Ebony didn’t give up.
A lot of people did.
The only bright side was that the more of them died, the fewer people there were to protect. The number dropped till the commander and other strong individuals could protect them all if they stuck together according to the Imperial soldiers' formation. Most of the soldiers survived, they had better discipline. Fire mages didn’t sustain too many casualties because the arcane warriors and mace wielders did their best to keep them alive. These warriors weren’t as lucky but they were not as helpless as the scouts and archers. The arcane warriors sustained greater casualties than mace wielders as the battle dragged on as they were too dependent on mana in comparison.
Things got extremely terrible when every support squad’s mage ran out of mana and mana potions. The weakened front lines couldn’t fight against completely refreshed Trolls as they swapped out with their allies.
The first assault squad was smart enough to leave some members to rest as well so they could swap out. Commander Wil made sure that their rear was completely empty, he made sure that no one was sent by Midnight Shepherd as well. Just his presence allowed them to have one less direction to worry about and they weren’t fenced in.
Their efforts got them dozens of kilometres covered in a day. It was a short distance but they were trying their best.
On the second day of this half-encirclement, Commander Wil faced Midnight Shepherd’s squads with Cap Dwarf and Unnamed. Halfway through, Ning Xin’s body gave up. No amount of energy she got from his blood helped. She enhanced herself for too long. She could still move but he got her to rest and eat up.
Naturally, Ebony hasn’t needed to swap out. He didn’t get any weaker or any more sluggish either. The high-intensity Augmentation didn’t strain his body as much as Ning Xin’s. Treading Stride actually benefited immensely. His control over distance and flexibility in changing directions seemed to improve over time.
He didn’t have many surviving Glacial Models left but building another took too much time and effort. Having them uncompressed would be a waste of mana so he didn’t have a chance to increase their numbers. He built rectangles, like train cabins so that he could move a bunch of people. Their enemies constantly destroyed his attempts to force him to give up on the endeavour. The larger the train got the easier it had been for the Trolls to destroy it.
The invisible mark on his arm got stronger over time. It itched uncomfortably when a strong squad was in range. It made the mark slightly two-way but they could probably sense it better than he could. He caused numerous tremors and quakes but the ground repairs almost instantly. It likely worked similarly to the corrosive cloud. Icicle and petal rains also happened a few times in the meantime.
The size of his domain that he could keep up consistently slowly increased. It wasn’t very useful against weak opponents since it really didn’t make much of a difference, one hit was one hit. Masters couldn’t stop his blade anymore, Sonic Intrusion had come a long way. Their enhanced body or weapon barely slows his attacks down. A single cut or penetrative attack and they were goners as his ice could dig through their life force enhancement. Only the Grandmasters required him to use his flames.
He set his domain up and didn’t move around. Ning Xin slept soundly by his side inside a sleeping bag. He didn’t have to want to waste mana so he removed the ice and gravity effects. Unintentionally, Waning Presence was in effect. The mark still wasn’t something every Troll could sense.
Ning Xin’s overflowing essence started to leak and hungry Trolls jumped to the delicious meal. They couldn’t stop their fall and landed with injuries across their brawny bodies and were speared the moment their feets landed.
“Yo--!”
A few of them were shocked to see him sitting right beside the sleeping figure, thankfully they weren’t shocked for long.
“Thanks Walt.” Ebony thanked the arcane warrior picking up his slack.
“No problem, just take a break.” Walt had a tiny breakdown after he lost a third of his students but he knew what they were volunteering for.
“We should aim to annihilate them at this point. We killed like what? Fifty thousand? Old man Wil killed just as many.” Athena transmitted through his mana link.
“How much longer can the others fight? Can Commander Wil stop Midnight Shepherd’s hunting team? Won’t Fourth simply send stronger teams?”
“Shut up big brain. Hey Ebony, if you’re gonna rest go back to the centre where the rest of the injured are.”
“Mmm.”
That had been a good idea from Athena. He carried the masked sleeping lady away. In the roughly conjured structure were hundreds of injured people. He sensed Ayla, Channah and Banly were all asleep and heavily injured. Hayec watched Ayla closely but he didn’t have any visible injuries. Banly had a high fever and looked as if a fall would kill him.
“The soldiers are sharing their medical supplies but…we are running out of bandages.”
He continued to listen in on the problems these field medics were having. He admired these people stepping forward to help where they could, not all of them were soldiers.
‘There are two healers here…’ Ebony noticed that one fire mage had healing skills and the other had an arcane warrior. The surviving scouts were all proficient in first aid.
