Shifting the quiver is such an hard and annoying job. I am cursing myself about why I had it set in the first place. On top of that I have to move the ballista as well. Better to focus on the task at hand or I won't get anything done. At the moment I am tired, though nowhere near as tired as what I was about five days ago.

The single day that I took to rest worked wonders in ways that I had not expected it to. The next day, my thoughts were so light that I completed my string of water in a single day. I mean it is not my first time pulling of something like this but you have to admit that right now it feels like my greatest achievement.

It might be my greatest achievement but over all it has been a waste of time. We did try to use it a couple of days ago, but shamon was really not doing it justice when he told me that the creatures were going to be dedicated. When he said that they would have no other thought in their head, I assumed them to be mindless creatures without any hint of a thought attacking us like a horde.

Now, the creatures are anything but mindless. A bit dumb maybe, but certainly not mindless. That is how they managed to screw with us in the first place. The damn beasts are using the corpses of their fellow troops to create a pile of corpses right on the wall.

The first thing that they had done when they had done when they reached this place was to dig up the corpses of their fallen brethren. With the ice preserving their corpses, most of these bodies were intact. Then they begun to deposit these corpses right on the southern gate. I think the creatures were originally trying to break open the gate by launching the corpses at it. (It is kind of like the magic that they used for that ice spike. Instead of the spike, they launched the corpses) With the iron skin, the gate can handle that weight quite easily. If that was not so, I would not like to imagine what would have happened.

Once the pile grew larger, I think they realised that they could simply climb onto the wall. Once the beasts began to climb it, there was no way to stop them anymore. All of this happened during the time that I was busy sleeping. Otherwise, I could at least tried to delay this corpse pile from being formed. (I do not know of any magic that is that destructive, but a formation mage always has his ways, even if he does not know it at the moment.)

By the time that I had entered into the fray, the ice beasts had already begun to climb the walls. Thankfully, just in this process of climbing it many of these creatures slip and fall to the ground. Many do not even rise up. they just get added to the corpse pile which has completely covered the southern gate by now.

Here I have understood the frenzy that these creatures can display. The instant that they are on the wall, they begin to bite and scratch at the soldiers. This they do even at the cost of their lives. An icebeast could have a spear in its heart and still it will keep trying to take down the man that has speared it.

Thankfully, at a time only three to four of these creatures manage to make it on the wall. That number has been growing steadily since the corpse pile has been growing. I have tried to help out the soldiers as much as I can. Most of the spears that I throw only end up adding more bodies to the pile.

Similarly, I can't help out the soldiers for a fear of friendly fire. Already the soldiers are dropping like flies. The ballista is very powerful and has helped out a bit in the battle but ever since the melee has begun it has lain there useless.

Meanwhile my soldiers have been facing some very serious losses. I have stopped counting our losses but we have dipped below fifty soldiers at the last count. At least we did not try and escape to the frozen peak. We would have been ripped apart on the plains.

As for what I am doing at this moment, that would be to patrol the walls. After all, it is clear that most of the soldiers have been concentrated on the southern wall. I am making sure that the enemy does not try to ambush us. The way that I am doing so is quite creative.

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. This is better than me purely using my mana sense. It is pretty exhausting, but I should be able to pull this for half a week more at least.

As for why I am moving the quiver, it is for the sake of a trap. As for exactly what I plan to do here, the lesser that I speak about it the better.

Let's just say that it is going to take care of all of our problems, If it works. Once I manage to complete this I am going to have to go and convince shamon about the validity of my plan. Well, I could try and command him to do it. But my trap is going to require his cooperation.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

(Almost a day later.)

I am again quite sleepy. I have been patrolling for quite a while now. The situation has stabilized somewhat. The creatures are still pretty manic, but they do get tired. It is just so chaotic that the soldiers are not able to make much use of it.

Most of the soldiers are still pretty active but with the drowsiness of a person who has not slept for a week. 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 and then return to fight.

Well, The losses on our side have been quite heavy. I am sure that we do not have more than thirty soldiers. On top of that, there is this soldier that has lost his arm. Honestly speaking he should be dead at this moment, dying due to the chill. He almost seems fine if you could ignore his missing arm but the chill has begun to affect him.

The formation core needs to be completed, very quickly at that or the attacking horde needs to be destroyed 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, now won't I? It took me nearly a day to just get everything in place.

Well, I decided not to 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, as I have to admit that I have been slacking in my patrolling. Well, if they were to attack I do not have any way of killing them. After all the ballista is not in a position where I can use it right now and quiver is also out of my reach.

By the way, I am already at the man's room, just waiting for him to complete whatever he is doing. Shamon is not in a very presentable state. (He is the soldierly type. They seem to be particular about this type of stuff.) 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 fight like this.

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. It can happen when you have too many thoughts in your head. I twitch in a similar manner when my master gives me a difficult formation to inscribe.

"Well, you are in quite a bind, aren't you shamon?", I speak, sitting next to him. That breaks his meditation in an instance.

"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 do 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 one step from the grave. They are already being slaughtered by the dozen.", 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 holding them off for so long, they will feel something wrong even if they are not able to specify what." He tells me.

"Well, I can try and mimic a natural break of the gate. It would make sense with the number of corpses piled over it. 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 fool these beasts?", 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, let alone one in the death trance." Shamon speaks, "Regardless, how are you planning to trap these creatures, is it one of your formations? Maybe that ballista of yours."

“There is a long tunnel like that near the east gate, which is meant to connect the armory to the living quarters." I speak. "It should be relatively close enough to the south gate so those creatures are pretty likely to follow us if they were baited inside. That is where I plan to strike the creatures.“

“Well, we are entering into a state where we need desperate solutions. What you are asking is quite risky. To let the enemy into the fort will ensure that we will end up at their mercy if it doesn't work.“, he speaks. “There is also the issue of the creatures actually taking the bait. How likely is that?“

“well, I have not thought that far ahead to be frank. Still, get them into that tunnel and I will make sure not one of these creatures will manage to leave that tunnel alive.“, I reply.

“Well, I think that might be possible, but it is still a big gamble.“, he speaks up. “If we do not end up killing them all, it is going to be a very difficult melee.“

"Figure out a way to get these creatures inside while I prepare the trap. I will manage the part of killing them.", I command him, feeling quite weird as I set the man's tasks. "As for the exact trap...........