While not the perfect, flawless victory that they had desired, the insufferable pacifists had at least managed to utterly destroy a decent portion of the evil undead forces that had been arrayed against them. Nobody had shed a tear or spoken up when the plan had been made, nor had they done so when the disgraceful idiots were slipped that altered drug. Likewise, no one had really had any issue with the knowledge that they would see an entire Tribe lost as their hearts literally exploded in their chests and their muscles tore themselves to ribbons after the drug wore off.

It was the necessary and worthy sacrifice of a group that would have only undermined the war, and everyone knew that. Of course, they were not so cruel as to erase every member of that tribe. No, the youngest of them could still be reeducated and made a part of a better tribe. Sure, they would never truly fit in with their new tribesmen, but that was better than being used as a child suicide soldier, no?

Either way, there had been multiple gaping holes punched I the lines of the undead, and that was enough. On the heels of those who were now almost certainly dead, several great warbands sallied out from the jungles and forests along the border and began to finish what had been started. Those few undead that had not been destroyed by the rampaging berserkers were easily dispatched by the noble, graceful, superior Elves, which was a surprise to no one at all.

It was honestly a complete waste of their time. That they, the Elven Tribes, had to deal with such filth was a travesty. Be they High Elf, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Drow, Psi Elf, or any other type, they all believed that they were above this whole nonsense. That the inferior beings that lived beyond the jungles and forests would dare to stand in the way of the greater good that they sought to bring to this world was all they needed to know that their way was the only right way. The other groups out there could not be trusted to do anything right, and therefore they needed to die.

Reports that came back long before the war had begun told tales of the excesses and sinfulness of the mongrel beasts beyond the noble lands of the Elven Tribes. There were buildings made of stone and metal, vast tracts of land ripped up and used to grow things that were not natural ad animals that were not hunted but instead gathered together and then bred and trained to be docile and weak! Such mockeries of nature needed to be erased, and only the true children of nature could do so to the high standards that they themselves had.

This was not just a regular war. No, this was a war for the very soul of the world; it was a Holy War for the sake of all good things across the whole of the planet! The undead, the mockeries of life that they were, would fall. And once the undead slaves were gone, there would be nothing in the way of the glorious ascension of the Elven tribes. The world was theirs to take, and theirs to give to the Great Tree that cared so deeply for them.

…

The first attack had been an absolute victory for the Elven Tribes, and now it seemed that only a third and final line stood against the knife-eared bastards. The remnants of the second line were easily dispatched by the Elves, with blade and bow alike reducing Skeletons and Zombies to their constituent components with minimal effort. However, the Elves would soon find that their force would not be as much of a steamroller as they had initially thought. After all, while the first two lines were designed from the outset to be easy to defeat, the third line was much less flimsy.

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Taking a page out of the Isekai Army Handbook, Kain had set this line in a way that the other forces of this world (with the notable exception of the Dwarves) would not be expecting. At first, the Elves were rather confused by what they saw. Their keen eyesight let them spot their foe from beyond the reach of eve their own weapons, but even then, they could not figure out why the undead were positioned the way that they were.

The undead were nearly neck deep into a line of long, zig-zagging ditches dug in the unfertile earth, with barely anything beyond their upper torso, neck and head peeking out from this odd earthen system. Perhaps this was some strange attempt at making a corrupted drainage system, where the mere presence of the undead would taint the waters flowing through it. And yet, there was no water in that line of ditches.

To the further confusion of the Elves, large, sloping boards were anchored in lace over the top of a decent potion of the ditches. Perhaps this was some kind of moronic sunshade so that the Skeletons would not endure the purifying light of the morning star? Well, it didn’t matter, as that line would be broken easily enough. The Elven Martial Masters readied themselves for a full charge, knowing full-well that the undead had no ability to fight back in any meaningful capacity.

The first few steps were slow, but gradually the charge build up momentum and about halfway between where they had stood and the nearest line of lowered undead the melee elves let out a massive war cry. It was a shrill sound that was just as discordant as you might expect during such a single-minded charge, shifting from pitch to pitch and tone to tone as fast as the elves could manage.

This was no ‘Rebel Yell’ like the Confederates had done during the American Civil War, instead it was something much less unified and much less cohesive. It was not something you could call a single solid noise, nor was it ay one particular set of noises. If one could take every different wordless battle cry from all of Earth’s collective human history and play each one at the same time in the same space, that would be close to what was issuing from the mouths of the charging elves.

However, this cacophonous mix of vocalized noises would find a few of its voices cut short. The undead within the ditches, or rather, trenches, raised their mix of bows and crossbows and let fly a full volley all as one. This was entirely unexpected, and the oncoming elves fighters were surprised enough that some of them failed to react in time.

All of that elven grace would ultimately mean next to nothing if it wasn’t used, and a decent number of elves either died of their wounds or were knocked out of the fight. A second volley of arrows was followed shortly by a volley of crossbow bolts, and then another after that. After the third volley from both bow and crossbow, the Skeletons dropped their ranged weapons and puled out long spears just as the elves began to jump towards them.

Over a thousand elven melee specialists were impaled upon the spears, but many, many more dodged around them and began to hack and cleave the bone-men apart. By the ed of the hour, the third line had gone silent save for the pained groans of a few wounded and/ or dying elves. This was a victory, but one that costed more than they had expected. However, this was not for nothing, as now the way was open for an unopposed rush into the newest puppet of Darksol.

Well, it would have been unopposed if not for the fact that there was yet another line of undead in trenches that was just a few kilometers away from where the third line had ended.

And one after that.

And one after that.

And another few after those ones.

What? Did you honestly think that Kain would make it that easy for them?