The chaotic situation did not get better. Confused Climbers appearing only served to delay the mobilization of the pre-existing defenders. Men who'd once been soaring through the air were in a rush to return to combat the aerial enemies, only to be stopped by someone that had no clue how they'd ended up in the city.
Some people claimed they'd been resting after a fight, while others were transported mid-step, and the issues with vertigo became a whole new can of worms.
Fortunately, unlike Esme, none of those Climbers thought to ask the apparent child who was sprinting through the streets about what was going on. There was nobody to stop his journey back toward the wall, where more and more people were gathering to take in the grim reality of their situation.
If any of them had thought they were in hell before, they must've really been sent to whatever damnation came after it.
Worthy couldn't have anticipated the current situation. As the child made it back to the top of the wall — transported by a Climber who had the ability to transform into a massive pelican — he got the opportunity to study the perilous wasteland and the battle unfolding.
With the vanguard suffering a complete loss in its manpower, he had anticipated seeing a litany of bloody masses inches away from the battlements. He expected that once he made it to the top, it'd be just in time to watch as all of them drowned in a downpour of blood released from their amalgamated mass. The singular, momentary lapse in their defense should have been enough to cost them their life. The fragile balance was broken, and so their enemies had the perfect opportunity to slay — or absorb — all of them.
To his astonishment, the bloody abominations had only made it half way. Because they were ravaged by the walls of the city.
Previously, he'd gotten front-row seats to watch as the Stone Titan created by Alice assimilated the flesh abominations with itself. It healed its injuries and empowered itself, to the point that flesh grew from its body. The same mountainous creature was battling a mountain made of blood and meat, delaying the advance of one source of enemies. In the larger scope of the battle, it was too little to matter. It was an effort nonetheless.
'The walls… they're assimilating the flesh!'
The similarity was undeniable, and so were the results. Just as the Stone Titan repaired itself with life, the hole where Asterie met her end was no longer there. The blood surrounding where she splattered remained, but there was no sign of the damage.
Analyzing the structure of the wall again, he picked up on more subtle differences. The walls looked newer. It was like the massive, ivory walls of the settlement became a bit more clear of dust and grime. As a matter of course, the blood that stained the wall was progressively fading, or being absorbed by the protective barrier. This miniscule amount of blood only helped purge more impurities.
It reflected its appearance on the day Alice created it — returned to pristine condition, at least on its northern frontier.
None of that stalled the defense, though. Unlike Alice's golem, the wall showed no sign of growing flesh to further enforce itself. No, in fact, it was vehemently fighting against the confluence of mass within itself, ensuring only the weathered stone were repaired by the organic fuel.
Worthy had no doubt that once the entire wall, its defenses, and everything within it was restored to its prime condition, it would cease its consumption of all the abominations.
That might not have seemed like a problem, given the sheer scale of the Prime Settlement, but the child knew that was just an illusion. Their enemies were endless, fueled by a menace that swallowed the whole world. In this regard, giving the settlement a large enough meal to satisfy its hunger was a thankless task for the swarm. It'd take time, but it would be done long before they reached their objective…
And all things considered, they were going to reach their objective if the tides were good.
The Prime Settlement was moving, hovering loosely off the ground and traveling over any abomination too small to latch on to it. It was only a few feet off the ground, but even that was impressive. Gravity demanded the settlement be planted, as nothing of its size should have been drifting through the air. The spirits that occupied the bell tower, those burdens, did not care for gravity.
War had led them to Middle Town, the Accursed Port, in search of a large army and someone who could make a ship to sail the Blood Lake. Not even he might've predicted the overwhelming volume of allies that'd pour in from the sky.
The entire tower was sent to the Accursed Port, and they all had the same objective. Even those who hadn't yet come to terms with their circumstances were going to quickly learn the ropes.
