Prince Roland's order echoed across the wall, setting the gears of the primitive defense in motion. Under the harsh command of the veterans, a few dozen militiamen who had previous experience hunting in the mountains hurriedly climbed the narrow stairs to the main watchtower, the highest and safest point of the fortification.
They positioned their longbows and heavy crossbows over the wooden parapets, their trembling fingers fighting the cold as they drew the taut strings.
— "Draw and aim for the heads! Fire at will!" — ordered the leader of the archer squad.
A black cloud of iron bolts and steel-tipped arrows whistled through the air in a high parabola. However, the strong north wind, punishing the plain like an invisible barrier, did its dirty work. The trajectory of the projectiles was severely deflected. Most of the arrows fell harmlessly into the thick snow around the monster's six stubby legs.
The few that managed to find their target struck the dark brown, algae-covered carapace of the hybrid beast with a hollow, pathetic "TOC, TOC, TOC" sound. Not a single steel tip managed to even scratch the surface. The heavy crossbow bolts, fired with a tension capable of piercing knight armor, ricocheted violently off the foreheads of the zombie wolves without leaving a mark, falling into the mud like harmless toothpicks.
The primitive ballistic attack was completely ineffective.
On the main walkway, the frustration was palpable. Carter Lannis gritted his teeth.
— "Archers are useless against this thickness! Make way!" — the Chief Knight shouted.
Carter, Iron Axe, and Trevor, William's personal bodyguard, lined up at the edge of the wall. The three most experienced men in the Town raised their flintlock muskets with lethal precision, pressing the wooden stocks firmly into their shoulders.
— "Aim for the center of mass of the carapace. Fire!" — Iron Axe commanded.
Three almost simultaneous explosions tore through the wind, creating a dense cloud of gray, acidic smoke that temporarily blinded the front line. The echo of the gunshots rumbled through the mountains. The heavy lead spheres, propelled by Roland's new optimized gunpowder, flew at deadly speed and collided directly against the shell of the monstrous turtle.
When the smoke cleared, a collective gasp of despair escaped the militiamen.
The incredibly powerful lead bullets had managed to shatter the thick algae and open a few small, whitish holes in the outermost layer of the brown shell. But that was it. The penetration stopped before reaching any vital tissue or nerve. The monstrosity did not falter. It did not let out a roar of pain. The dead-eyed wolf heads continued to sway, and the colossal beast continued to move forward, indifferent to the artillery that was supposed to bring about the new era.
Roland, watching everything from his safe position near William, swallowed hard. His engineer's mind worked at high speed, analyzing the impact data. The kinetic force of those bullets was completely dissipated, he theorized, his eyes wide. That carapace isn't just hardened bone. The level of mechanical hardness and shock absorption I just saw suggests that the structure of this monster possesses something incredibly similar to the resistance of biological carbon. Organic nanotubes woven by the miasma's magic? If that's the case, not even a continuous rain of bullets will stop this thing before it reaches the wall.
Beside the Prince, William was immersed in a deep, agonizing silence. His facade as the unwavering Commander remained intact, but inside, his brain was spinning like an out-of-control waterwheel, analyzing all the ramifications of his possible choices.
He was facing a brutal impasse imposed by his own isekai nature and the System.
William knew, with absolute and crystalline certainty, that he possessed the power to obliterate that hybrid beast in seconds. The System had granted him his favorite superpower, which went far beyond mere brute force. He could solve the situation easily: he just had to use his special ability to teleport. He could conjure spatial distortion, blink off the wall, appear exactly inches from the blind, bovine heads of the beast, unload his short-range pistol directly into the monster's face, and then return with the same teleportation to the top of the wall before the beast's carcass touched the ground. It would be fast, clean, and cinematic.
But that was exactly the problem. He would be seen.
William swept his gaze across the wall. Dozens of pairs of eyes. Everyone, practically all the recruits, patrolmen, hunters, and the Chief Knight himself were staring intently at the beast and the isolated snowfield. There was no darkness, no confusion in the rear to cover his tracks. If he disappeared on the spot and reappeared thirty meters away tearing the logic of that world in half, everyone would know immediately. It wouldn't be "exceptional speed"; it would be pure, undeniable Magic.
And in a crowd of frightened peasants, there was always a Judas. With absolute certainty, some cowardly, ambitious rat among the militiamen, whose debts tightened at the end of the month, wouldn't think twice before fleeing to the capital and selling the information to the High Church of Hermes for a handful of solid gold coins. They would report that there was a "male witch," a living demon operating in Border Town under the orders of Prince Roland. The Church, which burned women on mere suspicion, would declare an immediate "holy inspection" against the western territory. They might even bring some God's Punishment Army soldiers before winter's end.
That would cause a butterfly effect so apocalyptic and out of control that probably neither he nor Arthur's brilliant brain could handle it. Secrecy was their greatest weapon.
William gritted his teeth. He ruled out Magic. Okay, what if I go for brute force? He could grab the rope again, rappel down the walls like he did with the foxes, and try to face the colossal beast in a classic 1v1 melee in the middle of the snow. He had sixteen Strength points and fourteen in Endurance.
But... that was astronomically risky. The seven-meter beast was absurdly larger and weighed dozens of tons. Therefore, by the brutal laws of physics and momentum, it was much stronger and tougher than him. Although it was a bit slower with its six stubby legs, if William miscalculated a dodge or slipped on the ice, a single stomp from that hoof would be the end of his journey in that world. Which would also force him to use teleportation as an escape.
