He had all of his units line up along his southern boarder just like last time. The only major difference is that this time he would have the telekinetic snakes throw the acid and poison slimes at the elves. He was banking on the fact that since none of the elves survived last time that meant this group wouldn't know what to expect aside from the fact that there is a dungeon here providing sanctuary for the humans. He decided that since there wasn't very many of them, compared to everything else he can spawn, the birds would work to keep the back lines distracted so they didn't see what was happening to the front-line units. He was tempted to upgrade the bird spawner again but decided against it noting that he should be able to at least reduce the elves' numbers enough to let the humans deal with anything he couldn't. He was thinking beyond this battle to life in the town after this battle and the truth is they needed a lot more room. Besides he now had an army of spiders bigger than some houses which he didn't have last time the elves attacked, yet another reason they needed more room.
All he had to do now was wait. As he waited, he was eventually able to buy another expansion. He debated waiting until after the battle but decided that being able to actually see the elves three meters sooner was worth it. Shortly after buying the expansion beta team returned stating that the elves were only about a day behind them. This gave him just enough time for some last-minute planning. He decided to break the wasps up into four groups. The groups would engage the enemy one at a time with each one, aside from the first group, going in only after the last was nearly wiped out. He also decided whatever spawned between now and the time the elves attacked would comprise the fourth group.
The next day elves arrived just as beta team said they would. Just like last time they were so focused on the big stuff lined up ready to attack that they were caught completely off guard by the slag slimes heat wall. Logan has to admit he would probably fall for it too, after all who is going to be watching the ground when there are creatures literally towering above you. The birds did an outstanding job of keeping the back groups occupied so they didn't notice the front group get literally melted alive. The birds of course didn't miss an opportunity to peak out an eye or scratch one of their throats open among other things. The way they specifically went for the eyes kind of reminded him of his first enemy encounter with that lone orc back when all he had was rats and mantises. Sadly, it didn't take to long for the birds to be defeated after all the spawner had only been active about a week. Wasting no time, he immediately sent in the first group of wasps. By this time the slag slimes that were attacking had exhausted all their excess heat. Fortunately, there was another group of slag slimes right behind them to take up the slack. After a bit of switching places which admittedly took longer than it should have do to them being slimes the wall of heat was back up. By this time the elves had finally gotten wise and sent for their water mages to be brought up to the front lines. Logan had prepared for this though and sent in the shadow gophers to specifically target mages while the nightmare gophers sowed fear within the elven ranks. The combination of the nightmare gophers potent fear attack and mages dropping dead seemingly out of nowhere worked better than he dared hope. Unfortunately, swords swung in a blind panic are just as sharp and slowly but surely the shadow gophers began to get eliminated. This in turn allowed the mages to start targeting the nightmare gophers. The fact that just like fear gophers they had to actually be able to see their target was their one weakness, well aside from them being physically weak in general. To counter this, he sent in the fear gophers as well. Their fear effect wasn't nearly as potent but there were way more fear gophers than nightmare gophers. The longer he could keep the elves from properly regrouping the better. One added benefit was that none of the mages were targeting the slag slimes, who were continuing to melt any elves who got to close. The problem is that fear while potentially causing a costly mistake isn't normally lethal in and of itself. to counter this he sent in his dire gophers and normal gophers. By this time the third group of wasps had been nearly wiped out and the fourth group was heading in. They were the smallest group by far but the fact that his wasps would normally have been dealt with a while ago meant that staggering them had worked. Sure, they didn't kill as many people through sheer poison, but Logan calculated that the