The next day, the situation with the creatures repeated itself.
As soon as the pulse weakened, they stormed the city in a grotesque wave.
This time, however, they were not slowly approaching but rushing, and managed to break down the damaged gate the moment they slammed into it.
The women defending the gate shot arrows as soon as the creatures entered their range, but the few that fell got trampled, not even slowing the incoming tide in the slightest.
As soon as the mass of the creatures broke through the gate, Lin Mei ordered the trees to be set ablaze, hoping that this would stop the creatures.
It worked, as the moment the incendiary bombs detonated, a wall of flames filled the gate, stopping the assault in its tracks.
-Pull back, retreat to the next line.
Lin Mei shouted, for everyone to hear.
Every woman present rushed down the walls and the gate, moving as fast as they could to their former home district, which was now turned into a defensible position.
-Sister Mei, we won't be able to hold them off in there.
Natalie said as they rushed to the next position.
She was right, as this place was prepared to hold off at most a hundred or two hundred creatures for a short while.
Against thousands, it would be crushed in seconds.
-We won't be defending the second line.
As soon as the creatures arrive, we will set it on fire and retreat.
Lin Mei stated.
-Actually, the only ones to stay there will be fire mages; the rest are to retreat to the mansions and take their positions.
We will make our final stand there.
She added.
Hearing her words, Natalie finally realized that the pulse should have reactivated by now, and she turned pale.
Without that pulse, they stood no chance at all and could only buy time for Paul, in hopes that he would finish breaking through to the Ascension stage before they were all killed or dragged away.
As soon as everyone arrived at the second line of defence.
Lin Mei and Sun Ning reorganized their forces, leaving a bit over two dozen fire mages with Lin Mei to set this place on fire while the rest retreated to the mansions.
The mages were nervous, knowing that if they failed, they would be the first ones to pay for it.
The waiting was, as usual, the worst part, but the longer they were able to hold the creatures at bay, the better.
In this case, they lucked out, as the trees stacked under the gate were only cut a few days ago, and even if they were mixed with some dry wood, they burned for a few hours, blocking the creatures from entering the city.
They saw the same thing happen the day before, but at that time, they didn't think to add any dry wood to the stacks of trees, so they were not burning for so long.
This time, the flames were still going strong after three hours.
Unfortunately, their luck seemed to run out, as the sky started to be covered by dark clouds, and soon it started to rain.
-This is bad.
Lin Mei stated the obvious.
-Set the fires now and retreat.
She ordered after thinking for a moment.
If everything got soaked, then they would be unable to set the fires, so it was better to do so now and hope that the flames would become strong enough not to be extinguished by the rain in a short time.
Hearing her command, the mages immediately started casting fireballs, fire walls, and fire serpents left and right, turning their former homes into a sea of flames within a few minutes before they retreated.
This time, their efforts could buy them only a few minutes at most, since the creatures could simply go around the district, without waiting for the fire to die down, but a few minutes were better than nothing.
As they left, they could already hear the roars of the creatures behind them, meaning that the gate's fire was already extinguished, and they entered the city.
-Be on guard, they are already inside.
Lin Mei shouted as they reached the mansions and climbed over the barricades blocking the entrance.
Hearing her words, everyone focused even more than before, looking for any signs of the approaching enemies.
It was unnerving, as this time they had nowhere to run and were forced to stand their ground till the end.
Many of the ladies decided in advance that if they were captured, they would self-detonate and hopefully take their captors with them.
This, however, was the last resort, and for now they all focused on buying as much time as possible, so with any luck at least some of them would be able to escape from this hellhole.
The time went by slowly, ten minutes, then twenty, then half an hour passed, and there were no signs of the creatures.
All they saw were the columns of smoke rising into the air from their former homes.
Then suddenly they heard a cracking sound of one of the traps they had set beforehand, activating.
A moment later, there was another and another, each one closer than the last, before they finally saw the silhouettes of the creatures through the rain.
They were no longer rushing, like they had all the time in the world, and knew that their prey had nowhere to escape to.
The ladies watched in terror as the traps closer to their baricade were activated, killing some of the creatures and wounding others, but this was barely a drop in the bucket.
The approaching army didn't care about its losses and simply moved on as if nothing had happened.
-Release arrows.
Sun Ning ordered when the creatures got within the archer's range.
A wall of arrows was launched at the creatures, killing many of them and injuring even more, but it didn't even slow down the enemies.
Soon, the arrows and spells rained freely on the creatures, taking them out by the dozens.
-We are so dead.
Anna commented, sending another arrow into the creature, which was cut in half as soon as it got hit.
-Maybe so, but we will take as many of them with us as we can.
Wei Lan, standing next to her, said, taking out her spear, as she just fired her last arrow.
The spear was not her weapon of choice, but Paul insisted that every one of them should have at least one with them.
Most ladies were opposed to this idea, but now they agreed that the longer reach of a spear was much better suited for defense than their chosen weapons.
Soon, their arrows were depleted, and all of the ladies switched to their melee weapons, waiting to face the enemies in close-quarters combat.
Seeing that no more arrows were shot at them, the creatures rushed forward at the barricade, slamming into it like a tsunami and breaking it apart with their momentum alone.
Everyone on top of the barricade was thrown back, hitting the ground, and some of the women standing behind them.
As soon as the creatures broke through, the whole area descended into chaos, as the women quickly scrambled to face their opponents.
They fought with the desperation of cornered animals, doing their best to kill as many creatures as they could, but in the end, it was useless.
Going head-to-head with these creatures was almost impossible for them, and even though some ladies managed to take down a creature or two, they were quickly overwhelmed.
However, to the women's surprise, the beasts didn't kill any of them.
Most of the time, they were either slammed to the ground or hit with enough force to send them flying, before the creatures grabbed them and started dragging them away.
Knowing what awaited them after being captured, most of the ladies abandoned any form of resistance and started focusing their powers to self-detonate.
Just as they were about to end it all, their slavery marks started to glow with green light, and a pillar of green light shot out from Paul's mansion.
As soon as that happened, all the women simply vanished from the grasp of their captors, leaving them empty-handed and roaring with anger.