Path of Light.

Chapter 975, Section 970: The Battle of the City Wall
Roy discovered that the native grey dwarves of Draghorn were not hostile to the elves. Although they wore the hat of northern bandits, Roy did not find much of a bad character in these grey dwarves when he came to Draghorn.

When they saw the orcs in the crowd, a hint of curiosity appeared in their eyes.

The group of gray dwarf warriors lay in sheltered spots on the city wall, taking advantage of brief lulls in the battle to recover their strength as much as possible. They remained completely indifferent to the meteor shower overhead, not even glancing at it.

When Roy and his group of half-elf warriors climbed onto the city wall, they were initially very wary, but once the grey dwarf officials came forward to explain the situation, they returned to their normal behavior.

As for the laziness displayed by these gray dwarf warriors, Roy believed it was a survival strategy that a veteran had figured out on the battlefield, or perhaps a rather unconventional fighting style...

They wore heavy armor; typical grey dwarf warriors preferred to wear a layer of leather armor underneath, and then a set of dwarven chainmail on top.

But these grey dwarf warriors guarding the city walls were different. They wore dwarven chainmail underneath heavy plate armor, making themselves look like metal canisters...

Roy avoided the mess of weapons on the city wall and came behind the battlements. He looked out from the gap in the wall and saw that the city wall, which was several hundred meters high, was actually composed of two parts. The lower two-thirds was a steep cliff. The cliff was very steep, and the bottom of the cliff was piled with the corpses of demon servants. The stench of decay emanating from the corpses could be smelled from a hundred meters away.

The Grey Dwarves built the city of Pristis on the mountain pass, perfectly connecting the city walls to the edge of the cliff. This project was enormous. Although the lower part of the pass is narrow, it widens as you go up. By the time Roy is standing here, the pass extends outward for about three kilometers.

The city walls also connect with the mountain peaks on both sides, and the gray dwarves carved out steps on the mountaintops and built watchtowers, which together formed the outermost outline of the city of Precitus.

At the bottom of the cliff, on the somewhat horrifying pile of corpses, the demon servants had paved more than ten roads with logs and stones. Many demon servants wearing tattered armor were crowded at the bottom of the cliff, chiseling holes in the cliff face and inserting iron rods.

If you throw stones from above, you don't even need to aim much; you can smash the demon servants moving below to pieces.

So Roy asked the grey dwarf official out of curiosity:

"Why don't you try to bring over more boulders? While they're carving climbing holes in the cliff face, you can finish off these demonic servants completely!"

When Roy asked that question, the grey dwarf official also asked one of the grey dwarf officers accompanying him. The grey dwarf officer spoke a lot in dwarven language, which sounded like he was complaining.

However, only a few simple sentences were translated for Roy:

"Just look at the corpses of those demon servants below, and you'll know how hard we've tried."

“We will regularly go and deal with those demon servants, but transporting stones requires a lot of manpower, and there aren’t many dwarves willing to move stones for us anymore. Before dark, another batch of stones will arrive, and then we’ll smash those scum to pieces. As for now, it’s everyone’s rest time…”

Roy suddenly realized that asking that question was completely unnecessary.

Upon arriving in the city of Presidius, although the entire city was filled with ruins, the most striking feature was this incredibly sturdy city wall, which, including the cliff face, was at least a hundred meters high.

No wonder the Black Riders of Nakma were blocked east of the Villaria Valley and never managed to break through.

Roy looked down at the foot of the city wall and, sure enough, there were some stones mixed in with the pile of corpses of the demon servants, and some demon servants were standing in the pile of corpses, tearing off the tattered armor and weapons from the dead demon servants.

Many rotting corpses had already exposed their bones, and some carrion birds were perched on the surrounding cliffs, seemingly too afraid to fly down and eat the corpses of the demon servants.

Roy thought that after arriving in Presidius City, he would see the Black Riders of the Nachma Demons, but he did not expect that the battlefield was crowded with demon servants, so many of them that they could not be seen at a glance.

The other mixed-race elves also gathered around the battlements, looking down from the city wall.

The orc leaders stood beside the weapon racks, discussing the tower shields and battle axes used by the gray dwarves, clearly showing their fondness for the weapons crafted by the dwarves.

