We rested for about two days and collected any supplies the other two armies could afford to spare, then we broke camp and marched for Caraetous Pass. I didn’t waste any time and ordered the army to start building fortifications and assembling the catapults. The tools the dwarves forged from Goldfire Renala’s scales made quick work of the hard, mountain stones and thick dirt. A 10-foot deep, 20-foot wide ditch lined the entrance to the pass, with my men in formation several yards behind it. It was lined with makeshift stakes and covered with illusion Spells. Captain Martha stationed as many ranged Classes as she could on elevated positions along the pass while Captain Dauf and Finlay arranged the melee Classes into a pike square, while the ranged Classes were lined up behind. This would be a live field test of our close-quarters shooting drills. The ranged Classes would shoot between the ranks using the Elven Lord of the Rings archery tactic I beat into them months ago. I kept the cavalry in the rearguard as a reserve unit. They guarded the supplies and the camp behind us.
Renala circled within the cloudline, hidden out of sight until I needed her most. Lydia was on her back, undoubtedly the safest place in the Blighted Lands.
Idyia stood in the very front of the formation, right beside the first line of pikemen. Though she didn’t carry one, she wielded two shortswords and a more womanly version of the golden armor the rest of the army wore. Like me, she painted her gear in darker blacks and browns. Her armor was so thin it looked like leather from a distance. Her silver hair hung freely from her ponytail and swayed hypnotically with the wind. After training with them nearly every day, the soldiers saw her as their Drill Sergeant, and having her take the front, golden blades in hand, was a massive morale booster. This was their first real battle against the Endless Abyss. I needed every ounce of mental and spiritual strength they could muster.
Grey clouds hung overhead and poured down on us. The relentless plink of rain against 300 men and women in plate armor drummed through the pass. I smiled viciously. The mud would make it even harder for the horde to move. Every extra bit of stamina and energy the demons expended would be less they could wield against my troops.
After almost four hours of waiting, the mountain began to vibrate. Loose rocks fell into the pass. Pebbles gently bounced. I looked at my World Map and took a deep breath. Thousands of tiny, red dots were converging upon us. I climbed on top of a makeshift platform prepared behind the lines for this very purpose. To my left and right were two pairs of counterweight trebuchets, manned by Captain Rhodes’ logistics platoon. A pile of Magic Crystals was left within arm’s reach. Captain Rhodes handed me two thick ropes that were tied to the stabilizing pin of each trebuchet. I held them idly at my side while I magnified my vision and scanned my World Map once more. At the very edges of my heightened vision, I saw an endless sea of beastly goat-like demons.
It was time.
As soon as they entered my maximum range of 1,000 meters, I activated Select Fire, three-round burst, and explosive rounds. From Grenadier, I chose thermate grenades. Finally, I poured copious amounts of MP into Grenadier and pulled hard on the two ropes. Four immense, 250-pound boulders whistled over the ranks, catching everyone’s eyes. They multiplied into 12 and sailed high and far - farther than any normal trebuchet could ever hope to reach - and deep into the demon horde.
We all watched their descent. There were a few muted impacts. Then a wall of flames suddenly erupted in the far distance, followed by a cacophony of eldritch agony.
I saw my Experience bar start to slowly fill as dozens of demons were consumed by flames that burned at over 2,500C and exploded into molten geysers thanks to the rain. Water only made the thermate spread like wildfire, incinerating even more. On my World Map, I saw countless red dots try to push through the flames that simply would not stop burning, adding to the fatality count. My Skills applied to all ranged attacks and siege weapons were no different.
“Death!” Finlay cried out first, but the chant was enthusiastically repeated throughout my army. Pikes butts were pounded against the ground in murderous applause. I looked down at Captain Rhodes, who stood at the base of the small platform, mouth wide open at the destruction my single volley wrecked upon our enemy.
“Captain, reload,” I smirked confidently while I drained a Magic Crystal into dust.
Rhodes shook himself free of the shock and awe that paralyzed him. “Reload! Reload! Reload! Reload faster you lazy pieces of shit! Reload! Reload like your lives depend on it!”
Once again, I rained flaming hell down upon the demons as they stampeded their way toward us. Their charge was heavily blunted by my endless barrage of thermate boulders. It didn’t take them long to realize they wouldn’t survive pushing through the flames, so they tried to maneuver around them. But their chaotic formation and wild speeds inevitably led to collisions that either sent them into the flames or slowed them down even more.
As their numbers were culled en masse, demons sank ankle-deep into the thickening mud. Our elevated position sent streams of water down the pass, causing some of them to slip and fall. Then they entered my true kill zone, clustered and sluggish.
I switched from thermate to fragmentation grenades and launched another volley. 12 boulders landed among the first of the horde and exploded, shooting supersonic shrapnel wide and far across them all. They were so densely packed that I saw a visible fraction of them on my World Map vanish instantly. The army cheered at the rampant, indiscriminate destruction of Valeria’s worst enemy. I was just as giddy, feeding off a wave of controlled aggression.
Even in a world of swords and sorcery, Artillery’s still the King of Battle.
