Ash and Maria flew back to the war’s frontlines and along the way, Ash explained to her the current situation of the war. Contrary to Maria’s belief that not much had happened since her departure, many things had developed in her absence.
First of all, their forces had managed to conquer most of the lands on the continent. The North, South, East, and West were all under their faction’s control now. All that was left was the central regions where the Blood Faction’s capital city was located. The capital city covered a very large area–practically two-thirds of the central regions’ total area. This was where the vampire nobles that had been driven out from their lands were making their stand.
Thanks to the vampires’ united efforts in keeping the capital region safe, Ash, Carmilla, Raijuu, and her other forces couldn’t break through. They were at a stalemate but they were slowly chipping away at the Blood Faction’s capital city’s walls and their enemies’ morale.
The Vampire Lord still hadn’t shown his face on the battlefield which was a bit concerning considering that Maria’s forces were now banging on his front door. Maria wondered if the bastard didn’t care at all about his subordinates or if he was so arrogant to believe that he’d be able to make it out of this war alive.
Ash had already recovered his powers and was getting even stronger than before as well. Of course, it was likely that his archnemesis had also gotten stronger than ever since he was the Vampire Lord but with Carmilla’s help and Maria’s help, Ash was confident that they’d be able to kill the bastard who had destroyed his family and banished him away. He and Maria arrived at the frontlines of the battle at the Blood Faction’s capital city, Transylvania, the City of the Dusk Nobles. Carmilla was on the frontlines with her vampire retainers and was currently attacking one of the walls but unfortunately, she wasn’t making any ground since it was greatly fortified.
Raijuu and Alexa had already completed their mission to completely take over or decimate the other side of the continent and were now also attacking Transylvania’s walls with their forces at another location. The city was being besieged by Maria’s forces on all sides but the vampires were putting up a good defense so no significant progress had been made to invade the humongous city. The city covered a large area with walls that separated the city into 4 levels. The first level was called the periphery district where most of the vampire’s farmlands and pastures were located.
This level was protected by an enchanted wall that the vampires named, Wall Victoria. It was a very tall wall that reached about 100 meters in height and was around 30 meters thick so the typical siege weapons that Maria’s army used couldn’t breach it.
Even when her army’s heavy infantry like her mountain ogres, stone trolls, etc. tried to attack it, the effort was futile because before they could penetrate deep enough to make a difference, her heavy infantry units had to retreat or else they’d just die a meaningless death since the vampires weren’t just watching them do as they pleased and were attacking them. Trying to fly over was suicide because so many arrow towers and ballistae were spread across the battlements, ready to take down any aerial invaders. Not to mention that there were also the enemy vampires there that could attack their flying infantry units as well.
They had tried plenty of things already but nothing was working, unfortunately. Even the vampire dwarves’ magic cannons could hardly deal a dent to the wall since it was enchanted to withstand magic-based attacks.
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Maria had her officers gather the moment she arrived on the frontlines. The officers that could attend made sure to be present while the others that were too far had to use projection orbs to attend the meeting.
“Everyone, good work on pushing our enemies to this point while I was gone,” Maria said as she first thanked her people.
She hadn’t been able to participate in the war all too much since she was busy with the war on Gaia. Her soldiers, on their own, had pushed her enemies all the way to this state where they were now cowering behind their walls like a bunch of cowards which was a great cause for celebration.
“We’re still not done yet, however. We need to breach Wall Victoria and capture Transylvania. I know it seems impossible at this moment but fear not, we’ll think of a way.”
One of her officers politely raised their hand and Maria nodded for him to speak.
“Your Highness, we are glad that you’ve returned from your quest and I’m sure Lord Ash has already filled you in on our situation but realistically, as it stands, we have no hope of breaching Wall Victoria…at least, not with any means we have on hand. Flying, digging, destroying, and even night raids have proved to be useless.”
Maria could see that everyone was quite discouraged by their lack of progress for the past few weeks since they started attacking the wall. They had tried all sorts of methods and strategies, used every kind of weaponry and magic, but in the end, it was all for naught as the wall was still standing–unbroken and unshakeable. Ash was about to reprimand his subordinate but Maria waved her hand and stopped him.
“I understand that everything seems hopeless right now but as I’ve said before, we’ll find a way.”
Maria then stood up and snapped her finger which then blew away the tent that they were meeting under.
“Everyone’s morale, the officers, soldiers, and even the generals, are at their lowest right now so how about I raise it for a bit, yes?”
“Huh?”
“Your Highness?”
“My Queen, what are you–”
Maria stretched her body and toggled her [Metamorphosis] which immediately changed her into her Nephalem form.
“I had left you guys for a while but it wasn’t because I was just loitering around. This isn’t something that I want to use again so this will be the first and last time so watch carefully.”
After saying her piece, Maria slowly rose into the air with her 14 wings outstretched behind her. One by one, flaming eyes began to appear on her wings as a large concentration of energy began to gravitate towards her. Ash and Carmilla could see that she was about to do something so they quickly flew up along with a few other vampire generals and began forming a perimeter around her.
“Ash, Carmilla, tell the other officers here to get their soldiers ready. Once I destroy the wall, make sure they charge right away!”
“Y-Yes?”
Maria began concentrating and gathering all of the Mana in the air, pouring them into her wings and converting them into Divine Energy which she then poured into the technique she was about to fire. She used 1 million of her Divine Energy to power her [Sin of Greed] skill–this was the skill her [Dark Ray] had evolved into after she had become a Nephalem.
Once that skill was ready, Maria delayed its activation and began casting [Unholy] and after she was finished, she topped it off by layering [Nephalem’s Eye] right behind it and using whatever DE she had left to strengthen it.
She only had 1 unit of Divine Energy left in her which made her feel a little faint but after she finished casting and layering those 3 skills, Maria smirked before aiming her techniques at Wall Victoria’s supposedly impenetrable gate.
“Here’s a present from the future Queen of this continent! Fire, Greed’s Unholy Eye!”
Maria fired the 3 attacks simultaneously and combined together mid-flight, harmonizing to form a single skill thanks to her Divine Energy before striking the gate. All color seemed to have been drained from the world right at that moment as a blast that was akin to a nuclear explosion, erupted in the next instant.