In a corner of the anti-magic fortress.
This area is used by the Church of Our Lady, serving as their gathering point within the fortress.
As soon as Alka arrived, he saw a statue of the Virgin Mary standing in front of the door.
Perhaps because this is a fortress, the statue isn't particularly grand, looking like one in an ordinary chapel.
And the place is filled with the aura of the Virgin Mary's holy light.
Various people dressed in white, wheat, and gold came and went.
"Saint," they politely nodded as they passed Annafiel.
Annafiel nodded in return.
Almost all of the people walking around were soldiers, and judging by the marks on their bodies, some had likely just been in battle.
Alka entered the area. The largest stone house in the center was decorated in a manner not dissimilar to a church.
From here, there was an inner training ground, where Wheatear Knights could be seen warming up.
Some wounded soldiers, bandaged, were undergoing rehabilitation training.
The sound of prayers could be heard not far away.
Alka casually scanned the area with his eyes open. Everyone here was at Stage 4 or higher, with quite a few at Stage 5.
As he entered, he spotted one or two Stage 6 figures.
Clearly, these were soldiers provided by the Holy Mother Church.
Further in, there were several multi-story stone houses. One of the larger ones was arranged into a spacious hall with a variety of seating.
It was clearly a resting area, with many knights resting inside.
Annabelle led Alka to the second floor.
The second floor also had a hall and several small rooms.
In the hall sat two knights and a priest, seemingly discussing something. All of them were at Stage 6.
And they were almost all above the middle of the sixth stage, nearing perfection.
"Your Highness," one of the knights nodded after seeing Annafiel, then spotted Alka.
The other two strangers also spotted Alka. After examining the stranger carefully for a moment, they seemed to recognize Alka.
"Are you Alka?" Their voices were uncertain, clearly a first meeting.
Alka nodded.
At this moment, Annafiel came over and said, "These are all colleagues supporting us here. This one is Kans, the leader of the Knights."
He pointed to one of the knights. The knight was about forty years old, looking mature but not old.
He had a very ordinary appearance, yet exuded a sense of toughness.
Alka extended his hand and shook his.
"I've heard so much about you. Finally seeing your full face," he said, smiling as he looked at Alka. The Saint pointed to another knight, who was about the same age as Alka, but looked much younger.
"Linton, Vice-Captain of the Knights."
He smiled and shook Alka's hand. "I've heard of your deeds for a long time. They're truly impressive. We could spar with each other sometime."
The scars on his face and the scratches on his armor revealed him to be a passionate warrior.
Perhaps he and Pororo would have something in common.
Finally, the priest introduced himself: "My name is Joseph, and I'm the leader of the Priest Support Corps. You're much younger than I thought."
"Really? Haha." Alka smiled, then sat down in the empty seat next to them.
Annafel also sat down nearby.
"Are you here for Kalande?" Annaafel asked, looking at Alka.
Although her eyes were hidden by a metal blindfold, Alka could sense her gaze piercing through them.
"I suspect he was a deliberate enemy target, so I haven't considered him a target for now. I'm just here to familiarize myself and offer some assistance where I can."
Hearing Alka's words, the others nodded, their understanding clear.
"I was about to dissuade you, but now that you know clearly, we're relieved."
"Do you need to lead a small team into battle?" Kans, the Knight Commander, asked Alka.
He was clearly asking if Alka needed additional troops to assist in the battle.
If Alka had just arrived, he obviously wouldn't have done so. But Alka's reputation had spread beyond the Magic Wall over the years, so they were relatively confident in him.
Besides, Alka had led soldiers in operations before.
Hearing this, Alka shook his head. "No need. I'm more accustomed to fighting alone than leading soldiers, and my teammates should be arriving soon."
They nodded at this.
"Will all your teammates come?" Linton, the deputy knight captain, couldn't help but ask.
Alka nodded: "Yes, they will."
Linton was a little excited at this.
Looking at him, Kans, the captain, couldn't help but shake his head helplessly.
He gave Alka an apologetic smile: "I'm sorry, my subordinate is passionate about fighting, and he's always wanted to spar with your companion, the Blood War Beast."
Alka nodded at this, thinking it was as expected.
"Blood War Beast" is a title that Pororo has earned in recent years.
Originally, it was the War Beast.
Until one defensive battle, when Pororo's performance was incredibly bloody and dazzling, primarily due to the numerous reckless demons that preferred close combat.
