Maxwell found himself calming down from his earlier shock. As well, he had created three necrotic superweapons for his kingdom; that didn't mean he expected to need them so soon. As it seemed the moment he had finished the miserable rage catapult and his catapult workshop had just finished making a few dozen more regular smog and grass catapults to go with it, that a whole damn army was bursting out of his smog wall.

Then Maxwell found himself having to react quickly and make several fast but rather hard decisions. As before, these forces of pixies were led by an empowered elder pixie, which last time had gone straight through his defenses without much effort. But this time they were led by nine of the damn things, which had Maxwell slightly panicking on how exactly he was going to deal with them.

Luckily for Maxwell, his miserable rage catapult immediately made a deal with the threat and had his fellow smog grass catapult form battle lines and receive the enemy. They took massive casualties for doing so, but it gave Maxwell time to form a wall around himself and create several ghost leaf tornadoes behind the wall. So that way if the enemy pixies broke through, they would do so headfirst into his ghost leaf tornadoes.

He then had his smog grass elementals sad and rage both forming a secondary line with a few continuing to supply materials to the catapult workshop. So that it could continue to create smog catapults for the catapult army fighting the southern invasion by the pixies. Maxwell figured that it would come to him and his tornados after the pixies had worked their way through the catapults and the grass elementals.

Though he was proven wrong and happy to be so, as his miserable rage catapult defeated not just one of the elders or a couple of the elders leading the southern invasion. The miserable rage catapult defeated all of them and now had them trapped within its frame. Seeing that his miserable rage catapult was clearly about to capitalize on its opportunity as the now leaderless pixie invasion found itself demoralized and unorganized without their elders.

So Maxwell gave orders, the first he had given since the battle had begun, as he had taken a hands-off approach, allowing the miserable rage catapult to command it as it saw fit. Which had gone rather well, but now it needed to reel in its general and superweapon's clear blood thirst. As he wanted as many prisoners to be taken as possible.

As he was a ruler, and as a ruler he needed to negotiate and show that his kingdom was one of a higher status by negotiating a ceasefire, what better way to do that than by capturing the entire invasion army to his south? He would then use them as bargaining chips at the negotiating table with the pixies, finally ending hostilities. Proving to his lord Phabium of his skills as a ruler.

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Maxwell watched through the senses he had that allowed him to see anywhere within his domain how his miserable rage catapult went about capturing the soldiers that had followed the elders. Maxwell was rather shocked by what he saw as his miserable rage catapult used its rage to take control of the living armor the invading pixies had been wearing.

"Huh, did not expect that." Maxwell said to himself as he watched the rage rage of his miserable rage catapult spread through the armor of the pixies, driving them feral and under his control. Leaving the pixies, who had been wearing said armor, as his prisoners. "I did not know he could do that," Maxwell said to himself as he thought on this use of rage by the miserable rage catapult.

While the regular rage catapult had already shown they could repair themselves using their rage to some extent, Maxwell thought. So it isn't that much of a stretch that the superweapon version of them could do a bit more with rage than they could. Especially as it seemed the pixies themselves had a hard time controlling their armor, as Maxwell had noticed more than a few times when mandibles and pincers in the armor seemed to strike at empty air as if they were in a frenzy, and it seemed from the looks on the pixies faces they had a hard time containing their armor's ferocity.

"Hmmm, he would have to remember that the miserable rage catapult could use its rage in such ways and find out if it could use its misery in such unique ways as well. It seemed his superweapons had far more to them than he had first thought," Maxwell said aloud in his necrotic voice, though as he thought about it, he realized it shouldn't have surprised him, but it was something to look forward to nonetheless and something he should study in the other superweapons to see if they were capable of more than originally shown.

Though now as he thought on the other two superweapons, his mind turned towards his commanders, Horter and Bunet, who were holding their forces and superweapons at their outpost. "Well, they won't be pleased that they missed all the glory for defending the realm." Maxwell said to himself as he thought about how he had those two maintain their position in case invasions happened on other fronts. But that hadn't happened, and now the invasion looked to be over with the youngest of his commanders, as the miserable rage catapult could command, having led defense by itself.

Which would no doubt sting their pride a bit; he would have to find a way to rectify that. Perhaps having the two help him secure a route between his kingdom and whatever capital the grass pixies had so he could get started on negotiations would balance out the scales. Though how he would go about such negotiations would be a difficult thing, as it wasn't like he could sit down with them for a conversation, though hopefully Wormer could provide aid on that front.

Maxwell's thoughts were interrupted as he felt a new force push through his wall of smog. He turned his attention and saw it was a new army of pixies very different from the first heading straight for the undead hornets outpost. "Well, it looks like my commanders will get a chance for glory after all." Maxwell said to himself. Then he watched as Bunet prepared her superweapon as well as her swarm of undead hornets to meet the new pixie army on the battlefield as the second battle of this siege of his kingdom was about to unfold.