With all 3 of the Dire’s armies, the Main army, the East and the West armies, having now pushed their way inside of the Lycan capital city, they slowly began to crush the Lycan’s defense lines that were situated throughout the city.
The first defense line was the walls and that was breached in a very quick way, so the Lycans and enemy players had to regroup at the 2nd defense line. However, despite having established such a thorough plan to block their enemies, the 2nd defense line didn’t last long.
Maria’s magic tanks and magitek armors led the way and the Dire’s forces utterly crushed their opposition without breaking a sweat.
Their enemies had severely underestimated the power of such modern magical weaponry. They thought that they could destroy the suits and tanks using high-tier magic spells and skills, but unfortunately, each suit and tank had a magical barrier protecting them and their base armor had extremely high DEF stats.
They were designed to be unbreakable despite their roles as meatshields, so their durability stat was also high. The amount of money, manpower, and materials that Maria had invested in the creation of these weapons was no joke.
Maria knew it herself. She had spent at least half–or more–of her Empire’s entire budget on her military sector and a large portion of that budget went to the creation of the magic tanks and magitek armors.
Let’s also not forget the 3 terrors of the sky, the massive battle airships, the Endeavor, the Resolution, and the Zenith. There were also the numerous warships that were waiting on standby in the nearby rivers, just waiting for their chance to receive a command from their Empress to attack.
Unfortunately for her navy, Maria had no use for them at the moment because her army was fighting too far away from any of the rivers they were currently docked in.
The best they could do was act as a deterrent for any player factions that wanted to try and become a third party and interfere with the progression of the city’s ongoing conquest.
So much money was poured into this war, so Maria wanted to make sure that it was a complete success. All the cards that Maria could show were already shown in this final battle between her empire and the Lycans. She was going to make sure that everything proceeded according to her plans.
A few hours later, Ash finally received a report from one of his subordinates that their forces had finally captured all of the objectives that they had previously laid out.
Ash quickly went to Maria’s side and reported, “Your Majesty, we’ve captured all of the objectives from the first step. Shall we proceed with the second step?”
“Yes, start the encirclement. We’ll push back all of the enemy forces to the castle and then wipe them all out in one fell swoop,” Maria replied with a nod as a bit of excitement flashed across her face.
“At once, Your Majesty!”
Ash quickly went to relay the orders and the next step of Maria’s conquest plan went underway.
The city’s barracks, garrison, armory, and supply warehouses had been captured and the enemy forces were slowly being pushed back towards the city’s castle. The only thing they could rely on were the forces and supplies being kept within the castle’s walls.
Even if the castle was impregnable, they wouldn’t be able to keep the siege going for so long because they would run out of supplies sooner or later.
Once they ran out of supplies, their only options would be to surrender or make one last ditch effort to fight back against Maria and her army. The second option would lead to their immediate deaths, so Maria hoped that they’d choose the first option since she wanted to conquer the Lycans, not eradicate them.
Well, even if they did choose the first option, not all of the Lycans would die anyway. Maria had captured some Lycans already and was keeping them under her custody. They were the civilians that unfortunately couldn’t evacuate in time when the Dire’s armies had pushed into the city.
Why they hadn't evacuated even before then Maria didn’t understand at all. The city was going to turn into a warzone, so having civilians within the area would only become a hindrance to both sides.
She obviously wasn’t going to kill these helpless people, so she had her soldiers capture them instead after making sure that they were harmless. The enemy soldiers that surrendered were also captured instead of being put to death.
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Maria needed to recuperate some of her forces’ manpower after this battle. She was still wary of the various player factions that were waiting on the sidelines or were actively participating in the battle.
They wouldn’t permanently die like the Lycans did, so they might mount some kind of attack on her while she was busy trying to organize her forces after the battle. Maria wasn’t too worried about them, however, because she believed that the power she had displayed today would be a big enough deterrent to those that wanted to try and take advantage of the war.
The second phase of the plan was proceeding a bit smoothly when, suddenly, Maria received a report that all 3 armies had encountered some difficulties.
“What’s wrong? Tell me!”
