Chapter 6: Surrounded
Inside the APC Sera’s voice could be heard through the speakers on Banshee giving orders to everyone as they frantically set up defenses like raising mud wall and sharpening some wooden stakes.
In just 30 minutes the the campsite became a fortified fort with ditches 3 meters deep and 5 meters wide with wooden spikes at the bottom surrounding the camp except for the front of the wooden gate, mud walls 1 meter high, between the walls and ditches were a crude line of wooden spear wall planted firmly at the ground and inside the mud wall another set of wooden spikes ready to catch falling enemies from the wall could be seen.
If it wasn’t for their numerical disadvantage, this fort could be said as quite formidable but reality is not often we want it to be, a pack wolves charged in first controlled by Lavant mages carrying the monster lure in its mouth before impaling itself on the wooden spike, everybody missed the sight of it until it was buried by its breatheren as they fell from arrows of the Elves while the Dwarves have just returned from their steel wagon carrying a sack which surprised Sera. It looked like a giant flintlock or more likely a hand canon.
“damn! I really don’t want to show it to others but with our lives on the line I guess it matters little now” said Gramel alongside with Darma and Dormo while assembling the weapon as the Elves and the Inheritors mages doing covering fire.
Starting from a smile to a wide grin Sera Hawke already wanted to know where she could get gunpowder, during their travel she wondered why there are so many cask being carried by the Dwarves, it turns out to be gunpowder completely disguised as ale.
“I’m getting distracted I’ve got to finish this thing in front of me first before I move to the next project”
The quill boars have returned fire with their quills shooting from their back forcing the defenders to take cover behind their steel wagons, during that time the first group of ogres and trolls managed to punch a hole through the hastily made mud wall.
“Do not engage the trolls and ogres head on! Mages and archers focus fire take them one by one” Sera said her voice being heard from the speakers.
Magic and arrows are clearly not going to take down the trolls and the ogres in s short amount of time, that was when Sera fired up the Gatling Rail Gun. But contrary to her expectation the GRG could only fire one shot per second.
As she saw this happening she cursed inwardly “FUCK! Why!? Why didn’t I test it before!?” as her chest starting to hyperventilate.
In the past Sera feared that it might unveil the GRG to the strangers and potential enemies like mages and foreign soldiers and therefore have only relied on simulations, now with the only redeeming quality of the GRG being powerful enough to able to smash the head open of the trolls and ogres in two shots despite its slow firing rate with its finger size iron spikes.
Now it was the Dwarves turn to be amazed seeing the power of her weapon but also because again it resembled some of the Dwarven secret weapons, but Gramel intently ignored that at the moment considering they are in the middle of battle.
“i told you look.. look! Doesn’t that look familiar” Darma pointed at the Gatling Rail Gun
“and I keep telling you its similar but not the same, its not even using gunpowder! But some unknown magic” said dismissively by Gramel, but in his mind its a question that could wait another time...if they survive
In a sense it was indeed magic but the only magic used was really the lightning spell which was considered tier 3 strong but not enough on its own to kill Magic Knight, Rail Gun however is from a more modern and highly scientific standard of weaponry now that its energy weakness has been complemented with magic its strength its undeniable.
Lavant Company Campsite
“the walls have been breached! We’ll have to move in fast before the trolls and ogres get to Sera Hawke!” said the Magic Knight
But the company commander said “ wait! Wait a bit longer the Golems and team Tempest are not so easily beaten, remember we only have one chance and once we blow this chance she will be always on guard against us making a second attempt even more difficult”
The Knights eager for combat could barely rein in their temper if it wasn’t for their King’s orders , while the mages have been constantly powering up a mirror that could see the front of the makeshift fort being swamped by monsters, the observing officials were all tensed up in the coming battle or in fear that their target perishes.
But those fearful thoughts of having Sera Hawke dead would soon be for nothing as they see the monsters charging in the breach led by the trolls and ogres were the line of monsters are just being blown to pieces and being riddled with holes.
“w-what manner of a weapon is that?” said one of the mages shocked and awed at the weapons might
“it’s those Dwarves it’s definitely them and their contraptions!!” said one of the Magic Knights
“this can’t be good” the company commander thought to himself, Sera Hawke is proving more and more difficult to capture…. alive
“calm down! Dwarven weaponry are strictly reliant on ammunition, we have detailed records of this during the war 500 years ago. Just let them waste their ammunition and magic on these beasts!” the company commander added while also secretly being relieved that he did not charge towards that.
As well said as it could be the Gatling Rail Gun although extremely powerful but low firing rate has another flaw, and that is its accurate kill range was only 10 meters. Its power is indeed impressive but so does the recoil making 30-50% of fired shots grazing if not missing the targets entirely. It also does not help that Sera has only brought 3,000 rounds of ammunition.
Abandoned Mine
Sera has been fully focused at micromanaging the golems, Banshe and the Gatling Rail Gun, although it takes 10 seconds to reload the hand canon of the Dwarves they have been shooting dozens metal pellets each the size of a fingernail directed at the breach. In combination with the Elven archers, Knight Golems throwing wooden javelins and the Gatling Rail Gun the breach on the wall has slowly piled up a small mountain of monster corpses.
