rushed towards their wall.

  A mage to their left started chanting and the sand particles above the monster army started gathering.

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  The longer he chanted, the more particles gathered above the rushing bugs. The swirling sand formed into vaguely rectangular shapes.

  A short redhead joined him in his chanting and the shapes sharpened, the sand kept condensing until dozens of black spikes dotted the sky.

  Their number grew rapidly, hundreds, maybe thousands of them now floated in the air. The first mage kept gathering the sand and the second one shaped it.

  A third member joined their trio. Her slow and methodical steps brought her between the two casters.

  There she stopped.

  The new mage raised her hand in the direction of the spikes and then let it abruptly fall.

  The spikes followed her command and accelerated for the ground.

  Even her telekinetic control couldn't make every one of them hit. Even so, hundreds of beasts fell dead, some shots even spiking multiple.

  The mages kept repeating the cycle, repurposing the floating sand. What an ingenious way to boast their firepower and solve their visibility issue at the same time.

  “Do you feel that?” asked Bob “What do you …" The earth was vibrating. "Why is it vibrating?” Kerek asked, growing confused.

  The enemy was numerous. Still, for the earth to vibrate made no sense.

  Their approach wouldn't cause such shaking, the dunes would absorb the impact of the monster march.

  By now multiple guardsmen noticed the phenomenon, even Hopkins looked unnerved.

  He looked ready to give some kind of command when Erick, the closest thing they had to a mage, exclaimed, “I can feel them tunneling beneath us.”

  The wall continued underground, they wouldn’t be able to tunnel inside the city. Maybe they didn't scout ahead? They're just bugs in the end, I bet they don't have much experience with besieging a wall.

  Hopkins seemed to have a different idea, his eyes shone with understanding. “Lean down and open fire!” he ordered just as a sizable group of beetles unearthed themselves below the wall.

  The ambushed soldiers didn't wait long to follow the command. The power of surprise couldn't outweigh their years of experience.

  Kerek joined the veterans and aimed downwards, without hesitation he pulled the trigger.

  The targets were much smaller and squishier than what most of the main attack force consisted of.

  The bullets riddled them with holes, the carapace not strong enough to defend them.

  Their heads exploded easily. The ground was soon covered in shredded organs and a myriad of fluids. Every shot made green blood spill out of their bodies.

  Guns were barking, grenades were exploding and the occasional spell went off. All defenders were doing their best to repel the surprise attack.

  The ground turned into a monster graveyard and it still wasn’t enough, more and more bugs crawled from the underground tunnels.

  While most were killed, those who survived started climbing the wall.

  It was completely smooth, with no gaps left between the stones. The monsters ignored this fact and climbed the upright surface with surprising speed.

  Shooting targets that vertical soon proved to be a challenge.

  Under the quick instructions of Hopkins half of the guardsmen were tied to the wall. With their footing secure they could fire down without fearing a gruesome fall.

  The hastily tied knot around his stomach made it difficult to breathe. He wouldn't let it distract him.

  Everything else on the battlefield faded into nothing. It was him, his gun, and the crawling beetles.

  He took a couple of probing shots. The bug he aimed for rotated itself and the bullets only scratched it instead of killing it.

  With everyone shooting below the wall it was a bullet hell. There was no escape for the bugs there.

  Now their abilities could shine. Kerek tsked and kept firing.

  Seeing their quick thinking many of the other squads did the same. With their help, the progress of the climbers halted.

  He was reloading when he saw a scarred fist fighter take a running start and jump down the wall with a smile on his face.

  In his fall he drop-kicked two of them down, their bodies got crushed to death under him on impact. He dusted himself off and continued nonchalantly tearing bugs apart with his bare hands.

  Whenever a bullet hit his skin it bounced off without doing any damage. Kerek didn't know what the man was made of, but at least there was no risk of friendly fire.

  The climbers had no visible eyes and were about the size of a chubby dog. Their legs stuck to the wall unnaturally well and their quick reflexes made them a difficult target.

  Even though the main force hadn't reached the wall yet, the battle was fully underway. Gunfire sounds were going off in every direction, while explosions could be heard in the distance.

  Leaning down from such a height was not a pleasant experience and he was starting to feel queasy.

  When one of the Ents jerked his rope backwards he almost emptied his stomach and barely kept the hold on his rifle.

  A second later he felt a strike ricocheting off his helmet.

  His back hit the floor, driving all air away from his lungs, while his heart sped up in panic. What the hell?

  Something dropped on top of his chest and knocked the wind out of him. He saw nothing but he felt six hairy appendages touching his torso.

  Dazed and confused, his head exploded in pain. Something was pushing on it from both sides. It was as if his head was held between blacksmith tongs.

  A single thought pierced his thoughts. Or between mandibles.

  He slammed his fist into the space above his battered body.

  He met resistance, but the pain didn't stop, it accelerated. Kerek screamed in agony, but the Ent who saved him was already there.

  It swung its longsword with terrifying speed through the seemingly empty air.

  As soon as the sword finished its arc a decapitated bug appeared on top of Kerek. Its blood leaked everywhere, drenching his tactical armor in the green liquid.

  “That shit is toxic, extract him out of the armor asap,” Hopkins ordered.

  Before he could even get his bearings he was stripped of his armor and it was chugged under the wall together with the monster corpse.

  The not-wizard came to check on his injury. Luckily sturdiness was his body's specialty. The helmet stopped the worst of the attack and his sturdy skull did the rest.

  "It didn't even pierce your skin, you might wake up with a bruise tomorrow, but that's about it," Erick told him. "Catch your breath, Bob will bring you a spare helmet," then he stood up and departed, not giving him any space for questions.

  Kerek sighed, continuing the fight in his uniform would be dangerous. Even his second helmet got contaminated, though thankfully Bob did not dilly-dally with the new one.

  Grateful, he put it on.

  Kerek mentally braced himself for what was shaping out to be a grueling battle.

  Fortunately, it looked like the Ents could spot the invisible monsters.

  They were relaying their locations to the riflemen or plastering their invisible forms with blasters.

  It was a wasteful, but necessary usage of the weapon.

  They packed enough of a punch to rival a small canon and became unusable after as little as six shots.

  The blasters were the only range weapons carried by the wooden giants. Them being the only ones capable of spotting the enemy made their usage in this situation imperative.

  A glance around the wall revealed the cruel truth.

  While the defenders might’ve adapted fast the first contact with the new monster type still caught them unaware.

  Medics were darting around the battlefield bandaging wounds, while healers provided their magic.

  That was regrettable, but normal enough. What was more confusing was that the soldiers all around the wall stopped shooting.

  The battlefield turned eerily quiet. The silence was only broken by the rhythmical fire of war machines.

  Kerek had no idea what was happening as he didn’t see over the wall from his sitting position.

  He decided that he wouldn’t recover from the shock any more than this and he slowly got up.

  What greeted him was a confusing sight.

  Only monster bodies could be seen below the wall, no longer were any of them scaling it. That explained the lack of gunshots, the more shocking was that the distant horde of beetles was not charging the wall anymore.

  No, the opposite was happening. Something antithetical to everything he knew about monster waves.

  The beetles were retreating.