Marquis Forneus noticed how the murder of exploding crows had started heading in the direction of the Giants, so he chose to send over two Dragon Devils to intercept the murderous birds after what they had done to them.
Judging by the size of those crows and their ability to fly fast, they would be perfect for harassing the Giants who could provide a big push towards capturing the sky bridge. Although the foot soldiers were slowly gaining ground after they had managed to overcome the gauntlet obstacle where Duke Vepar had fallen, it would take them many hours to manage it by themselves.
The only silver lining for the Demon Army was that the number of Pandarens might seem constant, but the quality had dropped due to the influx of first-time customers coming in. Usually, Jin would have dealt with this by assigning his monsters as overseers, but here they needed to conserve their forces.
His Pandawans and Veteran Pandarens could only do so much to coordinate or help with the defences. It was nonetheless frustrating for some to die because they happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time or simply be unlucky enough to get hit by a random attack from the demons despite Qiu Yue’s flash teleporting. (It would be a lie if the System did not help since a human could only process so much.)
Still, most accepted this as a realistic depiction of war and a selling point of this dungeon instance raid. (The System did, however, gave a discount coupon to encourage them to join again.)
Before the murder of exploding crows could take advantage of the situation and kill many Giants by going into their orifices and self detonate, the pair of Dragon Devils had already swooped down and spewed flames into the blob to destroy them as soon as possible.
To deal with this, Odin’s Ravens quickly split the group as far as possible to reduce casualties to the rest of the murder. Que Er also gave the command to inflict as much damage before dying or else their lives would be wasted.
Hence, the exploding crows hastened their pace and hit anything in sight, slowing the Giants down as much as possible. This incidentally provided Meng Ruo and Jin Ru with the opportunity to dash away. Going one step beyond, Que Er had also commanded a small murder of crows to clear a path for them.
“Take it as thanks for doing your best in the backlines.” Que Er thought to herself as she watched the land hover use the dead bodies and the gauntlet as a ramp to return back to the defensive lines and relative safety.
Separately, Qiu Yue was finally given the permission by Moloch to activate the Clay Dragon and Pandajilla as the horde of Giants were encroaching towards the Sky Bridge. The Clay Dragon which had been hanging in front of the Sky Bridge had surprisingly suffered relatively little damage from the ongoing exchange of fire.
Only when it started to shake and come alive, did the demon soldiers realise that it was not part of the architecture of the city, but instead the very same kind of clay soldier that had killed hundreds or even thousands of their soldiers.
Wights, under the previous command of Princess Gaap, began to hurl magic towards the Clay Dragon along with the mages within the army. Even Prince Stolas started to switch targets and called for the siege weapons to target the Clay Dragon the moment they saw its movement.
“I thought that thing was just some art piece decoration! Well played Moloch! Well played! A shame I will have to destroy this piece of art!” Earl Barbatos praised internally as he instinctively grabbed a ballista along with the series of siege weapons and started to demand the siege engine workers supply him with more ammunition. He was personally going to shoot the clay dragon down.
The more he shoots at the Clay Dragon, the higher it was flying upwards towards the Dragonlite Horde. Understanding that such clay statue was a possible threat to his aerial units, Marquis Forneus began ordering a platoon of Dragonlites to cut its head off, but that would be easier said than done.
The Clay Dragon was a masterpiece created by the collaboration of the most talented craftsmen with Jespa as part of their team. They had done way more than putting just one animate dead rune alongside another within its body.
Due to its size and serpentine length, the Clay Chinese Dragon had been packed with dozens of runes. Jespa made the discovery that putting such a combination of runes together had inadvertently created new unexpected but positive side effects strengthening it into a sort of superweapon. Though the secrets were not shared among the craftsmen, they respected Jespa well enough to not bother her much.
Once the System analysed this, it had ordered the Orc Engineers to place an AI Chip within the dragon’s head to connect all the runes together. The AI Chip enabled the Clay Dragon to gain some form of basic sentience and when it first awoke, the Clay Dragon quickly made the Dragonlites out as the main threat.
It roared and proceeded nearer to them with the full might after being forcefully awoken from its ‘slumber’. The Dragonlites did not expect the kind of speed the Clay Dragon was moving at, and a few were too slow to react before they met their demise at its crushing bite.
A breath of brownish-yellow fire followed up and burnt the first wave of Dragonlites that were approaching towards him.
At that point, the two Dragon Devils who had been assigned to kill the murder of crows recognised that the Clay Dragon had become the most pertinent menace to their fellow comrades. So, the armoured riders switched targets and led their Horned Dragons to engage the Clay Dragon in a dogfight.
However, as the Horned Dragons threw their breaths of fire towards the Clay Dragon, they noticed it was also covered by an energised shield courtesy of the runes in place. Upon closer look, the Dragon Devils also identified some sort of empty emplacements along the long body of the Clay Dragon. But in an instant after its discovery, those emplacements were filled with some small critter-like being armed with the very same projectile device that had released those deadly metal pellets.
That’s right, The Clay Dragon was not alone. Sentry guns had been grafted onto the Clay Dragon for the Mousefolks to operate and allow it to double as an effective anti-air flyer. Each metre of its body had been utilised to the fullest.
As for Pandjilla, it had awoken from his slumbers in the seas. It featured the very same sentry mounts for a platoon of Mousefolks ride it. The main difference being that Pandjilla had more space along its back, which allowed for heavier armaments to get placed and it could also hide those within its plates.
Yet for now, Qiu Yue chose not to have it make its appearance. Instead, it would remain to lurk within the sea, waiting for the correct chance to ambush the Giants.
Marquis Forneus perceived this as a make-or-break moment. The Clay Dragon was wiping out his platoon quickly despite their constant magical attacks. The Dragonlites’ fiery breaths and even those magical harpoons they had used to defeat the Goblin Anti Air Company were practically ineffective against it. It was equally frustrating that they kept missing because of Clay Dragon’s agile movements and with the mousefolks accurately gunning his troops down.
He needed to send the Dragonlites down quickly to the floating platforms and get a hold of a clearing. If they could only gain a firm footing on the floating platform, they could create another temporary safe zone for their other demons to teleport to. It was the very same for Earl Barbatos too, and whoever was able to do it first would create a notable milestone for the Demon Army’s advance.
If this one gigantic Clay Dragon could be out terrorising the rest of the army, there was a chance other such ‘creatures’ might appear. He had to push his Giants fast to the end of the sky bridge despite them gathering at the start of it for a major push. It was a waste to step on the foot soldiers, but it would be more of a waste not to charge right now.
Unfortunately, Marquis Forneus and Earl Barbatos chose the wrong timing to proceed as the Pandarens incidentally defeated their 3000th demon.
The Collective Raid Objective got completed, and as a reward, Yun arrived at the top of the sky bridge’s highest watchtower as a clocktower bell tolled loudly in the background.
