Dragon Heart: Iron Will. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 2

by Kirill Klevanski

  Using his neural network probably wasn’t honorable. After all, it wasn’t his own power, but the might of a borrowed trinket from his distant, dream-like past. But with millions of lives at stake, Hadjar didn’t really care about his honor. He simply wanted to save as many people as possible.

  A loading bar appeared under the scope, and a variety of hieroglyphs lit up around the flying beasts. The neuronet had scanned all of them, looking for the strongest among them…

  [Scan has been completed.]

  Hadjar felt ill.

  The neural network had found at least ten thousand Alphas in the sky. And somewhere in the depths of the swarm, there were two creatures that the computing module couldn’t even define. This meant that those two beasts were most likely at the King Stage, and were equal in power to a Knight of the Spirit. It was foolish to try and injure them with the cannon.

  “Ignore unidentified targets. Proceed to target selection. You are free to fire at all selected targets within range. ”

  Hadjar gave the orders and waited. The scope was still red, which meant the beasts were too far away to inflict maximum damage on them. Hadjar had no idea how the neuronet worked (which was pretty frightening), but he suddenly realized that he knew how to shoot. The airspeed, the amplitude, the differences in altitude—all of it became as clear to him as if he’d spent hundreds of years doing this, using this cannon in particular.

  It was precisely because of this frivolous manipulation of his mind that Hadjar tried to use the neuronet as little as possible. He felt too frustrated when his thoughts and feelings ended up affected by the coldly logical machine.

  “Get ready!” Lian shouted, pacing the wall nervously. “Cannoneers, ready!”

  A second pause. At that exact moment, that brief second before a battle commences, the world froze. You could see the movement of a fly’s wings, your friend’s breath misting through the air, or the grim resoluteness in everyone’s eyes.

  “Fire!” Lian cried.

  Thousands of arrows and cannonballs soared into the sky. They whistled through the air and hungrily dug into the flesh of their victims. The cannonballs were aimed at the creatures charging through the mountains, while the arrows had been launched at those that glided through the sky. Mangled flesh covered the ground, winged animals hurtled down like dropped stones, and blood fell like a colorful rain.

  The General’s own weapon remained silent.

  Lian had given the order too early and most of the projectiles, cannonball and arrows alike, hadn’t found their targets. But even this small success had been enough to inspire the soldiers. War cries sounded and clenched fists were raised. It was the new symbol of the Moon army. Their own way of marking the upcoming victory.

  “Ready!” The command sounded again.

  The bows creaked and the cannoneers began to fuss with their cannons. The people at the foot of the fortress were shouting and hustling. They could now see the wave of fangs, claws, and death rushing toward them.

  The smarter ones tried to climb the rocks, but most of them continued to storm the mountain road. They hadn’t noticed that the bridge was up.

  “I’ll kill ten of you for each person that dies,” Hadjar growled, putting his finger on the ‘trigger’.

  The scope finally flashed green. Almost like an echo of the recently blown horn, another dragon’s roar thundered over the pavilion. The soldiers turned toward the tower from where their General was covering the sky in a rain of fire.

  One by one, black cannonballs shot out. They left behind a fiery trail and tore through the flying beasts. The shrieking and howling targets fell to the ground after each of these explosions. Their bodies were shattered, wings shredded, their eyes melted and they’d even lost their legs. Their blood stained the snow a deep crimson.

  While the ordinary cannoneers killed five or six monsters using ten shots, Hadjar achieved the same result with only one cannonball.

  Time after time, he pressed the trigger, his whole body feeling the power of the cannon. The barrels shook, expelling flame and cannonballs. The massive sprockets rattled, turning the heavy relay and providing new cannonballs.

  A heavy cloud caused by the cannon fire descended on the fortress. The cries of burning and ripped beasts filled the air. Fiery flowers bloomed among the black rocks and the white winter sky.

  People cheered, celebrating every hit. They could see their path to victory laid out before them.

  But this good fortune couldn’t last forever.

