At the gate, the towers suffered devastating damage with no way of knowing what was attacking them. Stone dust hung in the air where ramparts had collapsed. Bodies lay in the rubble, unmoving.
The Ryugana soldiers fired essence ballista into the forest, burning and razing swathes of it in an instant. The treeline blazed now, flames roaring through the canopy, casting writhing orange light across the mountainside.
And yet it was not enough. Javelins kept flying out of the burning forest, trailing darkness behind them like wounds in the air. Whatever was firing them remained untouched by the explosions and the inferno consuming everything around them.
