“So this is a Sovereign…”
Evan could not help but comment on the raw destructive capabilities of a Sovereign with awe, even if it was a level of power he himself exceeded.
“Evan. Be alert. The mages too. We have to be ready to drop at a moment’s notice.”
Noah's remark from his mouth that he sprouted from the back of the wyrm body caused Evan, who was admiring the power of aura, to look beside himself to see the entire mage unit marveling as alongside him by precariously peeking over the edge of the wyrm. Unsurprisingly, the mages, lovers of the arcane, were piqued at the rare display of mana aura and couldn't take their eyes off it.
“Let’s not get pissy, Noah. That rule applies more to you than me, and I properly have my eyes on the battlefield anyway.”
Evan’s retort made Noah dissolve his mouth back into the wyrm while inwardly furrowing his brows to himself.
“You’re not fully wrong, though. With this next play, I doubt the two will stay in hiding for much longer. Especially a prideful dragon.”
Having issues an ambiguous prediction the situation, Evan fell into silence and crouched as he watched for the second act, the main dish headed by the six generals, to unfold. The monsters, still paralyzed in fear after the erasing light, found that the enemy made another move before they did.
‘First Circle - Green Flare!’
‘First Circle - Green Flare!’
‘First Circle - Green Flare!’
‘First Circle - Green Flare!’
‘First Circle - Green Flare!’
“Noah! One more!”
‘I know! Does Evan believe me to be incapable of counting to six or something?’
Noah had only just had the thought when the last flare spell was cast on the ground far below him, completing a hexagon of green flares that encircled the monsters.
‘First Circle - Green Flare!’
‘Here we go.’
The remaining five of Noah's Earth slimes on the ground perished as they forcefully expended all their mana. Surrounding Zone Nu in a shape that formed a hexagon, six fortresses emerged from the ground and surrounded the monster army. The earth that was moved aside to allow the fortresses to emerge acted like a floor hatch as it opened inward, falling on the monsters and trampling a few hundred monsters under its sheer size.
Due to Noah only being able to afford one slime mimic in his current form out of his eight possible mimics for each form at the moment, only ten Earth slimes were free to sacrifice themselves to move earth to not only open the five gates but to also unveil the fortresses, the product of one slime splitting itself up to its limit of ten. However, this meant that one fortress would not have a slime available to unveil it.
This was one of the hurdles in their strategy, but was quickly resolved once it was suggested that the fortress that should've been unveiled behind Zone Nu, the one in the direction closest to Maruta Hill where the monsters charged in from, be unveiled at a slower pace with the mana of the soldiers instead of a slime. The idea was the demonically induced hostility of the monsters would force them to abandon the idea of exiting the encirclement of hexagons through retreating, much like how water that wished to flow downwards due to gravity would not flow upwards to exit the cup it was in, so that it could head farther downwards.
What also rose from below the ground along with each fortress were three battalions of infantry with magical rifles each, evenly spaced out between each other, facing the center of the hexagon from the neat arrangement they were in.
And standing at the front of the three battalions in front of each fortress was a general, each with their adjutants right behind them.
The eighteen battalions had eighteen thousand infantry soldiers, and hidden behind heavy weaponry or acting as support inside the fortresses were another ten thousand. A sum total of almost thirty thousand soldiers had risen from the ground in less than a minute! At this moment, a particular Archlich hidden in a cave grasped the essence of the enemy strategy.
With the aid of magic, military strategy on the Calysta continent was different from Earth’s but still overwhelmingly similar when those involved had the mana pools of the ordinary. With no high ranking demon bothering to lead large armies and heroes often acting on their own, Calysta continent had not seen how the magical prowess of an a few could turn the tides of war.
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However, here was Noah, possessing an extraordinary mana pool, and therefore this plan, where the monsters had been lured into an encirclement of fortresses, could be hatched, pivoting on Noah as an elementalist capable of moving massive swaths of earth!
“First volley! Fire!”
Inside the six fortresses, echoes of the six generals’ orders could be heard as the magical cannoneers and magical mortar operators loaded their mana into the weapon before them. In just a second after the command was given, chaos bloomed on the battlefield.
Explosions resounded, and instantly, a couple hundred monsters melted, but the bombardment was only beginning.
