The very best scouts were ones nobody was looking for. Even if the invaders currently occupying Diamond Hill Sanctuary were aware that they were looking for ants, it was basically impossible for them to spot them all. Regular ants could be picked out by using their energy senses, but they didn’t matter to either side. Hundreds of smaller ants crawled through the area, only temporarily slowed by formations. While those the size of normal ants weren’t as intelligent as the Great Queen or the other older members, they were able to convey information well enough.

Diamond Hill Sanctuary- specifically the sect’s grounds- was more or less what the name implied. It wasn’t full of diamonds but instead shaped like a faceted diamond resting on its head, sharp angles and flat expanses coming to a peak. It wasn’t a perfect match, but the sect founders had found the unnaturally shaped location already arranged in that manner and decided to settle there.

It once had a series of gatehouses leading up to the entrance, but the majority of those were destroyed. Even with the abilities of high ranking cultivators it was impossible to repair so much in a short time, especially without access to a supply chain providing materials. Thus, most of the gatehouses were still in disarray and the walls had crumbled in parts. Even so, attacking with an army only had one path up. Climbing the various sides of the hill made of smooth rock wasn’t impossible for a cultivator, but to do so with haste while keeping safe was nearly impossible. With the forces from Edelhull and Stregate leaning towards the lower end of cultivation, such an attack would only get them killed meaninglessly.

The defensive position wasn’t overwhelming with the damage to the defenses, but it was awkward for one reason… not giving the invaders anywhere to retreat. Everyone knew full well how viciously people fought when it concerned their own lives. Their opponents had been careless at first, underestimating them and only retreating when they realized the losses they would take. They could be nearly as dangerous as… an entire nation trying to protect their homeland.

Cutting the enemy forces off from leaving and slowly starving them might work, but there was no way to know how much food they had in storage. Storage bags, specifically. The actual proper kitchens were well scouted by ants. The cultivators of Diamond Hill Sanctuary looked to have food for several months, maybe half a year, but the current number of invaders was higher than the sect was meant for. In the end, the uncertainty of the time required- and what else might happen in the world while they waited- led them to choose an active siege.

The siege wouldn’t just involve throwing boulders at walls. In fact, that was only a very small part of the plan. It certainly wasn’t being ignored, but while cultivators didn’t often make use of traditional sieging tactics they still had records of it. And even if most had no real experience in the area, replicating techniques was easy enough.

There were options like undermining, digging beneath the foundations of the walls to collapse them. The walls themselves were atop the cliffs so it would require significantly more burrowing than in other cases. Burrowing had a big advantage in that it innately came with cover, but enemy cultivators made the process harder as they could sense what would be happening under the ground. The walls also weren’t the main problem at the moment. There was a more extreme version, however. If they hollowed out enough of the hill they could cause the whole thing to collapse. That would take a long time, but it would easily take formations with it.

As for actually throwing things at walls, Grant had put together a few cultivator-appropriate siege weapons such as trebuchets. Processes such as loading large weights were easier with cultivators involved. With high quality materials the machines could bear greater loads as well, which was important since there was no point in loading a weight that could not be hurled. Enchantments on the trebuchets would further enhance them, and like the ballistae they would make use of multiple cultivators as they fired. The siege weapons could certainly put holes in the walls, but breaking through defensive formations or targeting groups of enemy cultivators would also be valuable.

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A squad of soldiers on a mission infiltrated the enemy fortress. They followed paths laid down by scouts before them, perfectly clear to those who could recognize the signs and invisible to those who couldn’t. It was a long march through enemy territory, but they walked one by one through narrow trenches and cracks. Sometimes they even took a ride on one of the enemy soldiers without them noticing. They carried with them heavy packs of supplies for sabotage.

After a grueling trek they arrived at their destination. In front of them were mountains of food, the kind that would take an entire hive years to eat through- even if they were producing offspring as quickly as they could. But there were no offspring here. No queens. They were too valuable… and too noticeable.

The soldiers spread out to their duties, working together to bridge gaps when climbing was difficult. They chewed through stitching on bags of flour. Just a small bit in the lower corners, or it would take them all day. Some of the stronger soldiers worked together to chew through seals on casks, not enough to make anything spill out but enough to expose it to the open air.

The packs that had been strapped to them by cultivators with great manual dexterity were dropped into crates, mainly individual grains with fungus that would hopefully spread to fill whole batches. The soldiers worked hard, but aside from the tiny pockets of infection they left behind they had an infinite amount of food to munch on to keep their energy up. There was no need to bring anything back to the hive.

The next target were the bunkhouses. Once again, they targeted the weakest points. Broken tiles in the roof were painstakingly shifted to let in the elements, the process requiring dozens of soldiers together. The seams of pillows were gnawed through. Spare boots mysteriously found their soles separating.

