Chapter 887: The statues' power Seeing how quickly the towers had been destroyed, Quinn could only come up with one conclusion. ’A vampire leader... they really sent a frigging leader to the tenth castle?! So much for Bryce keeping his promise! What the hell is he doing?!’ Quinn was furious. ’To be fair, Bryce never promised you anything. I thought he made that bit quite clear.’ Vincent pointed out. At the speed his towers fell, building new ones in the same place would be impossible. Since they required a bit of construction time, the enemy would just destroy them mid-process, especially since he could see the red colored army run forward, chasing behind his own people. ’I might be unable to defeat them, but there should be a way to at least slow them down!’ Quinn thought. Quinn selected a place on the map that was a little further up ahead from where he could see the green dots, and he placed two more towers with his reputation points. —— In the tenth area itself, Sam and the others were falling back, Linda had shrunk down as her larger form had made her more of a target and her movements in that form were a little slow. Fighting the enemy army would be suicide, so they had opted for a tactical retreat. A wise choice, since Sam could see something forming up ahead. "Everyone keep running! I see another set of towers! That should help us reach the castle!" Sam informed the others who immediately picked up their pace a little bit more. Although the towers were incomplete, he had no hopes for them lasting longer than the previous ones. Still, they should be enough to buy them time. He also wanted to get his people to the gargoyles that Quinn had made, as he knew their power would help in the current situation. Just as the group had passed the towers their construction had ended. They immediately started to shoot, even though the speed of their projectiles was slower than before. Nevertheless the eighth family’s vampires were being careful after having seen how dangerous they were. They stopped and waited for Jill and her knight Tifu to destroy them. ’Those towers appear weaker than the ones at the front gate. If I remember correctly Quinn mentioned something about the towers having four levels, so the new ones must still have been at the first level.’ ’Which means the towers were never built to stop them, just to slow down Jill and her knight.’ Sam concluded, but there was one thing he was wondering about, how did the towers suddenly appear like that. Was Quinn helping them from somewhere, somehow? The plan had worked, and while running back the group could see Xander, Amy and Timmy coming towards them with the other members. "Keep going back, let’s head back to the castle where the gargoyles are. The towers have been destroyed and the others are useless." Sam tried to explain in a hurry. As if to stress that point, the sounds of two falling towers could be heard behind them. "I think you might be right there." Xander agreed, as the group turned around and were preparing for a fight. Finally they had reached the statues, and Sam was confidently waiting by them. They stood around thirty or so meters in front of the castle, and the men stood behind the statues. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂 "What can these statues even do?" Amy asked. "Just wait and see!" Sam replied cryptically. The reason he wanted to get to this position wasn’t just because of the statues, it was because Quinn had also built another two level four towers in front of the castle. Sam looked at the others behind him, he thought that they might be worried as they saw the large army approach them, but they didn’t look scared at all. ’It’s good to have real soldiers at a time like this. Having experienced a war before really helps, but this isn’t a normal fight.’ When Jill got close, she could see the statues in the form of giant sized gargoyles on them, a muscular beast with a tail and wings. Behind them she could see the towers and all the men. Even for her, she wasn’t planning to fight through all of the tenants just to get to the tower, so she did one thing. "All the nobles charge in! Me and Tifu will get rid of the towers. They are our main threat, without them these guys are nothing!" Jill ordered and her Vampire nobles moved out, this time the whole lot of them came charging forward. As they moved closer though and got within a certain range, the statues’ eyes started to glow green and the stone started to crack off them. A few seconds later, the rest of the dry stone fell from them and both gargoyle statues stood up, and let out an almighty roar. They flapped their heavy wings that were incapable of allowing them to take flight, but were perfect to make themselves even larger and more intimidating before they hopped off their stone pillars. The first thing they did was a sweeping motion with their two large tails hitting the vampires in front of them. Most of them avoided the slow attack, but one of the vampires failed to do so and got sent flying through the air. When the other vampire hit the gargoyle, stone from it fell to the floor, but it was still standing and soon, the stone that fell to the floor reattached itself to the gargoyle preparing it. "Those things are quite strong, they remind me of some beasts." Dennis commented. "That’s because they have the power of a beast." Sam explained. "Quinn told me that the level of crystal put in those things determines how strong they are. They don’t have separate levels like the towers, and unless the beast crystal is destroyed they can keep on regenerating. With these and the towers, we should be able to hold them off for a long time." Seeing the gargoyles, Jill felt like she had no choice but to join the fray again. She didn’t want to do this, but the only option was for the whole group to attack at once. All of them charged in, the original group of five hundred which had only been dealt a small blow to their forces. Tower shots came out from behind, and the gargoyles continued to fight. At the same time, on the other side everyone else had joined in the fight. Xander did his best to protect those he knew using his mist ability, while Amy was looking for weakened vampires and when they weren’t paying attention she would use them to turn against their allies. The soldiers didn’t have access to their familiar beast gear and were still getting used to their vampires selves and this inexperience was showing. Alex had been unable to outfit everyone with weapons made through own blood, so only a few had them. Still, with the help of Quinn’s equipment they were able to hold the line, the real threat that needed to be dealt with were Vampire knight Tifu, and eighth family leader, Jill who were concentrating on getting rid of the gargoyles. Tifu started to make his way through the crowd of fighting going on and was eying up one of the gargoyles, when a small dagger came out, so fast he only had little time to react. "I can see what you’re trying to do, and I won’t let you do it." Wevil challenged him, a dagger in his hand. "Huh, I thought it was a strong opponent, but it’s just a small fry? ... What even are you? You don’t smell like a vampire." Tifu started to be intrigued. "That’s right, because I’m not an ordinary vampire." Wevil said, as he began his transformation.... Over on the other side, Jill moved forward and was directly underneath the other gargoyle, she threw a fist right towards it’s chest where she had seen a faint light before, thinking this was where its power source would be, but before she could hit it, her blow was stopped by another fist. "You’re not that Cindy bitch, but you will have to do!" Peter yelled as he punched her face, sending her back a few meters. ’The blow was strong, and he was able to see my punch?!’ Jill thought. Standing by his side were two more Wights that had been raised during the fight. ’I can’t just think of him as any ordinary Wight.’ "Peter!" A voice shouted from behind. "Help out the others, let me deal with her." Turning around, Peter could see that it was Paul who had left the castle. Since the fight was already at their doorsteps, there was no point hiding inside. "You have a more important job with your Wights. Don’t let anyone get inside the castle! Your skills are better suited for that than mine." Paul ordered. Peter wanted to give Jill a beating, but he could see the tower shots not acting quick enough, and some running towards the gate, trying to scale the wall to get into the castle without going through the doors. If they got in, then Logan, Sil and Alex were very much in danger. "If you don’t beat her, I’ll beat you and her together!" Peter said before he ran off. "Oh, the little toy I was going to play with ran away. Well, let’s see how powerful the tenth’s second knight is?" Jill said playfully. "Let’s see indeed." Paul lifted his hands and activated his soul weapon right off the bat. *****