Well, I will have to apologize to the people in the head office for the sudden cutting of the last log. To any person running around trying to secure any reinforcements (I will be thankful if it was crawling at the very least) for me, I will have to tell you that the situation here is stable or as stable as it can be for now.

Well, the reason that I had cut off so suddenly was mind magic takes a particular amount of focus from me, which is not something that one can keep up with when one sees the visual in front of me. I mean, maimed people are nothing new to me. Formation limbs are one of the ways that my master is so wealthy after all and something about this soldier with this visual was quite disturbing to me. Well, it is my first time in charge.

Thankfully, we had Shamon who quickly took control of the situation. He quickly began to organize our soldiers as the both of us made our way to the region that was affected so seriously. I began to check the formation base. The damn thing is nearly empty, which is kind of to be expected with the way that I have been using it. For now, I shall rely on the bolts in the quiver which number about thirty nine.

Regardless, now is not the time for me to complain as the situation is pretty dire for us. The ice beasts almost seem to have lost all their sense of self preservation as they charge at the wall in a crazy rush. They are using the corpses of their allies as ladders. they have piled up all of their dead at the southern gate. It is supposed to be quite a macabre sight. if I want to be honest I cannot see it from this far from the southern gate. I am closer to the northern gate at the moment, I can feel the mana of the ice beasts extinguish though that is a bit hard.

Right now, almost all of the soldiers are concentrated there pushing the creatures down however much as they can. They are not even trying to engage the enemy. The moment that a wolf jumps onto the wall, they are pushed off with most of them falling to the ground and becoming a new addition to the pile (they have a type of spear that is specialized for such a thing.). The creatures are not mindless though. Each of them is essentially scoping for the weaknesses of the base. A soldier blinks for a bit too long and the ice beasts charge towards him.

I don't know how Shamon is doing this, but it seems to be almost like magic in the way that he moves the soldiers. I can barely sense it and I am left in wonder. Looking at the southern gate is literally like looking at a guttering lamp in the darkest of night, about to be extinguished any second. Yet the lamp seems to be eternal under Shamon's guidance.

The line is barely holding though. Thankfully the actual number of injuries is quite low but that is not going to be the case for long as I can already feel the soldiers slipping and trying to hold their own. The only serious injury was the soldier who had become our messenger, who is at the moment with me, trying to keep his limb warm. Due to the chill, if his arm were to freeze the only hope he would have is to go to the frozen peak, with the chill mostly taking his life en route to that fort( imagine, every blood vessel, every mana channel in his body freezing because of the ice mana as his body slowly freezes inside out.)

At the moment I am doing the work of patrolling. After all with nearly all the soldiers here present at the southern gate the fort is quite sensitive to attacks from the other locations. I am linked with the formation core as I send the mana strings into the iron skin surrounding the fort. As long as a creature steps on the iron skin I should be able to tell their presence. It is a pretty advanced version of formation control, one that I have barely begun to use in general like this.

At the moment I am utilizing my mana sense to the maximum in a way that I did not even expect possible until now. Our soldiers are quite easy to sense, with the way that they contrast to the surrounding mana but the ice beasts are not so easy. It is like trying to spot a darker shade of black in a canvas of light black. You can do it but it is oh so easy to miss. Well, my job is to hit them with my crossbow if I do detect them.

Thankfully, the iron skin at the southern gate is quite sturdy and shouldn't be at any immediate threat of breaking. Else, with the way that we are outnumbered the gate will fall just with the weight of corpses piled on it. Some of these corpses look very old, leading me to believe these wolves have been doing digging of their own.

I do not like being so passive I am essentially being made to sit here waiting for the worst to happen, while constantly being on the lookout. I would build a thousand formations rather than handle this kind of pressure.

For now, though we have Shamon. Well, it is quite grating on my ego that I have to listen to him but for better or worse he is more familiar with these ice beasts and anyway, I do not want to deal with being the outsider trying to command them. It cannot be any worse than listening to Trevor. If anything, it makes me look quite open minded which is more useful than people expect sometimes. I do have a couple of ideas though, which I guess I should tell to shamon after the situation is somewhat stabilized. For now, I don't want to disturb the man. Let him do his magic, I refuse to believe that the ice beasts can maintain this brainless charge for long.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Until then I am back to looking at the war I guess.

