Chapter 308: Unstoppable Object Meets An Unmovable Wall [Bonus - ]
She looked down at the twin sisters resting side by side in the dirt.
Despite her ruthless reputation on the battlefield, Tasmin decided she wasn’t going to kill them.
Slaying two unconscious helpless opponents who had fought with everything they had didn’t fit the grand narrative Silas wanted for this broadcast.
But she certainly wasn’t going to make it easy on them or leave them with their pride intact.
Tasmin stopped at the edge of the crater, looking down at the unconscious twins.
She puffing out her chest slightly, tilting her head up, and began speaking aloud in an exaggerated arrogant noble tone.
"Hmph! Be grateful, you pathetic light-dwelling worms! I, Tasmin of the Blessed Land, shall magnanimously grant you your pitiful lives today! Rest in the dirt, grow stronger, refine your crude techniques, and perhaps... just perhaps... you may one day be worthy of standing before my shadow once again!"
She paused with dramatic silence settling over the crater.
Tasmin smoothly turned on her heel, her dark cloak fluttering behind her as she looked across the field toward the trail of absolute destruction Brida had carved through Sky’s people.
In the back of her mind, Tasmin winced slightly with her hand instinctively drifting down to rest on the hilt of her shortsword.
’Wait...’ Tasmin thought, her eyes narrowing as she mentally recalled the dozens of stories in the library she had analyzed in her free time. ’Usually, when an antagonist or rival character spares a pair of defeated Heroes while talking down to them like an arrogant noble... doesn’t one of them suddenly trigger a dramatic rage-induced power-up from the dirt and try to sneak-attack from behind?’
Tasmin held her breath with her boots planted firmly in the soil and her ears perked up to catch the slightest sound of a sudden mana eruption or a dramatic tearful battle cry.
Five seconds passed...
Ten seconds passed...
The wind whistled softly across the empty field.
Nothing happened.
The twins remained completely passed out in the crater, snoring softly amidst the shattered rocks.
Tasmin blinked her crimson eyes, a soft surprised noise escaping her lips.
"Hm?"
She blinked again, looking back over her shoulder at the motionless bodies, then let out a quiet amused chuckle at her own overthinking.
Without wasting another second, Tasmin kicked off the ground, blurring into a high-speed shadow stream as she ran off in the direction Brida had charged.
Meanwhile, five hundred yards further down the central clearing...
BOOM! BOOM! KABOOM!
"GWAHAHAHAHAHA! OUT OF THE WAY, YOU BASTARDS!" Brida’s boisterous thunderous laughter echoed across the entire basin.
The Level 30 S-Rank [Grand Titan Bastion] was having the time of her life.
She was surging across the battlefield like a five-hundred-ton armored juggernaut, holding her massive Steel Aegis shield flat before her chest while swinging her double-bitted Cleaver in massive devastating arcs with her free hand.
CRUNCH! KABAM!
Every time her shield slammed into Sky’s supercharged soldiers, men were sent flying eighty feet into the air like broken toys.
Shields crumbled, spears snapped like dry twigs, and heavy plate armor was flattened flat against the dirt.
Unlike Tasmin, who viewed battle as a precise art form dedicated to her Lord, Brida approached warfare with pure joy.
She didn’t feel a single drop of remorse or pity for the enemy soldiers trying to block her path...
This was what she was summoned for!
However, despite her bloodthirsty excitement, Brida remained disciplined enough to follow Fenna’s explicit request.
Every time a female soldier or archer appeared in her path, Brida didn’t execute a lethal axe strike... Instead, she used the flat, broad face of her Steel Aegis to forcefully shove them out of the way, ragdolling them into the soft dirt without crushing their vital organs.
"CLEAR A PATH!" Brida roared, her eyes burning like twin furnace fires behind her visor.
Far across the field, standing on the command deck of The Unmovable Wall, Lord Sky watched the single-handed devastation through his helmet’s zoom lenses, his jaw clenching beneath his disguise.
