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Chapter 1531 - Unbreakable Abyssal Steel
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 02:25:43 +0000 UTCFor what reason does the Abyssal Legion have such a fearsome reputation? Why is it that anywhere on Pangera, on the surface or in the Dungeon, people know the name, Legionem Abyssi?
The Legion are not a national army. They do not owe allegiance to any king, court or parliament, but instead operate as an independent force that is somehow allowed to maintain recruitment, training, keeps and castles in over half the lands in this world.
The Legion does not trade. The secrets of their order are not for sale, no matter the price. The only way to claim a suit of Legion armour is to pry it from a dead Legionary, and if someone does, the Legion are sure to find them and ask for it back. Firmly.
Funded largely through donations or tithes from grateful kingdoms, they have held firm against the monsters during–and ever since–the Rending itself.
If one were to try and calculate the lives saved due to the Abyssal Legion over the last two thousand years, I am certain that number would be equal to that of all the living beings on Pangera today.
- Excerpt from ‘Legionem Abyssi: an Examination’ by Kint
“Shields up! Hold the line!” Chyron roared.
After pushing their way through the existing defenders for the past five minutes, the Legion had finally reached the front ranks, giving time and space for the ants and their allies to withdraw behind them.
Shoulder to shoulder, the Legionaries formed a wall, their shields wide and tall, locked together to present a unified front.
For the initial engagement, Chyron anchored the line herself. Front and centre of the formation, she sucked the mana deep into her body, letting it rage through her flesh and infuse her muscles and armour.
“Lance!” came the call, and as one, the soldiers slipped their shields to the side, opening a gap and launching a devastating thrust through the breach.
A storm of sword-light exploded forth, two ranks of Legionaries concentrating the force of their blades outwards in devastating thrusts. The light carved holes through the monsters and encroaching waves of mucus, but the Legionaries did not press their advantage. Instead, they locked their shields together once more, activating their defensive skills to produce a wall of force that held strong before them.
On three sides of the platform, the Legion formed an indomitable armoured wall three ranks deep. No matter how the monsters of the fifth threw themselves forward, regardless of their heedless charges or streams of slime and mucus, the wall did not break.
“Lance!” came the call once more.
Chyron grit her teeth and summoned the force from deep within her aging body. Mana ignited within her flesh, empowering her muscles, strengthening her arm. The Abyssal armour took that strength and enhanced it further, transmitting it to her blade as she moved with flawless technique, every joint rotating in synch as her blade Skill activated. Along with the soldiers on her left and right, the Commander shifted her shield to the side and thrust her sword through the narrow gap.
It was a small opening, but through it she saw the horrors of the fifth bearing down on her position. Only, a moment later, those monsters were obscured from her vision as light exploded once more from the tip of her blade.
The swordsmanship of the Legion was like everything else they did: simple, brutal and effective. Not for them was the elegant manipulation and control of the Folk Blademasters. Overwhelming force. Unstoppable penetration. Undeniable results. That was the style of the Legion and Chyron was a master.
The air trembled around her, and Chyron knew instantly what had caused it: the mage batteries were ready. Dense balls of deep red fire arched overhead, so intensely hot the soldiers could feel the searing heat of them despite the distance between them. As it reached just beyond the peak of the arch and began to curve down, the fireballs split into a thousand smaller shards of flame and accelerated, stabbing down into the monsters like a rain of death.
Each one pierced and burned, driving deep into the filth and igniting many of the monsters they touched, but even that wasn’t enough. The corruption of the fifth was so strong that even the greatest magic wasn’t able to last long within its influence. Slime snuffed the flames and even the most potent offensive magic eventually broke apart. No matter, the Legion would endure.
“Heave!” came the call, repeated by centurions up and down the line.
As one, the line dug in their heels, pushed their shoulder to the back of their shields, and pushed.
An explosive wall of force burst forth, strong enough to shatter stone. Everything within a dozen metres was forced back, nothing could resist or stand its ground in the face of that overwhelming strength.
“Attack!”
Once more, Chyron summoned the sum total of her strength. Her body hummed with power, all if it was drawn out and poured into the heavy Incus pattern armour and extended down to her sword arm.
She executed a devastating slash, sending a wave of light slicing through the filth before her. Then another. And another.
Each strike flowed into the next, her movements perfectly controlled. The channels carved through her body by the baptism lit up like fire as mana thundered through her body. Chyron bared her teeth in a rictus grin behind her helmet. She knew this pain was being felt by every man and woman in the line, by every mage channeling more mana through themselves than any human mage had the capacity to do.
This pain was what it meant to be in the Legion. This was what it meant to sacrifice yourself to protect a world against monsters.
Sword light continued to flow out from the platform in a ceaseless sequence of slashes, until finally…
“Shields!”
