Heinz led the troops at the front with his 100-members division. Thorian was added to his division as a replacement for Axel. Ken Dusker was also in this division. Lucien, right in the back, led the shooters’ division, leading it this time instead of Vyra.
The defending party this time seems to have positioned their fortifiers right behind their first division. The shooters on the top floor all chanted together and raised a massive hexagonal shield, just like Section C had done previously when defending. But it seemed somewhat different than before, Axel observed.
However, he couldn’t totally understand how different it was from before, from such a distance at least. He brought out a specific round-shaped artifact and commanded one of the fortifiers under him to pass it to Lucien. He also messaged Lucien through the communications bands about what he should do with it once he gets it.
With that done, he began to work on his own tasks, for now, the simple enough plan they had needed to be scrambled. Against Section A, when attacking, they had thought about deploying the same strategy of Axel hanging onto the siege arrow and reaching the top of the fortress, which they had used before.
But knowing Jaden, that wouldn’t work anymore, not that he felt like doing it either. He then proceeded to do as he pleased. He brought out his rune-engraving tool. Pouring mana into it, he started to engrave pseudo runes on the steel-made large siege arrows.
He engraved runes on 4 siege arrows as fast as possible and stopped. He would test out their mana shield with these first, then take further measures. Lumina also observed everything intently, trying to learn how he does things differently.
After he was done with that, he commanded the fortifiers to load these arrows first and be ready to fire them at a moment’s notice. It didn’t take Lumina too long to understand what kind of effects his engraved runes each had, considering she was a runecaster herself.
For a moment, the valkyrie looked at the back of Axel, who was helping the fortifiers set up the siege arrows; there was no emotion in her eyes or face, as always. She diverted her gaze after a few moments.
Axel felt her gaze linger on him, but he didn’t turn around and ignored it. He tweaked the siege machines slightly and instructed the seekers in charge of them to fire in a specific manner. Two of the siege arrows fired at once will target two specific areas of the mana shield.
Gareth’s announcement followed a few moments later, as the battle erupted into complete frenzy at the first clash between Heinz’s first division and the defenders’ shock troops. Lucien did an extremely well job as the leader of the sharpshooters, coordinating the long-range attacks with his complex spells, each move executed in a way that yielded the best results.
The advantage Lucien had on his part is that he could activate his Draconic aspect and use complex magics, and his body would not in any way show any draconic features. Keeping the use of that aspect to a minimum. Of course, that also gives a very limited amount of capability compared to its true potential.
He would also, from time to time, switch to his Aurauser aspect and fire spell-crafted arrows, covering them with his powerful Aura, giving them more power and a destructive flame-like property. The defending sides’ fortifiers did a good job of protecting their first division at the start.
The rune-engraved siege arrows also fired instantly at the announcement of the start. Axel had pinpointed them to two different nodes that could likely be weak points in the whole spell. Considering what he could infer from this far away, that is. The siege arrows both flew away with ear-piercing speed. Cutting through the air, the friction of the air in the arrows was almost nonexistent because of some of the runes. However, those weren’t the only functions he added.
But as the arrows were close enough to hit, small holes opened in the transparent hexagon surrounding the fortress. The sharpshooters fired their magic from the top floor. They were previously maintaining the barrier actively. But suddenly stopped doing so, as almost 50 of them shot long-range spells towards both of the siege arrows, one after another, through the small gaps that opened in the barrier.
Because of 50 mage Seekers converging their attacks on each of the siege arrows, they exploded partly, and their momentum stopped entirely as they fell into the water. Axel frowned. This happened to both of the siege arrows. He could see Jaden taunting him from the top floor.
He had added the runes for two functions, one to negate the air resistance and another for them to explode if they were near the mana barrier. However, they were taken down even before that. And no, if the barrier spell were adaptive enough to open small holes in it and change its structure in certain parts, as if it were exploding the siege arrows, this would achieve nothing, no matter how many tries.
And if he decided to go there by hanging on the siege arrow. They would basically shoot him out in mid-air, before he could even reach it. He frowned, unable to think of a way to use the siege arrows in a way that would work. But regardless of it, he commanded to fire the other two rune-engraved siege arrows. Again, the same result as they were destroyed before getting too close to the barrier.
At this point, Lucien had finally managed to get the artifact he had forwarded to him close enough to the barrier. The small, ball-like tool analyzed the components of the barrier and transmitted relevant information to him.
Digesting the information, his eyebrows arched in annoyance. It was truly one of the best group warrior-type defense spells out there. ’Was this thing actually in the academy store?’ he thought.
Something must have cost a fortune even for someone with more than enough money, like him. He began engraving a few more arrows with various types of pseudo runes.
Lumina, noticing his annoyance, asked, "What’s wrong?"
He pointed backwards while still engraving runes, "The damn shield is too good, I don’t think there’s a way to bypass it. Try and relay this to Lucien if he could somehow get close to it and do something."
She nodded with a frown and went towards Sophia to convey the message through her.
Axel again fired the two newly engraved siege arrows, which were imbued with barrier-type runes. It would shield and negate the attacks’ powers from the arrows’ bodies. Allowing it to get even closer.
The large arrows were indeed able to get closer this time, as a barrier was activated in front of them, when the magic attacks were about to hit it. But in the end, the barrier broke. Because of the limited power supply to the rune. It didn’t work.
[Hey, you want me to get close to that mana barrier spell and break it?] Lucien’s message reverberated in his head. He also replied instantly since he wasn’t engraving at that moment.
[Yes, that shield is too advanced; it stands as a ’unique’ type among Archon Grade Tier 1 tools, the very best kind.]