The grueling siege on the fort continued the same way for a good while more, with the demons keeping up an unending offensive against the fort day and night. The outnumbered defenders quickly found themselves stretched thinner and thinner, as more and more of their number fell with each passing moment, forcing those that remained to take up an ever greater share of the burden.

Every single day, Alissa fought with some dread, expecting the demons to strike out with their real attack anytime. All that worrying got her were frustrations, however, as the demons seemed perfectly content to drown the fort’s defenders in their own corpses, if needed. If their intention was to let the fort’s defenders break down from fatigue and frustrations first before they even make a serious attack, it was working.

While the human defenders of the fort had slain at least four to five demons for every one of them that was lost, the demons clearly had more low-level cannon fodder to spend and a willingness to spend them, coupled with such high morale that the casualties they had taken did not seem to bother them in the least. Meanwhile, on the defenders’ side, every single casualty was felt, and in the past few days, those who had lighter injuries or were still recovering from their wounds had been forced to rejoin the defense due to a lack of manpower.

It was not an optimistic sign of things to come, to be sure.

The demons had always been more prolific than humans, with some races being so much more fertile it wasn’t funny. A common idiom in the Kingdom was that if a Tesh’ka couple was let loose in the wild, within a human generation they would return as a rampaging warband a hundred strong or more. That story was not even an exaggeration.

Alissa thought that the demons must have lost at least thirty to forty thousand people in the battle so far, a number that would have been a grievous loss… if they were not mostly youngsters that were primarily still in their second tiers. The forces in Ephemera barely counted losses of such youngsters as much of a loss, as they would be easily replaced by others after a little training.

Simply put, young soldiers still in their second tier were just not worth much in the economy of the battles that went on in Ephemera. Only when people start reaching their third tier would they be considered more valuable, with talented people who managed to reach the higher end of the third tier in their youth being greatly valued. Those who were slow and mediocre received barely better treatment than those still in their second tier.

Such a point of view was mostly forced by necessity, as a single fourth tier could easily take on a thousand or more second tiers on their own, if left alone. It was primarily the threat of enemy fourth tiers that forced them to play it safe and to hoard their mana and stamina for when it would be truly needed. It was also the reason why the defending fourth tiers had not gone wild and blasted apart the horde of demons that kept attacking the fort.

They were all too aware that should they exhaust themselves doing that – and they would, for the demons were so numerous that it would have taken a serious effort from them to repel the horde – then the demons’ own fourth tiers would swoop in to harvest their heads while they were unable to fight back properly.

And that was taking into consideration that even amongst fourth tier combatants, those who possessed skills suitable for fighting against an army were few and far between. The majority were better suited for smaller scale battles, like Alissa’s own party for example. Those like Sir Inolet who was both a fearsome duelist yet equally capable of mass destruction were the rarest of all.

The logic that the demons were merely weakening the fort’s defenses for a devastating assault was not one that was only known to Alissa and the higher-ups of the defending force either. Even the lower-ranked soldiers were all too aware of the fact, and the few who were too green to know it soon found out from more experienced soldiers.

Reactions varied. The older soldiers mostly adopted a stoic attitude, along the lines of that if the time to die had finally arrived, then they would die. Many of the younger ones were somewhat intimidated by the constant demon attacks, with a few even panicking. For most, however, the reaction they displayed was that of a dull acceptance.

Acceptance that they might well not leave the fort alive at all.

Such a fatalistic outlook was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it allowed the younger, less experienced soldiers to continue fighting despite their fear and fatigue. On the other hand, it also meant that casualties kept increasing in numbers as more and more of the defenders succumbed to the continuous onslaught of the demons.

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By the time the situation changed, Alissa thought that perhaps only half of the fort’s original defenders were still able to fight, with the other half either dead or too injured to see a battlefield again.

The change in the situation was not for the better either, at least for the defenders. It took place sometime in the evening on the third week of the siege, when Alissa’s group was near the end of their shift and was just about to go down to rest. They couldn’t help but to stop on their tracks when they saw what was coming towards them, however.

Before their eyes, the throng of demons that were crowding the surroundings of the fort parted to the side, all while they yelled raucous cheers easily heard even from the fort’s walls. In the corridor that was formed, one that led straight towards the fort’s southern walls, marched another army of demons with slow yet firm steps.