“Lift your head and hold it high,” I sang, letting my voice carry over the army. Some of them craned their heads to me, confused. Even Idyia threw me a strange glance. I shamelessly continued.
“The King of Battle is passing by,” I fired again and timed my subsequent volleys with each line of the cadence
“We’re the best that can be found. Watch out boys, artillery’s come to town!”
“The infantry is lookin’ blue! I bet they wish they’ere Artillery too!”
“Whenever the infantry get in trouble, the Artillery’ll be there on the double!”
My soldiers began to chuckle. Smiles cracked beneath their helmets. The tension eased for a few moments.
“The cavalry’s always in a fix. Artillery gonna come and save their nix!”
“Demons think they’ll give us a ride, but they can kiss their asses goodbye!
Even Idyia grinned now. I felt Lydia and Renala laughing through our bond.
“Finer soldiers you’ll never see. Way in the back the Artillery be!”
“Grunts and Cavs might be fun, but Artillery is always number one!”
My rain of thermate and fragmentation grenades continued until the horde finally punched through my kill zone with sheer numbers. By that time, I reached 7th Level. I gained nothing except for HP and MP at odd levels, so I didn’t bother analyzing my sheet.
The horde was now within 300 meters. I kept firing even as they poured into and past the kill zone.
“Nock!” Lieutenant Martha’s order echoed through the approaching rampage. Dozens of Ranged Classes loaded their bows. The few mages we had prepared their longest-ranged Spells. “Loose!”
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Arrows and magic danced alongside my boulders as they descended upon the demons. Another chunk of red dots vanished.
“Fire at will!”
The demons used the corpses of the fallen as meatshields and forced their way forward, through arrow, stone, and fire. We killed hundreds, but our ranged attack’s true purpose was to weaken their stampede enough so our lines wouldn’t instantly buckle from the mass of rampaging demons.
I grinned in morbid fascination when the ranged Classes began to fire between the small gaps in the lines, just like I drilled them to. This Elven close-quarters-shooting tactic was essential in maximizing every combat role even when the demons were breathing down our necks. While the ranged Classes could use swords and pikes, they were exponentially more effective with ranged weapons, as their Classes and Skills demanded.
Fifteen minutes after my first volley, the demon horde made contact with our hidden trap. They fell into the ditch by the dozens, creating a natural speed bump right before they crashed into our lines.
“Ready!” Captain Finlay and Dauf shouted in unison and pointed their pikes toward the demons as they scrambled over the rapidly-filling ditch. The pike lines did likewise. “Charge!” Within the last ten or so feet, our lines met the floundering demon horde in a brutal head-on collision.
Idyia was at the front, dancing and weaving between friend and foe alike. Her silver hair trailed behind like a sword’s tassel as she cleaved through the horde with her elven grace and demonic aggression. Idyia slithered through the shadows and reinforced any weak points in the pike line while the melee Classes took their turns stabbing and thrusting. The demons chomped at the bit for the slightest chance to draw blood, but their weapons and claws bounced off armor and shield. Even though they lost much of their original power after going through the forging process, the scales of Goldfire Renala, the second strongest dragon in Valerian history, were more than strong enough to endure. The demons couldn’t leave a single scratch.
But I could see the strain my soldiers suffered, their faces contorted against the pressure. Sweat poured freely under their helmets. Still, they stood fast and refused to buckle. Within this tiny little mountain pass, the demonic horde was now stuck in a meatgrinder. Either they were trampled from behind by their own kind, impaled upon pike and arrow, pelted by magic, or sleeved by my fragmentation grenades.
But a battle never stayed stagnant for very long.
I knew the demons had some kind of aerial units based on how they appeared as floating dots on my World Map. What I didn’t anticipate was how disgusting they’d turn out to be. They were a cross between a giant flying leech and a bat. Each one was the size of a warhorse. Their horrific appearances and ear-splitting screech drew eyes to the sky.
“Hold! Hold!” I ordered verbally and telepathically. As I continued to lay down artillery fire deep into the horde’s ranks.
“Renala! Kill!”
Finally unleashed, Renala roared, suppressing all other sound for almost three seconds straight. Her rage parted the clouds around her in a near-perfect circle, revealing her position, hidden atop the mountain, and all her golden grandeur. Lydia jumped off the saddle and transformed into a miniature dragon with bronzed scales. She was the size of a griffon - tiny in comparison to Renala, but just as bloodthirsty.
As a pair, they dove for the flying demons and vaporized a handful with a combined blast of golden dragonfire. They continued their twin descent and roasted the horde’s middle and rear mass as they strafed over them. When the demons retaliated with ranged attacks, Lydia used Renala’s massive body as cover. Whatever attacks the demons could muster bounced off her scales with a metallic staccato. With a mighty flap of her wings, Renala arrested her forward momentum and sent the smaller demons tumbling backward, as if they were suddenly hit by a hurricane. Lydia used her draconic claws and tail to hold onto Renala for dear life. Then, Renala burst back into the sky, her tail, wings, flames, fangs, and claws ripping into the flying demons that swarmed her. Mother and daughter were like a whirlwind of death that rained blood and gore down from the sky with every visceral kill.