“Your Majesty, our forces have somehow entered into a bewildering formation. The same kind that Your Majesty reported to us the last time you went on an outing,” Carmilla reported, after receiving a sound transmission from Ash who was on the front lines.
“A formation? Wait a second, is this on all 3 sides?” Maria asked.
“...Yes, that is correct, Your Majesty. The Main, East, and West armies have all been caught inside of a formation!”
Maria quickly looked at the map and narrowed her eyes, “A formation this large…it’s probably that annoying guy’s trick again!”
It was indeed the work of the Formation Master, Zhuge Lan, but fortunately–or unfortunately, depending on whose side you were on–the mastermind wasn’t present on the battlefield.
He had only laid down this massive formation beforehand to act as the Lycan’s true second defense line.
It was already within his predictions that Maria and her forces would easily breach the city walls, so instead of setting up a formation outside of the city, he set one inside of it.
Maria knew that in order to take down the formation, you needed to destroy all of the formation items that were used to create the formation. Her soldiers knew about this as well, since she had given them the information just in case, but it was really hard to identify these items because they could be just about anything.
It could be a pebble, a tree, or whatever the Formation Master desired it to be. Since the items were usually inconspicuous, it was hard to find them even when you were trying to look for them.
“Tsk, if I ever get my hands on that bastard. I’m going to strangle him!”
“Your Majesty, the frontlines are starting to suffer some losses and setbacks. What do we do?”
“...”
Maria remained silent and thought about it for a bit. With the formation being set up inside of a city, it was nearly impossible to find the formation items. It could be just about anything and it could be hidden anywhere.
The items would hold a significant amount of mana inside of them, so for mages and people who had talents or skills that made them sensitive to mana, those items would be like a beacon, making them distinguishable among the various random objects in the area.
However, Maria understood that her people would be hard pressed to find those items, considering that they could be anywhere–inside of a building, for instance, or more specifically, inside a cupboard or cabinet that was inside of a building.
The hiding locations for those items were just too numerous inside the concrete jungle of buildings, so it was impossible to try and break the formation by destroying the items. As for deciphering and taking down the formation, that was impossible because Maria didn’t have a Formation Master to do that.
As far as she knew, only Zhuge Lan was a Formation Master, since he was the only one that she had met.
Fighting inside of the formations was a complete no-go because their enemies could take advantage of the formation’s effects to slowly whittle down their forces. With no other choice, Maria quickly ordered her soldiers to retreat from the formation.
Unfortunately, Maria forgot that while it was easy to enter the formation, it was extremely difficult to get out of it.
“Make sure no one else enters the formation! As for the ones already trapped inside… try and figure out a way to bring them out! If we can’t find one…then we’ll just have to blast the entire area with the airship’s cannons. One way or another, we’ll destroy those formation items.”
“Your Majesty, then what about our soldiers that are still trapped inside of the formations?”
“Tell them to hunker down somewhere and prepare for the bombardment. I feel bad doing this to them, but we have no other choice…”
“...I’ll relay your message to them, Your Majesty.”
“Mhm.”
It was a difficult decision, but Maria had to make it. If she let them be, her soldiers would still die inside of the formation because of their enemies. Instead of letting them die without being able to fight back, it was better that she tried to at least rescue them by bombarding the entire area from the skies.
If her trapped soldiers were lucky, they might be able to make it out alive rather than just become living targets for their enemies.
Over at the side, Maria’s brothers and her friends were watching her silently. This was a side to Maria that they had never seen before. Usually, they would only see her playful and battle-frenzied side while inside of the game, but this cold and serious side to her that was so decisive with her orders was completely different.
They understood the rationale behind her decision, but to make that decision so decisively and execute it immediately without hesitation was not something that they believed that they could do.
“Your Majesty, your words have been relayed. The soldiers are at peace with your decision, please send the order.”
“Tell the airships to begin their bombardment and all mage class players to scan the area of any formation items! Those items could also be outside of the formation so look for them! If we could destroy half or even just a third of them, it might be enough to weaken the formation to the point where our trapped soldiers can make their way out of it!”