’She’s tearing through our forward infantry like they’re made of wet paper...’ Sky analyzed rapidly, his Cinstincts calculating the massive loss of momentum. ’Even with Elm’s 10x stat buff, standard infantry can’t bridge the structural gap against her. If she reaches our lower gun decks, the artillery array is finished.’
Beside Sky’s command vehicle, a massive figure stepped forward from the ranks of the elite territory guards.
He was not a Hero.
He possessed no title... He was a standard high-tier territory troop who had risen through the ranks purely through brutal physical conditioning, heavy battle experience, and stubborn willpower.
He stood nearly six-foot-eight, his bare arms so violently jacked that thick, rope-like veins bulged across his dark skin like living roots.
He wore heavy, black iron chest armor, and gripped in his right hand was a massive, eight-foot-tall Tower Shield forged from solid, unrefined dark-iron alloy... a shield that weighed well over eight hundred pounds.
The man turned his broad head toward Sky, lowering his head in a respectful, iron-clad bow.
"Lord Sky," the man rumbled, his voice sounding like two heavy boulders grinding together. "Allow me to halt her charge."
Sky looked at the massive troop, a sharp glint of pride flashing behind his helmet display.
Even though this man was not an officially summoned Hero... his raw physical stats, shield techniques, and defensive stubbornness were easily equal to many of Sky’s own Hero-class combatants.
If there was a single man in The Unmovable Wall who truly embodied the territorial title of their home... it was him.
Sky offered a firm, decisive nod.
"Go, Hog. Show them why our territory bears that name!"
"Understood!" Hog barked out.
Without another word, Hog turned his massive frame toward the battlefield.
BOOM!
Despite his colossal size and heavy iron tower shield, Hog burst forward with terrifying explosive speed.
He sprinted across the field, moving far ahead of the territory’s stationary cannon lines, his heavy iron boots leaving deep shattered footprints in the dirt.
As he closed in on Brida’s incoming trajectory, Hog raised his free hand, barking out loud commands to the scattered soldiers scrambling in front of him.
"CLEAR THE CORRIDOR! ALL UNITS, SEPARATE TO THE FLANKS NOW! MOVE!"
Sky’s infantry soldiers, hearing Hog’s thunderous command, scrambled frantically to the left and right, completely clearing a wide, two-hundred-yard straight runway through the center of the battlefield.
The sudden clearing left Brida on a full-on crash course straight toward Hog.
Charging down the open runway at high speeds, Brida’s sharp red eyes locked onto the jacked man standing in the distance with his towering iron shield.
’Tch...’ Brida thought inwardly, her brows furrowing slightly beneath her helmet. ’They’ve figured out the weakness of my charge.’
Brida’s [Aegis Charge] was a devastating unstoppable skill, but its fundamental mechanics were straightforward.
Because she was building up thousands of pounds of forward momentum with every stride, changing directions mid-charge or swerving around a target was virtually impossible.
Once she locked onto a straight line, she was locked in until impact.
’Bah, whatever,’ Brida grumbled in her thoughts with a feral grin returning to her face. ’I’ve killed enough nameless cannon fodder for one morning anyway. Running over weaklings gets boring after a while.’
From what her high-tier senses could perceive across the battlefield, Tasmin had just concluded her own high-level battle against those twin light girls and emerged victorious.
’Tasmin got to have a real fight...’ Brida thought, her blood pumping with fierce competitive excitement. ’I need a proper heavy-weight clash of my own! I’m not letting her steal the entire broadcast spotlight!’
Behind her, seeing Hog set up his iron defensive stance in the distance, Fenna and Gunnhild immediately recognized the situation.
With practiced synergy, both women veered off to the left and right flanks, leaving Brida completely unhindered in the center lane.
"HE’S ALL YOURS, BRIDA!" Gunnhild shouted with a laugh as she cleared the zone.
"RAHHHHHHHHHHH!" Brida roared at the top of her lungs, unleashing a lot of her mana!
BO-BO-BO-BOOM!
Brida’s blood-red crimson aura erupted into a blinding pillar of light with her speed increasing as she leaned her body flat behind her Steel Aegis shield.
