Risen World

The chaos of the battlefield only grew with the arrival of the metallic guardians. Joshua and the rest of his guild members all watched from on top of the walls as the originally marching group of Rampage Guild members and outcast mercenaries had been stopped in their tracks. They wouldn't have had nearly as much trouble trying to push through the robot and beast army that was originally defending the town. It would have been a long and slow process, but any guild that was good enough to get to the point where they were considered a large guild would be able to overwhelm a much smaller group of enemies. Since the territory war had started it was impossible to replace any of the broken down robots or bring out any more beast from the stables. Eventually such a force would have been whittled down and the Rampage Guild would be at James Town's gates.

The metallic guardians completely altered the course of the territory war. Instead of the robots and beast having to clash with the ten thousand man army head on they were able to fight alongside and from behind the giant metallic guardians. The seven giant lizards were basically giant tanks that blocked any large scale attacks from the back lines and knocked back any of the tanks up front. Joshua watched when one of the turrets fierd off an explosive round that destroyed a shield wall created by a tank of the rampage guild up front and that was quickly followed up by a slamming of one of the metallic lizard's front claws knocking several of the tanks out of the territory war. Actions like these were happening all over the front lines and the rampage guild was having trouble just trying to damage the creatures.

The beast companions from the stables were able to easily use the situation to their advantage as they targeted openings created by the metallic guardians and would pick off single targets at a time whenever they could. This was especially the case for the praying mantis's that shrunk down to a smaller size so that they could dash in and out of the battlefield to pick away their prey in a flash. The giant lizard beast that had originally been front lining against the ants stood back and kept shooting off globs off acid into the air over the tanks like a form of artillery. It created a scenario where it might as well have been raining acid from the sky since the mages were forced to shoot the giant globs out of the air before they could land in a crowd.

While the beast were being careful and tactful with their approach the robots were just unleashing none stop long range attacks on the front lines of the invading force. Missiles, sniper fire, and any other tactics that they could use to wear down the tanks to where they would fall from unexpected attacks from the beast or a random strike from the giant metallic guardians. The frontline robots would attack any of the invaders that tried to surround the metallic guardians so that they couldn't just gang up on them. With the current situation the invaders were slowly losing their front line, and their back line were split between healing them and trying to figure out ways to take down the seven lizards, or that would have been the case if there wasn't one other issues.

While the metallic lizards had halted the progress of the front lines and stalled out any hopes of the invaders pushing forward, it was the three metal centipede guardians that were truly wreaking havoc in the invaders army. Although there were only three of them they were all ferocious and constantly shooting all around the battlefield. Joshua could see that even though they were constantly under attack from the moment they dived into the backlines of the enemy forces they moved so quickly and struck out all around them in unpredictable fashion. Each time one of the heads of the centipede struck out Joshua could see a person or two being gripped in their giant maws and torn apart.

The invaders were slowly but surely losing any momentum they had going into the fight and were losing more and more fighters. Even though things were starting to look like they were completely under control Joshua knew that would change soon enough. Although the mages and long range fighters of the invaders hadn't quite figured out how to deal with the metal guardians they were getting there. Joshua could already see that they had located the core of the lizards and were focusing on those spots in hopes of breaking through and overwhelming the giant monsters. If they were able to completely focus on one guardian at a time then they would be able to break through soon enough, but there focus was spread all over at the moment.

Joshua also noticed that the two men that had come to the short meeting alongside Kyle had also been busy on trying to take down the centipede guardians. At this point the leader of the Rampage Guild had destroyed one of the cores of a head on a centipede guardian with a powerful cleave of his giant sword. The blade was surrounded in some sort of energy blade that was similar to the one Joshua had recently learned how to use and was able to cut deep into the metallic body of the beast. Even after the short celebration of destroying ahead they soon found out that didn't stop the beast as the core was restored since they didn't destroy all of the heads at the same time. At this point they had figured out that was the key to taking down the beast and were trying to time their attacks together, but it was hard to do that with all of the chaos that was going on.

"Well now that they've figured out how the guardians work it won't be long before they start taking them down." Henry said getting a nod from Julia and the others. "That being the case they'll probably be able to clear them all out with around five thousand members still left to fight. Even taking out half of them won't be enough to stop them from pushing through the turrets and taking out the beast and robot squadrons."

"Then it seems like it's time to let the territory guardian do its job." Joshua said with a smile as he looked at the golden totem in his hands one last time before tossing it over the edge of the wall. The moment the totem hit the ground it activated causing the walls of James Town to shine golden rays of light in every direction. This of course caught the attention of the invading army that became even more cautious while trying to fend off the creatures that were still relentlessly assaulting them. After the golden shine started to fade away a massive beast started to take form as if it had been summoned from the void as it almost seemed to form a connection with the town.

[The territory guardian has been activated to defend James Town. Only one territory guardian can be activated at a time and it shall be linked to the level and strength of the town in question.]

The short message popped up grabbing everyone's attention just as the beast finally came into full view. The territory guardian was of course the seven headed beast that Joshua and the rest of the alliance had taken down in the canyon dungeon. This time around there were a few differences that Joshua noticed right away when he saw the beast. First off was the fact that the creature was far bigger than it had been in the canyon. Joshua wasn't too surprised since beast could change their size to fit in different locations and now that they were on a large open plain the boss class beast could be as large as it wanted to be. At the moment it stretched up to around fifteen stories in the air with its long snake like limbs each shot down and into different directions.

The main head was as hideous as Joshua remembered it with the crazy amalgamation of different parts from all of the boss level beast in the canyon dungeon. It had the massive bat wings that could carry the largest head high into the air along with the spider legs and ram horns that all formed around its head. The beast let out a loud roar along with its aura and killing intent that surged out into the surroundings. All of the invaders that were below level eighty which was most of them were affected by the killing intent. It didn't freeze them up for very long, but it was enough for some town defensive force to get in some easy take downs.

The other six heads of the beast were already shooting towards the invading army as the lead head stayed up in the air above with its wings keeping it well out of reach. It opened its mouth wide before a black fog shot down surrounding the battle field and turning what was a clean fight into something that was completely one sided. In a dark environment humans were at a great disadvantage and that became clear right away. The rate at which the invaders were getting taken down suddenly shot up as their sight was taken away against beast that were used to hunting in the dark of night.

Joshua used his aura to sense what was going on in the battlefield and he was surprised how powerful the territory guardian was. The first thing it did was blind everyone while its multiple heads started getting to work taking out several invaders at once. The two snake heads shot down and coiled around several tanks squeezing them until they were teleported out of the territory war. The bat head shot around sending shrieks towards mages and healers destroying all the concentration for their spells while shooting around and picking them off one by one. The ram head slammed into the ground in the middle of the group creating an eruption of stone spikes that tore through the ranks. The spider head then turned those pillars into sand that dragged people into the ground and took them out of the battle. The beetle head was constantly vibrating its horn and dealing as much damage as the bats shrieking.

The moment the territory guardian had joined the fight things had taken a giant turn for the worse when it came to the invaders. Joshua knew the fight had come to an end the moment the leader of the rampage guild had been singled out by the main head as it shot down into crowd and stabbed him through the back with one of its spider legs. Quickly the invading army started breaking down and was being torn apart showing off just how much could be accomplished when you had a town guardian. Now Joshua was certain that he could leave the town alone without having to show up for every territory war from now on..