The scalding demon blood practically coated his body, even leaving him with varying degrees of burns.
The demon blood stained his flesh so thoroughly that, from a distance, it looked almost like a layer of lava. One can only imagine how many demons he slaughtered in that battle.
From then on, he earned the nickname "Beast of Blood War."
The group chatted briefly, building a closer bond.
Just then, the sound of a bell rang from outside.
Two rapid tones rang out, followed by a repeating pattern.
At the sound of the bell, the four present suddenly stood up.
The leader of the priest support group, who was sitting next to Alka, told the somewhat puzzled Alka directly, "This is a warning of a demonic attack."
"Each additional beep indicates a different level of demonic attack. This time, there are two beeps, indicating the demonic attack is at a normal level," Kans added.
"What a wonderful meeting, and now it's interrupted by these demons. What a bummer," Linton said, somewhat angrily.
Annafel also stood up and said, "The demons are attacking, so why don't you go to the city wall and take a look?"
Alka nodded. After all, he was here to defend against demons.
Joseph, the leader of the support group, looked at Annafel and said, "Your Highness, you just came down from the city wall. You should take a break."
Annafel shook her head casually. "I'm not exhausted. This rest is enough."
Hearing this, the three of them didn't try to dissuade him, but simply nodded. Clearly, the attack this time wouldn't be very strong. Moreover, the previous battle had only been heard once. To the Saint, such a fight was truly nothing.
After a few brief exchanges, the three of them descended into the hall below. At least half the troops had already left.
Alka looked at the remaining knights, their bodies still stained with blood and unwiped dirt.
They had clearly been on the battlefield before and were probably being rotated out for rest.
After all, the frequency of demonic attacks here was said to be extremely high, and the soldiers were almost constantly rotating on defense, otherwise they wouldn't be able to hold out.
He followed them outside and discovered that the soldiers outside were already beginning to march in an orderly manner toward the city wall.
Alka made his way to the base of the wall and ran towards the top.
Some rubble from the wall fell from above.
It seemed the enemy had employed some kind of long-range attack.
The shouts of killing and the deafening crash of collisions echoed in his ears, and the surroundings suddenly became noisy. As soon as they arrived, they separated.
The Knights' Master and Vice-Master were obviously leaving to lead their members, as was Joseph.
Only Annafiel remained with Alka.
Alka quickly reached the top of the city wall and surveyed the battlefield below.
The wall was much thicker than Alka had imagined. A rough glance suggested it was over ten meters thick.
It looked like a square.
It was filled with all sorts of equipment.
Not to mention the sturdy, towering watchtowers built against the wall.
Compared to the rear, the front fortress looked infinitely more impressive.
In the distance, Alka spotted as many as twenty or thirty of those one-eyed slinging giants.
And was that just the normal intensity of the attack?
In a magic-proof fortress, there would normally be only one or two at most.
There were also twenty or thirty Hammer Demons, over ten meters tall, scattered throughout the area, slowly approaching them.
From this point of view, it was clear that the fortress occupied a much larger area than he had imagined.
It even extended to the city walls on either side.
The entire defensive line stretched for at least a kilometer. It was incredible, and even with such an enormous area, demons could still be packed in.
Besides that, Alka even spotted four hellish war beasts, a sight he had never seen before.
These creatures, resembling giant bulls made of molten lava, were clad in a layer of black metal armor. On their backs, they carried siege weapons that resembled haphazardly forged cannons.
These giant bulls reached over ten meters above the ground, and their bodies were nearly twenty or thirty meters long. They looked like mobile fortresses, trudging across the land.
A long trail of flames trailed behind them.
At the rear of the city wall, elemental cannons were stationed one after another.
These elemental cannons began drawing magic power from the air and then firing.
Completely ignoring the giant bulls, they fired at the cyclops behind them.
Clearly, these attacks wouldn't necessarily be as powerful if they landed on the bulls.
"Bang!"
A loud explosion was heard.
The leading lava bull seemed to have reached range, and the steel lava cannon on its back launched its attack with a resounding roar.
It wasn't a cannonball.
It was a stream of lava.
Like a high-pressure water cannon, it rushed towards them.
The soldiers at the edge of the fortress wall didn't seem panicked, remaining orderly.
In the distance, Alka spotted what appeared to be members of the Church of Storms, using some kind of combined power.
A powerful torrent of water collided directly with the onrushing lava. These streams were extremely cold and rich in water.