reduction in reaction time over a greater period of time added up to more enemy deaths in the long run. Eventually the gophers and wasps were dealt with, and the elves returned their attention to the slag slimes. Most of the elves' water mages had been taken out by the shadow gophers but they still had a few. The wall of heat produced by the slag slimes was hard to get past even with water magic, but they would eventually if given the chance. Logan was determined not to give them that chance though. He ordered his rat and spider swarms to flank the elves. The elves began using their magic grenades on the flanking enemies, but the basic rats and spiders held such a large numerical advantage that it hardly mattered. Indeed, cruel as it might seem their job at this moment, aside from trying to get to the water mages, was to get the elves to use up all their magic tools. Unfortunately, they were so small that it took a bunch of them to take down a single elf. Meanwhile the water mages are slowly chipping away at the slag slimes population. That's when Logan has the idea to have the telekinetic snakes start throwing the stone slimes. The elves are staying out of range of the heat wall right now anyway, but he hopes that by moving it back he can trick them into falling for it again. The rock slimes work in two ways not only does the initial impact hurt but then they grab onto their victim limiting their movement speed and, depending on where they grab, their range of motion just by virtue of their weight. The elves found them particularly hard to deal with because like all slimes rock slimes where immune to slashing and piercing type weapons. Unlike other slimes though they were susceptible to crushing type weapons such as hammers, maces, and clubs. It's just too bad the elves didn't have any, preferring to use swords instead if they couldn't use magic. While not enough to kill, or even really hurt, them slicing a rock slime as close to the elf's skin as possible would cause them to let go as the sword passed through their slime body. Magic was highly effective though as the elves soon learned. Eventually he had to send in the big spider and really big spider swarms to flank the elves. This was done to both keep up the pressure and to help funnel mages towards the front while the elf warriors protected them from the flank attack. This along with the rock and eventually acid and poison slimes which required magic to deal with insured that the mages gathered together towards the front. He then uses the lesser wolves and wolves to further move the elves to where he wants them. This works as the elves reorganize themselves exactly as predicted. Without warning he suddenly has the slag slimes reignite the heat wall just as the last acid slime falls. It doesn't catch as many of them off guard as he had hoped but he still manages to catch a fair number of them in the heat. This time however he uses the really monstrous spiders and the three headed wolves to push the elves into the heat wall. Watching the really monstrous spiders rip apart and otherwise disembowel the elves with ease reminds him of a monster movie from 1950s he watched with his grandpa. The one downside is that none of the mages caught in the initial blast from the heat wall were water mages. This left them open to counter the slag slimes. As Logan sent in the monstrous spiders and stone wolves to keep the elves bunched together, he started to think maybe he had underestimated his own strength. He didn't linger on that thought to long as such thoughts are dangers in the middle of battle. One thing was certain, this battle would determine the fate of the humans for years to come. It seems the elves sent the largest army they could muster. Logan guessed that they intended to stamp out this new threat once and for all. Ironically if at least two or three of the races had attacked together it probably would have worked. As it stands, he isn't sure if the elves will ever pose a significant threat to his core again after this. The elves for their part just keep coming although the flood of elves crossing his boarder had become a trickle. By this time the last of the slag slimes have finally been defeated. With that done the elves finally resumed their march towards his core. It hardly mattered though as by Logan's estimates they were now down to less than a third of their forces. While the monstrous spiders and stone wolfs continued to decimate their flanks, he sent Giga boars armored boars and a few pack boars to stop their advance. He also added feral boars and dire rat swarms to the flanking attack wanting to go ahead and get this over with. This battle has already dragged on for most of an entire day after all.
