Despite their fears, there was no further betrayal and they managed to make it back to the inner fort safely.

they hadn’t seen any adaptors. They had come across signs of their existence thought, such as torn apart corpses and blood splattered scraps that littered the alleyways they went through.

The inner fort was far smaller and more compact than the outer fort.

The outer fort was made up of a few dozen streets and neighbourhoods, the inner fort on the other hand was located in the governmental section of town.

The wall of the inner fort was the same as the outer fort, it was a bunch of buildings that were reinforced and connected to each other with the streets being blocked off.

The main difference between the inner and outer fort was the insides, the inner fort surrounded a square while the outer fort just surrounded more houses and streets.

This wide open space was where the supply wagons and other important objects were stored.

It was also far more well defended than the outer wall, owing to the far closer defensive positions which allowed for faster diversion of forces as while as more coordinated counter attacks.

With everyone being so much closer together it was easier to communicate and focus fire on one target.

Perhaps the most important aspect though was that this was where the remaining mages were stationed.

This was their most secure bastion and also their last stand.

After funnelling through one of the heavily guarded entrances they got inside of the fort.

Just as Bertrand expected there were plenty of wagons and quite a few tents that filled up the square.

What he didn’t expect was the lack of soldiers, it seemed his group was one of the few that had managed to successfully retreat mostly intact.

He didn’t have time to ponder about it though as they were quickly back on the move, jogging over to a less populated region of the inner wall so that they could reinforce it.

Having to walk up the stairs was a pain due to their small size, it took everyone a full three minutes just to get up them.

Luckily the rest of the building was pretty well fortified and renovated.

Unlike the outer wall for instance, when they got on the roof there were actual sandbags up there.

Not only that but it had actual wooden platforms connecting it to the other houses instead of just having some wooden planks.

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The hole in the roof even had a ladder and the tiles had been utterly shattered and mostly thrown away, leaving solid sturdy wood to stand on.

Seer all it needed was a cannon and it would be an actual defensive position instead of a makeshift one.

Blindie walked over to the far left of the building, basically positioning himself on the front left corner of the roof.

Bertrand copied him, going over to the far right of the building.

All the linemen and infantrymen on the other hand just went over and stood guard in the middle and left and right sides.

There were only nine other troops up on this rooftop so it wasn’t exactly a tight fit.

The low numbers made Bertrand feel rather concerned, they had so many sandbags placed up here, clearly there was meant to be more people up here than the roughly fifty of them.

Just what had happened to the other defenders on the outer wall?

Because as much as Bertrand wanted to believe that his group was just early in sounding the retreat he found that hard to believe.

There had to have been twenty corpses they passed on their way here and those were just the bodies they could identify, there were plenty of severed limbs and random bones.

The other defenders on the outer wall had retreated as well, and they had done so earlier than Bertrand’s team.

They had also faced ambushes unlike Bertrand and his fellow comrades. Which made sense considering that they still had most of their strength when they retreated.

The adaptors likely left them alone because of that fact, choosing instead of pick off smaller groups.

But how had the other companies gotten so devastated that a few adaptors could wipe them out?

Surely there couldn’t have been more traitors?

The vetting process to join the Francia legions was rather intense and through, so it was very doubtful more traitors would be the cause for the lack of survivors.

Every cohort should have had a grenadier as well, so anything similar to that centipede creature shouldn’t have proven to be too overwhelming.

Perhaps they just simply got overwhelmed by wave after wave of zombies but that would take too long. By the time their position fell Bertrand’s group would already have been halfway back to the inner fort.

Whatever had wiped all those groups out was fast, very fast. The blood was just starting to dry on some of the corpses when Bertrand passed by them.

If it weren’t for their rarity Bertrand would have figured the watchers were what had caused the downfall of the outer wall.

Then as though to mock him, just as he had finished convincing himself it couldn’t be watchers, an entire house exploded.

It was a few streets away and he couldn’t see it at all as it was behind some very tall two and three story buildings but what he did see was the mushroom cloud.

Such a large explosion could only have been done by very powerful mages, or caused by very complex runes.

They didn’t have anybody who knew anything about runes in this legion and they certainly didn’t have such a powerful mage, which meant the culprit could only be…

”Watchers.” One of the linemen said, voicing Bertrand’s thoughts.

How had they gotten so powerful? All the mage they had displayed so far was limited to force resistance magic and some mental magic.

This level of magic was on par if not greater than a high mage.

Seer, just what was going on?

They had gone from facing basic zombies, to magical monstrosities, to adaptors, to centipedes and now they had to fight against high mage level beings?