We had been in the elders temporary residence for a while and people had been far calmer than I expected. It wasn't a peaceful calm mind you but rather the type where you saw the rage of a thousand suns burning in their eyes and yet they kept their calm. The body had been taken away by the moon elves to be buried. It seemed that the moon elves buried their brethren in the moonlight but we didn't have that luxury so they just put the body into a storage bag for now.

The plan that they had agreed on was rather simple in all honesty. To be fair there wasn't much strategy we could do with what little time there was to prepare other than preparing spells and arrows to attack with or reinforcing the walls with enchantments. I told the elder about how effective the arrows had been and they distributed the arrows along the walls in storage bags to take out of when needed. Since I had my own inventory I had a few hundred stored there for me and my party as well as anyone nearby that may need more arrows. I helped make more arrows and by the time the army was spotted near the edge of the forest and approaching the village, me and Ronia had made an additional 60 arrows.

On the wall Ornal called out to everyone "Ready your bows! Don't let the enemy get near the village walls!" People got their bows out and headed to their designated areas on the wall and he nodded before continuing. "Mages and Warriors! To your positions and those of you on wall repair duty get ready! You're in for a hell of a time." With that last line everyone was in position. The slaver army was approaching from 1 side only it seemed. No attacking from multiple sides or anything like that it seemed. They didn't have the numbers to do that so a single front attack was their only option

I was on the wall with Ronia, Ray and Herald, with everyone feeling slightly tense. There had been one question going on in everyones head while we had been fighting the army. Why was this slaver army going to such lengths? We had wiped out around half of their army and they still kept coming for the village, so what was their motive? The losses they had taken were far more than what they would earn from selling the villagers as slaves, or were they after the moon elves as well? There were many speculations flowing around the village but no one had any concrete idea. The only thing that was certain was that we had to fight.

The enemy commander came out riding on a horse and was giving commands to his army before turning back to the village. He saw the people on the walls and chuckled before calling out to the village in a loud voice. "Surrender now and I will guarantee your lives! Resist and you will die or suffer a fate worse than that! What is your response? I hope you are far more sensible than the last group."

With that he moved back into the centre of the army on his horse. The elder was standing on the wall while everyone was looking at him. He took a deep breath and used a spell. The spell was just as massive as the warping spell he had used way back in Namph. He finished the spell in a few seconds, not giving the enemy enough time to react fast enough to stop him. He raised his hands to the sky and a massive barrier of blue light appeared around the village, like a dome. The spell seemed to be an advanced type of barrier. Once he was done, he elder gave a single command. "Fire"

Spells rained down from the walls one after the other like a hailstorm. Explosions rocked the area as they impacted the army. Screams were heard and for a second there I thought we would win with just the initial attack. Alas, the enemy commander had other ideas. He raised his hand in the air and crushed a green glowing rock and chanted something. Within seconds a green wall of wind appeared that stopped all of the spells. Fireballs exploded on the wall as they impacted it, while massive boulders slammed into it and bounced away and ice simply shattered on impact. We kept the spell assault up, hoping that the wall of wind would run out of juice but he kept steady for another minute as the army slowly approached the walls under the protection of the wind wall.

The elder gave the order to fire the enchanted arrows after seeing the army marching closer. The archers on the wall strung their bows and nokked their arrows before waiting for the order. Ornal yelled out as he had his own bow ready. "Ready! Aim!" He adjusted his aim and then called the last order. "Loose!"

Dozens of arrows flew into the air and more were loosed shortly after in a second wave that followed the first. The arrows soared and eventually impacted the wind wall, stopping dead in their tracks. The arrows that hit the wind wall shortly activated their enchantments. The flaming slime poured out of the arrows as they exploded. Most of the flaming slime seemed to fall past the wind wall while about a quarter of it was flung away and off to the sides by the wind wall. The commander grimaced as he saw the slime stick to people's shields and armour or weapons as it kept burning. The slime burned with a vigour and kept burning, forcing people to ditch their weapons or shields while some just perished before being able to remove their armour. The second wave hit the army and it hit as hard as the first, causing more casualties.

The army was dwindling as they marched due to the arrows and the commander knew it. He handed the glowing stone to a soldier and then pulled his bow out. The elder had heard from me about how that bow was enchanted and could break his luminous protection spell so everyone was told about it and told to be careful. Once people noticed that bow a good quarter of the arrows redirected themselves towards the commander. He had several mages make a mana barrier for him so he was safe even with the slime arrows raining down and burning the barrier. He strung his bow back and an arrow made of pure mana appeared in the bow. He then aimed at the wall and let the arrow loose and strung another arrow.