Despite all of my preparations, my planning, my tactics, and my Skill combinations, the main reasons I was confident in holding this position were Renala and Lydia. The damage they inflicted with a single, united breath attack could decimate an entire battalion of clustered soldiers, especially if they were trapped in such a narrow space. With them claiming air superiority, it left my ground forces free to fight.
But after five hours of constant combat, my troops began to run out of stamina. Even if their armor and weapons were forged from Goldfire Renala’s scales, they were still human and a majority of them were only 1st Level. Even Idyia was starting to slow down. The mages had long since run out of the mental strength required to keep casting Spells even if they had a plethora of Magic Crystals to refill their MP. Lydia reverted back to her human form, drained, and clung to Renala’s back for dear life as she rampaged over the condensed horde like an A-10 with infinite ammunition.
At this rate, the lines would buckle from exhaustion within the next two hours.
I looked beyond my soldiers and into the demon horde. They were culled to a little over a quarter, however, I noticed small pockets of black flames lingering in the back.
The Greater Demons finally made their appearance, but they were staying far enough back that they could easily dodge my artillery barrage. Unlike the primal lessers, who took every chance to inflict horror and harm, the Greater Demons possessed far more intellect and self-control. They were observing. Waiting for the moment when my army would finally break. Then they would push us over the brink into a full rout by teleporting straight into us with their fresh and strongest troops.
I looked to Captain Rhodes and the logistics teams. They were just as tired as the rest of the army. Reloading the trebuchets at the pace I could fire was a tall ask for anyone, much less for five hours straight. I couldn’t allow the Greater Demons to take advantage of us in our quickly weakening state.
“Captain Rhodes, continue firing,” I discarded the ropes I used to pull the trebuchet’s stabilizing pins and drew Failnaught. I knocked an arrow; it was finally time to test fire my newest weapon.
I magnified my vision and used thermal imaging to positively identify the Greater Demons. I kept Select Fire on three-round burst but changed my ammunition type to High-Velocity then loosed. To my great satisfaction, the arrows flew at nearly supersonic speeds. The three arrows caught the Greater Demon by surprise, slammed into its minotaur-like skull, and exploded.
I picked off as many Greater Demons as I could before they finally dispersed, either on foot or via teleportation. The horde slowly realized their superiors fled the field and tried to retreat. Dauf and Finlay ordered the lines to part enough to make space for Victor and his cavalry.
“Annihilate them!” Victor shouted sword brandished as he led the cavalry charge to sweep up the routing demons. Just as I thought, the demons did have a command structure, even if it was barely functional. If I forced the Greater Demons to flee, their lessers would follow.
“Captains, get me a headcount: a full report on personnel and equipment status. Lieutenant Martha, reload your quivers. Captain Rhodes, get food, water, and Mana into these men. We’re sleeping in our kit tonight.”
After listening to my Captain’s reports, I dismissed them to eat and rest. Overall, we suffered only minor casualties. No deaths, thanks to our overpowered armor and weapons. But many soldiers had sprains, broken limbs, and severe concussions because heat stress drained their HP throughout the battle. I wished we had a Divination Orb to determine if the army’s average level increased so I could get a better assessment of our combat abilities, but none of the clergy save Balin wanted to associate with a Dark Elf sympathizer. After our command and staff meeting, I went straight to Lydia’s carriage. This was her first battle, so I wanted to see how she was doing, physically and mentally.
“Are you two-” I cut myself off when I saw Idyia and Lydia sleeping in the carriage. Their gear was haphazardly tossed across the floor and they were curled in the fetal position over their seats. Empty bowls of rations and a pair of mugs were piled in the far corner.
Even Idyia was driven to the brink. Physically, she was the one who moved around the most, drifting between the ranks to fight where she was needed. I gathered their armor off the floor and neatly arranged them so they were within arm’s reach just in case.
“Master?” Idyia cracked one eye open and spotted me just as I was about to leave.
“Go back to sleep.” I waved dismissively at her and quietly shut the door behind me. The guards I selected for Lydia looked dead on their feet. I reluctantly rotated them out with some of the cavalry unit’s better fighters. I kept them in reserve for this particular reason. They were still mostly fresh because they engaged only at the very end. I placed them in charge of guard and kitchen duty. Cross-training all of my soldiers into logistics was already paying off. The ranged Classes were also quickly recovering in comparison to the melee Classes. Some were already pulling security patrols around the war camp as per Martha’s orders.
Renala slept atop the mountain, her immense figure was prone at the peak, with her tail and wings hanging lazily off the sides. She was showering in the rain. The droplets steamed on impact, creating a small, white mist around her body.
I walked up to the ditch filled with demon corpses and crinkled my nose at the thick stench of rotting flesh. Crows were already hungrily picking at the bodies. The ground was soaked in so much blood it looked and felt like mud. My boot sunk an entire inch into gore. I stared up at the night sky. I should have been satisfied. We’d won the day and come out stronger for it. But all I felt was a sinking pit of emptiness.
All this death for only one level.