Martial Era: Starting With The Strongest Talent-Chapter 100: Clash On The Battlement

At the manager’s command, the Acolytes manning the artillery armaments unleashed hell.

Fire-essence–infused energy blasts roared from the cannons, streaking across the field in incandescent arcs. The front of the tide collapsed instantly, monsters dying in droves.

Gargoyles were torn from the sky, their stone bodies cracking apart as they hit the ground.

Wood tigers were blown open by raw power, torsos erased by concentrated essence lasers.

Giant rats, evil pixies, and sabre wolves were caught in overlapping bombardments, roasted and scattered as the wall thundered nonstop.

The Acolytes didn’t hold back.

Yet even as bodies piled up, the tide kept coming.

Their numbers were absurd, so dense that the dead became little more than a buffer, trampled underfoot as the mass surged forward in quick, reckless movements.

Vanessa’s eyes narrowed.

"Fire the Dread-Hammer!"

Deep within the wall’s control room, the signal flashed. Two officers exchanged a single look, then nodded and flipped their switches at the same time.

Behind the wall, sections of the floor split open.

Missile-shaped armaments rose smoothly from hidden silos, engines igniting as they launched skyward. They arced high, slicing through the air, brushing past startled gargoyles before pitching down with terrifying speed.

The monsters barely had time to react, as the Dread-Hammer struck, and detonated.

Explosions ripped through the tide in multiple zones, carving enormous gaps where thousands of monsters had stood moments before.

Shockwaves flattened everything nearby. Limbs, wings, and shattered bodies rained down as the artillery kept firing, exploiting the openings and shaving away the edges of the horde.

For a brief moment, it worked.

The tide was pushed back.

But it didn’t last.

The sheer volume of monsters revealed the grim truth: countless incursions fed the field, as more spilled out as open rifts continued to vomit reinforcements. The tide replenished itself almost as fast as it was cut down.

"Manager, our artillery is losing power fast!"

Vanessa clicked her tongue in frustration. "Second unit, get ready."

Behind the cannons, Acolytes and heirs stepped forward, weapons drawn, essence flaring. They already knew what was coming.

The sector couldn’t sustain that level of firepower for long. The energy drain was brutal.

And then, one by one, the artillery armaments went dark.

Silence fell for half a heartbeat, as the monsters surged and gained ground.

As the monsters closed in on the walls, the martial artists stepped forward to face them head-on.

Weapons were drawn. Essence stirred.

Yet beneath the readiness, fear crept in. For many of them, this was their first monster tide. It was not a skirmish or a controlled incursion, it was a tide. Their nerves were stretched tight, hearts pounding far louder than they wanted to admit and Vanessa noticed.

She exhaled slowly, steadying herself, then raised her halberd.

Her voice rang out, sharp and commanding.

"Warriors!"

Almost every Acolyte snapped to attention at once.

"Yes, Manager!"

The heirs and Adam watched as she continued, her voice carrying effortlessly across the wall.

"Do not forget the reason you fight!"

Her words echoed along the battlements as the tide drew closer, the ground trembling beneath countless feet.

"We do not fight for ourselves," she said, unwavering. "Nor do we fight only for honor... or for the people behind these walls."

She leveled her halberd toward the oncoming horde.

"We fight because we choose to erase this monster scum from existence."

"We fight to reclaim a world that was rightfully ours."

"We fight to eradicate them, until nothing is left."

The effect was immediate.

Acolytes roared at the top of their lungs, fear burned away by conviction. Essence surged. Even the heirs felt their blood boil, their grips tightening around their weapons.

Adam smiled faintly from the side.

Now you’re speaking my language.

The monsters reached the base of the wall.

An instant later...

A thunderous explosion tore through the front of the tide, annihilating a massive cluster of creatures in a violent burst of fire and debris.

Vanessa flung her veiled hat aside, laughing as smoke billowed upward.

"This," she declared, eyes burning, "is the power of humanity."

The smoke rolled and churned...

Then shapes burst through it.

Monsters leapt out, claws digging into stone as they began to climb, screeching and howling as they swarmed the wall.

Vanessa raised her halberd once more.

"Get ready for battle!"

The monsters scaled the walls as if their lives depended on it.

Wood tigers dug their claws deep into the concrete, muscles bunching as they hauled their massive bodies upward. Giant rats swarmed in writhing clusters, scrabbling over one another without hesitation. Kobolds climbed with frightening coordination, crude claws and weapons finding every crack and edge. Sabre wolves bounded and clung with raw power, while the sirens followed close behind, their movements frantic and feral.

Above them, gargoyles beat their wings hard, stone bodies cutting through the air, while evil pixies swarmed like shrieking sparks of madness.

Despite the different ways they climbed or flew, every monster shared the same thing.

Hunger.

It burned in their eyes, an unrestrained, mindless craving. Monsters were carnivorous by nature. Essence from rifts could sustain them in isolation, but in the presence of intelligent races, restraint vanished and instinct took over.

The monsters reached the top of the wall almost instantly.

The battlements, wide enough for two highways, became a battlefield in a heartbeat. Martial spirits flared to life. Monster special talents activated in flashes of light and distortion. Two forces ready to slam into each other in a violent spectacle of steel, claws, essence, and blood.

But before anyone could make the first move...

Adam moved.

His hand slipped into his storage ring, and a black iron–grade scythe appeared in his grasp. The moment his feet touched the ground near the front line, the monsters nearest him faltered.

Time seemed to stutter.

Freeze F.

Their movements slowed unnaturally, as if the world itself resisted them. In the same instant, Adam activated Rapid E, his body blurring forward. The scythe swept in aclean, ruthless arcs, as heads fell, bodies split and essence dispersed violently into the air.

A large section of the wall was cleared in seconds.

Seeing this, the martial artists didn’t hesitate.

They didn’t pull back.

They surged forward.

With roars and flaring martial spirits, Acolytes and heirs increased their speed, crashing into the monsters alongside Adam, joining the battle as the wall erupted into full-scale close combat.

****

[Author’s Note]

100 chapers milestone reached Thank you guys for the support so far!