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Just as he is wrapping things up another huge army of elves comes crashing over his boarder. It would seem the previous attack was just the warmup act. As what's left of the dire rat swarms, monstrous spiders, stone wolfs, and the rest turn to engage this new threat Logan avoids sending anything else right away. He wants them to think that their plan worked and, as much as he hates to admit it, it nearly did. In fact, if they have a third wave he may be doomed, not that this wave is going to be a cake walk to deal with. Eventually though he does send the electric rat swarms. This group of elves from what logan could tell appeared to be the same size as the group he had just fought. Only this time he had no slag slimes or wasps, heck even his gophers were gone. That didn't mean he was out of options though as he sent the big vampire snakes and the two headed snakes to flank these newcomers. The elves kept up their attack far better than he would have liked. The outcome of the battle still far from decided after all. That's when the elves do something completely unexpected and instead of advancing actually try to flank Logan's flanking attacks. They soon regret this though as he sends in his razor tusks, dagger tooths, and more pack boars to completely box them in. He can't help but admire their strategy. They saw what he was doing and adapted their response accordingly. It would have even succeeded had he not had other units in reserve still. As it is, this turns out to be their single biggest blunder of the entire battle. To their credit they do realize what has happened but by then it's too late they're already boxed in. They're eventually able to continue their advance but that is when Logan sends in the various chicken variants. He doesn't send in the base chickens though for the same reason he is avoiding sending in the base boar, wanting to save them for food sources for the humans. By this time the battle has gone well into the night and a river of blood has started to form, filled with severed limbs, other various body parts, and organs. Most of which are themselves in pieces. The chicken army is eventually defeated much to Logan's surprise. He didn't expect the elves to have this much fight left in them. They are down to a fraction of their former strength though. As morning dawns on the following day, he sends the vampire snakes and big snakes to aid what's left of the flanking forces. He also sends his various mantis variants up the middle of the enemy lines to hopefully deal with this attack once and for all. Intentionally keeping some of his heavy hitters in reserve as much as possible. The enemy forces are small enough now that he feels comfortable letting the humans fight them if they manage to survive the mantis onslaught. They do still outnumber the human combatants almost two to one as of right now even if they don't have any mages left themselves. The humans however are well rested and haven't been fighting for almost 12 hours straight. The elves fought hard but without the mages they had no real hope of countering the sheer number of elemental mantises. Although they did still manage to take out several. The humans never got a chance to face them though as in their extremely exhausted state though the battle only lasts a few more hours.
When the smoke finally cleared 'figuratively speaking' he realized that he had killed more elves in this one attack than in all the other elf attacks combined. It was only due to the sheer number of his creatures and the fact that some of them could take out multiple elves before being defeated that allowed him to survive with anything at all left in reserve. That last part was important because while he did hold a huge numerical advantage most of his creatures were hopeless in one-on-one fights against skilled opponents. All things considered he is a lot better off than he expected to be. He even has a plan to strike back before they could recover. A plan that Joel and Siobhan were both happy to endorse. A pack of 50 lava wolves was sent out just ahead of the rescue mission with orders to kill anything that isn't human or part of the sanctuary. He hates to be without his main source of mana income for nearly a month but in the end, he believed it was worth it.
With that decided he thought about the two recon teams waiting to be sent out. He decided to tell Joel and Siobhan they could send the recon teams out wherever they saw fit. He was quick to point out that if anything happened to a recon team their blood would be on the hands of whoever ordered them to go there. A bit harsh ... perhaps ... but they needed to understand what was at stake every single time the recon teams are sent out. He didn't want them making reckless choices and sending a recon team into a potential trap.
Now that all the unpleasantness is dealt with, he finds that he is practically bursting at the metaphorical seems with mana. He is tempted to wait for enough mana to expand down. He does have a huge head start on it after all. Sticking with his original plan is the best idea for now he quickly decides. He wants to expand his territory at least a good ways outside the city in all four directions before going long periods without expanding. To that end he buys two expansions south and 10 east for a total of twelve. This gets him several interestingly shaped foundations. He doesn't appear to be any closer to the edge of the city though. The only real difference is that now he is getting an extra 324 square meters with each expansion.
No longer needing to micromanage the community would free him up to do a lot more. Which will come in handy when he is able to send his forces out in larger numbers and with much more complex instructions. Already he feels like if he words it correctly, he can give his creatures slightly more complex instructions though he is still limited to sending out 50 creatures per day. He decides to let everyone rest for a few days before making any major decisions that involve the humans.
A week later and he feels like enough time has passed, especially since the humans were never in any actual danger. He decides to tell what he knows of archery to Yangus and Carter. Just cause he can't figure it out doesn't mean they won't be able to after all. He doesn't know if they will ever succeed in making a bow, but even if they do it will still be a long time, possibly years, before anyone is good enough to use it in combat. He was reluctant at first because he feared what would happen if the other races reverse engineered it. Also, the fact that he wants the attacking army to die in his territory, so he gets the mana from them dying. He is so large now that he is confident that by the time they create it, if they manage to create it, and enough people master it to be effective in combat, his territory will extend for well over a kilometer in all directions. That should be more than big enough since he isn't expecting anything near the war bows of some ancient earth cultures. At least not right away.