I watched the attack start at dusk, the protective cloud that had hung over the Dead Zone for hundreds of years finally Dispelled by yours truly, restricting the undead and shades to nighttime activity only, the day now becoming a safe time.
Briggs had the newest people in front, fighting under the watchful eyes of the more experienced Hunters. They were there to empty their Stars through their Buffed Scepters, killing as many undead as possible, harvesting Soul Crystals, and when they were spent, retiring from the fight to Temper their Stars in a Seven Stars Formation.
Seven Crystals and seven Eggs, seven Novice Stars to Tier-5, took only a few days to happen with the help of the Formation. It meant their staying power doubled, while their hitting power quadrupled!
The grateful new Undead Hunters then started working on the Adept Stars of whatever Element was most suitable for them.
Red and I calmly dispensed Blessings of the Stars on large numbers of the Undead Hunters. That was the Blessing that permanently increased the power of all Elements by +50%... except Red and I had Blessing Elements blessed by a Blessed Blessing of the Sun, for triple effect. In short, it raised all their Elements by over 100%, doubling their damage output. It still left room for Blessings of the Sun or Moon at later times, which would override the general permanent Buff here, but it meant that we basically gave them all Spirit Seeds for their Elements, and the firepower for their cheap Novice spells then exceeded a normal Adept’s attack strength after using Soul Crystals!
Briggs warlorded them wonderfully, using Chaos Mages to gather in their enhanced Novice magic and double it up for the undead to enjoy. Replicated barrages rained down upon the undead with incredible strength, half of the undead often blowing apart under the first spell that hit them, and so we progressed up the wide avenue that was now stained white instead of gold, purged by the crumbled bones and vivic dust of uncounted thousands of undead.
Four new Mages had broken through yesterday, boosted by their fellow soldiers and not needing to buy an expensive Nebula Vein to do so. Being half-Mages with Tier-5 Stars and the Formation’s help had been enough for them to break through with one Element, the others would only be following. Our reasons for hoarding any and all Soul Crystals was soon obvious to even the densest soldier when they realized just how many of the things they would need if they advanced to Mage!
Still, the undead seemed determined to give us those numbers. They swarmed out to fight us, streaming out of the Pyramids nonstop towards our forces every evening now to do battle, and did not let up until the dawn started to rise in the east. Without their masking cloud, they had to retreat or go to ground.
Their initial charge ran into the Chaos-managed fusillade from the newest soldiers, who Cast into the ripples in space as fast as they could. One spell went in, two came out, and the incoming undead were peppered and annihilated as our own progress continued.
Arms of the undead forces would try to loop around to the flanks, which was where the most experienced Hunters went, as those undead were often Great Warrior or Commander-class elites. Interdiction fields made sure nothing was going to pop in on us out of nowhere, and Stillflight Fields went up the instant any fliers were spotted, bringing the Archmages on overwatch down out of the sky as well.
I watched a demolition team go to work on one of the lesser Shrines, another thing we were doing here, and why they couldn’t get their cloud cover back. There were a lot of Earth mages here, tearing apart these shrines, monuments, and other structures, all part of the greater pattern fueling the Pyramids. Leveling the ancient buildings and dispersing them opened up our field of fire, let us see the undead coming, and really incensed them, especially since we didn’t give them the time to put them back up.
Every day, we were coming at them, and I was sure they were noticing that we were getting further and further each time!
The Ahaws were not used to being dominated in a war of attrition like this. Sure, with the Ward up, we could basically last forever if they had to pass it, and they’d be destroyed by the sun outside their cloud, at least in the past.
But being forced back day after day, in their own territory, and without the Ward being used to weaken them, that was a different matter!
I had proven that I could utterly annihilate half-Sages and Ruling undead, but I wasn’t touching the weaker undead. The Mick wasn’t giving them any more confidence, as the Heaven and Earth Formation he kept up was helping out all the Earth, Lightning, and Air Mages in the areas below it, and wow, were the Ahaws going to have a surprise if they actually tried to take him on there.
Mostly our job was to sit there on overwatch, watch our juniors get stronger, and enjoy the sight of Briggs Warlording these guys to more effectiveness than they could possibly achieve on their own. Even without our sensing the enemy’s movements, he was often making adjustments before the enemy was, anticipating their reactions, the spread of their forces, and he was always ready to meet them, while they couldn’t even stop playing into his hands.
The main army had stopped needing to provoke the undead a few weeks ago, after we broke the Masking Clouds and the undead couldn’t threaten during the day and instead had to get themselves to cover. The army had only taken a few thousand more losses since then, a few more unwanted officers had valorously met their dooms, and they were basically standing at their stations watching as this force of Undead Hunters engaged in glorious battles that had the whole nation enraptured.
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A lot of the soldiers had volunteered to help us out after seeing how successful we were, but we took who we took, and nobody else. There were officers who were allowed to observe the movements, positioning, tactics, and coordination that Briggs used, all of which left them nearly dumb with embarrassment and inferiority. There was no way they could make their troops perform like Briggs could... and he wasn’t even a mage!
I looked over as there was a ripple in the Veil. It was extremely subtle, but I caught it nonetheless as I was paying strict attention to such things; they tended to indicate unwelcome surprises. Nothing was stopping the Ahaws from bringing in forces at other locations than right in front of us, after all.