Just then, the gray dwarf warriors standing on the tower looked down from the city wall.

Many of the gray dwarf warriors who had been sitting behind the battlements stood up. These well-trained gray dwarf warriors gathered at the supply depot behind the city wall, picked up their tower shields, rushed to the city wall, and lined up the tower shields on the wall to form a new defensive line.

Some of the gray dwarf warriors began to lift the wooden planks behind them, revealing the water troughs underneath.

Roy saw a large bulge suddenly appear in the pile of demon servant corpses in the corner. A giant demon worm with a diameter of more than two meters emerged from the pile of corpses, its body more than three meters long. It looked somewhat like a sea worm and was about ten meters long.

The exposed half of the demonic insect's body was covered with barbs, and its head resembled a large chrysanthemum.

Its head burst out of the pile of corpses, then opened its mouth wide and plunged back into the pile of corpses.

The black liquid secreted from the demonic insect's tail rapidly corroded the pile of corpses below the city wall, which the insect then drank like water. As the insects ingested the corpses, their bodies continued to grow...

More than a dozen demonic insects burrowed in and out of the pile of corpses, constantly feeding on the bodies of the demonic servants, and their bodies grew rapidly.
The gray dwarf warrior standing on the city wall couldn't help but curse:
"How did that thing wake up again? This is really troublesome. Everyone, hurry up and get all the tower shields out..."

"I haven't seen them for half a month, those troublesome insects..."

"What's wrong with those guys in the logistics department? Why haven't they delivered the stones yet? Do they really have to wait until I'm dead before they'll send them over?"

"Sir, a meteor shower has hit the city today, and they need to put out the fires and rescue people inside!"

"Everyone, get ready to move the oil canisters."

The grey dwarf officer then gave the order, running to Roy and his group with his shield in one hand and speaking a string of dwarven words to the grey dwarf officer.

After saying those words, he turned around and began to direct the gray dwarf warriors on the city wall. Almost all of the gray dwarf warriors had already started to move...

The grey dwarf official turned to Roy and said:

"The demon servant army is about to attack the city. This attack may be a bit dangerous. We'd better leave."

Roy glanced down at the city walls. Apart from a few demonic insects feeding on corpses, there was no other movement below...

But when Roy heard the grey dwarf officials say that war was about to break out, he, who had originally intended to leave, could no longer go no matter what.

He traveled a great distance to Durag's Knee just to witness the battle between the grey dwarf warriors and the Nakma demon army firsthand, so he could assess whether the half-elves had any chance of winning in defending this almost ruined mountain city!
The only pity was that what was below the city was just some unknown demon servant army. These demon servant armies could only be considered the vanguard of the Nakmar demon army, just a bunch of cannon fodder...

Roy didn't move, but looked up at the gray dwarf official and asked:

"Can we stay here and watch the game?"

The orc leaders were also excited by Roy's words; the tense situation on the city walls was making their bodies heat up rapidly...

The grey dwarf officer looked at Roy and the elves behind him with some surprise, then glanced at the eager orc leaders, and hesitated before saying:
“Watching from here is actually quite dangerous.” He whispered a few words to the gray dwarf official beside him before saying:

"Well...everyone can go up to the tower. The view is clearer from there, and it's safer too!"

The gray dwarf officer led the way, seemingly determined to lead Roy and his party into a tower.

The city walls were in complete disarray, and the gray dwarf warriors were all checking their equipment...

Roy had no other choice but to follow the gray dwarf officials into a tower. These towers were ten meters higher than the city walls, and most of them protruded outwards. After entering the tower, Roy's vision suddenly darkened.

He gradually adapted to the dim light inside the tower.

The first floor of the tower is also a storage area for supplies, with a large amount of supplies piled up inside. There is a staircase on one side leading to the second floor.

The gray dwarf official led the group to the observation window on the second floor of the tower. Since the tower was a protruding part of the city wall and stood on top of the wall, it was indeed the best place to observe the battle.

Roy thought to himself that these grey dwarves would be leaving Presidius City at the end of the month, and their agreement to let the half-elves and orcs stay to observe the battle was to let them learn more about the enemy's siege tactics...