‘I have some fabric, I guess I can fashion some makeshift bandages.’ Ebony got to work. He didn’t make clothes for people and had some fabric left over. It didn’t make a big difference but it was better than nothing. After he was done, he went outside since he was in the way. His senses continued to observe Ning Xin and her surroundings.
He made Glacial Models and sent them out to fight whenever one was complete. He didn’t sleep but his body recovered from the Frostblaze Augmentation strain. He took out his pot and cooking utensils and made stew. He made meatballs as well. In an isolated ice igloo of course. Selfish? Definitely.
“You’re awake. Come out, you can find me right outside.” She slept for almost 4 hours and he was just about done with his stew. No one else could hear him.
She knocked on his igloo and he let her in.
“This feels wrong.” She commented.
They devoured the large pot of thick and heavy stew and meatballs within minutes.
“And delicious, thank you.”
That was a win in his book.
“Let’s try to open a path again. I’m worried about Fifth Tide.” Ebony suggested.
He was more interested in protecting Fifth Tide so that these Trolls didn’t crush Arcta with overwhelming numbers. They didn’t know the state of the battle at the moment but having the Trolls already at the cliff was worrisome. They could leave by themselves right away but he wasn’t about to do that. It was marginally safer with people like Athena on their side and there was zero chance he would directly turn back to fly across an army of millions. Once they reached Fourth’s Imperial forward base, making their way back to the mainland would be simple and the distance between these two military cities was possible to cross in less than a day if nothing hindered him.
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She patted her belly before stretching, “mmm.”
They failed. Athena and Walt fell short, clearly exhausted. They swapped out for the two of them to rest.
“Get the rest ready to move anytime.”
Ebony and Ning Xin tried to escape being tied down by the small number of elite squads to wreak havoc.
“Just set that area on fire, I’ll gather their corpses as fuel.” Ebony mindlessly suggested.
He managed to make 6 Glacial Models, adding on to the 3 remaining, 9 of them started to pull corpses towards them. Ebony used his domain and Guided Path to dig up the fleshy part and propel them towards his Models. They got busy and stacked them so that the fire mage could burn.
He took over 3 hours to stack a literal mountain range of Troll corpses. It burned a lot easier than he imagined. Burying seemed impossible and the least he could give them was a semi-proper cremation. The flames spread and easily reached sky-high.
‘That should burn for days.’ Ebony put his hands together and bowed to the enemies’ bodies. The arsonist didn’t bow but she stayed to watch in silence.
Commander Wil and his two buddies returned to report that they didn’t manage to kill the squads sent after the militia. In the midst of their return, they saw the fire and rushed over.
“I see…be careful. They’re gonna be even more desperate to kill us now.”
“Why?” Ebony cocked his head in confusion.
“Cremation is one of the biggest insults we can throw at them. It’s not a bad thing, we should make full use of this time. Anyone can see this fire, they will send more scouts over.” The big three were back and they rushed the combined militia and soldiers to get up and run.
Cap Dwarf and Mr Kidnapper made it extremely easy. No one could stand in their way as they dashed towards presumably safer lands.
“Oh, they’re back again.”
It hasn’t even been 20 minutes before the old men had to dash back to protect them. They did more than enough and Athena was back in the fight. Walt really couldn’t keep up, he just slept and didn’t meditate and he needed mana. They got him to stay back, he needed to protect himself.
“Counting on you Ebony! How much longer can you maintain your strength?”
“A week? Maybe I’ll weaken a little after that.” He replied Banly. He would probably weaken due to ‘will’ being limited and his domain and Glacial Model depended on it. He made a rough estimation from his recent experience but he hasn’t gotten to the point where he wasn’t able to use ‘will’ yet.
“SH--!” Banly yelped when someone grabbed his collar and threw him back. Hayec got him away from a stray part of a broken rock weapon.
“Wait, no. I’ll be weakened a lot.” He corrected when he realised that he might not be able to use his domain even if he had the mana.
“Careful Ebony, watch where the weapons you break go!”
“Mmm. They got rocks from somewhere, they're about to toss them.”
The mages and warriors prepared defensive skills. It was hard to evade the speedy throws because those on the ground couldn’t see where the projectiles were coming from. There were few scouts and rogues still alive and they couldn’t guide people. The shattering projectiles will hit anything in a wide range so evasion was only for those who were confident in their flight.
Athena and Walt couldn’t fly either, the only ones who could were Ning Xin, the commander, Mr Kidnapper and him. No one died from the bombardment and they finally got to the point where he didn’t see enemies in front of them.
“We’re out but we have to hurry. That darn fire is too big.”
“I’ll get the commander.” Ebony left the militia and turned back.
The elders were too far away for his sound magic and he trusted that going away for a few minutes shouldn’t be a problem. He didn’t have to slow down to allow people to keep up.
