Chapter 496: A Dire Battle

Paladin Pakrik splits his team to guard several massive winches.

Their job is to block the palace guards hidden on both sides from rushing out and sabotaging the winches.

The castle’s main gate drawbridge is nearly ten meters wide and almost twenty meters long.

Built from a mix of metal and high-quality wood, it’s incredibly heavy.

Inside the castle, ten winches power the raising and lowering of the drawbridge.

Four thick chains run along each side of the bridge, with two more at the far end, ten heavy chains in total.

Diara and Kimir each lead teams pulling the chains on the left and right sides.

Meanwhile, another squad storms the second-floor watchtower, knocking down guards there.

They activate two winches upstairs while others pull the chain at the very top of the drawbridge.

The knights’ combined strength lifts the bridge at a visibly rapid pace.

Normally, closing this gate and raising the drawbridge with the winches takes at least half an hour.

Now, just over a minute in, the drawbridge has already risen more than a meter above the permanent bridge surface.

Outside, the palace guards realize what’s happening and rush onto the half-raised permanent bridge.

Sosie, anxious, asks, “Henwell, we don’t have ranged weapons. How do we push back those outside?”

At that moment, several Battle Knights from the royal guard launch a charge.

In an instant, two leap high, aiming to jump onto the drawbridge.

Suddenly, a cloud of dust erupts around them, and both are flung backward.

Henwell shouts, “Stones! Stones! Grab the bricks from the ground and smash them out!”

He quickly picks up two fist-sized stones and hurls them at two more palace guards preparing to jump.

McComb and the others immediately understand and transform into a demolition crew, furiously ripping up stones at the ground.

What were once hard, smooth stones now crumble like rotten wood under these elite knights’ strength.

The charging royal guards are pummeled by a barrage of stones, forcing them to halt their advance.

The royal guard commanders grow anxious, they know they must break through quickly.

But the palace patrol guards are only armed with armor, longswords, or spears, no bows or crossbows.

Like Henwell’s team, they lack ranged weapons.

Now battered by stones with no cover, they can barely lift their heads.

The stones strike with tremendous force, enough to dent armor.

The impact pulverizes many stones into dust.

Within just half a minute, the bridge outside is shrouded in dust clouds, like a smoke bomb has been thrown, obscuring all vision.

As Henwell hurls stones with all his might, the Imperial Hunt squad captain, Kimir, shouts, “Henwell! We can’t push through! They’ve got rapid-fire crossbows and archers blocking us!”

Henwell turns to see Kimir and his men stalled at the gallery bridge’s entrance.

Arrows rain down relentlessly, occasionally mixed with heavy crossbow bolts over two meters long.

If Kimir and a few Battle Knights hadn’t fought hard to fend off those heavy bolts, their squad would already have suffered casualties.

But this stalemate can’t last. The noise will draw more guards, and more archers will join the fray.

Worse, these crossbowmen and archers attack from concealed shooting windows, scattered to cover nearly every blind spot along the gallery bridge.

As a Grand Knight, Kimir can’t see the attackers and can’t decapitate them without knowing their positions.

Henwell shouts, “Carts! Those big carts! Tear some apart to make simple cover and rush forward!”

No sooner does he say this than a cloud of dust explodes on his helmet.

More and more stones fly in from outside, hitting many Paladins.

Clearly, the enemy has also adapted, finding makeshift ranged weapons nearby.

The scene is chaotic. These elite warriors are resorting to the most primitive tactics, hurling stones at each other.

Henwell digs into the ground like a bulldozer, wildly clawing up a pile of stones in moments to supply his men with ammo.

While Henwell’s team keeps throwing stones, Kimir’s squad starts dismantling the transport carts.

Holding wooden boards as shields, they brave the arrow storm and charge across the gallery bridge, setting up a simple defensive position on the far side.

Henwell notices Kimir’s men about to dismantle two carts marked with red tags and quickly calls out, “Don’t touch those two carts! The stuff inside is for us!”

After several minutes of stone battles, the drawbridge finally rises high enough that neither side can reach the other.

Now, Henwell and his team inside the castle only need to watch for knights who jump in.

They no longer need so many people guarding the drawbridge entrance.

Henwell immediately redeploys his forces. “Sosie, take half the men and open the remaining three carts. Inside are Peace Haven’s recurve crossbows, assemble them quickly and reinforce Kimir’s position!”

All members of Henwell’s Penitence Squad have undergone training in Peace Haven.

The Penitence Squad carries out special missions with one goal: to complete the task at hand. They don’t share the knights’ old-fashioned views about weapons. Whatever works, they use it.

They have no aversion to Peace Haven’s foot-operated heavy crossbows. In fact, they actively learn to use them.

Henwell naturally has intelligence stations set up in Divine Revelation City, and their network is doing quite well.

Possibly because Ulysses is constantly clashing with Veil, the Billie Kingdom’s intelligence agency, the Lightless Guard, hasn’t put too much effort into rooting out enemy spies.

This has allowed Henwell’s intelligence to flourish here.

Moreover, Chick and his team have spent several years in Billie, already deeply infiltrating Divine Revelation City.

With Henwell’s financial backing, their progress has accelerated significantly.

If not for the Alliance War forcing many intelligence points to withdraw, Henwell could have done even more.

Now, smuggling contraband in isn’t much of a problem.

Of course, the fruit and vegetable carts had to be inspected when entering the castle, so exposure was inevitable.

But Henwell’s team planned to use that very inspection as cover for their assault. Since the contraband was hidden in the last few large carts, nothing suspicious was found during the check.

The Penitence Squad knights quickly assemble the recurve crossbows, grab bundles of bolts, and start supporting the far side of the gallery bridge.

With these high-quality recurve crossbows in hand, many of the enemy’s shooting windows come under heavy suppression.

Meanwhile, the drawbridge is fully raised, and the gates are slammed shut.

Then, Henwell pulls out an extraordinary scroll and activates the spell inscribed upon it.

A golden light radiates from his hands.

The entire castle trembles slightly as magical runes appear at every entrance and exit.

The castle’s ultimate protective spell activates, sealing it tight for several hours.

This explains why they didn’t just close the gates outright but went through the trouble of raising the drawbridge.

Raising the drawbridge is a crucial step in initiating Sunflower Fortress’s extraordinary defense protocol.