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The apprentice mages has collapsed due to mana exhaustion after over an hour of prolonged battle, even with Gemini Doc watching over them the squires of team Inheritors were deeply concerned as they look at the deep wound and gashes the mages have accumulated over the course of battle.
“s-shouldn’t we retreat back inside the mines now Lady sera?” said Salazar in grave tone while covered in dried blood of his and monsters alike.
“NO! Not yet the monster horde have thinned with only the bigger ones along several wolf packs remaining, we keep defending the breach!” Sera said in a cold commanding tone.
When the golems ran out of wooden javelins to throw. then finally came the melee combat as if showing intelligence and coordination the monster horde converged on the breach for a final push the squires tensed their muscles to their limits. while the Elves conjured earth spikes with their last of their magic to impale charging monsters if not impede them.
The Knight Golems alongside Medusa stood just behind the earth spikes preparing for the final clash while the Dwarves fired their final salvo before quickly changing weapon and join the the battle line, at this time only Sera’s Gatling Rail Gun is the only one providing covering fire non stop.
Medusa caught the first charge using Slow spell at the area of enemies while constantly activated Haste spell on allies, in each hand she is holding sacks full of low quality mana stones, the constant use of spells since battle have put Medusa in an overload state, the consumption of mana stones are the only reason she can still fight and the magic consumption is no joke. Every minute a mana stone would turn to dust after being overloaded with magic and cast repeatedly.
The Knight Golems held the line with their shields and active barrier spells but even so the smaller wolves managed to pass the defense line and took bites of the squires with chunks of flesh missing from their bodies shouts of terror and agony could be heard in their campsite, even Salazar wanted to maintain morale by leading the charge was caught off guard by a giant rock passing beside him thrown by an ogre and in a knee jerk reaction tried to block it but the boulder was too big almost hitting him but losing his right hand in the process, in shock Salazar has yet to feel his broken mangled arm and taking the opportunity the wolves pounced at him dragging him around.
The squires mustered the last ounce of courage and strength to save Salazar while the wolves have him tightly pinned by their mouths, with Salazar’s sword arm rendered useless his life is now on the hands of anyone capable enough to save him in this mess of a battle while his would be saviour not dying at the same time.
Regardless of their effort their body gave out and collapsed rendering them defenseless against the onslaught, Luckily Banshee was watching the entire battlefield swooped down blowing the eardrums out of the wolves. As the wolves lay dying the severely injured squires were brought towards the steel wagon where Gemini Doc was tending to the wounded and by the looks of things Salazar would require a surgery at the very least.
While Gemini Doc is performing surgery to its patients the battle is coming close to its end the horde broken and scattered and the last ogre is too stubborn to run away, Tandtra and Verde’s arrow and magic have been long depleted they are now being supported by Gramel while Darma and Dormo are too injured to help out, of the 12 Knight Golems only 3 remain heavily battered with their steel plating are long gone and their Quartz body full of cracks and craters and Medusa finally cracked down and destroyed her control crystal due to overuse.
With 3 last ammunition in the chamber of the Gatling Rail Gun one shot manage to clip the ogre’s jaw making it dizzy, the remaining combatants of team Tempest took the opportunity and started stabbing at the creatures head until it was dead beyond the reasonable doubt.
“Gramel enough!… its dead already save your strength and tend to your injuries” said Tandtra as she checked the surrounding area for monsters, while Verde just collapsed on her bottom and sat down sweating and bleeding.
Gemini Doc came out of the Inheritors steel wagon after cleansing and closing their wounds, but Salazar on the other hand was inside Gemini Doc which Sera reluctantly allowed, modern high tech medicine are now rare and Gemini Doc was supposed to have been built as a walking Intensive Care Unit for her own personal use but after some thought she couldn’t allow Salazar or anyone for that matter to die under the gamble she had set up.
With the steel wagons and APC blocking the entrance to the mines Serra Noticed that the Lavant Company of soldiers are now closing in on their location through Banshee’s eyes. They are most likely to attack tonight when everyone’s body are seriously injured, sore and just generally tired of the life and death combat they have experienced.
Right at this moment only Sera Hawke could be seen moving about the mines while the adventurer teams lie unconscious, she made some checks on ammunition but only 2 spikes remain for the Gatling Rail Gun. With no ammunition and soldiers to defend her except for Banshee and 3 Knight Golems which is barely combat ready is all that’s left.
Sera thought “maybe I’ll just run them over with my vehicles remotely?…… nah” after realizing that there is not enough room to accelerate not to mention the state of the road. No, the Magic Knights will just cut through the vehicles steel plating like butter.
This is now the last phase is about to begin everything now lies in this one final card up her sleeve, Banshee has returned to the skies to continue watching the Lavant soldiers coming and behind them are her Golems like statues of gargoyles rising from their crouched position following their targets slowly and silently.
Sundown, Sera was woken up from a nap by the alarm she set, her body reluctantly moved as she prepared some food for herself while the adventurer teams are still in deep slumber. As she looked through the eyes of Banshee the Lavant soldiers are now 50 meters away from the abandoned mine slowly spreading out to surround them.