The water, however, collided with the lava, generating a massive amount of steam that instantly obscured a large portion of the battlefield.
The lava and scalding steam spread across the battlefield below, and Alka heard a chorus of screams.
The demons had already suffered heavy casualties from their own attacks before they even reached the city walls.
It was truly remarkable how these Chaos-inspired, bloodthirsty demons completely ignored these unnecessary losses.
It didn't affect their continued charge at all.
"Fire!"
With a single command,
the ranged troops on the city walls unleashed their attacks.
Swarms of demons fell.
Various machines, the likes of which Alka had rarely seen, launched their attacks, rapidly clearing out the demons swarming like ants below.
"Is this level of intensity just normal?" Alka asked, watching the scene unfold.
How does this look any different from a decisive battle?
Annafiel nodded. "Although these demons are far more numerous and powerful than elsewhere,
For the fortress's extensive construction and the soldiers stationed there, this level of attack is simply par for the course."
No wonder Greyfort rarely took action against the Demon Hunter Fortress. Even the most demanding defenses they had faced before were comparable to this one.
But the defenses that strained even larger fortresses were merely routine for a fortress defending directly against the enemy.
Furthermore, the demons' strength in this area was expected to increase.
As the battle progressed, various buffs rained down like raindrops. Even as Alka stood there, doing nothing, various buffs were already bestowed upon him, giving him the sensation of a 15% increase in strength.
Keep in mind, his strength had already reached the sixth stage.
Many of these buffs weren't granted at the same level as the sixth stage.
Furthermore, these buffs were applied extensively, covering nearly all the soldiers in the fortress, with some even extending to equipment.
Even in this situation, with this level of strength, he could still gain a 15% boost. For ordinary soldiers, doubling their strength would be practically a problem.
It seemed that in addition to quality, strength, and order, they also possessed a strong teamwork.
Observing the battlefield, Alka suddenly felt a burning, hateful gaze cast upon him from afar.
He looked in the direction of the sensation.
Alka saw a demon about three or four meters tall standing atop a giant lava bull in the distance, staring intently at him.
This demon was unusually muscular, like a bull.
A pair of slightly damaged blood-red demonic bat wings adorned its back, along with scars on its body and a broken horn on its head.
All this revealed the countless battles this demon had endured.
In his hand, he wielded a massive mace, nearly as tall as himself.
It was covered in sharp, black spikes.
He carried this massive mace, glaring menacingly at Alka, who was perched atop the distant city wall.
Looking at the demon, Alka couldn't help but ask, "Isn't he Kalande the Slayer?"
Annafiel nodded. "Yes, he's your target."
Clearly, this Kalande was the commander of this siege.
Kalande clenched his fist towards Alka, and Alka instantly felt a burning sensation around him. A wisp of flame began to burn from his body.
Watching this, Alka's red flame card appeared around him. The flames immediately surrounded him under his control.
"It can use penetrating flames through the air, directly reaching the target."
Burning.
Magic shields are nearly unstoppable." Annabell explained to Alka after seeing he had controlled the flames.
"His attacks can also penetrate almost all shields. If you plan to fight him, this is crucial information to know."
For some of these well-known, powerful demons who have been on the battlefield for years, detailed descriptions of almost every move and ability are kept.
Even after growth and transformation, whenever they use it, it is immediately recorded.
This powerful ability, like Chujiansha, can only be used effectively once at most.
After a single use, it becomes known to all enemies on the battlefield, and they may even have developed countermeasures.
"It seems he's provoking me. Does he want me to go directly to him?" Alka couldn't help but shake his head and smile.
Then he raised his right hand high.
Several elemental cards emerged and overlapped.
A fire dragon, resembling a long dragon, was condensed by Alka. In an instant, a scorching aura emanated from the surroundings.
The fire dragon was constructed with a majestic aura by Alka, who then propped up his right hand and swung it forward fiercely.
The long dragon swam out, and flames could be seen entwined around it, seemingly performing some kind of operation that was not fire-like.
In Alka's... Under Ka's control, he instantly crashed into the pile of monsters below, using his slender body to weave through the demonic monsters.
The weaker demons were sucked directly into the flame dragon's body.
The flames still carried a powerful destructive effect, slaughtering the demons wantonly. He flew towards the bull in the lava.
Observing this situation, Kalande leaped directly from the bull's back and, from a distance of about ten meters, smashed his club at the fire dragon.