World's Last Hope-Chapter 101: The Pillars of Defense

One, two, three, four— with each strike of Eric’s sword, more and more spiders fell. The air had become unbearable due to the unpleasant stench of all the bodies that had been killed by him and Master Varek.

It wasn’t unusual for Eric to smile when he was in a fight like this one, but this time he wasn’t alone.

The old man seemed to have begun to forget himself due to the battle as well.

Each time Eric increased his speed, so did Varek, matching his movements and covering his back.

"Ten, twelve, thirty," Eric was counting how many he was killing in a second.

He would have been surprised if he wasn’t too focused on the battle to realize how much stronger he had become after a week of training with Grandmaster Gryndor.

"FIRE!" a man shouted somewhere behind him, and in the next second, Eric’s eyes widened as the sun was blocked yet again by the hundreds of arrows in the air.

Each arrow, created of silver with as sharp a tip as possible.

The hundreds of arrows rose high into the sky and then descended on the spiders.

In a second, hundreds of spiders fell, feeling the weight of the silver arrows.

Some were just injured, while others were fatally wounded and weren’t able to move.

But even those that were lightly injured were enough, as they would inevitably be destroyed by Eric and Varek in the front.

The ground began to shake more often as the bolts Olivia was sending seemed to increase.

Even now, she was improving as her rate of fire was becoming faster.

Each time she released the string of the giant bow-like weapon, the archers on the gates seemed to almost fall as the walls themselves moved due to the power Olivia was displaying.

Aria, meanwhile, seemed to only become more and more brutal as she cut, slashed, and slaughtered any spider that dared to get close to her.

It was hard to count the amount she had slain, as there were just that many.

From the point of view of the spiders, it seemed that she was some kind of deity that had descended into the mortal realm and was pushing the creatures back for daring to oppose humanity.

Some of the spiders began to shake and tried to run backward, away from the fight.

They were scared of what was awaiting them in front.

But alas, the spiders that were charging forward were just too many, so not a single spider was able to go back the way it had come from.

It was clear that these individuals had become the pillars of the humans’ defenses, so the other Masters had to choose who they were going to support.

Olivia was using ranged attacks, so everybody that could support her already did by using their bows and miracles.

Aria, meanwhile, was too fast, too strong, and too alien for them to be able to help her even if they wanted to, as there was a very serious possibility that they would just slow her down.

So in the end, they had to support the cursed one, as well as Varek, who were at the very front, stopping the majority of the spiders’ advancement.

The ground around the two Masters seemed to shake as the others were supporting with all the miracles that they possessed.

Some used ice attacks, others light attacks, others jumped into the melee, not fearing what would happen if the monstrous acidic blood fell upon them.

And then there were the regular Awakened, who had to kill every spider that managed to slip through the cracks of the Masters in front of them.

The ground became unrecognizable, as it was hidden by the thousands of bodies laying on the ground. The air’s stench was disgusting to breathe, but it wasn’t like they had much of a choice.

They killed, killed, killed.

The spiders screeched in pain and horror as they were pierced, slashed, cut, frozen, burned.

These were one of the hardest hours the troops had ever experienced, pushing their bodies to the absolute limit.

In the end, as the sun was beginning to set, painting the sky crimson, the spiders seemed to finally stop coming.

It didn’t take long for the humans to slaughter the rest of the spiders that remained.

A few hours later, silence befell upon the gates.

There were three points of attention.

One was Olivia, or more accurately, the craters she had created with each of her attacks. There were dozens... hundreds. Forever changing the topology of the area.

Right from the gates, thousands of monsters lay on the ground as a lone woman with golden hair and shining eyes stood before them, with an unreadable expression, Aria.

And the man who was the reason most of the Awakened hadn’t been forced to face the terrifying spiders one-on-one.

He was looking at the sky, still holding his cursed sword weakly with his right hand. His raven-black hair was dancing in the wind, and so was the red cape on his back.

Even though he had his back turned to the troops, it was clear that the man was taking ragged breaths.

Everybody was tired, but nevertheless, the first wave of the spiders seemed to be over.

Humanity had managed to repel the monsters for one more day.

But even in this grand achievement, everybody had one thought in their minds.

’If we fought so hard against the spiders that were considered small and weak, what are we going to do once the Colossus ones start to appear?’

Everybody shuddered at the thought, that was until Eric raised his sword and began to scream.

A second later, Varek joined him.

Then the Masters around them.

One by one, so did the Awakened.

So what if there was so much more to come?

They were humans, and had survived for so long thanks to their ability to adapt to any enemy the Corruption threw at them.

So they didn’t feel despair of any kind. And the ones that did began to feel something else as more and more soldiers began to scream with all their might in celebration of their victory.

Hope.