A group of orc leaders, unwilling to be crammed into the second floor of the tower, preferred to stay in a more open area, and so they began to climb to the top of the tower...

Roy noticed that the pile of corpses below was decreasing at a visible rate, and the demonic insects were being exposed to the sight of the crowd.

They were more like a combination of leeches and sea anemones, only their bodies were thousands of times larger. As these demonic insects devoured large amounts of corpses, their bodies swelled rapidly. As the piles of corpses disappeared, these demonic insects appeared at the foot of the city walls, looking like piles of excrement haphazardly dumped on the beach...

Its body kept wriggling and making gurgling sounds.

This situation lasted only a few minutes before they clung to the rock face, preparing to use their unique body structure to climb up the cliff to the top of the city wall.

The gray dwarf warriors on the city wall were carefully observing their every move. When these demonic insects stopped climbing, their bodies began to tremble violently. Then they raised their heads and pulled their heads further away from the city wall.

Their lower bodies were firmly embedded in the city wall, while their upper bodies extended backward like tree branches.

Then Roy saw the bellies of these jet-black demonic insects begin to swell, and as the large mass inside their bellies surged to their mouths, streams of venom sprayed out from their sunflower-like maws.
The dark green venom fell onto the cliff face, making it filthy and disgusting.

Some of the acid even splashed onto the city walls, and only then did Roy realize that the acid spewed out by those demonic insects could actually corrode some holes in the rocks.

When they spew acid, it doesn't spray out in jets, but rather scatters into a shower of petals...

Most of the spray landed on the cliff face, leaving numerous burn marks. Some also splashed onto the city walls, some of which were blocked by the dense tower shields, but some still landed on the gray dwarf warriors.

The gray dwarves quickly scooped water from the trough and poured it over themselves, first washing off the acid on their bodies, then rinsing off the acid on the ground...

They then quickly hid behind their shields, without taking any counterattack measures.

Roy, standing in the tower, was still a little confused when he saw the demonic insects then unleash a second blast of acidic poison...

The gray dwarf warrior rushed to the water tank again and repeated the same action.

The demonic insects clinging to the cliff face spewed three rounds of poison in succession. Each time, the gray dwarf washed off the acidic toxins and hid behind his shield.

After three rounds, some gray dwarf warriors actually opened gaps in their shields and peered down from the city wall.

At this moment, a gray dwarf transport team hoisted a batch of rocks onto the city wall.

The gray dwarf warriors got busy dealing with the demonic insects climbing the cliff face; ballistae and catapults were completely unnecessary.

The demonic insect spat out three mouthfuls of venom before stopping. The gray dwarf warriors rolled millstone-sized rocks down from the city wall and threw in some burning oil.

As rocks rolled down from above, the dozen or so demonic insects clinging to the cliff opened their enormous mouths and swallowed the rocks whole. The oil cans also fell into the abyss's gaping maw.

Occasionally, some kerosene would be poured into the mouth of the demonic insect and explode, splattering flames, but these were quickly extinguished by the acid sprayed out by the insect…

These demonic insects seem to eat anything; stones thrown from the city walls fall into their bellies.

Roy asked the gray dwarf officer:

"...When will this stop?"

"This saturation attack is intended to make them eat as much as possible, so that their bodies become very cumbersome and unable to climb the city walls. Although they can digest stones, it still takes them some time..."

The gray dwarf officer said with a hint of helplessness:

"We're running low on explosives in the warehouse; we can't afford to use our best-kept secrets on these demonic insects!"

"Are the Thunder Bombs very effective against these demonic insects?"

The Archmage Graemus, standing to the side, asked the gray dwarf officer.

"Ok!"

The gray dwarf officer answered with certainty.

"Then let me try!"

After saying that, the Archmage Graemus began rummaging through his magic pouch. After searching for a while, he finally found an ordinary magic-sealing box. He opened the box and took out a metal ball the size of a basketball with some mithril patterns on it.

Archmage Graemus chanted an incantation, and then a pale red magical glow emanated from around the metal sphere, merging with the magical patterns on the sphere...

The great mage leaned out of the window and then threw the metal ball out.

(End of this chapter)