  The cannon barrels heated up and many of them couldn’t handle it. Explosions could soon be heard not only in the mountains, but also on the wall. The cries of wounded soldiers mixed with the beasts’ groans. They were dragged away by the field medics and carried on their shoulders to the hospital.

  The first three minutes of the battle, which had given everyone hope that victory could be achieved, gave way to a grim routine and a bit of despair. No matter how accurate their shots were or how many corpses the cannonballs and arrows left in the snow, it was just a small drop in the ocean of beasts.

  “Hadjar!” Nero shouted, but it was too late.

  One of the creatures that exuded a lot more power than the Alpha of the white apes had swooped down. The beast —a hybrid of a wolf, a tiger, and a fish—had flown ahead. It wanted to destroy Hadjar’s tower, so it simply did so.

  It dug its huge claws into the ice and shoved its mouth into the tower from where the waves of death had come out.

  The white-haired warrior ran toward the tower, pushing his subordinates aside along the way. His friend was in trouble and, by the gods, he would come to his aid.

  He would have, anyway…

  There was an explosion so powerful that people were pressed down against the parapet. The wounded creature fell with a cry into the mouth of the bottomless abyss. Following after it, the shards of the ice tower and pieces of black metal torn apart by an unknown force fell in as well. Along with a human silhouette. At the last second, the silhouette managed to push off from the wall and avoid his foe’s fate.

  He landed on the rocks. On the other side of the cliff. The General of the Moon army was facing the oncoming horde of monsters on his own.

  “This has to be a joke,” Nero said, his voice thick with suppressed worry.

  He looked at Serra who was standing at the base of the dome. Talismans flared to life around the desert witch. Serra was clearly using her magic.

  Their eyes met for a moment. A bewildered woman’s glance and an apologetic man’s rueful look.

  The next moment, Nero was pushing off the wall with all his might, landing on the side full of snow and enemies.

  Chapter 156

  [The weapon is overheating! Critical failure imminent!]

  Hadjar looked at the message, then at the thermometers attached to the barrels. Indeed, the cannon would break down after a few more shots. Actually, it would soon become useless regardless of what he did.

  The flying creatures had almost reached the fortress and the dome. Soon enough, firing at them with any accuracy would be impossible. The cannon would also need to cool down for at least 15 minutes.

  The General didn’t have that much time to spare.

  Hadjar looked behind him, then at the sky once again.

  Slipping out of the odd seat of his cannon, he pulled the boxes that the cannonballs had been stored in over to the weapon and knocked them over. Their contents tumbled out, sprinkling it with gunpowder and metal shavings. It was just what he needed for his plan, one his white-haired friend would’ve called insane, to work.

  Sitting back down behind the relay, Hadjar put his finger on the trigger.

  “Fire at the enemies that are near the unidentified target!”

  One of the King level beasts was too far away to be reached by cannon fire. So, the neural network didn’t really have a choice. After a moment, the scope began to lock on to the miniature monsters flying next to their huge kin.

  Hadjar had chosen these targets
on purpose. The monsters tried not to fly too close to the King, instinctively feeling the danger. Only its offspring could stay near it without fear of being eaten or torn to pieces for their insolence.

  The cannonballs continued to spew from the already heated cannon. The monsters’ screams filled the sky, and the weight of the King’s fury as it watched its offspring die made it hard to breathe.

  The hybrids of various creatures flapped their giant wings and flew toward the icy tower. Once again jumping up from the seat, Hadjar drew his blade and waited.

  When the ice cracked under the weight of their claws, when their fangs punched through the columns, when death was almost upon Hadjar, only then did he strike the floor with his blade. The impact produced sparks, they fell on the gunpowder, and an explosion shook the tower.

  The General hid behind one of the columns and most of the cannonballs struck the enchanted ice. Some of them exploded midflight, tearing through his clothes and skin, but this was still a better fate than that of the King.

