Pft!
Samael climbed atop the city wall and pulled his spear from the neck of a Three-Horned Lion-Dragon. He glanced at the tip, still buried in the bricks, gleaming coldly, and couldn't help but let out a breath of awe.
As expected of the Old Um family's craftsmanship—Gods' Age forging techniques truly defy any scientific explanation.
Slash!
Just as the ancient serpent retrieved his spear, another Wyvern dove toward him, claws poised to strike at his neck.
But in that split second, a pale arm lashed out like a venomous snake, seized the beast's claw, and slammed it down hard onto the city wall. The creature was crushed into a splatter of bone and meat.
Even after effortlessly dispatching the ambusher, the gloom in the ancient serpent's eyes didn't fade. He turned to look behind him—what once was a wall was now a hellish battlefield.
Shouts, clashes, screams, the sound of flesh tearing—it all mixed into a chaotic symphony reeking of blood.
"Raise shields! Spears up—stab!"
"Withdraw spears! Step back—stab!"
"Three Dingir on the left—flank both sides!"
"Rear guard, move in! Finish them! No survivors!"
"Wyverns incoming! Bring over the net launchers!"
"Where the hell are the Magus and priests? Cast the dispel! Keep chanting divine prayers!"
"Priestess! Where's the priestess? Save him! Damn it, I said save him!"
Having endured half a year of warfare, the elite Uruk soldiers quickly regained their composure after the initial chaos.
Well-drilled, they reformed into a Spartan phalanx. Shields raised, spears thrusting from the gaps, they swept across the Babylonian defense line like a wall of rolling porcupines.
The Magus, priestesses, and priests also fell into rhythm. Shielded by the phalanx, they steadied their minds, casting spells and activating the formations etched into the ramparts.
In no time, the overwhelming wave of Magical Beasts was forcefully halted.
Likewise, not all citizens of Uruk during the Age of Gods were helpless bystanders.
After all, these were people who treated monster-hunting as a rite of passage. The weak had long been culled by the harshness of their world.
The street-corner pastry chef drew his curved blade and peered cautiously through the door crack.
The old man who usually spent his days sunbathing removed the hard bow and arrows from his wall, cracked open a window, and aimed at the flying lizards overhead.
The apothecary lady poured out a concoction. Its foul stench made the Magical Beasts dizzy, stumbling away in avoidance.
As the initial disorder faded, the hundred-some Wyverns scattered across Uruk were constantly harried by ambushes from hidden hunters.
Though the damage was minimal, the humiliation stung.
And with reinforcements now being deployed from the Sacrificial Grounds, the shrine maiden quarters, the Astrology Tower, and the East Gate barracks, the Wyverns no longer dared descend lightly.
At this point, the crisis in the city's heart was gradually subsiding—while the front lines grew ever more brutal.
Beyond aerial threats, the Uruk soldiers now had to contend with hordes of Mušḫuššu—monstrosities like crossbreeds of earth dragons and lizards—that dug tunnels from outside and surged into the city.
From Samael's vantage point, the situation atop the Babylonian walls looked grim.
To the west, Leonidas had fully unleashed his divine might. Relying on his innate ability to provoke and taunt, he was desperately holding Bašmu at bay.
He was fighting with nothing less than his life.
Under the roars of the upper-ranked dragons, the three major dragon-attribute sub-species—Three-Horned Lion-Dragon, Wyvern, and Mušḫuššu—summoned by their bloodline power, launched continuous assaults.
As a result, the middle section of the city wall became a fierce battleground between humans and magical beasts.
Meanwhile, the eastern side had been devastated by the aftermath of Ana's clash with the Chains of Heaven. The wall, painstakingly reinforced with Magecraft, had been sheared off by over ten meters. After losing two teams in quick succession, nearby spellcasters and soldiers completely abandoned the area. Even the most ferocious magical beasts instinctively avoided the center of that battlefield.
Samael's snake-like pupils contracted as he gazed toward the eastern front, where arcs of light and storm intertwined. He could already see Ana clearly overwhelmed, barely managing to hold her ground.
In an instant, rings of shattered golden halos rippled out from the Chains of Heaven, and an inexplicable sense of pressure made the ancient serpent catch his breath, his expression twisting.
Ana, trapped within the circle, felt even worse—like sinking into a mire.
In that moment of sluggish resistance, a golden vortex opened above her. The sharp tip of the Chains of Heaven's cone drove downward, aiming to crush Ana.
Divine restraint? The full power of this god-forged weapon had been unleashed!
Seeing this, the ancient serpent called forth the monstrous strength dormant within his body.
With a forceful stomp, Samael's pants tore apart, his exposed thighs bulging as muscles knotted like slabs of marble.
"Out of the way!"
Two rampaging Mad Lions had just leapt onto the wall when spears shot out from the shadows, impaling them both in a single strike. They crashed to the ground like skewered fruit.
"Boom!"
Driven by instinct at the moment of danger, Ana just barely raised her hand and brought her sickle across her chest to block the spike.
But in doing so, the unkillable divine weapon was knocked from her grip. It spun through the air with a shrill whistle before plunging into a half-collapsed wall.
Though Ana had blocked the piercing strike from the Chains of Heaven, the weapon had cone heads on both ends!
Danger!
Sensing the threat instinctively, Samael saw another golden vortex opening in front of Ana. He immediately abandoned all attempts to stay hidden, unleashing a torrent of Mana as he began reconstructing his body.
As clothes tore apart, a Lion-Headed Storm Demon—Ugallu—used the cover of night to violently break through scattered "friendly forces," clearing the path ahead.
With a claw, he hooked the chain connected to the sickle and charged forward without slowing.
However, the intense battle between Ana and the Chains of Heaven had shattered the walls unevenly, and near the battlefield's edge was a gaping breach nearly twenty meters wide.
Ugallu, now moving at full speed, couldn't stop in time. He grabbed an unfortunate Uridimmu in his jaws and flung it into the air.
As it fell, the infiltrator hidden among the magical beasts sprang up, stepping on the airborne Uridimmu's back and leaping upward with the wind.
"Ana!"
The sudden shout from below snapped the goddess's young form out of her trance. Trapped within the Chains of Heaven, she looked down in surprise at the magical beast clawing its way toward her.
"Buzz!"
A shockwave tore through the air in front of her, raising goosebumps on her suppressed divine body.
"Catch!"
At the last second, the beast twisted midair and flung the sickle—still wrapped around its hind paw—back to its master.
The purple-haired girl instinctively caught the handle. The moment the beast landed, she felt her palm tighten and her small body pulled downward in a sudden plunge.
"Bang!"
Ana's legs spread as she dropped squarely onto the back of the strange magical beast. The impact nearly made it stumble.
Without a word, the traitorous Lion-Headed Storm Demon immediately turned tail and bolted.