Bright streaks of light cut through the battlefield, now barely dimly illuminated by the sun which was almost completely hidden under Maruta Hill by this point. The sounds of the explosions that followed were deafening, a droning and lengthy cacophony that drowned out all else. The ground shook as if in the throes of an earthquake, and the battlefield was lit up with brilliant flashes of color, the aftermath of magical energies colliding with physical matter.
The dense ocean of monsters, as per their primal instinct, attempted to surge outwards, only to be hit square in the face either by a cannonball or by their fellow monsters that had been sent pinballing into the other monsters by the momentum of the cannonballs. Those that were struck by the mortars didn't even experience the luxury of being simply pushed back and were instantly squashed. All around the perimeter of the dark congregation of monsters, monsters experienced an average survival time of less than three seconds with the rain of heavy ammunition.
To those in the sky, they watched the numerous shooting stars of light contain the writhing ocean of darkness and hostility in a circle-like area. Some shots missed and landed on the ground, leaving deep trenches and scarring the earth. After several moments, as expected, the volley began to die down. The artillery required massive amounts of mana to operate and would require recharging after a dozen or so shells were fired. Therefore, before the artillery reached a point of only being able to fire a couple more magical shots before running out of steam, the bombardment would be stopped. With the bombardment dying down, the monsters began to spill out of the tight circle they had been contained within, like water seeping through a leak, as they rushed towards the humans within their line of sight.
Though roughly fifty kilometers lay between the outer layer of the dense circle of monsters and the encirclement of infantry, demonically induced primal hostility allowed the monsters that would usually never attack prey so far away to surge out to meet the infantry, who were holding rifles while neatly arranged in rows like a delicious meal on a platter.l
At this intersection, four parties would make their move.
First, the generals. With no more complicated roles or strategies for them to follow, they had only a simple order to issue to their troops
“CHAARGE!”
The soldiers who had been anticipating this order, steeled their hearts and donned resolute expressions. They lowered their guns that they had held diagonally across their chests diagonally downwards instead, then broke out into a furious forward sprint with war cries. Though the monsters were still at least five times their own cumulative number despite already having suffered heavy casualties, no soldier showed signs of hesitation, fear, or second thought, their months of training kicking into action.
They charged into trenches, sliding into them once they got close to maximize the speed at which they could prepare to fire, then immediately took aim. The magical guns only needed a small infusion of mana to automatically activate the Second Circle - Air Bullet. The bullet of the average soldier could tear a hole through a C-ranked monster in just one shot, with some of the more capable unit commanders tearing through several monsters as they infused more mana into each bullet.
Though slightly delayed, as if having made the decision only after heavy contemplation, the second party arrived.
Long, semi-corporeal flowing black robes, and the bony outlines of a skull barely visible under the final dying rays of dusk. This figure suddenly phased into existence roughly almost a hundred meters above the center of the battlefield, looking down on it with an arrogant expression.
Demonic Knight, Archlich Gradias had made his appearance. Without wasting even a moment, he began gathering mana to cast his unique wide-area spell.
‘Ninth Circle - Mother Tree of Rot!’
The spectators in the sky hadn't even reacted to Gradias’s appearance when the battlefield that had significantly darkened, suddenly lit up with the revived light of the sun. How could the sun have moved back up to cast its gaze on the battlefield again? No, this was impossible. It was just that the sun was no longer blocked. For a moment, the raging battlefield went silent as all life felt the ruler of the skies open his eyes. All felt an indiscriminate pressure weigh on their shoulders, whether they were monsters or humans.
Maruta Hill, though called a hill, was more of a mountain and was only named as such when the adventurer Klane, who had carved a path through Verdant Oakwoods, saw the mountain from a great distance and thought it was a hill. Throughout this entire battle thus far, Maruta Hill had towered over the battlefield and cast it in darkness, such was its size.
No longer.
The dragon had been hidden under Maruta Hill all this time, and now it unfurled itself as it raised its head and shattered the mountain above it! The frozen battlefield began to tremble as earthquakes rocked the ground. Rubble from the shattered mountain shot out like the pyroclastic explosion of a volcano, and the black dragon was fully revealed as the sun shone upon it.
“ROAAAR!”
As the dragon roared, a second sun began to gather in its mouth. Dragon Breath!
At this moment, the fourth party made its move. High in the skies, the eyes of a wyrm glowed scarlet.
For a moment, the battlefield was absolutely silent while it took a deep breath. It was calmest before the storm.