  Bleeding, the beast, now missing its lower jaw, part of one wing, its eyes, and several layers of skin, slid along the ice in the direction of the cliff.

  Hadjar didn’t want to rely on gravity, so he got out from behind the column. He pushed the remnants of the exploding cannon toward the animal. This turned out to be a grave mistake.

  The beast, despite having lost its sense of smell and sight, still felt its enemy’s approach. It lashed out with its huge tongue and grabbed the General’s legs with it. The monster’s enormous head hit the tower, bringing down the ice and metal.

  Hadjar didn’t manage to cut off the beast’s tongue in time and was dragged into the snowy abyss after the dying creature.

  Turning around, he managed to plunge his blade into the ice wall of the fortress and push off from it, landing among the rocks. He’d escaped the fate of being flattened by the fall only to end up facing the oncoming horde of monsters on his own.

  Behind him, the huge chasm gaped. Using the fortress itself, he’d managed to avoid plunging into the abyss, but there was no way back.

  Hadjar bent his knees slightly and drew his blade. Even if all seemed lost…

  A body landed beside him.

  “What the demons, Nero!” Hadjar cried out upon seeing his friend standing up from a snowdrift. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you on the wall?”

  “Shove your ‘why’ up your ass, Hadj!” The white-haired warrior roared back. “I’m here to save you! And instead of thanking me, you immediately start bossing me around.”

  They kept shouting, over the thunder of explosions, the screams of people, the whistling of arrows, and the roar of the approaching beasts.

  “All of it was part of the plan!”

  “What plan? The one where you blow yourself up along with that beast? Or the plan where you end up on the other side of the fucking fortress!”

  Nero pointed at the abyss and then at the wall where the commanders were bustling. They were trying to figure out how they could safely bring back the General and the Commander. Judging by the lack of anything being done, a solution hadn’t come to them yet.

  “I had to improvise,” Hadjar shrugged.

  “So was it a plan or a damned improvisation?”

  “It was an improvised plan!” Hadjar snapped.

  At the same time, they turned toward the people still crowding around the raised bridge. They were screaming and begging to be let in. They could feel the cold fangs and claws of the beasts that were charging at them.

  Both of them were aware of the irony. On the other side of the abyss, the people were in the same boat as the two warriors. Except the villagers hadn’t been the ones that had given the order to raise the bridge.

  Hadjar might as well have signed their death warrants with his own hand.

  “Same as always?” Nero stood next to his friend and bared his blade.

  Back to back, like in dozens of previous battles, they met the thousands of animals rushing toward them from the rocks and cliffs.

  “Same as always,” Hadjar agreed, ready to make the beasts pay dearly for their lives.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Hadjar was soon plunging his blade into a leopard’s mouth. It shook, trying to sink its claws into the biped’s flesh, but couldn’t. Nero had chopped its paws off.

  Their blades glittered, sending the beasts’ bodies into the abyss. The creatures were hurrying toward the cliff because, even if humans couldn’t jump over the gap, the animals could. They saw a mountain path with weak and frightened bipeds standing on it as their only obstacle. They represented a long-awaited feast to the beasts, one they could’ve hardly hoped for during their escape from the site of the battle between the Great Relatives.

  Hadjar threw a wounded lion behind him and barely managed to dodge a steel ram. Both of the beasts fell off the cliff and plummeted after the others.

  Their swords kept cutting off heads and paws. The snow slowly melted from all the spilled blood.

  Nero and Hadjar took turns using their Techniques, allowing each other to take a breath and rest a bit whenever possible.

  The huge hand with blades instead of fingers could crush and cut through a dozen beasts. Then they would be thrown aside by the tsunami. Some of the corpses were sent over the cliff, while others formed a wall of bodies.

  Like they’d done during the battle with the nomads, Nero and Hadjar were shielding themselves from their attackers by using the bodies of their comrades. The nomads had been human, however. The animals... Some of them would drag the bodies off to the side and devour them eagerly, giving way to stronger specimens.

