Outside Windcloud City, a sea of pale skeletons surged forward, closing fast on the defenders.
As the bone-white tide entered range, Lin Tian lifted his arm and brought it down.
"Fire!"
The front row of firelock soldiers pulled their triggers.
BANG—BANG—BANG!
The first volley punched holes into the charging line. Skeletons toppled, shattering into piles of ribs and skulls—only for the ones behind them to clatter straight over the fallen and keep running.
The second row fired. Another line dropped.
Then the archers joined in. Unlike firelocks that shot in a straight lane, arrows arced over the front ranks and bit into the skeletons farther back.
The mages finally released their spells—flashes of flame and ice and crackling force slamming into the mass. Every so often, someone hurled a Blast Talisman, and the crowd erupted in a dirty bloom of smoke and flying bone.
For a moment, the skeletons' momentum faltered.
Then the distance closed again.
When the defenders entered their range, thousands of skeleton archers loosed at once. The sky turned into a storm of arrows.
Lin Tian had anticipated it.
Heavy infantry surged forward, shields raised, catching the volley with a brutal thunk-thunk-thunk as arrows bit into metal and wood. Behind them, the ranged units began to fall back—still firing as they moved—while the melee lines stepped up, hugging the heavy infantry's protection as they advanced.
Jasper was assigned with the swordsmen, moving beside a heavy infantryman as they pushed forward at a grinding pace. Fully armored troops weren't fast, and they weren't meant to be. They were the wall that walked.
The skeleton archers quickly realized their arrows weren't breaking the formation. They retreated into the horde, and the next wave came forward—skeletons with longswords and axes, some wearing patchwork armor that was crude but better than bare bone.
At roughly three hundred meters, Lin Tian's voice cut across the field.
"Charge! Break these bone-piles apart!"
The soldiers roared and surged out from behind the shields.
The skeletons answered with that dry, tearing rasp—like sand dragged over stone—and slammed forward to meet them.
Cavalry hit first, driving into the white mass like a spear. Behind them, infantry poured into the gap, flooding the skeleton line.
The main objective wasn't to win a clean fight in the open. It was to cripple the skeletons' siege tools—cannons, massive ballistae, anything that could crack the wall. Siege ladders were everywhere; destroying a handful wouldn't matter unless you destroyed most of them.
Steel rang against steel.
Jasper drew his Short Sword and cut into a skeleton wearing iron armor. It was Bronze Tier, Rank 4—not even close to a real threat. A few exchanges later, the skeleton collapsed.
Jasper scooped up the fallen iron sword and armor without hesitation.
Spoils are spoils.
And his system inventory didn't have a weight limit anyone else could see.
A boom sounded in the distance.
One of the skeleton cannons went up—cavalry had reached it. Skeletons around the blast scattered into loose bones, tumbling across the dirt like kicked dice.
Minutes later, another cannon erupted, flames licking through the crowd. Skeletons caught in the fire didn't scream—they just burned until they stopped moving.
Then Jasper spotted something different.
A unit of skeletons moved together, fast and tight, heading straight for the cavalry. They carried bows—real ones—and their posture wasn't wild or sloppy.
They were trained.
They fired into the riders.
A cavalryman raised his sword and knocked an arrow aside, spurring toward one of them. The skeleton slung its bow behind its back and drew an iron sword in one smooth motion, meeting the charge head-on.
First clash—its helmet flew off.
Second clash—its sword was knocked away, and the horse's kick tore it apart.
The cavalryman didn't celebrate. He turned and rode hard.
Elite skeletons…
If those units were arriving, staying outside the walls was suicide.
Lin Tian saw it too. Mounted, he shouted the order that saved whoever could still be saved.
"Full retreat! Heavy infantry and spearmen cover the withdrawal! Swordsmen and cavalry—move!"
Jasper took one last elite skeleton's head off and ran.
He angled toward the heavy infantry line, where the formation was tightening again. Once the troops regrouped, Jasper recognized it immediately—the same kind of shield-and-spear structure he'd been forced to break in the Cultivation Tower.
Shield-bearers locked their defenses together, leaving narrow gaps. Spear points stabbed through those gaps in a steady rhythm. Any skeleton that came close was pierced, shoved back, or stopped cold by overlapping shields.
It held.
For a heartbeat.
Then the skeleton horde split.
A corridor opened, and several black cannon barrels aligned directly toward the shield wall.
Smoke belched.
The blast tore through the formation like a fist through paper. Shields shattered. Bodies flew. The defensive line broke open—and skeletons flooded the breach.
Heavy infantry and spearmen were swallowed almost instantly.
Elite skeletons vaulted onto shields, dropped into the crushed formation, and butchered from the inside.
In minutes, hundreds of fully armored soldiers were gone.
The skeleton host regrouped and marched on toward Windcloud City, as if the defenders outside had never existed.
Jasper had already made it back onto the City Wall.
The City Lord finally stopped holding back. Every stored weapon was dragged out:
Twenty massive ballistae.
Five catapults.
Five hundred TNT blocks.
Three heavy cannons.
The five great houses did the same, throwing every guard and fighter they had into the defense. No one was stupid enough to "save strength" while the city itself stood on the edge of collapse.
Jasper was handed one TNT block.
He stared at it once and frowned.
Lighting it and throwing it was a good way to die—and maybe take half the wall with you.
He went straight to Lin Tian.
"Commander Lin. I've got a way to make the TNT actually matter."
Lin Tian glanced at him. "Say it."
Jasper explained quickly: bury the TNT underground, then set Tripwire Hooks ahead of it. Let the skeletons trigger the line once the bulk of their force was already over the buried explosives.
Lin Tian didn't waste time arguing. He sent squads to do exactly that.
They had only a short window—minutes, not hours—to set the field before the skeletons reached the wall. But it was safer than throwing TNT by hand.
Jasper watched the black line approaching and touched the pouch at his chest.
Inside were his Blast Rune needles—crafted since leaving the tower. Fine-steel, Mysterium iron, even plain iron for volume.
He had:
Twenty fine-steel needles.
One hundred Mysterium iron needles.
Three hundred iron needles.
Most were stored in the system inventory. Otherwise he'd look like a walking pincushion.
Near him, an archer ran a thumb along his quiver, counting by feel. Only twenty arrows. Five of them carried the faint shimmer of enchanting.
Not a normal bowman, Jasper noted.
Then, from not far away, a voice cut through the chaos—too loud, too familiar.
"Jasper! Over here! It's me—Skyhawk!"
Jasper turned.
A swordsman in military uniform waved like he'd spotted an old friend at a tavern, not on the wall before a siege. Skyhawk shoved through the crowd toward Jasper, eyes bright with excitement.
"Boss—remember what I said? If you got my heirloom back, I'd work for you. But that day you rode off and I couldn't keep up. You ditched me!"
He didn't stop for breath.
"So I joined the army in Windcloud City, figured I'd run into you sooner or later. Then this siege happened, and that's how I finally got assigned to the wall. I never saw you in the barracks—turns out you went to House Lin as a guard. And—wow—you're Bronze Tier, Rank 5 now!"
Skyhawk leaned closer, still talking.
"I'm Bronze Tier, Rank 4! The City Lord noticed my aptitude and gave me a ton of resources. I told you I was sky-blue talent—"
Jasper listened, strangely patient.
Beside them, the enchanted-arrow archer stared in disbelief.
The skeleton host was about to slam into the city… and these two were catching up like the world wasn't ending.