"Volley! Incoming arrows!"
"What is happening?! Since when do zombies coordinate archer volleys?!"
"Shields up! Brace for impact!"
The sudden barrage threw the garrison upon the wall into momentary disarray.
Fortunately, Ryen had shouted his warning early, and their reflexes were sharp enough that not a single arrow found its mark.
Yet the sheer impossibility of an organized ambush left Zhongli and the commanders stunned, to say nothing of the regular infantry.
"Dammit, the threat just escalated."
Ryen scowled. Taking cover behind Guizhong's shield, he raised his sniper rifle and scanned the darkness for the pitch-black zombie he had spotted moments ago.
In the blink of an eye, the creature had vanished into the horde.
However, judging by the methodical, disciplined rhythm of the arrow volleys, the creature was undoubtedly still out there, hiding behind its meat shields.
"Ryen, what exactly are we facing?" Zhongli asked, his voice low and tense.
"This defies all prior encounters. How can mindless corpses exhibit this level of coordination? Synchronized strikes and battle formations!"
The continuous, suffocating rain of black arrows pinned the defenders down, preventing any immediate counterattack.
The sheer shock of the mutation had temporarily paralyzed their momentum.
"We have a catastrophic problem. Do you recall my warning about the worst-case scenario for the seventh Blood Moon?" Ryen replied hurriedly, his eye never leaving the scope.
Zhongli blinked in surprise. "What?"
"Sapience! A unique variant is commanding this entire horde!" Ryen shouted over the din. "It is actively directing their fire."
The commanders exchanged looks of pure, unadulterated dread.
The mutants losing their vulnerability to sunlight was terrible enough.
Adding a sapient field commander to the equation elevated the final siege to an entirely new echelon of lethality.
An ocean of corpses was manageable; an ocean of corpses with a mind was terrifying.
"What is our countermeasure?" Tartaglia shouted, peeking out from beneath his shield through the hail of arrows.
He could see lines of archers maintaining suppression fire, while dedicated assault groups marched methodically toward the walls and the molten trenches.
The sheer discipline of their advance proved there was a guiding intelligence behind the horde.
"Ryen, they are using the cover fire to advance!"
"Cunning bastards." Ryen cursed under his breath before barking new orders.
"Pair up! One man holds the shield, the other returns fire! Spin up the redstone cannons and activate the magma floodgates!"
"Suppression fire!"
"Venti, all of you, scan the field for a pitch-black variant! The second you spot it, concentrate all fire on that single target!"
"Sniper rifles, rocket launchers, cannons, hit it with everything! Do not let it live!"
The commanders moved without hesitation, using the battlements for cover as they scoured the killing fields for the target.
The infantry returned fire, momentarily stalling the advance. Realizing a direct assault was impossible, the mutants were swiftly redirected toward the blast craters.
However, the redstone cannons had already been pre-calibrated for those exact coordinates.
Before the undead could close the distance, a deafening barrage of high-explosive shells tore into their ranks, shattering their attack rhythm.
Yet the temporary reprieve brought no relief to the commanders. The sapient commander remained their greatest existential threat.
A mindless swarm could be managed. But if millions of mutants were organized into disciplined legions... Redstone Tech City could genuinely fall.
The black variant had to be eliminated immediately.
What truly unnerved them was the uncertainty. Was this commander a unique anomaly born of the Blood Moon, or would they face a new general every single night?
If it was the latter, the situation was dire.
Shaking off the initial shock, Zhongli rapidly barked out tactical adjustments, initiating a coordinated counter-offensive.
While the organized arrow volley had caught them off guard, the era of cold steel was dead.
This was the age of modern firearms.
A skeleton arrow striking a guardsman would be deflected by heavy enchanted armor; it rarely proved instantly fatal.
But a high-caliber round tearing through the horde cared nothing for iron armor. One shot, one kill.
At best, an elite mutant might survive a second round.
And how many rounds could an assault rifle spit out in a single second?
In a pure ranged exchange, an archer was nothing more than target practice for a machine gunner.
