Story 22 Bloody Evolution Chapter 3.5 Alt POV

The endless black ashes carried through the wind. Roars of countless fiends filled the air with their fury. And humanity stood undaunted.

Nay, they spat in the face of their Doom. Day by day, dozens of men and women died on the walls of Vale as they pushed back the never-ending tide of Grimm from their walls.

The roar of anti-air guns blasted the flying abominations out of the air, the downward-facing slow-firing auto cannons shot high-density tungsten rounds out of the rail cannons that could easily be re-used dozens of times as the Grimm's bones and bodies proved a perfect bed to prevent too much damage to the tungsten rounds.

But even with the never-ending chanting of hundreds of accredited noble wizards, sorcerers, summoners, witches, and other magical practitioners. There were still casualties.

-

Knight At Arms Jaune Arc was fucking terrified. He had signed up to join the military to help his family reach a noble rank as their town outside of Vale was facing too many attacks from Grimm and couldn't keep up in buying enough ammo.

Not that they couldn't afford the ammo, no Vale made sure that Ammo was literally just at a material cost to buy with little to no regulations on the actual act of purchasing it. No, the people of the small town of Arcadia simply couldn't buy and transport enough ammo to keep the town unbreached from the endless horrors.

And the townspeople had learned the hard way, through one of the machine gun towers running out of ammo and several Snatchers climbed up the tower and broke in, and ate the three guards inside. They realized that they needed to move to the city.

Now Jaune Arc, after a month of combat, and gunner operation training with his aura being unlocked in the hopes of finding a powerful semblance 'Which was a bust' was fighting on the Valian Walls.

His turret was hanging over the side of the wall in the gunnery turret and was getting ready to switch with another gunner as the turret got its barrels changed and internals liberally pasted with oil and grease to keep it going.

"Knight! You got, your piss bag, vomit bag, and your ice dust jacket filled up!?" Jaune's commander roared and he snapped to attention and called out quickly.

"Yes sir! I am ready for duty!"

Jaune's commander looked him up and down and seeing his neatly pressed thin uniform that had a thicker chest and hoodie that was filled with Ice Dust to keep him comfortable in the hot turret. He nodded and went to grill the other members of the line of gunners.

Jaune kept a stiff back as he stared ahead into the wall, trying to drown out the sounds of the dying and injured as they were pulled back up from the armored elevators from fighting in the hot zone at the bottom of the walls. 

And finally, his savior was here, the peace that was 25 rounds of 50 x 228 mm being shot every minute from his little slice of peace that was his turret.

The previous gunner quickly climbed out as he stopped using the coaxial lesser machine gun as the main barrels were being changed and Jaune said. "Asilus, any news on the comms?" 

The darker-skinned man named Asilus gave a slight grimace and said. "Yeah, there are some reports of those damned Harpies, and Vampires out there. So keep an eye out for the sky."

Jaune nodded though he wasn't so worried about aerial threats. As today of all days was the day there wasn't supposed to be any aerial threats with Kafka the Jorogumo manning the walls today with her Poison Web Semblance and terrifying Death Stare that could make people without aura or magical resistance lose all control of their body!.

And that included Grimm.

The mechanic below the turret wheeled himself out of its internals and called out. "Alright the baby is hot, get in there rookie!" 

And Jaune without a moment of hesitation jumped into the turret as he had done this a few times at this point. Although being a gunner didn't move you up the nobility ranks nearly as quickly as being a front-line fighter down in the hot zone. 

He only had a couple more weeks of serving on the front line before he could become a Grand Knight! His family could own a home here in the safety of Vale!

Without hesitation, he sighted in on several clumps of Grimm moving through the dead zone of Vale's blasted exterior walls well past the hot zone where the melee fighters were doing their dues and he pulled the triggers of his cannon.

Heavy thumps rang out, as he felt his breathing matching the sound of his beloved turret, thud, thud, thud. Went his cannon delivering high-powered destruction to the Grimm he picked up on.

One round every other second sometimes a bit slower as he picked out bigger Grimm like Ursa, Deathstalkers, Tree Snatchers, Ogres, and other lower medium to medium-sized Grimm.

But then his comms unit cracked to life. [All turrets, area C15 wave of Nursing Spewers inbound, focus them down while mages are cleaning the edge of the hot zone.]

Jaune quickly pulled his turret ball upwards to aim further out and after checking his map line to find the grid point he used his telescope to find the group... They soon began firing at the ant queen-like Grimm with their forms exploding sending huge splashes of bioplasma into the surroundings killing other grimm and destroying the fragile eggs of various minor Grimm that stuck to their soft back.

'Fucking baby Grimm. They can sneak into the vents to get into bunkers and shit.' Jaune thought with disgust as he temporarily switched to explosive rounds to blow up the surrounding area alongside a couple of other gunners doing the same.

And he kept following his radio orders before Jaune's concentration shook with his radio crackling hurriedly. "Tide of Bilespewers laying siege fire to the walls! Take them out now G23."

Jaune hurriedly turned further outwards and it wasn't hard to see the Bile Spewers as they had they had their large protruding backsides turned up towards the wall with lines of glowing magical bio-plasma shooting towards the enchanted walls that shook with the force of the impacts.

But the Royal Family's magical shields held firm. The acid did not land on the gunners nor the soldiers, mages, or huntsmen atop the walls.

A heavy feeling fell over Jaune and his radio crackled again again. [Behemoth Bile Spewer, G25]

Even as Jaune looked further outwards to find the massive class Bile Spewer, he felt something twist in his stomach, and as he found the monster he saw it was already shooting its far larger beams of magical bile plasma in an arc toward the wall.

He sighted in the monster and he began firing at it with two more gunners who had the orders relayed to them and tore the Behemoth class Grimm apart with high-grade munitions but then Jaune's radio crackled. [Trio of Behemoths Bile Spewer's same zone.] 

But Jaune never managed to fire at that trio of Behemoth Bile Spewers.

They had used their brethren to pinpoint the distant cannons and then, when their brethren was torn apart with its centuries-old bone armor that was reinforced with the souls of dozens it had eaten being naught but paper before the munitions.

They got their revenge.

The enchanted wall of Vale was strong, but it's magical shielding was uniform and powered by the central mega rituals within the royal palace. So although it could run at all times, it was a constant amount of power and defense supplied to the walls, should something break though the total amount of defensive magical energy?

A dozen bombs of glowing bio-plasma smashed into the lip of the wall, melting through the non-enchanted turrets and Jaune's aura only allowed him to scream long enough to choke on the blinding boiling magical acid that consumed him as his turret melted into a pile of melted steel.

But in the grand scheme of things. With the enchanted wall standing unscarred or burned by the magical acid... It was just another Monday and just another causality added to the war of survival, humanity was fighting for its right to exist.