(Almost a day later.)

I am again quite sleepy. I have been patrolling for almost a day as the situation has stabilized somewhat. The creatures are still pretty manic, but that does not mean that they do not get tired.

Most of them are still pretty active but with the drowsiness of a person who has not slept for a week. If it was me I would have given up almost ten hours ago. Thankfully, that means that the pressure on the soldiers has reduced quite a bit. The soldiers are resting in groups of five. They rest for a couple of hours, sleeping a sleep that could have rivaled mine at the beginning of this mess.

Well, The losses on our side have been quite heavy. The heaviest injury that these guys have faced is the soldier with the missing limb. Thankfully in this cold, the missing limb won't bleed too much though there is a worry about the chill.

The formation core needs to be completed, very quickly at that or the attacking horde needs to be destroyed very quickly unless I want this soldier to die. The soldier who has lost his arm, named Eleron is in a particularly deep shit. The former is nearly impossible and for the latter, well I will need to talk to Shamon about it. I have a pretty decent strategy to deal with the horde outside.

Well, I could not distract Shamon from the southern gate until now. It has been quite a brutal fight, based on what I have seen. Well, it does not take particularly long for me to reach Shamon, who is presently resting in one of the rooms closer to the southern gate. Thankfully, the ice beasts have not tried an ambush from another location, which while not particularly dangerous on our side would have been quite draining on my already limited quiver.

Shamon is not particularly in a very presentable state. He has the look of a man that has reached the very edges of his ability to think. The last couple of days have been quite exhausting for this man. Not that I am surprised, I have never seen a defensive maintained for such a long time. Granted, most of my military training happens with bastards who have never heard of the word defense.

He is at the moment sitting in the corner of the room, trying to meditate based on what I can tell. He is struggling with that the way he is twitching about.

"Well, you are in quite a bind, aren't you shamon", I speak, sitting next to him.

"Captain, well the last couple of days have not been very good for my heart. Regardless, I hope that you have a solution to our present problems. Even I am surprised that we have managed to hold against the beasts for so long.", shamon says, "If these creatures were a bit smarter about their suicidal charge, we would have fallen already. Heck, I tremble to think what our situation would be if one of the troop leaders were leading them."

"Well, I have a solution but it is going to be quite risky.", I begin. "I want to set a trap for the beasts."

"There is no place to set a trap in this region, unless", Shamon speaks, realization hitting him like a battering ram.

"Well, it is a bit of a risk but right now what other options will you have? Letting them in and killing them here is infinitely easier than trying to hold out like this. The beasts might have slowed down due to exhaustion but your soldiers are also about to enter into a similar state. Then they are waiting to be slaughtered", I tell him.

"That is not a problem, the fort can fall for all I care if we can live for another day. The problem is with the ice beasts. They are not particularly smart beasts, but they still tend to have very sharp instincts. If we were to suddenly open the gates after literally pushing them off for a day, they will feel something wrong even if they are not able to specify what." He says it to me.

"Well, I can try and mimic a natural break of the gate. It would make sense with the number of corpses piled over there. It will take me some time to redirect the iron skin in that area, but after that, the gates will be quite fragile. Will that be enough to keep these beasts busy.", I ask him.

"Well, I guess that could work. I honestly cannot predict with their leaders dead. I have never faced a troop without a leader before." Shamon speaks, "Regardless, how are you planning to trap these creatures, is it one of your formations? Maybe that crossbow of yours"

"Well, I can tell you this as long as the enemy enters into the trap, we will be able to get rid of this troop. All I need is a long corridor like space which can fit a majority of these creatures. it should preferably have two main entrances if possible.", I ask Shamon. This fort is not particularly large but it is not like I have spent particularly long in the fort itself.

"Well, there is a long tunnel like that near the east gate, which is meant to connect the armory to the living quarters." Shamon speaks, "It should be relatively close enough to the south gate so those creatures are pretty likely to follow us if they were baited inside."

"How about this, figure out a way to get these creatures inside while I prepare the trap. I should be done in about half a day.", I command him, feeling quite weird. "As for the exact trap...........