Two hundred yards ahead of her—
Hog stood his ground like a mountain rooted into the center of the earth.
He slammed the three-hundred-pound base of his dark-iron Tower Shield deep into the solid bedrock.
CRACK!
Hog lowered his hips, his boots digging three feet deep into the soil.
Elm’s ten-fold stat multiplier surged through Hog’s blood vessels...
His already massive muscles expanded violently, bulging to twice their normal size as thick black veins popped out across his chest, neck, and arms like writhing snakes.
His physical durability and knockback resistance skyrocketed by nine hundred percent...
Combined with Elm’s divine four-leaf magic, Hog was quite literally an Unmovable Wall incarnate.
And charging straight toward him at high speeds was Brida... an Unstoppable Object!
And what happened when an Unstoppable Object met an Unmovable Wall?
There was no complex exchange of technique and there was no intricate display of magic.
There was really only one sound...
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
An earth-shattering explosion erupted in the center of the battlefield.
The incomprehensible kinetic force generated by the collision was so immense that a three-hundred-yard shockwave of compressed air and shattered stone blasted outward in every direction.
The physical air pressure was so violent that several hovering streaming drones in the upper atmosphere were destabilized with their optical lenses shaking wildly as they struggled to maintain their video signals.
A massive blinding cloud of dark dust, pulverized rock, and white smoke completely enveloped the collision zone.
On the global stream, over five hundred million viewers held their collective breath, staring at the opaque smoke screen in suspense.
Slowly... the thick dust began to clear in the wind.
Inside the crater—
The Unmovable Wall had not moved a single inch.
Hog stood rooted in the dirt, his iron Tower Shield still planted deep in the bedrock and his heavy boots locked in place.
And the Unstoppable Object... had stopped moving completely.
Brida’s eyes widened slightly beneath her helmet.
For the first time since the war had started, her forward charge had been brought to a dead halt.
SWISH!
Brida immediately pushed off her forward stance, leaping backward fifteen yards through the air with her boots touching down lightly on the grass.
She casually adjusted her grip on the heavy handle of her axe, resting the double-bitted battleaxe against her shoulder as she looked at the jacked man through her visor.
"Hoh..." Brida chuckled, her voice carrying genuine surprised respect. "You’re pretty strong for a standard guy. I want to hear your name!"
Hog raised his head from behind his Tower Shield, his face covered in sweat and dust.
His chest heaved heavily as he gave Brida a skeptical disbelieving eye raise.
"Hog," the man grumbled bluntly, his voice deep and rough. "Troop Commander of The Unmovable Wall."
Brida offered a broad grin, slapping her palm against her chest plate.
"I am Brida! Garrison Commander and Grand Titan Bastion of the Blessed Land!"
Brida raised her hand, pointing the gleaming edge of her Titan’s Cleaver straight toward Lord Sky’s command vehicle standing five hundred yards in the distance.
She looked back at Hog, her eyes narrowing into sharp slits, as she made a slow deliberate slitting expression across her neck with her thumb.
"You better come at me with everything you’ve got, Hog... or else I’m going to march right past you and kill your Lord."
BOOM!
Hog’s white eyes dilated in bloodthirsty fury.
The threat against his master ignited every single drop of loyalty in his chest.
"YOU CAN THREATEN ME ALL YOU WANT!" Hog roared out with his voice echoing across the basin like thunder. "BUT YOU WILL NEVER THREATEN MY LORD!"
CRACK!
Hog exploded forward out of his defensive trench.
He abandoned his heavy Tower Shield, utilizing his Elm-buffed 10x speed to close the fifteen-yard gap in seconds.
He pivoted his hips, channeling every single ounce of his physical momentum, muscle density, and rage into a devastating high-speed roundhouse kick straight toward Brida’s head.
BOOOOOOM!
Hog’s heavy, iron-shod boot collided squarely with the side of Brida’s face.
A violent shockwave of compressed wind exploded from the point of impact, blowing away the surrounding dirt and grass for twenty yards in every direction.
...However...
Brida’s face barely moved.
In fact... it didn’t move at all.