Lucifer casually waited in the tunnel Arthus to arrive, his dungeon sense told him that Arthus wasn’t far behind so we didn’t have to wait long. Soon he could hear the thumps of soldiers marching through the tunnel, like clockwork the tunnel was filled with a thunderous sound as thousands of armored feet made contact with the ground at the same time.

Not long later the army came into view and he into view of the army. Mages and knights rushed forward to confront the intruder. Then suddenly a loud bellow was heard “HALT” and all the men stopped.

Moments later a messenger came forward and quietly spoke to Lucifer, “his majesty wishes to speak with you” before darting away.

Lucifer strolled past some very confused soldiers and met directly with Arthus, Arthus looked between a woman in the group and Lucifer which to Lucifer’s surprise was Ellora. Before he could ask what she was doing there Arthus spoke, “are you Lucifer”

“yes, I’ve just changed bodies” he replied.

“how much longer is this tunnel”

“a few minutes march at most”

They both nodded to each-other and began marching ahead of the army.

A few minutes later soldiers marched up a gentle gradient until they found themselves in a large field. The ground was filled with short grasses and flowers, the edges of the clearing were marked by a wall of thick Forrest.

Several soldiers remarked, “I haven't seen trees this big before”

Arthus asked Lucifer, “this is the elven forest”

“yes” he replied, “where did you expect the tunnel to lead to”

“well not directly inside the Forrest, and I can see some elves in the surrounding trees”

Lucifer turned his head to look in the same direction, “yes I had them make a clearing using their nature magics for your army”

“where is my brothers Duchy in relation to here, do you have a map”

Lucifer grumbled, “the elves are quite stingy about giving maps of their land, but you don’t need a map follow me”

Arthus and Lucifer both disappeared into the Forrest after Lucifer told Arthus to leave the escort behind. Shortly afterward Lucifer found that the Forrest was becoming less dense and he could see further, he jumped up into the tallest tree he could see and Arthus followed suit.

There Arthus could see billowing smoke coming from the distance, the two of them used their vantage point to find taller trees, then they went lower where the branches were thicker and moved from branch to branch occasional going up to see their target.

Arthus was far quicker than Lucifer and he found himself jumping up behind the still King who was standing on the tallest tree, he was about to ask why he stopped, however, he could now see the Duchy in the distance, the source of the smoke.

Below a great citadel stood with multiple rings of great walls protecting it, Lucifer had never seen such a construction before. It made Earths castles look like sand castles by comparison, each wall taller and thicker than anything he was familiar with.

However, even with this absurd level of defense that he was sure was only possible with earth magic, the walls were still breached, smoke rose from the city outside probably from looting, and two of the five rings were breached.

The outermost citadel wall still had burning wrecks of siege towers pushed up against its hard stone. Lucifer was surprised the Duchies could make such a tall wooden structure move effectively, he guessed that living next to a great forest along with the constant wars would have rapidly progressed siege technology.

Lucifer focused more mana into his eyes and got a slightly clearer image, there were several areas that had mounds of earth forming slopes over the walls, but they were few in comparison to the ladders and towers pushed against the wall.

The second breached wall had massive holes from what Lucifer didn’t know, which seemed strange because if they could simply blow up the walls then why would they waste manpower using the siege equipment, getting a siege tower into place would cost countless lives and using ladders to take walls was no better.

Arthus was a veteran of this worlds battles so he asked him about it, Arthus replied, “The Elior Duchy focuses on magic and they wouldn’t have any problems blowing holes in those walls”

“Didn’t the duchy lack mages”

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“until recently that was true, but a few years ago the Elior duchy suddenly started worshiping a god of light, changed their name and suddenly started training mass quantities of mages”

Lucifer replied, “did the duchy find some sort of treasure that allows them to overcome their deficiencies in magical knowledge and ambient mana”

“I don’t know, but I’ve received reports that the duchies surrounding Elior tried sending armies to investigate, however, they found out than a large portion of their armies were worshiping the same god and rebelled”

“that's not something you find out, what were their commanders doing”

Arthus laughed, “they have such high mortality rates in the duchies armies that none of the commanders are familiar with their next batch of fodder”

…

“so how do you plan to attack” asked Arthus

“we prepare and wait until the opportune moment”

Several days passed by while the Swadian army prepared for battle, the rested and ate well while sharpening their blades. The mages made more consumables and potions for themselves and the soldiers.

Lucifer dug underground to make ambush tunnels underneath the resting armies. He found the duchies were rotating which of them would attack the next wall, probably as a fair way to decide who has to assault the walls and make sure none of the other duchies would have a massive force advantage at the end when it was time to split up the loot.

He watched each assault to observe this worlds siege tactics and each duchy had its own preferred method, the first wall fell from a combination of mages and siege weaponry, the second from mages, the third from trenches that zigzagged to and under the walls.

The forth was breached by simply sending the entire army to climb the walls. Each man carried a few dozen steel tipped spikes which they stabbed into the rock-face as they climbed, this was an incredibly bloody method.

Rocks and boiling liquids were thrown down the wall killing countless climbers, small slits in the walls had spear-men stabbing any climber not paying attention, then when a climber managed to make it to the top he was met with swords and spears, however, this method still was surprisingly effective, the defenders were spread out across the entire wall so they couldn't push back anything meaningful, and the wall was quickly covered with easy handholds which even a child could climb, the rate of climbers reaching the top increased and soon the defenders had to retreat to the last citadel wall.

