I’d already spotted the siege towers previously but I thought they were either incomplete or being withheld for a later assault but now at least two thirds of them are getting committed to the battlefield.

Pushed onwards by scores of men and women, with no small amount of beasts of burden assisting, these juggernauts are going to be tough to stop.

A thin but stoic line of Rover’s maintaining a shield wall advance alongside every one of these towers, and a cluster of crossbow users hide behind them, utilising the infantry line as moving cover.

I’m pretty confident if I charge them there’ll be an enchanted weapon wielder or two to fend me off as well.

Why was there a fortress here? There’s no natural defence against siege towers, if we had even a moderately steep slope they probably wouldn’t be able to get up it thanks to their sheer size.

These things are massive, even if the wall had an extra dozen yards of height, I think the siege towers would still be taller.

I’ve been commanded to disrupt the Rovers so I guess I’m just going to have to try my best to bring at least one of these siege towers down.

Answering my silent prayers a giant stone smashes against one of the towers out of nowhere, shattering the wooden panels and raining down rock fragments on the steadily advancing infantry line.

I look back behind myself just in time to see another enormous rock getting hurled from one of the watchtowers.

I track it and watch as it sails through the air and smashes into the already damaged siege tower, breaking off great chunks from the already weakened siege weapon and wounding at least a dozen more troops.

Another two boulders quickly fly through the air, both of them targeting the same siege tower as the previous ones, this time one of them misses and the other one clips the side of the tower, ricocheting harmlessly into the ground.

Still with this level of focus fire maybe these five siege weapons aren’t that much of an issue.

Or at least they wouldn’t be if the Rovers didn’t have artillery of their own, surprisingly the counterfire doesn’t come from their lines but rather from the siege towers.

Hatches pop open all over these siege engines and giant bolts poke outwards momentarily before being fired at the watchtowers.

The impacts themselves are relatively harmless but the sheer volume of attacks is ludicrous, unlike our watchtowers they don’t need to focus their fire on one target.

They just suppress everything.

Some of the bolts even get sent flying at troops manning the battlements rather than the towers.

Then the moment their volley ends, a hail of stones and arrows begins to rain down upon the fortress, the Rovers aren’t aiming to disable the catapults or damage the towers, they just want to kill the soldiers manning everything.

Would this be the third wave? Or is this still considered something worth conserving strength against?

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Either way, it doesn’t change what I have to do, the only question is how do I go about attacking them?

Charging them directly isn’t going to do much but neither is anything else that I can think of, so a frontal assault it is.

Slowly I begin moving forward, making sure to pay careful attention to each siege tower before charging one of them.

I mean I could go after something else like the Rover camps but I’ll almost certainly get killed before I can get there and there are already perfect targets right in front of me.

Even after eyeing up the other towers the one that’s been previously hit is still the weakest link, it’s the weakest link more so because of the wounded Rovers defending it rather than the damage its taken from the catapults.

I think that most of the damage is superficial, with only a moderate amount of actual damage to its structure, the injured defenders will be far easier to capitalize on.

So they will be my main target, if I deal with them I can focus on trying to destroy the siege tower.

Upping my pace I go from striding to sprinting instantaneously.

I’ve already been noticed as I’m not exactly subtle and the infantry line is a good hundred yards away meaning they have plenty of time to react to my charge.

But it hardly matters, they’re too few in number to pose a serious threat, or at least I hope that’s the case.

A hasty volley of bolts shoots towards me but I manage to evade most of them by dashing to the right, the ones that hit me only deal minor amounts of damage.

Before a second volley can be launched I crash into and through the shield wall, trampling down three Rovers and sending another two crashing to the ground.

The crossbowmen try scrambling away but I easily dispatch the ones closest to me before moving on to the others.

The Rover infantry doesn’t even move up to engage me, they just scatter like loose sand in the wind.

Quickly, I make the split second decision to attack the siege engine rather than slaughtering the routed Rovers.

Manoeuvring around behind the siege tower, I come face to face with the labourers who are pushing it forward, at the same time as I see them they see me.

Immediately they stop pushing the siege tower and just stare at me in shock.

This shock morphs into horror once I grab the nearest labourer and tear them apart, the screaming, bisected Rover acts as a perfect morale damper and they fall back in a panic.

I’ve now got the perfect opportunity to destroy this siege tower, all I need is just a few swords and I can wreck the entire system of movement they’re using.

Turning around, I walk back to grab some but freeze when I notice the rough semi circle of Rovers facing me.

They didn’t retreat, they just reoriented themselves, even some of the crossbowmen have gotten back into formation.

Seriously? I leave them alone for less than half a minute and they’re already prepared for round two, did they rehearse this?

I barely take a step forward towards them before a lightning bolt pierces cleanly through me.

Evidently, the Rovers have battle mages of their own engaging in this siege.

Whatever this spell is, it’s bad, I can’t regenerate and I can feel my mana flooding out of myself.

I feel around with my limbs for some rocks, maybe I can hurt this battle mage before dying?

After turning around I don’t even get the chance to see this mage before my entire eye is obliterated by a less powerful but more accurate lighting bolt.

I still blindly throw my primitive ammunition in the hopes of getting lucky but my life is firmly over.

I should have just stuck with killing off the Rover troops instead of focusing on the tower, it’s less strategically important but at least that way they couldn’t fling a spell at me without risking their own troops' lives.