This wasn’t that, however. It was more like... a door that had always been there had suddenly been opened.
-Briggs!- I /called out, staring into the distance. -They just opened the first of the Sun Pyramid’s lower doors!-
Briggs’ advance, already halfway to the central plaza where the two Pyramids faced one another, was instantly ordered to a halt. Overly-enthusiastic mages who thought they should keep going and shouted out enthusiastically to do so were knuckled under by their sergeants and peers who had learned to trust Briggs with their lives, as they never had another officer!
“Hunters and soldiers, the Undead have begun opening the second level of doors in their Pyramids. You already know that they have four entrances to their Pyramids, from which their forces come streaming out every night now.
“Each Pyramid has another eight, which means they can triple the number of undead that can be deployed when they are opened.
“Our advance here isn’t to make it to the Pyramids yet. No, it was to spur them to open up those extra doors, forcing them to bring more undead to the field to stop us.
“One door has been opened, but that will make little difference. So, they will continue to open more doors, and we will be halted, we WILL be pushed back.
“There aren’t enough of us, yet! We aren’t strong enough, yet!
“But we will be!
“Hold firm, take them as they come, and keep your faith! Build your strength! They are waiting in their fortress beyond this world, sneering at our efforts, not thinking we can go the distance, endure the battle, and do what needs to be done!
“They are merely wheat, and we are the harvesters! Farm them, get stronger, and one day ALL those doors will be before us, and there will be nothing they can do to stop us from sealing them, or entering to take the battle to them!”
“BOO-RAH!” shouted the mages as Briggs informed them of what was going on, why, and reminded them that they were in this for a long haul, not a quick victory, because there was no quick victory to be had. We’d learned that in Africa, and with me having to be very careful with what I displayed to observers, we weren’t going to rampage through and overpower anything.
After all, this was just the seed of the force that would be needed to take out the Pharaohs!
The Mexican Army officers were almost in disbelief at the casual way Briggs released such intelligence to the common-born men here fighting. Instead of inflicting doom and gloom upon them, all it did was rouse their fighting spirit, reaffirming their trust and belief in their Warlord!
I just smirked at them as Briggs redrew the lines back to where the new stream of undead looked to be attacking the right flank, and the Gunner Reserves took up positions on Disks to show the undead how they weren’t wanted there.
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Natural Renewal streamed past us with the rising sun. Those undead who couldn’t withdraw into a shrine or Pyramid crumbled down and were sucked under the stone and sands to hide themselves from the light. Their positions were clearly indicated for the following day, so that none of the lines would be broken by burrowing undead rising out of the ground or coming from buried tunnels out of unbroken shrines into our midst.
That was another reason we marched this way every day, instead of deploying ahead of time. The undestroyed shrines, lesser pyramids, and monuments were all linked by underground tunnels, which were all usually stuffed with undead. The further tunnels close to the Wards had long been collapsed, and were done so repeatedly as the undead tried to re-open them.
Still, that left all but the outer half-mile of the passages intact, and until we’d successfully managed to clear them away and kept them that way, all the buildings in that area were also still whole. It meant the undead could still flood out of multiple angles very quickly, which was why Briggs was clearing them away in the first place... and we were closing those tunnels entirely during the day by ripping them open, feeding the undead within to the sun and vivus, and then filling in said tunnels.
“Demolition Teams, you’re on!” Briggs ordered, a wave of his thick arm sending the main force of Hunters back towards the Wardwall at a trot. There the walking wounded would be treated for any injuries and they’d all enter Meditation to regain their strength, Tempering the Soul Crystals which would be laid out for them to take one by one, and they would help anyone who was about to break through.
The Demolition Teams would break down more stone buildings and fill in more tunnels with vivic-saturated stone, extending the neutral zone around our advanced position and driving the locations the undead could come out of further and further back. We didn’t bother willy-nilly destroying everything because we couldn’t position forces to keep them all closed, the area was simply too big.
It was one of the more vexing things about Briggs’ deployment strategy. Normally, advancing further and further should have just resulted in us being surrounded by undead bursting out of a hundred locations and rapidly enveloping us. Instead, those places were destroyed, open ground replaced them, and all they would do was run right into our flanking forces, who like as not were already in battle.
It was why the most experienced troops were on the flanks, since a mass deployment from the tunnels could swell the fighting undead numbers so quickly!
I drifted down to Briggs as he watched the Demolition Teams get to work on the nearest tunnel network. Little Turk was with them, his Staff in hand, and he hooted loudly as he smashed the ground with it, ripping the stones and sands apart with raw magical might.
The mummies and withered zombies in the tunnel below looked up into the sunlight, screamed hollow cries, and crumbled down as they were forced to burrow or be destroyed. Fast fusillades of vivic fire chased them down, catching most of them at their most vulnerable and making sure they’d not actually be coming back.
Cheap, easy kills, and more Soul Crystals, were always appreciated!
Fiery explosions blew down the connecting tunnel, followed by bouncing arcs of Lightning chasing them. Then the stone began to shift and move together, filling in as the attending mages did their work, the rest of the crew starting on the destruction of yet another small pyramidal monolith there that needed to go away.