Back in the death zone, the twelve members of Group A fought on.
-
In group A, there are 12 members:
*2 Tankers (Kaelen and the Tanker with a Battle Axe).
*2 Swordsmen.
*2 Thieves (Vance and Korinn).
*3 Mages
*3 Healers including Nia.
-
At the very front of the formation, the two Tankers stood with almost zero distance between their boots and the massive roots of the Miasma-Titan.
Kaelen forced his heavy Mana outward, so a dense, glowing yellow Aura coated his broadsword. Beside him, the second Tanker ignited his Battle Axe, and the two Swordsmen quickly followed suit. They aimed directly for the lower bark, the only physical height their human frames could comfortably reach.
When the Aura-coated steel collided with the petrified sludge, the impact did not produce a clean slice. The Titan's outer shell was naturally shielded by its own passive, toxic purple miasma.
As the bright yellow Aura ground against the dense purple fog, the air itself violently shrieked. It felt like dragging heavy iron across a grinding wheel, throwing sparks of violently clashing energy across the dark swamp.
With a final, desperate heave, the combined physical force of the four frontliners broke the threshold.
CRACK-SHLUCK.
The heavy steel pierced the hardened armor. A deafening, guttural groan tore from deep inside the Titan's chest. A second after they pulled their weapons from the monster's flesh, the wound healed instantly, but it was expected.
At that moment, they blundered.
The fatal error in their battle formation would become glaringly obvious to any seasoned veteran.
The moment their blades sank into the wood, the Mages and Healers located twenty meters behind them instantly stepped backward. It was pure reflex. The three Mages began aggressively chanting their high-tier spells the exact second their boots moved backward.
Their eyes constantly tracked the chaotic shifts of the battlefield, so they easily noticed a heavy appendage ascending, so they knew gravity and sheer physical mass would instantly rip that timber back down to the earth.
But anticipating the attack from above was not the mistake. In fact, Kaelen predicted a possible attack from above.
The true miscalculation was failing to anticipate the Titan's lower body. While they prepared to retreat expecting an attack from above, the towering monster did something unexpected. It threw its heavy weight forward and pushed its thick roots across the mud like an unstoppable wall.
"It's pushing forward!" one of the Swordsmen screamed.
"Hold the line!" Kaelen roared, his voice straining against the deafening groan of the advancing roots. "Do not let it trample us! Brace!"
"It's too heavy!" the Axe Tanker grunted, his iron boots already sliding backward through the thick sludge.
Caught at basically zero distance, the vanguard was instantly forced into a brutal pushing match. Kaelen dropped his broadsword. He locked his boots into the sludge, pushed his heavy shield straight forward, and braced his entire body weight against the advancing roots.
The Axe Tanker and the two Swordsmen shoved their shoulders forward to help halt the bulldozer. They were entirely locked in a horizontal trap.
Within a fraction of a second, the four frontliners realized they were completely trapped.
If the attack was only coming from above, they could have simply dashed backward to regroup. But the Titan was actively bulldozing them forward, and the distance between their boots and the monster was basically zero.
If they attempted to turn their backs and run, the forward push of the giant roots would simply run them over, crushing their spines onto the ground.
Thieves might possess the explosive speed to slide out of this death trap, but these men were Tankers and heavy Swordsmen. Their combat logic was permanently wired to block, and their heavy physical mass made rapid evasion impossible.
With their distance from the monster basically zero, Heavy vanguard had no time to dodge.
Down in the mud, the frontliners were actively bogged down by the horizontal struggle. Then, one of the Swordsmen looked up.
"Above us!" he screamed, his voice cracking with pure panic. "Incoming!"
The huge wooden log was plummeting directly from the sky, aiming to smash them into the sludge.
Understanding the grim math of their survival, the Axe Tanker made a split-second sacrifice. He dropped his heavy Battle Axe directly into the mud. He gripped his iron shield with both hands and raised it completely flat above his head to catch the falling sky.
The two Swordsmen knew they were about to be crushed. They possessed a deep, stubborn pride regarding their blades, but they abandoned their weapons on the ground anyway. They reached up with bare hands and braced the underside of the Tanker's shield, pooling all their physical strength to support the upward defense.