With a sound like a colossal iron gate slamming shut, the soldiers locked shields again, reforming the wall. In moments, the monsters and slime crashed into the barrier, pressing, slamming, chewing and screaming as they tried to break through.
But they wouldn’t. With abundant mana flowing through her, Chyron knew she could keep this up all day. For a week.
“WHO ARE WE?” she bellowed.
“THE STRONGEST UNDER THE EARTH!” her Legion roared back.
Comments
stubs
that is a fair point. so long as the beserkers can reel in their chaotic tendencies they could be applied in a similar way
Runaway_Cactuar
I don't think they cared. They've been fighting for eons, and people have seen them do it. The fact that no monster faction had come up with a counter to their linear tactics (aside from sheer volume and firepower) made them confident. The problem is that this time, the monster faction in question is a whole-ass civilization, complete with a general who is smart.
Runaway_Cactuar
The Roman Legions of old had dedicated skirmishers and auxiliaries to protect/screen the flanks of the line, so there is a role for her as long as she doesn't lose herself.
Fabian
Is the small prince with its sole kingdom in the 6th or in the 7th? Then there's the high-level mana unable to be infected
Fabian
Solant needs to copy the magic in the shields. But she can't copy them, because they harmonize with the magic flowing through their bodies. Except, maybe ants being monster, they also have mana channels? Anyway, I think they need sample armors for that.
Fabian
> Front and centre of the formation, she sucked the mana deep into her body, letting it rage through her flesh and infuse her muscles and armour. Here I am reminded that there would be no good breath to breathe without the ants. I'm still wondering how they defend from above though, not being able to climb overhead. Being attacked from three side, the tunnel should be pretty big
Nathan C
They aren't in a shield wall then, that's what the push was for. They made space to let loose a series of attacks, then came the call to shield.
Hayden Leech
They did! Pretty sure that’s the stratum with gravity weirdness.
Brian Schwab
Didn’t they give us a peak of a deadly crystalline place before with those giant mechas the legion uses? Or was that the 7th? Maybe the 6th is like the undead plane, so as toxic and corrupting as the 5th is, it is still alive so I could see it all just wither and die on a necrotic death plane and have no purchase on ‘dead’ or undead monsters, gaining no foothold. Or wait, didn’t we also already see monsters from below the 5th attack in previous waves, and they were non-physical, more like elemental energy creatures. And wherent really affected by the any physical damage, so even endlessly physical attacks from the 5ths monsters wouldn’t really stop them, which explains how any got all the way through the 5th in the first place. The whole 6th could be that way, more energy then matter so the 5ths goop has nothing to attack or just can’t win like it can’t against the blue mana. Maybe there will be a death plane farther down, like an 8th or 9th strata. Or did I just give Rinoz ideas?
stubs
Morrelia's beserker class seems like a bad fit for line formations and defensive tactic overall
BelligerentGnu
One small quibble - how do strikes flow one into another in a shield wall? There's no room. Otherwise, epic chapter.
TheLostGolem
Honestly, I'm not sure if the colony would enforce the sleep schedule for the legion. Since the entire point is to ensure mistakes aren't made due to lack of rest, I would imagine they would happily let the legion (or anyone else they don't have the friendliest relationship with) stay up as long as they want.
DrDankness
Solant will learn a lot from this. 1. Techniques like skills and group movement that she can eventually drill into soldiers. 2. Weaknesses in their formations.
alt31415
Might just be pure mana density. Or the local Tier 10s.
Riprexe
Working for a week strait... nobody tells the nameless, that might cause issues...
Buck
The Legion has made a significant mistake in allowing Solant relatively unrestricted, close-up observation of their equipment, techniques and tactics. Solant will no doubt find ways to apply what she has learned to the Colony’s forces.
alt31415
Wonder why slime flowing across them isn't damaging their armor. I know it's being degraded by the cleansing mana, and the Legion armor is for sure hardened against it, but surely it'd degrade eventually and need repairing, right? Did Chryon's legion come with a bunch of Legion Blacksmiths?
Buck
Hah! That sounds absolutely right! 😂
Nathan Emerson
I'm still wondering what is in the 6th that stops the 5th from just taking over. I'm guessing it's either extremely hot with literal magma or something like death incarnate.
Grey Knight Lord
The war with The Legion is going to be a brutal thing for both sides. I can’t wait to see Anthony push to Tier 8 Mythic. Anthony is a titanic beast already, but what will be become with one more Mythic Evolution under his belt.
Gabus Deux
Solant is over in the backlines wondering why humans need to be motivated. Cant they just do their jobs?
Caleb Herring
Let’s go legion!!! Show the ants what you’re made of!!