Unlike the low level demons that had harried the fort’s defenders so far, who often wore mismatched armor and had low quality weapons, the army that marched towards the fort now was geared from head to toe with proper armor and good weapons. Alissa used [Analysis] on them from the distance, and knew from the looks of the people around her that she was not the only one that did so, and that the others also saw what she had seen.

Every single one of the well-equipped demons were at least in their third tier, with many in the higher levels of the tier itself. It was a far cry from the mob of lower leveled demons that they had been fighting for the past weeks in terms of quality. The classes she noticed also hinted at a combat specialization for the most part.

At that moment, Alissa also realized another reason why the locals of Ephemera didn’t mind sacrificing a large number of lower level soldiers to whittle down their enemies. People who were already at a higher level received far less experience when they killed enemies that were of a lower tier than themselves, to the point of the experience being negligible at best.

The demons whittled down the defenders’ numbers, morale, and readiness all without giving the higher leveled combatants amongst their foes an opportunity to improve their levels. While some of the lower leveled soldiers amongst the defenders did gain quite a bit of experience and levels, they remained a negligible factor in a true fight of the powerful.

Given the emphasis and focus the locals placed on their higher level combatants, it all made sense, if in a twisted and rather horrible manner. Probably the humans would have resorted to similar tactics without blinking if they had the numbers to do so as well, so it likely wasn’t a mindset that was limited to only the demons.

In the midst of the marching demons’ formation, Alissa also noticed the unmistakable figure of a dozen corpse abominations, not unlike the ones she fought back when she was fighting against the [Mother of Monsters]. This time, however, the diminutive [Great Champion] was not seated atop the shoulder of one of her creations, but was walking alongside another, the two guarded from all directions by demons Alissa guessed to be in their fourth tier.

The demon next to the [Mother of Monsters] was a tall, gangly Nevilosk who held a long spear that had a flag fluttering from its shaft. She was likely female given the lack of facial hair, though the demon wore armor that hid their body’s lines which made it harder to guess. Surprisingly, the demon likely also had some skill that caused Alissa’s [Analysis] to fail when used on them, despite the boosts it received from her other skills.

She still managed to notice that the demon was a third tier like herself though, and from the long name of the classes – she managed to catch a glimpse of a blurry result for a fraction of a second, though with nothing legible on it – was likely another of the [Great Champions]. Sir Inolet and Sir Marsten had speculated that the one skilled in mass buffs might be present, so the demon was likely that one.

Either way, the presence of two [Great Champions] as well as what Alissa suspected to be the demon main force meant only one thing: That the battle was about to enter its decisive phase very soon.

Alissa could see the fear and worry on the expression of many of the younger soldiers near her, and even the older veterans had an ugly look on their faces as they saw the strong enemy force headed their way. The archers on the walls looked nervous, most keeping an arrow nocked on the string even as they watched the procession of the demon army that walked towards them one step at a time.

Everybody, from the old and experienced veterans, to the noble and lofty fourth tiers, down to the lowest foot soldier, knew that all the fighting they had gone through in the past few weeks would pale before the battle that was about to begin for real. It was likely what would decide the fate of the fort and its defenders, and whether the Kingdom could hold on to what it had painstakingly taken from its foes or not.

They knew in their hearts that the result of this one battle might well be what invigorated the Kingdom’s army to leave behind the shame and humiliation of its previous losses in the last three wars and turn the tide against the Demons, or it might be the first rock to crumble away from the Kingdom’s defense instead, depending on the result.

The stage was pretty much set, in the first fort the humans had erected in demon territory in the past two hundred years. All three of their [Heroes] were present, as were two of the enemy [Champions]. One way or another, the battle would be one that would make its mark in the history books of both races, an unexpected turning point early in this cycle of the war between the humans and the demons.

Restlessness spread amongst the people from both sides, both the attackers and defenders, who were either eager for or dreaded this next stage to the battle. The air was thick with tension as the demons continued their march until their vanguard halted, just far enough away that an arrow fired by an average archer wouldn’t be able to reach them.

After a seeming eternity of silence, where even the wind didn’t blow, the tall demon [Champion] raised her flag and waved it. Moments later, the demons roared out a deafening battle cry as they rushed towards the fort like a tidal wave of flesh and steel. The defenders immediately reacted as projectiles of all sorts were shot and thrown towards the approaching demons.

Everyone present knew that they stood on the precipice of history, and fought all the harder because of it.