As she eat her food she now also have prepared the sentinels to take action, as Lavant’s key personnel gather to plan their attack before they could even talk booming sounds could be heard due to their stomping as the army of wooden golems rushed towards them in a sprint weapons ready and charging headlong to combat without any care.
The sudden appearance of another army behind them caught the Lavant soldiers in surprise but no panic could be seen mostly nervousness, the company commander along with captains under him screamed commands to reform the line to meet this unknown threat. But the already spread out army is slow to reform it was now up to the soldiers fast and close enough to react led by Magic Knights to face their enemies.
The company commander gritted his teeth and said “what are the fucking scouts doing!!”
Controlling 500 wooden golems is hard when she copied the program from an RTS game she knew only the most basic commands could be performed quickly enough as Sera needed to highlight a small area in her holographic interface and then give commands it was really a rushed build but woks enough for her needs.
As the first wooden golems are about to clash against Lavant soldiers the Magic Knights glowed with magic surrounding their bodies and weapons the golems weapons bounced back against barrier spell before being sliced to pieces. Their only advantage being the enemy not ready for them and easily enough the combat ready soldiers on the battle line were avoided like the plague and moved on to attack the less fortunate soldiers only getting ready on their own battle line.
Those who were slow where killed almost instantly, with the first clash killing around 40 of their own soldiers if it wasn’t for the mages who created barriers over a large area giving them time to reform and properly strategize the battle could have ended then and there.
As the Magic Knights see this happening they quickly attacked huge clusters of enemies and used wide swings empowered with magic destroying dozens of the wooden golems at each attack, while Sera had the sentinels on standby and awaiting to tire out the Lavant soldiers.
Currently only about 300 wodden golems remain and are declining quite faster than she expected it to be, as the golems decrease her controll over them became more fine tuned and could be noticed that they are now starting to use battle formations and accurately ganging up on mages and Magic Knights as priority targets.
As the battle rage on the arrogant Magic Knights have been humbled and retreated to the main body of their remaining force.
“we’re surrounded!” one of the soldiers shouted
“maintain formation! They are not as formidable as you think, don’t get scared of their numbers!” as the company commander rallied the troops
They tried to break through but the wooden golems just threw their bodies at the soldiers stopping them in their tracks, soon desperation could be seen in their eyes well trained soldiers no longer needed to be told that there is no escape in this battle and must make their last stand now.
100 wooden golems remain and regardless of their sudden nimbleness they are still not a match against Magic Knights. They might be injured some worst than the others but the Magic Knights are still elite forces not to be under estimated as they cut down the golems left and right.
Now even the company commander has been forced to battle which he was revealed as a Magic Knight he fought with bravery uplifting morale of the remaining soldiers by now the mages are dead singled out and killed by the wooden golems despite being vaporized by spells, their relentless assault unnerved the soldiers to their breaking point.
And now the true test has begun there are only 30 wooden golems remain on the bloodied battlefield just as they thought that salvation is just around the corner.
Banshee appeared and released its cloaking without any warning attacked them with sonic waves. Deafened and bleeding they still fought hard as the Lavant soldiers number decreased to 25 by then all of the wooden golems are decimated but then comes the sentinels Ashura not giving them a breather sprinted forwards a Magic Knight.
Despite being caught by surprise the Magic Knight managed to block the heavy and continuous blows of Ashura attesting to their strength it took only a few seconds before the surprise duel ended in the Magic Knight’s demise leaving Ashura with 3 lost arms despite having reinforced steel plating.
Riot has discarded the rod packed with mana stones nearby as he moved forward putting the electric charge at maximum output he waved his hand across the nearby soldiers shooting electric bolts jumping towards the nearby soldiers another Magic Knight Contended against Riot using a battle axe but was blocked by the bulletproof tower shield, the strike was heavy enough to push Riot back a step before stabilizing.The shield is 5 inches thick yet the axe managed to penetrate 3 inches in, but now the axe is stuck and Riot wasted no time electrocuting the unfortunate Knight.
Torch Light had it easier that the rest with the enemy soldiers tired and injured he just lit them up with invisible flames, those desperate enough charge at him with zeal led by the bloodied and severly injured company commander before being dealt with plasma cutters.
Although Lavant soldiers are still somewhat fighting and screaming in agony the battle could already be concluded as over, This are nothing more than death throes.
Sera hawke is sweating bullets right now entire body tensed despite its fragility, only after the last of Lavant soldiers dropped dead and stopped moving did she release and long sigh of relief her body suddenly going jelly as she now concluded the battle a victory.
Before passing out she ordered the sentinels to take all valuables as spoils of war and to stand guard at the mine.
Meanwhile over a hill overlooking the entire battle since morning until evening Marianne Vi Kaladia along with 250 of her Elite Soldiers, Knights,Mages and Wizrads
“unexpectedly she has this much power!……impressive truly IMPRESSIVE Sera Hawke!!!” she said jubilantly before turning her army back to her city.