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The arrow shot out from the bow at rapid speed and impacted the barrier that was put up. There was a resounding boom as the arrow slammed into the barrier, but the barrier held fast. The arrow left a crater in the barrier and the elder was seen channelling mana into the barrier to repair it. People handed him mana potions to replenish his supply and he downed 2 bottles and continued to channel. He was now sitting cross-legged on the ground rather than standing on the wall.

The second arrow impacted the barrier and another boom echoed across the village. Another crater was left and the crater was sealed up. This went on for a while, with both sides hoping the other would run out of mana first but the army was now very close to the wall and the commander channelled more mana into his bow than last time and fired 2 arrows at the same time. The two arrows impacted the barrier and the explosion that came after was far louder. When the smoke cleared up there was a hole in the barrier that was slowly sealing up. The commander wasn't the only one attacking the wall though. All of the mages of the army had been attacking the barrier as well, trying to run it dry of mana and break through. Once the hole appeared the focus of the spells changed and the spells flew into the hole.

The explosions and various spells slammed into the wall but the wall held for now. It had been enchanted and any damage being done was being repaired via mana thanks to those stationed on repair duty. The crack was sealing up and it seemed it was going to seal up but I noticed something odd. I called out to the others near me. "Hey, what's the person with the wind wall stone doing? He's running straight into the crack!"

That got the attention of everyone and arrows impacted the wall along with other spells. Unfortunately, the wind wall held and all of the spells were stopped while the slime arrows didn't hurt him as he had a barrier active. The barrier was rapidly cracking due to the sheer amount of flaming slime on him but he got into the centre of the crack before the barrier broke. He channelled a massive amount of mana into the stone and soon the wind wall covered the edges of the crack, preventing it from closing further. This allowed the army to get through the barrier and attack the wall directly.

The commander's arrows soon slammed into the wall and the wall wasn't nearly as strong as the elders barrier and cracks started appearing in the wall after a few impacts. It wasn't all bad though as with the wind wall maintaining the crack in the barrier there was no longer anything protecting the army. This proved deadly as once again Ornal called for all focus to go onto the main body of the army rather than the commander. Dozens of arrows kept raining down from the sky and slammed into barriers made by mages or the equipment of the army. Some people hid in the crack, keeping them safe but the rest were fair game. The barriers around the mages cracked and soon they screamed in pain as they died. One after the other they kept dying and the army dwindled down to a mere 37 people. The wall had been blown open and the remainders of the army marched into the breach.

"Don't let them through the breach! Bottleneck them here!" came a cry from Ornal and the warriors and other melee fighters joined the defensive line at the breach. Ray and Herold had joined the fight down there and were helping to hold the army off with Herold using his taunts to drag attention to him while Ray used the same crimson energy as back in Namph but this time far more controlled. He cleaved through the iron armour with relative ease and that surprised me. That energy seemed to be very potent. It wasn't the red mist that I used, no it was very different. It reminded me of something from the game but I couldn't put my finger on it.

I had been fighting all the while these random thoughts were roaming my mind since the barrier kept me safe from any ranged attacks but I focused back on the fight. It had always been a bad habit of mine for my thoughts to wander during a fight back in the game. That needed to change though as doing that now would make die, and I wouldn't respawn this time. The remainders of the army were being bottlenecked at the breach and only about 6 or so people could attack at any one time. This let the people defending to hold them back with relative ease. I looked for the commander but to my surprise he was gone. I saw him fleeing on horseback and called out to the others. He fled with no shame, knowing the fact that he led his men to their deaths and simply abandoned them. Ornal gave the order to try and capture a few people but that it wasn't a priority.

The fight quickly ended after the commander fled. The army finished off and 4 injured soldiers were captured. while the rest had died in the fight. The barrier the elder was maintaining soon dropped and the elder got up while huffing for breath. He looked ragged and over a dozen empty bottles littered the area he had been sitting. He burned through quite a lot of mana it seemed. The elder didn't stop to rest though as he went about to heal anyone that was injured and helped where help was needed.

~~~

It had been a day since the battle had passed and the village had been cleaned up and any damage was repaired. The bodies of the dead army had been cleaned up by me. I told them I would burn them in the forest and I could easily carry them with my inventory as it had limitless space. The storage bags all had limited space so it would have taken multiple trips using them to carry the bodies there and I was given the task. I head to the forest to create more shadowsoul undead. I thought about what we would learn from our prisoners. I wanted to know why the hell the army had persisted us so hard. It was way beyond the aggression of simple slavers driven by money. There was something more going on here and I didn't like it one bit.