Harem System In A fantasy World - Chapter 336: Attack at night

Soldiers rushed toward the northern wall, their boots pounding against the packed dirt and wooden walkways.

Torches were raised, mana lamps brightened, and the formation-marked pillars built into the defensive line flickered to life one after another, spreading a pale blue glow across the sharpened barricades.

Civilians were hurried toward the inner tents by shouting guards, children crying as their parents dragged them away from the walls, while archers climbed into the watchtowers and mages took their positions behind the stone reinforcements.

Alexander’s expression grew stern.

“Peter, get the civilians deeper into the inner shelter and count them twice,” he ordered sharply. “Gareth, send a message to the adjacent checkpoints. Darin, find Commander Rallis and bring me the latest scout report. Lukas, with me. Erian, stay near the wounded station and prepare stabilisation magic.”

The five retainers moved at once.

“Yes, Your Highness!”

Even Peter, who had been a nervous mess only hours earlier, seemed to forget his fear the moment orders were given. His round face turned serious as he rushed off toward the tents, shouting for soldiers to clear the way.

Gareth pulled out a communication device and began speaking quickly into it while mounting one of the raised platforms.

Darin vanished toward the northern wall with startling speed, while Lukas took up a shield and spear, moving to Alexander’s side like a living wall. Erian hurried toward the medical tent, already gathering mana in his hands.

Elion raised a brow lightly.

“They move better than they talk.”

Alexander did not look at him. “Most people do.”

“Ouch.”

“I meant that.”

“I know.”

Another horn blast cut through the night, and a moment later the first scream came from somewhere beyond the wall.

Not inside the camp, but out in the dark forest, where one of the scouts had either been found or had found something he could not escape from. The scream ended too suddenly.

The camp went still for half a breath.

Then the darkness beyond the northern ridge moved.

At first, it looked like nothing more than shadows shifting between the trees. Then those shadows split apart, taking shape beneath the torchlight and moonlight, revealing hunched figures with long limbs, dark hides, and gleaming eyes.

Some crawled on all fours, others ran upright with jagged weapons in their hands, and among them were taller shapes that moved with far more discipline than wild beasts should have possessed.

“Archers!” Commander Rallis roared from atop the wall. “Ready!”

Bows were drawn.

“Mages, hold your fire until they cross the markers!”

The demons kept coming.

They moved in eerie silence, hundreds of eyes reflecting the camp’s light as they poured out from between the trees. It was not a full army, but it was far more than the small group the scouts had reported. Dozens at least, maybe more, hidden behind the treeline.

Alexander’s expression grew cold.

“They were waiting for the night.”

Elion’s fingers tightened around Kurogoroshi’s hilt.

“Obviously.”

Alexander glanced at him sharply. “Do not rush out alone.”

Elion looked offended. “Who do you take me for?”

“A reckless lunatic.”

“Fair.”

“Elion.”

The warning in Alexander’s voice was very clear. Elion chuckled lightly, but his gaze never left the demons. “Relax. I won’t run off too far.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

The demons crossed the first marker.

“Fire!”

The barrage of attacks erupted all at once.

Arrows flew from the walls in a dark rain, followed immediately by streaks of fire, wind blades, stone bullets, and spears of light.

The first wave of demons was torn apart before they even reached the barricade, their bodies thrown back or pierced through, dark blood splashing across the dirt. But the second wave came immediately after, climbing over the fallen bodies without hesitation, and the third followed right behind them.

Elion’s eyes narrowed.

“They’re not just attacking.”

Before Alexander could ask what he meant, one of the taller demons in the back raised its hand, and a pulse of dark mana spread outward. The ground beneath the northern barricade trembled, then cracked, and several rune pillars flickered violently as black veins crawled up their bases.

Commander Rallis shouted, “Protect the pillars!”

Too late; One pillar shattered, and the pale blue barrier covering the wall weakened instantly.

“Damn it,” Alexander hissed.

Elion drew Kurogoroshi with a smile.

“I guess that’s my cue to quit standing around.”

His hand was itching to take his new companion for a test run.

The moment the blade left its scabbard, the air around Elion changed. The nearby soldiers felt it first, and most of them turned toward him instinctively as the sound around him dulled.

The blade drank in the torchlight, its shifting black-silver surface rippling with faint crimson gleams.

The demons felt it too; the sight of their numbers stopping in their tracks at the mere sound of a blade being unsheathed was one most here would never forget.

Elion smiled.

“Oh?”

Kurogoroshi hummed in his hand.

“Nightbane Authority?” he murmured, as if speaking to the sword.

Alexander stared for a moment. “Is that the sword?”

“Looks like it.”

“You sound far too pleased.”

“I am far too pleased.” Elion moved.

He didn’t leap over the wall like some overdramatic hero throwing himself into the middle of death.

He stepped onto the earth, raised one hand, and the ground beneath his feet surged upward into a slanted ramp of stone that carried him over the inner barricade and placed him atop the weakened northern wall. Soldiers stumbled aside as he landed, his coat fluttering in the cold night wind, Kurogoroshi held casually in one hand.

From below, the demons snarled. Now, they were making noise. Fear had finally cracked their silence.

Elion’s grin turned into a snarl as he shouted eagerly, “Come then!”

The first demon lunged up the wall with its claws buried into the stone, and he swung Kurogoroshi only once.

There was no resistance.

The blade passed through hide, bone, and mana reinforcement as if it had never existed. The demon split cleanly from shoulder to waist, dark blood spraying into the air before the corpse tumbled backward into the mob below. For a brief moment, Elion stared at the blade in shock.

He laughed.

“Now this is what I have been asking for!”

He had barely put any strength into that strike! At all!

He didn’t get the chance to revel in the satisfaction before the second demon came from his left.

He turned his wrist and cut through its arm, then its neck, the edge moving so smoothly that the creature’s head separated before its body even realised it had died. Another demon tried to climb up the other side of the wall, only for Elion to kick it back down before sending a crescent of fire from his free hand into the cluster below.

Boom!

The flames exploded across the front line, lighting the night in orange and red. Several demons shrieked as they burned, but the larger ones pushed through the fire regardless, their bodies covered in dark armour-like growths.

“Elion!” Alexander shouted from below. “The caster in the back!”

“I see it.”

The demon who had broken the pillar was retreating behind the others, already preparing another spell. Elion’s gaze locked onto it, and the world around him slowed slightly as Enhanced Cognition activated.

Lines of movement spread across his vision. The demons climbing the wall. The arrows flying overhead. The spell forming in the caster’s hand. The gap.

’There.’

Elion stepped forward.

The earth beneath the wall shot outward like a narrow bridge, cutting across the battlefield in a sudden line of stone. He sprinted along it, Kurogoroshi trailing behind him, while arrows and spells from the camp flew past his shoulders.

Demons lunged at him from both sides, but he moved through them with terrifying ease, cutting limbs, throats, and torsos as he passed.

The blade was monstrous.

Every wound it made refused to close. Even the demons with regeneration screamed as black-red cracks spread from their injuries, their bodies trembling as if something deeper than flesh had been severed. One larger demon raised a thick shield of condensed mana, and Elion swung without slowing down.

The shield split in half, and so did the demon behind it.

“Ridiculous!” Alexander shouted, leaning in as he muttered from the wall, watching with wide eyes despite himself.

Lukas swallowed deeply. “Your Highness… is he always like this?”

Alexander’s face twitched. “Unfortunately.”

“Should we support him?”

“We are supporting him.”

“How?”

Alexander pointed at the demons trying to flank Elion’s stone bridge. “By making sure the idiots don’t climb up and bite his ankles.”

Lukas nodded seriously. “Understood.”