Primordial Villain With A Slave Harem - Chapter 742

Chapter 742: Catastrophe
But instead of being hurt, a radiant, translucent wall of reinforced mana surrounded her frame, shaped like the petals of a blooming rose, yet harder than enchanted steel. It dispersed the force outward harmlessly in all directions.

She landed with a thud.

“Miss Shallan, please leave our Lord’s defense to me.”

As if on cue, my other stalwart protector stepped forward.

Kaelira’s voice rang out like a smith’s hammer striking true. “[Runeweaver’s Armory].”

The air shimmered around me as golden runes spun into existence. They floated down and latched onto my black armor, weaving into it, reinforcing every joint, every segment, with a new layer of radiant gold plating.

The result was majestic, ornate… and dense. Not just in beauty, but in function. The armor would now resist magical projectiles, absorb pressure, and reroute excess force into the air above me.

“Return to assaulting the barrier,” she said to her subordinate calmly, as if she hadn’t just made me look like a divine knight from legend.

“Acknowledged, Boss,” Shallan said with a smirk, already raising her staff to summon another gale.

Then, Aurora cast from behind me. “[Dreamveil],” she intoned, creating a transparent bubble of magic blooming around my newly enhanced armor. It wasn’t rigid like Kaelira’s work, but flexible, flowing, like breath made solid, perfectly displaying her new class’s, Essenceweaver’s, properties.

I couldn’t help it; I grinned from ear to ear.

Not because I was unscathed. Not because I felt invincible.

But because my girls were just the best.

Several Consortium onlookers seemed to agree with me, as a few jaws almost hit the floor. Even Maelstrom turned his head and gave a single approving nod before redirecting his attention to the barrier of Lionheart.

The barrier that seemed to be losing the battle of attrition.

The next ten minutes felt like a slow march through hell. It was like a musical orchestra made up of screaming and wailing, alongside a healthy dose of pure destruction.

The beastkin mages kept pelting the barrier with everything they had, be that fireballs, lightning lances, compressed wind blades, crushing stones the size of carriages, but as this was going on, Lionheart didn’t sit still and take it.

No, they answered back in full.

The lionkin defenders operated their arcane artillery with great efficiency. Manually loaded ballistae that were enchanted to shoot bolts of flame or jets of highly pressurized water. Auto-turrets that were full of stored spellwork, spitting out magic bombs that scattered fiery shards across the field. Spellstones that were atop towers, each triggering mass-cast spells that swept entire sections of the battlefield.

It was warfare of true historical proportions. A monumental event in the history of the continent.

Screams echoed across the lines as beastkin were torn apart. One wolfkin warrior caught a direct hit and exploded into a mist of red, dousing his allies in the hot remains. A sheepkin cleric who was doing support duties in the back, rushed in to save a fallen soldier, only for a second blast to rip her legs from under her, leaving her wailing in the dirt, crawling with hands slick with her own blood.

Other healers dashed across the carnage, but they couldn’t keep up with the sheer number of injuries. Limbs lay discarded like broken tools. The air stank of burning flesh, of sweat and piss. The wails of the dying were constant, becoming a chorus that blended with the unrelenting drumbeat of war after a bit of time.

And yet, we didn’t stop.

Even as bodies piled high. Even as commanders barked and snapped for reinforcements. Even as dozens fell for every inch of progress, we continued. The combined forces of beastkin fury and criminal relentlessness dug in their heels, casting and flinging and screaming their hatred up at that impenetrable sky-shield.

And then…

Finally…

Cracks formed. Ones that weren’t sealed after a few seconds.

Thin at first, like spiderwebs stretched too far.

Then wider. Deeper. Veins of exposed magic, fraying at the edges like torn silk.

A thunderous, synchronized push from the dogkin and wolfkin mages slammed the weakened point. Finally, the barrier shattered, exploding inward in a brilliant vanishing light, as though the sky itself had just been slain.

The besiegers cheered.

Dogkin howled and pounded their weapons against shields.

Wolfkin raised their arms in triumph, their victory chants rolling like thunder across the battlefield.

Even Consortium soldiers allowed themselves smug, satisfied grins, looking toward their commanders with bloodthirsty expectation.

Victory was within reach.

The walls were naked.

The shield was gone.

Now was the time to charge and begin the massacre.

They looked to the front, to Vargis, to Skarn, to Maelstrom, wanting nothing more than to be given the order to run in, to be given permission to achieve both glory and vengeance by heroically saving the still living hostages and brutally murdering the lionkin.

But before a single word of command could be shouted, an ear-splitting horn blared.

It cut across the battlefield, in the form of a deep, guttural sound that was so loud it shook the very marrow in my bones. The battlefield went still, just for a second, as the note echoed into silence.

Then the lions began to roar.

Not defensively.

Not in fear.

But like predators about to go on a prowl.

The gates of Lionheart—those colossal monstrosities—opened.

And the lionkin came pouring out.

Tens of thousands of armored beasts. Their golden eyes gleamed, their weapons were drawn, and their snarling teeth were bared.

“What the hell are they doing…?” Lucille questioned with shock in her voice.

“They’re sallying out?” Aurora gasped. “But why?! Their defenses are all in or on the wall!”

I understood the confusion. It made no sense. Staying behind those indomitable walls would’ve been the smarter play. It was more defensible, with better angles, making it a meat grinder for anyone who dared approach.

But they weren’t trying to survive.

They were trying to kill.

But our confused state of mind wasn’t meant to last for long, as another horn blared. This one didn’t come from the city.

It came from behind us, from the distant hills.

From the fog and the tree lines.

And from that darkness came an army. A massive, black-armored, unnatural host. The Covenant of Eternity had arrived.

They swept over the rear hills like a tide of rot and bone. Massive beasts stitched together from corpses roared beneath banners of pale silk. Necromancers and liches marched among armored thralls and skeletal constructs.

We were being pinched between Lionheart’s sallying forces in front and the Covenant’s incoming horde from behind.

From somewhere in the dogkin ranks, I heard Vargis scream in rage.

“Where are my scouts?! Where were the warnings?! We had eyes in every direction!”

No answers came.

Only curses.

Only dread.

Only the horrible, sinking realization.

Somehow, this massive force had come upon us unseen. There was a reason we converged on Lionheart from all angles of their territory; we intended to destroy all their flanks so as to prevent this exact situation from happening. Maelstrom, with his massive Consortium army, had deliberately come from the side of the human lands, intending to exterminate all Covenant forces that were close enough to reinforce the defense before we were done with the siege of Lionheart.

Whether they did this by powerful illusion magic, by dark rituals that suppressed communication, or something even fouler, I didn’t know. But what mattered is that they managed to surprise us good. Way too good. All of this had a foul stench of betrayal to my nostrils.

As if this weren’t enough, I watched Vargis receive a call to his magical communication crystal.

Rajah’s voice screamed through it.

“Everyone! The Elvardia forces are on us! They’re here! They’re all here! We need backup immediately! They’re attacking from the east! They-”

The transmission cut off.

Vargis’s face darkened like a stormfront.

This wasn’t just a siege anymore.

This was an ambush.

A trap.

And we had walked right into it.