The elders continued to lead their armies across the kingdom of Smog. Each hunting elder led their own battalion of hunters turned soldiers from one battle line of necrotic siege to the next. The elders coming together and pulling apart their battalions, following in their footsteps. This allowed them to easily outmaneuver the far more static melee necrotic siege weapons that tried to stand against them.
Though that was not to say that the elders and their battalions had their way entirely with them. Well, it was true their maneuverability allowed the elders to outmaneuver the necrotic siege weapons. The elders pulled off enough pincers, flanking, and break through to prove their superiority on this front. Despite the pixie hunter army's tactical superiority, the melee siege engines proved dangerous for.
As every time they had broken through their lines and broken up, then surrounded the melee necrotic siege engines. They never ran, nor did they ever show fear; many would attribute this to them being nothing more than machines who could not feel such things and had no self-preservation. The pixies, though, could feel the truth, as they were sensitive to magic, as all pixies were.
Their enemy knew they could be destroyed; they knew they risked death by continuing to fight, and if they wished to live, they should flee. They did not because they did not care; they were beings full of rage, and each time one of their own fell or they were outmaneuvered, that rage grew. Their rage was growing so great that magically sensitive hunter pixies were actually feeling heat from the rage of the melee necrotic siege engines.
In fact, in normal times, they couldn't even approach the melee necrotic siege catapults with such concentrated magic rage as it would magically burn them to get so close due to their magical sensitivity. Though this was not normal times, as all elders were in the GREAT GRASS HUNT form, allowing them to counter the anger with their own power.
Well, the regular hunters were protected by the armor that made them soldiers. Their armor, in fact, somehow absorbed the rage, causing parts of the soldiers armor that bore the heads of trophies to turn rabid and constantly bite at whatever was in front of them. whether it was actually something or empty air seemed to be of no consequence to the rabid parts of the armor.
This new partial rabid status to their armor made it harder for the grass hunters to control their armor and not be consumed by it. The hunter pixers used all their will to not be melded with their armor into a new ferocious rabid being that had forgotten all its oaths and ties to the clan that knew only the rabid urge to tear apart all that were before it.
The elders saw this through their nine sets of eyes, thought on with their now one mind, and knew they must hurry and push their force faster, for the longer the battle went on, the more at risk they were of their own turning into rabid creatures and then turning on their own. So if they did not want to be their own destruction in the land of the undead, they must push faster.
So they did the elders now knowing the risk of a more calculated and safe approach that would get them fewer casualties but would take longer, risking the army turning on itself. So they got rather risky by making their battalions of nine break through and pincer the battle lines of the melee siege engines from both sides, pinning them in the middle of nine battalions.
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A more risky approach to what they had been doing before, which had been having several battalions merging together and then breaking through. Which had limited casualties, but it took time to do only a bit of time to get the merged battalions in position—not much time, but some—and now they were in position where every second counted, so they instead simply found nine different points on the line and simply charged through.
So they could then flank them from both sides, as half the nine battalions would be on one side and the other half would be on the other side, causing the melee necrotic siege tanks to have to defend from the front and behind. Which they had a hard time doing, but they gave a damn good attempt, as while line after line of broken melee siege catapults were left by the advancing pixie hunter army, there were also more than a few broken bodies of pixie hunters left behind.
The pixies hunter army advanced through line after line, each time they did so leaving more dripping bodies behind. As siege engines far off in the distance that were beyond the reach of the pixie hunter army would make sure that every step taken between lines was met with a barrage of venom that they filled the skies with.
The pixie hunter army slowly closed in on their target, the huge workshop that had once been a village that had been the home of the clan that had owned the lands and would again if this army had a thing to say about it. Though the Pixie Hunter army found itself closing in on the target that kept making reinforcements for their enemies, they also got closer to the champion of the necrotic siege engine army.
As they did that, they felt it was madness far better than was ever good for their kind. As they could feel it switching between utter hatred and misery with each step they took. It was starting to drive them insane, and so the elders had to give the order. "halt!" They shouted as one to their combined nine battalions, who were exhausted and slowly beginning to give in to utter madness.
"We will continue on; you will rest here!" The nine elders shouted to which the army sat down in response, resting and conserving their energy and letting their armor repair itself so they would be ready for whatever battle came next. The nine elders turned from the troops and slowly began to walk towards the champion of their enemy.
It did not switch emotions; it was filled with utter misery as it threw a countless barrage of venomous spuldge at them from its top at them. The elders swayed side to side, dodging every one with ease despite being three times the size of all the soldiers that had followed them. The elders slowly gained ground, not in a hurry to close with the champion, as its emotions were so raw and dark that even with their magic might in their current forms, it was barely enough to allow them to close with its dark nature.
As they got closer, they found themselves having already crossed half the distance between themselves and the champion. Though that had left behind a lake of green as the champions barrage had covered the earth in its venom. Then the nine elders felt the champion's nearly overwhelming misery turn into another emotion it had been hiding deep in its self.
It let loose its pure, utter hatred for them, sending the nine elders to the ground for a moment with the weight of it. "Now is the time of hatred. So prepare yourselves. I have watched as you led your kin against mine and butchered them across these lands; now your kin will watch as I smear you and be helpless to stop me." The champion said to the nine hunting elders, its voice dripping with contempt and hatred for their very existence with every word.