While this happened, Kaelen dropped his broadsword. He locked his boots into the sludge, pushed his heavy shield straight forward, and braced his entire body weight against the advancing wall of roots.
They were caught in a brutal vise. They were being pushed backward by the roots, while the massive log descended to flatten them from above. All they could do was flare their Auras to absolute maximum density and pray their bones held together.
From twenty meters away, the three Mages finished their heavy chants.
They did not aim for the Titan's main body. Instead, they unleashed three powerful blasts of concentrated magical energy directly at the falling log. The Mages did not expect to burn the wood or deal actual damage. Their objective was pure physics.
By hitting the falling mass with highly pressurized, upward explosions, they were aiming to cancel a big portion of the log's downward kinetic momentum.
"The downward force is dropping!" Vance yelled from the flanks.
The Thief was entirely correct, but the magic was not enough to stop gravity completely.
BAAANG.
The heavy log smashed into the upward-facing shield. The sheer, crushing impact instantly buckled their knees. The four frontliners were violently driven downward, collapsing from a standing brace into a forced sitting position on the ground.
Their bones cracked under the terrible weight, but a bright green light suddenly flared beneath the mud.
The frontliners blinked through the severe pain. Their yellow Auras still protected their flesh and bones, though a secondary, warm green Aura now completely enveloped their bodies.
Before the heavy log even made contact, the three Healers in the backline had already pre-casted their strongest healing spells.
To a novice, casting healing magic before a wound exists seems entirely pointless, especially since healing magic cannot resurrect the dead. If the huge timber had completely crushed the vanguard flat, the green light would have achieved nothing.
The frontliners survived the fatal threshold exclusively because of three physical factors: their naturally hardened bodies, their maximum-density yellow Auras, and the Mages' upward explosions actively robbing the log of its lethal momentum.
That combined defensive effort successfully downgraded an instant-kill into a severely crippling blow.
This is where the Healers took over the aftermath. By buffering the healing magic directly into their flesh right before the impact, the Healers ensured that the exact second their bones cracked under the surviving weight, the magic violently knit the fractures back together.
Yet, their situation remained entirely desperate. Kaelen gritted his teeth as the Titan's forward roots pushed against his front shield again, dragging his sitting body through the wet sludge.
Then, a deafening roar of overlapping spells echoed from the backline.
FWOOSH-FWOOSH-FWOOSH!
SHHH-CRACK!
The Mages unleashed a relentless barrage of Fire and Ice.
BOOM-KRR-SHATTER!
They actively bombarded the upper body of the beast, so the violent sequence of blazing heat and freezing cold echoed across the swamp like a continuous thunderstorm.
"Pick up your weapons!" Kaelen roared over the explosions. "Keep attacking!"
In a standard crisis, the best tactical move would be for Kaelen to hold the line alone, buying precious seconds for the other three to scramble backward and retreat.
But the moment he heard the continuous magical barrage from his backline, a bizarre hypothesis sparked in his mind.
Earlier in the fight, Kaelen noticed a specific biological pattern. Whenever the Titan suffered heavy structural damage, it completely stopped moving.
It was entirely possible this was a strict biological instinct, forcing the beast to freeze all offensive motor functions just to divert its internal Mana toward rapid regeneration.
It was a gamble, but Kaelen trusted his veteran instincts.
Without hesitation, the two Swordsmen snatched their discarded weapons from the ground and began hacking violently at the lower roots.
The Axe Tanker held his ground, maintaining the shield toward the sky as the pressure mounted.
Overhead, two Mages generated five spheres of fire every three and a half seconds, while a third Mage mirrored the timing with solid blocks of ice. They relied on thermal shock, rapidly alternating heat and freezing cold to shatter the upper bark.
Taking advantage of the thick smoke created by the evaporating swamp water, the two Thieves exploded into motion. Vance and Korinn sprinted up the massive, swinging roots, expertly dodging the friendly fire from the Mages. They reached the exact fissures created by the magical barrage and drove their daggers deep into the exposed, soft timber underneath.
Fifteen seconds of relentless, agonizing damage passed.
Suddenly, the Miasma-Titan froze.