The walls of Dravos had become a grinding mill of slaughter.
Where the magic cannons carved the deepest furrows through the advancing hordes, the dead did not simply accumulate into piles of corpses. Instead, they fused together. Broken bodies melted into one another, flesh and bone twisting into grotesque new forms as dozens of hounds merged into writhing masses of corrupted muscle, snapping jaws, and glowing runes. The resulting horrors rolled toward the city walls under their own crushing weight, devouring both the living and the dead as they advanced.
Each abomination possessed physical strength comparable to a peak full moon magus.
Ballista bolts that would have impaled ordinary monsters barely slowed them. Magic artillery blasted chunks from their bodies only for the surrounding flesh to absorb the damage and continue forward.
The Four Pillars met them at the gates.
Even they were being forced back.
Step by step.
Meter by meter.
Every advance was purchased with blood.