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The luxurious tents of the commanders, larger on the inside, were the final targets. There were specific instructions for how to slip under the lining to look for certain embroidered runes. Chewing through them would gradually cause the tents to fail. Doing it all at once would be far too noticeable… and might result in good soldiers being trapped in nothingness. Or more likely an explosion of energy that would involve real danger to their weaker brethren. It would also be too obvious.

The golden targets were actual storage bags where cultivators kept their most precious goods, but these were more durable and closely watched. The commander of this particular squad did not find any good openings, though he hoped the others might.

-----

Grant folded his arms, “I’m not saying it’s a waste of resources or anything, I just fail to see how making people slightly uncomfortable for a day is going to matter. By the end of the day they’ll repair a couple tiny holes and then if anything more happens they’ll be on alert.”

“Ah, but you see,” Grand Elder Fodor wagged his finger. “That is where your experiences fail you. How would you describe your profession?”

“A smith,” Grant shrugged. “Maybe engineer.”

Fodor nodded. “And how many smiths do you think they have? Maybe a couple. Maybe they have a carpenter, but I would doubt it. A seamster is unlikely, and even if they can technically stitch things up they probably don’t have spare silk thread lying around. The point is, these are typical cultivators, and most won’t do anything unrelated to war. And if we can make one have a stiff neck throwing him a little bit off when battle happens… I’ll take that advantage.”

Fodor reached his hand over to the nearby trebuchet, enhancing the next hunk of rock with his own energy. The great machine twisted, flinging the chunk into the air and causing it to impact on an invisible barrier. Invisible, yet the way it distorted the light behind it demonstrated cracks for several moments after the impact. That was already twice as long as the hour previous when they had first started.

Trebuchets enhanced with natural energy had far more range than most cultivators, but the invaders weren’t without a response. While they had no snipers able to attack as far as Anton or Kseniya, they could at least cover the several kilometers to the siege weapons. A large orb of grayish energy was formed by a trio of cultivators in the city and lobbed forward… but a single bolt of light pierced through it, causing it to unravel high in the sky.

Anton was on defensive duty, since adding him to the offense when he could only hit a barrier was a waste. The load was currently split between many cultivators, and they were able to cycle them out with only the main engineers who had skill at operating the machines staying active. Around half of the army was active at any point, though a good portion were simply on standby in case of an attack. The enemy sallying forth from the city would be the best option since they would give up their advantages, but it was therefore quite unlikely.

“How long can we keep this up for?” Timothy asked. He was among the siege weapons in case a threatening attack got close. The weapons were worth the effort of defending.

“A few days at most,” Grant admitted. “We’re limited by how much ammunition we can bring in. We built up as much as we could, but we’ll eventually run out. I could maybe throw together an oversized ballista that launches trees but… I’d probably need a week, and I don’t know if we have the materials. That’s longer than we seem to be planning anyway.”

“That’s right,” Timothy nodded. “Catarina said she can only learn a little bit more studying the formations from out here. At most a couple days before she’ll be ready. There will still be ammunition for these siege engines then, right?”

Grant nodded, “We have some set aside. And we took a few ballistae from Stregate, though they’re no good until we get to the actual fighting.” He squinted as he focused on the city. “Your wife can actually see something about the formations from watching this?”

“The bombardment should be helping, actually. Seeing how it reacts is important,” Timothy nodded. “Even I have enough training to come to the same assessment… they don’t have anyone worthy of the title of formation master with them.”

“What if they don’t have materials?”

Timothy shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. Well, it does. But if the person is skilled enough they could whip something together with what we’ve seen. You should see what Catarina has done with random arrangements of rocks and twigs.”

“Why have fancy materials if you can use… anything?”

“Because they imploded,” Timothy grinned. “But it did stop the charge of a ten ton boar. Snapped the boar’s neck.”

“And here I am working with big rocks,” Grant shook his head.

“This is great, actually,” Timothy assured him. “You make things where many people can contribute, and they’re much less… esoteric. But isn’t enchantment related to formations?”

“In a way, but formations react to changing circumstances, or display wider effects. Enchantments are solidified.”

Timothy was about to answer when he leapt up onto the structure of the nearest trebuchet, using that as a foothold to jump even higher out in front of it. A large dome appeared in front of him as he held out his shield, deflecting a ball of black-orange fire up and to the side. It was composed entirely of ascension energy, so it didn’t hold its form to land and cause trouble that way. “Seems they’re getting somewhat serious if that witch is getting involved. But that’s great for us. It could take her hours to recover from just that attack. By the estimates of our tiny allies, the two Ascension cultivators are back to no more than two thirds of their full potential.”

“Still pretty incomprehensible,” Grant shrugged. But it wasn’t his job to deal with them directly, so he could manage.