Facing a giant, complicated spell that was diving down towards our outpost, I didn't have many options to fight against. So, I simply spammed ranged attacks, for once not holding back the slightest as I let the Blade of Radiant Flame show its full potential.
"Lucky that it works better than I expected," I muttered as I watched the giant ball of mana destabilize on the way.
Unfortunately, that was only a temporary solution, as I could see another ranged attack already glowing in the sky.
"Pass me a spyglass, and report" I ordered the nearest soldier.
"S-sir," he stammered as he passed the glass to me, which gave me a few seconds to observe the enemy. "Commander Harold is leading our forces in a counter-attack, and…" he started, his voice fading in fear as he noticed the growth of another giant mana ball traveling toward our base.
For a moment, I ignored its presence and focused on the formation, trying to understand the state of the counter-attack, expecting to find a desperate last stand by our forces … only to get an excellent surprise.
The Drakkan forces had spread more than I had expected, but from the battle marks, it was clear that they were on a retreat, their broken armament showing the effectiveness of the new-generation armor-piercing shrapnel and other weaponry.
Once again, dispersing was the obvious idea to limit the effectiveness of the cannons, but apparently, that gave an opportunity for our army. Our elites, carrying the weapons I had created, were riding their armored carriers into battle, using them effectively as mobile fortresses.
Two ascended — true ascended — were highly visible due to their armor and performance alike. In a straight fight, any single one of them would have been able to massacre all our elites, but our forces were not coming close to giving them such an opportunity.
Despite their best efforts, they weren't able to catch up with the armored carriers. Maybe if two of them coordinated they could trap one, but that would leave the rest of their army, already panicking, vulnerable.
And, I wasn't exaggerating when I called their situation panicking. Some of them were rattled enough to ignore orders and run away, while others gathered together to create pockets of resistance. A weird tactic against in a battle…
"But not weird against an army of beasts and monsters," I muttered in shock even as I pulled my blade, and rapidly destroyed the second mana ball.
Which I destroyed with a slash of my blade, thinking what I should do next.
I had made a mistake, I realized. I saw their matching armor and their fancy walking, and treated them as a well-trained army. The performance of the mounted forces during the earlier battle further reinforced that impression, but they had been elites.
Which was clearly a title that didn't apply to ordinary legionaries. No, they were just a bunch of monster hunters, likely recruited for their class more than anything else, and power-leveled at a dungeon. They were reliant on their skills and levels, expecting to be commanded by Charisma.
And, now, facing an unfamiliar style of fighting, from an enemy they expected to steamroll, they were falling apart. I wondered if the knowledge that they were fighting against a bunch of Farmers caused their morale to collapse even more.
The armored carriers continued to circle around the army like some cavalry from hell, spewing steam as they slowed down occasionally, only for the elite spearmen to jump down to kill any legionnaire at the edge before jumping back into the cart, the situation.
Things might have been different if there were leaders with Charisma controlling the situation, but that was not the case, which I assumed to be Rosie's delicate touch.
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For once, it was good that my miscalculation came with a reward and not a punishment.
Yet, it was no time to relax. Two ascended, and the mages on their backline, already represented a huge threat, each one strong enough to change the battle. Things would have been far worse if one of the ascended just attacked the fortress and forced us to respond, while mages focused on the armored carriers.
Of course, I wasn't the only one operating with imperfect information.
I waited a second to see if there would be a third mana attack, and seeing there was none, I immediately opened another gate, directly at the last breach.
A good decision, it turned out, as unlike the other breaches, the last one was already halfway stabilized. As for the culprit, I didn't need to search for long. The pseudo-ascended, standing in front of a crystal device that was shining a red light against the breach to calm it down, was a good indicator.
I attacked the device first, wanting to ruin their plan before I could retreat … only for it to work better than I had expected.
The moment my mana attack touched the crystal, it shattered, showing itself to be a delicate device. And, the moment it shattered, the breach lost control, and instead of calming down, it turned more chaotic … with its chaotic energies spreading enough to devour half of the lizard army, and pseudo-ascended with it.
"Dangerous indeed," I said as I looked at the chaotic energies only for a second before I visited every other breach, and saw that things had calmed down. "One threat neutralized … for now," I said to myself before I jumped to the surface.
But this time, I didn't return to the previous fortress, but the one next to it.
I lacked the ability to transform my armor on the fly due to its highly magical nature, but pulling an extra layer and coloring it with Drakkan patterns had been easier. Once that was done, I touched the metal floor and created a tunnel down, closing it behind me.
I didn't keep traveling underground, as even with all my tricks, doing so would have been too slow. Instead, I moved near a steaming wreck of an armored car split in two — showing that our tactics might be effective, but far from unbeatable — I went back to the surface, and started running, doing my best to look like the panicking soldiers.
I kept an eye on the battle, ready to intervene in case of a disaster. Yet, as I watched, I could see the occasional figure in red losing their ability to move.
The battle might be one-sided, but that didn't mean casualties weren't mounting on our side as well. Far less than we feared, maybe, but watching every death was a stab to my heart.
Yet, I had to ignore them, because no matter how much I hated it, I was not only the commander but also the most devastating weapon of our small town. It meant that, no matter how much it hurt me to watch people I could save die, I had to continue.
Especially when I had the presence of two ascended warriors dashing to respond to the closest threat, only to achieve nothing. The moment I burst out of the ground to save someone, I would lose the element of surprise.
I continued moving closer to the battle, going directly toward the ascended warriors, hoping to catch up with them before someone noticed my situation. I had two advantages, as my absence was easily explainable by the breaches going on in the dungeon — my ability to move between gates was likely not a secret anymore — and I wasn't the only soldier doing their best to meet with the ascended warriors.
Only to be shelled by the base whenever they gathered too tight, forced to split.
The shrapnel was easy to ignore, but I still did my best to act as if I were affected, drifting closer toward the ascended while mixing the rest. Any other time, it would have been impossible to mix like that, but the panic of the retreating legionaries provided an excellent cover for me.
And, I drifted closer and closer, hoping that I might get the free shot I had been hoping for.
Unfortunately, those plans had been ruined by several balls of mana, splitting freely to target our armored carriers, something that surprised me. If they were capable of it, why didn't they start with it to begin with?
Was targeting a moving vehicle harder, or until now, had they seen it as an unimportant target? Or, maybe it was something more complicated.
Historically, they wouldn't be the first coalition where one of the allies deliberately stuck behind to watch the other party lose critical assets while they kept back, hoping to maintain an advantage after a battle.
And, based on everything I had learned about the new city-states, that last one was certainly likely. Their relationship was bad enough for one party to sit back while watching the Drakkan force lose more of their critical assets.
If that was true, the act of finally taking action was equally easy to explain. Either they had decided Drakka lost enough of their might, or they had been just promised something big enough to make them act.
Either way, it ruined my ambush. I couldn't watch while they destroyed all the armored carriers at once. Even from a pragmatic perspective, it wasn't worth losing half of our elites just to take down one ascended. And, it was certainly not acceptable for me from an ethical perspective.
My blade danced once more, countering the ranged attacks easily, the weaker attacks dispelled by one well-targeted slash.
But, it also revealed my position right at the center of the enemy formation. "You!" came a deep shout from a distance, one that I recognized easily.
Not that there was any mistaking the ascended warrior running toward me at full speed.