  A huge ram with curved horns stood in front of Hadjar. Its hooves were like hammers, its muscles like boulders. It had crushed more than ten tigers and destroyed a dozen leopards. It was an Alpha. Fierce and merciless.

  While Nero spun like a top and his heavy sword sent dozens of smaller creatures over the cliff, Hadjar started a one-on-one battle.

  The ram slammed its hoof against the ground, kicking up snow and rock chips. A heavy, black glow enveloped its horns. Raising up on its hind legs and furiously snorting, it rushed in with a frontal attack. It was so swift that it almost looked like one of the arrows shot from the wall.

  Without changing his stance, Hadjar held his hand over the hilt of his sheathed sword. When the Alpha ram got close enough, the General drew his blade.

  The angry dragon grappled with the ram. They pushed each other back, whirling in a furious dance until the beheaded animal fell to the ground and silver blood gushed forth. Hadjar looked longingly at the horns flying over the cliff. He could’ve made a new handle for Moon Beam out of those.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have time to wallow in regret.

  The steel flashed again and the beasts growled. Their claws sometimes found their mark, leaving deep scratches and cuts on the warriors’ bodies. But the cost was high. Dozens of beasts fell for every wound they inflicted.

  “We have to get out of here!” Nero cried out as his giant’s hand gave them a few seconds’ reprieve.

  “And how do you suggest we do that?” Hadjar yelled back in annoyance.

  Hadjar launched another tsunami that obliterated a dozen animals at the low stages of cultivation.

  “Let’s jump. That way, we’ll have a better chance of survival!”

  “Dammit all!”

  The General reluctantly admitted that his friend was right. They were more likely to survive a fall than a battle against the endless avalanche of monsters.

  They had already turned around and were about to jump when something white flashed over their heads. Heavy paws landed on the snow behind them and the mountains shuddered from the mighty roar that followed. For a moment, the avalanche slowed down, then stopped altogether.

  “Quickly, my General,” Helion extended his hand.

  It took Hadjar some time to realize that the one-eyed cavalryman was sitting on the back of a white tiger. A tiger that had a very familiar
pattern on her fur.

  “Azrea?”

  The tigress turned to Hadjar. She was bigger than a horse. Her paws could easily punch a considerable hole in the ice wall.

  The tigress growled as if to say, “Hurry.”

  Without hesitation, Nero and Hadjar jumped on Azrea’s back. The tigress that had been a kitten until recently had grown so much that she could carry three soldiers on her back. Her running looked more like she was flying. Azrea barely touched the snow.

  When she turned her back to the horde of monsters, they snapped out of their stupor and tried to pursue them, but couldn’t catch up to the tigress.

  Her powerful paws pushed off the cliff and they flew not just over the cliff itself, but over the fortress wall as well, landing on the parapet and rolling across the ice, knocking down the archers and soldiers there.

  When they finally stopped and Hadjar was able to get up, he saw the curled up, heavily sniffling little kitten lying next to him once more.

  “Who’s supposed to look after whom here?” Hadjar asked softly, picking his savior up gently and holding her against his chest.

  The battle raged on.

  Chapter 157

  Hadjar straightened up and looked around, assessing the situation. If they survived, he’d have time to learn how Azrea had been able to suddenly grow large.

  The situation looked grim. The monsters were circling the fortress. The various flying monsters kept slamming into the golden dome from above. Serra’s spell wasn’t ready yet, so they didn’t know if they could endure the siege for much longer.

  “General!” Lian ran along the parapet toward Hadjar.

  She stepped over the bodies of the dead soldiers. As she ran, she shot three arrows, sending three lizards that had been trying to attack her hurtling back. Not all of the flying monsters were trying to swoop down on the fortress. Only those who were tired from the long flight or were hungry. Otherwise, the defenders wouldn’t have lasted long after all of them slammed into the barrier.

  “Officer,” Hadjar said with a nod, swung his blade, and launched a dragon from it that cut the wings off several birds and beheaded some snakes. “Report.”