Lucifer asked Arthus why their soldiers would so willingly throw their lives away, Arthus replied that the duchies sometimes use potions to enrage their soldiers and make them dissociate themselves from reality, they don’t fight as well in such a state, but they listen to orders really well.

Hours passed by and there was no fighting, if Lucifer was at the commanders meeting he would hear several people arguing over which duchy should get the first pick of the loot. Eventually, they decided that they would each attack a section of wall and the first to breach the defenses would get the first pick, and whoever brought back the kings head would get second, third would go to whoever killed the most defenders and the others could fight amongst themselves.

The battle for the final wall started at noon, the few defenders that were left desperately tried to fend off the invaders, however, it seemed inevitable that they would be overrun and killed. Groups of mages wearing white robes stood in large circles chanting, several captured soldiers were tied up in the center of the ring. Once the spell completed their bodies projected a bright light before they themselves turned into light ascending to the heavens.

Soldiers and mages alike sang praise as the beautiful display, then the mages opened up the circle and faced their palms towards the wall and a large ball of light in the circle flew towards the wall.

The ball of light hit the wall and a dozen meters of rock flashed out of existence along with a flash of blinding light. All the mages covered their eyes with their hands and hoods, but several soldiers weren't’ so smart. After the flash of light, they were covering their eyes and screaming in pain.

Meanwhile, another side of the citadel was being viciously assaulted with handspikes and was already a bloodbath. The defenders were running out of things to throw down the walls, chandeliers and antique furniture was soon found crashing into the insane climbers from above.

Soon the first climbers made it to the top and were quickly shredded by the defenders which promptly used the men's bodies as new throwing objects. Even still the climbers still forced themselves up the walls, their minds too far gone as they frothed at the mouth with bloodshot eyes locked onto their targets.

On another side of the citadel, the defenders desperately moved heavy equipment onto the walls which hadn’t been used since the citadels construction. Their enemy pushed siege equipment slowly towards the walls and they needed more firepower to bring them down.

Towers of wood several dozens of meters high lurched across the magically flattened ground towards the walls under heavy fire. Fire mages sent bolts of fire in an attempt to ignite the mobile assault towers, but water mages held the fire back with water barriers while they hid inside well-protected sections of the tower.

Archers drowned the towers in hails of arrows hoping to kill the water mages through their narrow sight slits, however, the archers found more success aiming at those pushing the constructs, but for every man that fell, there was another that immediately filled his place showings its futility.

The towers were halfway to the walls when the heavy equipment the defenders desperately set up was put into action. Stored magic power surged through ancient arrays creating powerful magics, a last resort for the defenders which quickly made apparent why they weren’t used earlier.

Boom, mana surged through arrays that had been worn over time or the mages using them didn’t understand the activation sequence and the walls shook violently as several magical constructs exploded.

Entire sections of wall vanished, some sections of wall were now flowing molten lava and others turned to dust. The holes didn’t reach the ground, but the defenders would have to focus on those sections of the wall because they were now extremely vulnerable to the oncoming ladders.

This was a last resort and the price the defenders paid was heavy, however, only a few constructs exploded, most didn’t do anything and the few that did work were devastating.

Mana surged sapping the ambient mana dry. Large balls, beams, and waves erupted from the constructs that worked.

The waved exploded out in an arc turning everything in a 30-degree arc in-front of it into ash. The water mages in their towers didn’t even have time to cast a defensive spell as they and their towers fluttered away, easily carried away by the wind in their new ashen form.

Several beams raked across the enemy lines when their construct operators figured out their best use. The constructs were pushed side to side by warriors being instructed by mages, the concentrated beam of magic moving across the battlefield taking the lives of anyone unlucky enough to be caught by its rays.

However, these effects were minor in comparison to the destruction caused by the magic ball type constructs, they sent a single concentrated ball of elemental energy towards their target. The attacking soldiers looked at the slow-moving ball in mute horror as it lobed its way towards their ranks.

The ground shook violently and was vividly felt by the attacking armies on the other side of the citadel, hundreds of men fell from the walls as the mana enhanced rocks making up the walls shifted and cracked.

Areas where these magics landed were replaced with molten craters a dozen meters deep and hundreds wide. The battle here was essentially over, most of the siege towers were destroyed, any that survived because the construct targeting them failed were quickly cut down by the concentrated beams.

This army or what was left of it couldn’t fight in this state, their commander promptly gathered the survivors and retreated lest they be completely wiped out during the fight for loot. Perhaps the other duchies might kill each-other and he could swoop in and take some treasures for himself.

Meanwhile, underground a commander wearing brown gear and hosting a pick over his shoulder cursed, “WHAT IN EBOROS WAS THAT!!!”, as the ground shook all around him. Moments later he received reports from his subordinates that dozens of their tunnels have collapsed causing him more grief, “FUCK”

above ground the defenders watched the enemy army in confusion, normally this enemy would dig zig-zagging trenches towards the walls before beginning the attack, the shape of the trench would prevent a defending mage from sending any magic up the length of the trench, severely limiting most mages effectiveness.

On the walls, a heavily scarred man roared towards the earth mages with their heads to the dirt, “WHAT ARE THEY DOING”

One of the older earth mages replied, “I don’t know, but they aren’t digging towards the walls”

The man ground his teeth then sent most of the earth mages towards the wall having holes punched through it, hopefully, they could fill the gaps up fast enough to make a difference.