The organized counter-barrage swiftly overpowered the incoming arrows.
The mutant ranks thinned at an astonishing rate.
While the infantry chewed through the horde, Zhongli and the leaders focused entirely on locating the elusive black variant.
After minutes of frantic searching, Nilou suddenly pointed toward the distance with breathless excitement.
"There! Roughly three hundred meters northwest of the main crater! It is surrounded by a dense cluster of mutants!"
The leaders instantly snapped their sights to the coordinates, locking onto the pitch-black monstrosity.
Shielded by hundreds of mutant bodyguards, the creature was carefully navigating toward the trench.
It occasionally glanced up at the walls of Redstone Tech City, its glowing eyes burning with undeniable, human-like fury.
"An absolute abomination." Zhongli scoffed, smoothly drawing a rocket launcher from his inventory. "If we allow you to escape, the coming days will be unbearable."
In perfect unison, the commanders armed their heaviest munitions. Rocket launchers, sniper rifles, heavy machine guns... all locked onto the distant target.
The sapient creature seemed to sense the impending doom. It let out a frantic, piercing shriek, commanding even more mutants to close ranks around it.
The sudden, massive shift in the horde's formation was so blatant that even the regular infantry noticed the anomaly.
Dashi and the airborne Dragon Knights pinpointed the target from the sky.
Thousands of gun barrels pivoted in unison. Ignoring the rest of the swarm, a torrential river of lead and fire poured directly toward the black variant.
Dozens of rocket-propelled grenades streaked through the night sky, their fiery trails converging on the creature.
The defenders unleashed a volume of firepower equivalent to repelling an army of a hundred thousand, all aimed at a single entity.
A sapient commander holding the reins of the undead was infinitely more lethal than a million mindless drones.
No matter the cost, it had to die tonight.
Yet the creature shrieked relentlessly, summoning an endless wall of flesh.
The remaining twenty thousand mutants threw themselves forward with suicidal devotion, physically catching the bullets and explosions with their bodies.
Realizing it had been exposed, the black variant shot one last venomous glare at the city before commanding its meat shields to cover its retreat.
Panic flared among the commanders.
They could spare the drones, but the general had to fall.
If it survived, the remaining six days would be pure agony.
The defenders pushed their weapons to the absolute limit, holding down their triggers and pouring an ocean of lead into the retreating wall of flesh.
But the sheer density of the meat shield proved impenetrable. The bullets simply could not punch through enough bodies to reach the center.
Xiao's golden eyes narrowed. Drawing his SlashBlade, he spoke with absolute resolve. "Rex Lapis, permit me to pursue it!"
"Absolutely not!" Zhongli rejected the request with ironclad finality.
"The density of the horde is too great. If you dive in, you will be swarmed. It is too lethal. A Totem of Undying will not save you from being buried alive."
"But we cannot allow that creature to escape!" Xiao stared at Zhongli, his grip on his blade tightening.
"If it lives, the coming nights will be a bloodbath. Allow me to strike! The horde has thinned."
"Even if I fall, the Totem of Rebirth will restore my soul."
Zhongli fell silent. Xiao's tactical assessment was flawless.
Yet... he refused to send Xiao on a suicide mission. Resurrection or not, the agony of death was real.
"There is no time to deliberate! It has almost breached the maximum effective range of our rockets!"
"It is slipping away!" Xiao shouted. Seeing Zhongli hold firm, Xiao gritted his teeth, unfurling his Elytra to dive off the wall anyway.
But Ryen's hand snapped out, gripping Xiao's shoulder with vice-like strength.
"Hold your ground. I have a solution."
Ryen drew a slow breath, stowing his sniper rifle into his inventory. With a flick of his wrist, a breathtaking longbow materialized in his grasp.
Its chassis was pure, abyssal black, adorned with the swirling, luminescent dust of a blue galaxy.
The bowstring hummed, forged from pure, condensed cosmic energy.
An aura of profound, terrifying mystery washed over the battlements.
