Chapter 696: Taurens

Chapter 696 Taurens

"Adjust your angles! Aim for the tower in front of you. I want five sets of consecutive shots, men!"

Everyone in the catapult team began to adjust the angle of the catapults they were handling. They were all professionals at this. They did practice every day, making them more flexible at controlling the catapults than their own bodies.

In just thirty seconds in total, all sixty catapults were reloaded and ready for another round. They were using the same type of ammunition as before, large round stones of 50 centimeters in diameter. As these deadly stones drew an arc in the sky, they fell on the stone platform they were meant to target.

Some went straight towards the platform. Some went towards an empty spot and then rolled towards the slope placed behind the stone platforms. The shielded taurens didn't take a single step back. They only screamed in fury as they tried to block the incoming hits.

With every tauren that went down, two more would come close as a replacement. One rolling stone would kill about ten shielded taurens before it was completely stopped. Worse yet, if the taurens got hit from a bad angle, they would be turned into a mush of blood and flesh on the spot.

Eventually (and not very long), the taurens realized that they couldn't really defend their own catapults. Some of the supporting wooden pillars snapped because of the rolling stones. Some of the catapults were already starting to tremble.

"Maintenance! Maintenance!"

A vulpera at the back was screaming to call for backup. Soon, about twenty vulperas rushed in with wooden boards and iron nails. Wherever the catapults were damaged, they would try to fix them as quickly as possible. Of course, they would have the protection of the shielded taurens. The taurens had one job, and it was to defend the vulperas so that the catapults could be properly used. Yes, they had to defend them at all costs.

To put it simply, the Orc Empire had a shortage of catapults. The timber used to make them was hard to come by. Some parts had to be extra durable, whereas some of the other parts had to be extremely bendable. Not only that, only pieces with the right size could be used to make a catapult of the appropriate size.

In terms of geography, the Orc Empire had very little opportunity to collect timber from super large trees. They had been logging at the very dangerous parts of the Budapest Mountain Range, where almost all of the local middle-high tier spiritual beasts resided, but no, the supply was still very far from what was needed.

In their desperation to end the timber shortage, they decided to take apart all the wooden housings within a few of their own cities and towns. And yet, it was still not enough to get the catapults to have the same shooting range as the humans. This was why they had to place them at a dangerously close distance of 250 meters.

"No!" General Gerald called out to Carol, "Our catapults will be destroyed! Hurry up and use the ballistas. Also, light up the smokes. We can't let them take any easy shots on us!"

"Yes, General, " Carol replied. In a very short while, smokes started rising to where the platform was. The humans had already gotten six catapults in total, but their precision started to get far worse after this happened. Almost all of the following shots were based on luck.

At the same time, the taurens were charging towards the stone platform whilst carrying the ballistas. They were trained to do this. Even with the smoke around them, they were able to tell where their exact position was.

For one ballista, all it took was four strong taurens to carry them. It was not a hard job for them. Soon, the front row on top of the stone platform was filled with forty ballistas in total. The orcs finally got their turn to return fire.

A commanding knight shouted, "Watch out, men! It's their turn now!"

The ballistas were fired at a very right timing. It was when the smoke had just vanished, and the miracle wall didn't have the proper defense for the incoming shots. In total, five city-sized ballistas were damaged, two catapults were slightly damaged, and about ten-something knights were injured because of this.

Still, the orcs suffered way heavier casualties than the humans did. When the humans returned fire, about a hundred taurens were shot to death in an instance. About ten ballistas were also destroyed in retaliation. The orcs still had ten catapults ready after this. While the vulperas were fixing the damaged catapults, the ones that were fine were quickly launched towards the miracle wall.

Catapults weren't all that precise at all. Fighting catapults with catapults was the same. It was a game of luck, with each side was hoped to somehow fluke into hitting the jackpot.

This was where the war was at its most dangerous moment. The taurens never stopped supplying the ballistas. Whenever one of them died, or when one of their ballistas got destroyed, they would also reload more from behind. While the stones they had were not as pretty as what the humans carved, they could actually do more damage to whatever was hit.

When the Tauren elitists sacrificed themselves against the bunch of very well-equipped humans, a red fireball shot in the air from the middle of the orc battleground.

That's when the signal was sent. Soon, tens of thousands of pecker knights rushing from both sides of the stone platform. They were carrying ladders, and they were doing everything they could to get those towards the miracle wall. With their more elite members as the private soldiers of the advanced priests, they served as an expendable fighting force that was just a little bit better than the regular pecker orcs.

Anyways, the pecker knights were the main fighting force of the second attack. Both sides had yet to use their most powerful fighting power. The Orc Empire was very patient. Even now, they were using these pecker knights to test the real strength of the human side. If they could force the wizards to come out, that was when they knew the humans were getting close to their limit.

The commanding knight shouted, "Caution! The orcs wanted to close in! Ready your arrows, men!"

Soon, arrows started pouring down on the incoming pecker knights. A lot of them died, but most managed to set up the ladders to the miracle wall. From there, they just sacked their mounts and started climbing towards the top.

It was too much trouble for the Miracle City knights. They were all official knights, and also, since each of them only had to defend for two hours in total, so there really wasn't a need for them to save up their combat qi.

When the knights started flashing their combat qi, that's when the arrows started getting fired faster. Not one pecker knight could climb the ladder halfway without getting killed. They just kept climbing, though. When the human knights tried to look down to aim, many of them were killed because they gave the enemy camp a chance to take aim.

By now, the two human sharpshooters both had an exhausted look on their faces. They didn't have to load the arrows, but every shot had to be done with a lot of mental calculations. They were old. They could deal more damage to the orc ballistas than everybody else combined, but their feet already started to shake as they had stepped on the power pedals way too many times.

The commanding knights knew what was going on, but he didn't let the two sharpshooters rest because if he was going to do that, there would be no one else that could suffice as a replacement. Without the sharpshooters, more shots would come out of the stone platform in front of them, and the miracle wall would have to sustain even more damage.