Best of all, they'd been given a ship of their own. Unconventionally, it was an entire city, slowly moving through the air, that they just had to defend. The defensive arrays were moving seemingly on their own, unleashing hell upon the swarm of monsters below to stop their approach. Meanwhile, destroyed structures inside the wall were rising from ruin, becoming rebuilt as if nothing had happened.
That meant that the fuel was slowly being relegated towards what the spirits thought was most important, rather than the walls. With so many people arriving, the Accursed Port would need space. Never-ending battle would tire anyone, so there needed to be places where the Climbers could relax before setting back out.
Just then, Worthy noticed a familiar glint in the distance, as well as a shimmering array rising from the bottom of the moving port. Sadly, Taivat's formation of the array was a second too short.
"O–Oh! Hell!"
A spear of bones soared through the air like a bolt of lightning, aimed for the moving city. Taivat had been assiduous in assuring the wall remained unharmed, because one strike from the bone spear was enough to crumble a fine portion of the north wall.
Even though the walls had recently won a battle against time and been restored to their pristine condition, they couldn't withstand an impact from the mighty javelin.
Taivat was not the only person capable of protecting the settlement in these dire times. Now that there were so many Climbers in one location, among those thousands, there were those that were swift in their response against the approaching projectile.
The wind warped around the spear, creating more resistance for it to travel though. That was not enough to slow it meaningfully not, not at this distance. Yet, in the next moment, a shining, crimson fist was projected into the air similarly to Taivat's light projections, and crashed into the underside of the weapon. It pushed, and the wind aided it in setting the spear off course.
However, not even that was enough.
But, it wasn't all they had either.
The final nail came in the form of an armored man, moving at a speed that should have been impossible for a human, emerging over the wall in front of them.
His armor was in pristine condition, shimmering beneath a sun that did not exist, radiant as ever. The fingers of his gloves broke the bone with little effort, and the man pulled the spear up with the support of the wind user and the projector of the mighty fist.
A white cape flowed as the tip of the spear rocketed past the battlements in that moment.
The Knight Captain arrived in the nick of time moving the mighty spear with strength that an ordinary human should not have been able to exercise. Worthy had no doubt that even without the support of the other two, he could've done such a thing on his own. However, time was of the essence, and the time of his arrival wouldn't have saved those on top of the wall from being thrown off when the tip of the projectile grazed it.
More armored figures emerged one by one across the wall in unison, moving with an unspoken unity. When one walked, all of them walked, and as one prepared their sword, all of them did as well.
These men, in their illustrious armor, were the Knights sent by the capital.
They weren't like the group of Enlisted Knights who'd been massacred. All of them were simply of the rank: Knight. Just ahead of them, hovering in the air, flying even, their Captain pointed his Divine Sword straight ahead at one of the mountains of flesh. It seemed like he was steering away from the bone mountain intentionally.
A deep voice came from beneath the Captain's visor as he spoke, "Carve your way to the beast! Once you are there, carve it once more!" It was a simple, brutish command that the Knights listened to in unison. Together, they each slammed their gauntlets into their chest twice, and leapt from the battlements with reckless abandon.
It was not reckless at all, though. With their armor and their physical might, they could each survive a fall from the massive wall without issue. In fact, he was certain each of them had leapt up upon the wall.
As the group of Knights landed on the ground, there was carnage. Blood bursted into the air and chunks of gore splattered on the wall, feeding it more. The Knights were weapons of war, and so they went to war against the flesh, and their presence caused an influx of encouraging roars atop the wall.
With lethal efficiency, they fought their way through the armor of millions, working their way toward an unoccupied mountain, generating more amalgamations by the second. There was nothing that could stop them, not even the abominations enhanced by their newfound bone additions.
Worthy was amazed to see the Knights fight in person. He'd witnessed how they brutally beat defenseless drunkards when they went out drinking, but he'd never witnessed how otherworldly the fighting prowess of a Knight was in a life-or-death situation.
It was a miracle the men he'd seen fighting them outside of pubs lived to tell the tale.