Ryen gently ran his fingers along the cosmic frame, whispering, "I nearly forgot I possessed this artifact... Occasionally, a bow proves infinitely superior to modern firearms."
Venti let out a helpless sigh. "At this distance, even the rockets are falling short. A simple bow..."
Ryen smirked. "An ordinary bow would indeed fail. But this is the Heaven Fallen Longbow."
"Heaven Fallen..." Jean murmured softly, before a sudden, violent shudder wracked her frame.
"I remember now! That is the legendary artifact that stands equal to the Sword of the Cosmos!"
A wave of electrified excitement swept through the commanders.
Equal to the Sword of the Cosmos? That single comparison alone established the terrifying ceiling of its power.
"I left it in Ganyu's care for so long I practically forgot it existed. She handed it to me just before she crossed the portal this afternoon," Ryen explained, testing the weight of the cosmic weapon.
"What are you waiting for?! Shoot it! It is about to breach the tree line!" Seeing Ryen casually reminiscing, Venti hopped from foot to foot in sheer panic.
Ryen raised an eyebrow, calmly tracking the black variant, which was now merely a speck in the distance. "So what? This is the Heaven Fallen Longbow... I could give it a five-kilometer head start!"
"Is this truly the time for arrogance?" Venti rolled his eyes.
Ryen chuckled, deciding to end the suspense. Hooking his fingers around the energy string, he smoothly drew the bow to a full crescent.
A radiant arrow materialized upon the rest, shimmering like the ghost of a dying star.
With a casual, almost careless aim, he released the string.
The arrow tore through the night sky like a blazing meteor. It carved a flawless arc through the darkness and, under the watchful eyes of the entire assembly... slammed into the dirt right at the zombie's feet.
"..."
A dead silence fell over the battlements.
Venti clutched his hair, staring at Ryen in pure disbelief. "Seriously?! If you cannot aim, hand the bow to me! You completely wasted the shot!"
Ryen merely smiled, pointing a finger toward the distant speck. "Watch closely."
Venti blinked, whipping his head back just in time to see the radiant arrow detonate with the force of a localized sun, violently launching the surrounding meat shields into the air.
The shockwave hurled the black variant high into the sky.
Immediately after, the shattered remnants of the arrow crystallized in mid-air, splitting into ten pristine, glowing bolts of white light.
Like guided missiles, the ten bolts curved sharply through the sky, hunting their prey. With merciless precision, they all slammed directly into the airborne commander.
Pinned by the cosmic light while still suspended in the void, the creature managed one final, hateful glare before dissolving into a pile of rotting flesh.
The commanders stared in stunned silence. Slowly, every head turned back toward the Heaven Fallen Longbow in Ryen's hands.
"Explosive payload, extreme range, homing capabilities, and cluster splitting... The sheer damage output appears to guarantee instant death."
"It is entirely worthy of standing alongside the Sword of the Cosmos," Zhongli murmured, his amber eyes burning with distinct awe.
Ryen raised his hand in mild correction. "You misspoke. It does not guarantee instant death, but against these foes, it might as well."
"Furthermore, the true terror of this weapon... The Heaven Fallen Longbow possesses effectively infinite durability."
"By the way... have you ever witnessed a bow replicate the firing rate of a heavy machine gun?" Ryen asked with a wicked grin.
Before anyone could answer, he tossed the bow into the air.
A shower of starlight cascaded downward as the Heaven Fallen Longbow hovered directly above Ryen's head, its string drawing back automatically.
Radiant arrows materialized in rapid succession.
An instant later, the ancient bow unleashed a hailstorm of energy that put modern automatic weaponry to shame.
A relentless barrage of meteoric light streaked across the night sky. With every impact, a devastating explosion rocked the earth.
Hundreds of homing cluster arrows splintered off from the blasts, carving sharp angles through the air to ruthlessly hunt down the remaining mutants. Entire swaths of the horde were mowed down like wheat.
The spectacle resembled an ancient, enlightened sword immortal commanding a boundless river of flying blades.
The night sky was entirely consumed by white light, raining down like a cosmic judgment upon the earth.