Cap Dwarf had been in a tough spot when he found them. The man clearly held back when he sparred with him. Ebony didn’t hesitate to enter the fray, he just needed to extricate these three and not kill. His Glacial Models were slapped to dust before they could go close and the low temperatures they produced from shattering didn’t seem to affect the King Troll, easily over ten metres tall with arms thicker than he was tall.
“Don’t get any closer!” Ebony listened to the Dwarf’s advice but he continued to cast ranged spells to slow the opponent down. The instant his gravity and ice kicked into effect, he got a grin from their opponent.
“Get away!”
Cap had his earthen snake head swallowing up the [Savage Brute King Lvl ???]’s leg. Ebony dipped and ran without pause, flight was dozens of times slower than his top speed on land. The giant ignored the deep cut in his thighs and kicked off after him, the earthen snake got dragged right out of the ground. He set the ice mana that spread in the surroundings aflame but it only elicited a bigger grin from his opponent.
His opponent roared, flexed his chest and flushed his flames out by expelling Vitality. The Grandmasters had this ability too but not once were they able to erase his flames. Rather than expel, this brute could manipulate Vitality outside his body. It was even visible to the naked eye as a blackish-red colour tainting the giant’s body.
Ebony crafted a thread of gravity mana towards the brute to link up a repulsive Guided Path so that he would always be repelled away from the giant. His mana was ‘grabbed’ onto by the thick aura of vitality and the brute made hands with his life force to drag him through the thread of gravity mana. He dispersed it when the repulsion didn’t do anything.
Ebony kept an eye behind him only to see the shock in the brute’s eye when it realised a tiny figure right above his head. A club the size of a needle to the giant rammed into his face and skull from the left. The blackish-red aura reacted but couldn’t block it in time.
Those blackish-red translucent arms caught the ground and helped the giant down. He snapped his head back up, fully healed face and neck grinning like he found treasure.
“Move it, they’re too troublesome to kill. A Shaman is linking their squad’s vitality together.”
‘I’m too far away to sense if there’s some sort of link between them, I don’t see any of that black-red aura connecting them though.’ Ebony trusts that the visible aura was extremely condensed or thick vitality in some form.
“Thankfully your body is unrealistically tough.” Mr Kidnapper commented as they grabbed onto him. He sped them up with gravity and they were out of sight within moments. Whiplash of this degree couldn't really hurt him.
“They aren’t giving up…ah damn it’s hot here.” Commander Wil chewed gum as he spoke.
“Those corpses burn really well.” Cap Dwarf didn’t appear that uncomfortable from the heat.
“Is it hot?” Mr Kidnapper acted as if he didn’t feel any heat, he wasn’t even sweating.
The earthen snake head carried Cap Dwarf across the ground while the other three were in the air.
“Boy send those clones off yours to their rear, can you get them to look for their shaman?”
“Out of range, they would just fight what they can sense.” His Glacial Models would usually only defend themselves if they were out of his range of control. Something along the lines of ‘defend yourself’ had better results than getting them to chase a particular target he had never personally seen before. He managed to change the recent Models to attack Trolls and not other races, even for self-defence. These ‘orders’ could change on a whim only if they were within range.
“Unnamed, burn this area down.”
“Roger~”
They had a rather lackadaisical attitude, speed wasn’t these Trolls’ forte.
“The Trolls are quite weak. In general.” Ebony forgot to adjust his tone to a questioning tone, it was difficult.
“Most of the tribeless pretty much isn't a match for the current Imperial soldiers. Although the soldiers up at First and Second Tides would be stronger, I imagine a few more months and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“So it’s just overwhelming numbers? Doesn’t seem right.”
“That’s part of the reason. We were lucky we didn’t see their shamans till recently but that changed. They have pretty good tamers as well, they take care of aerial defences but none are here either. If they sent any unique tribal shamans, Fifth Tide will probably go down.” Cap Dwarf came here for an easy fight, not this.
“My boys should’ve arrived, it won’t go down so easily.” Commander Wil was confident of his teachers and indirect students.
“Would your students and grandstudents listen to the general lass? I hear they are…rowdy.”
Ebony could hear the doubt in Cap Dwarf’s tone, he had no one to confirm if he was right. He would bring around a dictionary for tones and social cues if there were one but he didn’t find such a book. From what he knew, Commander Wil never taught anyone personally for a long time and he had many generations of graduates. Some part-time, some full time but they should all be decent. If they were like the one he beat in the tournament, he wasn’t looking forward to their strength but Commander Wil was the prime example that dragged his hopes back up.
“Ah…” The scrawny old man rubbed his head in frustration.