And, not only that, the human factor persisted. Even if he were successful, even if he managed to fight a monster the size of a house and win using only punches and shields, it would be a feat so logically absurd that the explanation "he's just strong" would fall flat. A normal human being doesn't beat a hybrid beast of that size in a 1v1 organically ever again.
Even this visual information, if detailed and reaching the ears of the Pope in the church, would create an equally lethal theory: the Church could deduce that Roland Wimbledon, in some profane way, had managed to steal the recipe and possessed soldiers of the God's Punishment Army. And that would be a thousand times worse and more damaging, since that theory would be infinitely more credible and palpable for the religious hierarchy than believing in the total absurdity of the existence of a male witch.
A direct declaration of war against Graycastle would already become a possibility.
William felt the sweat run down inside his armor. He didn't know what to do. Should he just lower his weapons, force everyone to retreat, wait for the beast to crash into and destroy the wall, and then send Van'er to throw explosives under the hybrid's belly to kill it, recreating exactly what the boy did in the original work?
But even that was a blind leap of faith. William knew very well that there was no guarantee that his and Arthur's presence hadn't changed something fundamental there. Perhaps the "butterfly effect" of their friendship with Roland had altered the castle's schedule, leaving Anna with less magic power, or perhaps changed the girl's mind, making her decide not to even come to the wall today to make the saving wall of fire that the canon dictated.
If he let the wall fall and Anna didn't show up, dozens of men would die and the castle would be overrun.
William was completely and terribly torn, trapped between revealing his magical powers and signing Roland's political death warrant, or holding back his power and watching the people he swore to protect get butchered.
The hybrid beast raised its two wolf heads and let out a cavernous roar, preparing for the final charge. The earth shuddered. The monster was only nine meters from the concrete base.
Carter gripped his sword, his face pale. Iron Axe readied his hunting dagger for the final close-quarters combat.
It was then that the temperature on the wall's walkway changed abruptly. The air around William seemed to distort due to a powerful wave of contained heat.
A diminutive yet majestic silhouette emerged from the thin air at the edge of the cement.
Until Anna appeared.
Not climbing stairs, not running down the walkway, but hovering. Defying all the laws of nature the men there knew, Anna floated subtly a few meters above the floor of the walkway, surrounded by a flickering aura that radiated oppressive heat. Her blue eyes, once filled with sadness and fear, now shone with the cold, merciless determination of a true goddess of war.
Around her levitating body, there were no conventional walls of flames. Instead, spinning silently like satellites in perfect orbit, were dozens of thick, pure steel silver needles. Each needle measured an impressive 50 centimeters in length, shaped and sharpened with industrial precision by the very fire magic the girl controlled like a master blacksmith.
William blinked, amazed and, above all, completely stunned. Since when could she fly?? The Commander felt the gears of his "meta-knowledge" short-circuit. That definitely wasn't in the original script at least not as far as he watched. Had the stress and new events in Border Town caused a butterfly effect so drastic as to evolve her power to levitation, or perhaps she had even acquired one of those stones Tilly used to fly???
Anna didn't utter a single word. She didn't need to. She looked at the gigantic hybrid beast threatening the wall, while hearing His Highness asking her to come down because it was dangerous. With lethal lightness, Anna raised her right hand and made a sharp movement, a crisp, cutting gesture with her fingers toward the monster that was now within the fatal seven-meter range.
The air exploded.
The silver steel needles fired. They accelerated instantly, reaching an insane speed of 240 meters per second, and covering a distance of seven meters between the creature and the wall. Propelled by extreme heat, the steel projectiles became flashes of light invisible to the naked eye.
ZING-ZING-ZING-ZING!
The sound was not of blunt impact, but of clean, absolute perforation. The magnificent Hybrid Beast with the titanic carapace, which minutes before had withstood a hail of arrows and the mechanical shock of pure lead, could not withstand the physics applied by extreme speed and heat concentrated on specific points such as the eyes, nose, forehead, etc.
The silver needles pierced through the milky eyes of the two wolf heads as if they were made of water, sinking deep into the creature's molten brain tissue. Five other needles plunged into the exposed junction points between the thick rhinoceros legs and the base of the muddy shell, severing major tendons and incinerating vital organs hidden in the massive guts of the demonic beast.
The monster paralyzed mid-stride. Its six colossal legs gave way simultaneously, lacking strength. The seven-meter aberration did not roar or try to fight. It simply fell like an imploded stone tower.
The impact of the titanic carcass collapsing into the snow kicked up a thick white cloud that swallowed the base of the wall with a deafening crash. The concrete floor vibrated considerably, forcing the men on the walkway to hold onto their spears and the parapet so as not to fall or slip due to the snow.
And then... the most absolute silence.
The cataclysmic hybrid beast was defeated and killed in the blink of an eye, literally in fractions of a second, by dozens of perfect flying needles.
Slowly, the girl landed back on the concrete floor of the walkway, her aura of heat diminishing.
On the wall illuminated by the reflected snow, Commander William, Chief Knight Carter, the fierce Iron Axe, and dozens of militiamen stood frozen in their positions. With eyes wide in pure shock, mouths agape, and muskets hanging uselessly from their shoulders, everyone stared dumbfounded at the orange-haired girl resting her hand by her side, leaving them absolutely clueless about the absurd — and flying — magnitude of the power that had just saved their lives.