Zeke watched the shifting formations with great interest. Akasha had not informed him of her strategy beforehand, so he was learning what she intended alongside everyone else.
Her first order was for Stella’s people to erect a defensive perimeter. That shimmering dome was clearly no simple construct. It was somehow different from the spatial hardening most Space Mages liked to use. He could not help but ask.
“What spell is that?”
Akasha did not even look up as she answered directly in his mind.
“It’s a dampening field.”
“...Dampening,” Zeke muttered, his eyes still fixed on the scene. From what he could see and sense, the spell’s nature seemed similar to Spatial hardening. However, instead of forming a thin, incredibly compressed wall of space, this field was less compressed and spread across a much wider area.
Zeke tried to replicate the effect in front of him. It was not difficult, at least not across a tiny area. Inspecting the result, he ran his hand through the small barrier he had cast before himself. The moment his hand entered, he felt it. Resistance. It was not like the hard boundary of a solid object, but rather as if his hand were pressing through an incredibly dense liquid.
Applying a bit more pressure, Zeke managed to force his hand through the area. Clearly, this was not meant to stop a determined attacker. However...
His eyes locked onto the hundreds of ballistae, archers, and mages gathered outside the spatial barrier.
Finally, the pieces clicked into place. This barrier was not meant to stop ground forces. Quite the opposite. Under the dampening field’s effect, projectiles would become nearly useless, robbed of all momentum. Only something with perpetual motion, such as a soldier advancing on foot, could push through such a field without losing all momentum.
“You are forcing a melee,” Zeke stated confidently.
Akasha answered without delay. “Yes. I had anticipated that the enemy would use their own siege arrays to lock Space. This makes a direct rescue attempt almost impossible and also disables one of our elite combat forces. I had to find a role for Stella that would still work under such conditions.”
Zeke smiled lightly. “That’s not all, is it?”
Akasha did not take her eyes off the battlefield, but he could see the faintest trace of a smile appear on her face.
***
“Fire.”
With a shrill whistle, a second round of bolts was launched toward the shimmering dome. And once again, Viola watched the same spectacle unfold. The bolts reached the defensive perimeter, slowed, slowed, and finally came to a halt before dropping lifelessly to the ground, joining the dozens of others already lying there in heaps.
“Cease.”
The captain’s voice carried not a hint of surprise or anger as he gave the command. Clearly, he had long since expected such a result, but in the end, he still had to follow the orders of their hidden strategists, no matter how senseless they sometimes seemed.
Viola watched with keen eyes. During this entire campaign, this was the first time she had experienced something like this. This was a real battle. Nothing like the senseless violence they had inflicted upon the natives during the initial phases of the war. This was a proper enemy force, one that could fight back.
The rhythmic thumping of boots drew her attention. She instinctively looked down. This was a sound she had heard hundreds of times. It was the sound of Legion troops advancing.
“We’re sending in the grey cloaks?” she asked the woman next to her.
The woman, who was also her superior, shook her head with a wry smile. “We’re sending in everything.”
“What?!”
The woman shrugged. “We have no choice. Can’t you see it too?”
Viola strained her eyes. Behind the shimmering haze, she could vaguely make out that the enemy had also taken up formation. In the center, she saw a creature towering over the entire battlefield. “Because of the Titan?”
Her superior shook her head. “Good guess, but no.”
Viola tore her eyes away from the intimidating creature and looked deeper into the enemy ranks. Then she saw it. At the very back, hidden behind the entire formation, were the same people who had previously hovered overhead on the backs of various flying creatures. “The summoners?”
This time, her superior nodded. “They are going to be a bitch and a half to deal with.”
Viola thought about that for a moment, but she could not find the answer immediately. She did not know much about summoners to begin with.
“How so?” she eventually asked.
Her superior continued to study the battlefield with a grim expression. “You’ll see.”
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***
Layla watched the approaching troops with grim determination. She did not have much strength left, but she would be damned if she allowed herself to be the first to fall.
Out of everyone here, she had likely infiltrated the enemy camps most often and had the best grasp of their internal order. She recognized the first rows of troops immediately. The Legion called them Grey Cloaks. In name, they were Earth Mages. However, their affinities were so low that they could hardly be called mages at all. Still, the Legion had found a use for them. They used their meager amount of Magic to strengthen their bodies to inhuman levels, turning their muscles hard as stone.
Even for a proper mage, their defense made them something of a threat. Or at least, it forced one to spend more strength to kill them. They would have been elite troops in any other army, but in the Legion, they were cannon fodder.
To put it plainly, they excelled at bleeding their enemies dry.
...Just what she needed, Layla thought grimly.
However, before the first soldier even reached the barrier, she heard an unexpected command in her mind.
“Fall back twenty paces and stand by.”
Fall back? Then would her sector not be completely undefended? However, for some reason, her feet still obeyed the order, and she soon found herself farther to the rear. Only then did she realize that her men had retreated in perfect sync with her. This was really neat.
Just then, the first row of Grey Cloaks reached the perimeter of the spatial field. She could see how their muscles tensed as they stepped inside. It was as if they were forcing their way through a waterfall pressing down on their shoulders. Even so, their steps barely slowed.
They would make it through.
However, before she could start to panic, a single figure stepped into her previous position. It was a woman carrying a spear twice the length of her body. Layla’s eyes were immediately drawn to the intimidating weapon. Its entire length gleamed with dark steel, and its tip was as long as a one-handed sword. The shaft seemed to have been carved from two intertwining snakes.
It was a fearsome weapon, and yet it somehow still paled compared to the woman holding it.
White hair and gleaming yellow eyes. An oversized fur coat and snow-white bare feet that sank into the stone as she casually strode forward. Zelkara, leader of the Bloodguard.
Cling.
With an ear-splitting sound, the shaft of the spear embedded itself into the ground. The woman began to stretch lazily, as if warming up before a light jog. Her eyes darted back only once, and Layla found herself caught in them.
Excitement. Unbridled thrill. That was all she could see there. The woman’s gaze was directed straight at her, and Layla felt a jolt run down her spine when their eyes met.
“These ones are mine,” she declared. “Got it?”
Layla nodded stiffly. In truth, she had wanted to curse. Did this crazy bitch think she was going to fight her for them or something? What a madwoman. Naturally, those thoughts stayed safely locked away inside her head.
Zelkara held her gaze for a moment longer before turning to the front again, seemingly satisfied.
Layla sighed the moment she turned away. Truly, everyone related to that Hohenheim kid was an absolute madman. But at least this would give her a moment to catch her breath before the true fighting began. She just hoped that this crazy woman could buy her enough time to recover some of her...
The thought froze before it could fully form.
Zelkara had drawn her spear from the ground, and with it a pale blue mist had risen. It engulfed the first dozen Grey Cloaks who had made it through the barrier and immediately froze them stiff.
Zelkara swung her spear in an arc; it seemed almost dismissive in how casual it was, but the air stirred up by that movement was enough to topple the completely paralyzed men. Layla watched in horror as those who hit the ground shattered into pieces like marble statues.
“...Spare me this rubble!” Zelkara yelled into the distance. “Send in the good ones!”
Her cries went ignored as more and more troops forced their way through the barrier.
With a click of her tongue, Zelkara charged, turning into a whirlwind of carnage.
Layla was left stunned. It was not only Zelkara. The entire Beastblood battalion was the same. The snakes, the wolves, the lizards, all of them descended on the Grey Cloaks like starving beasts scenting food.
It was a complete massacre.
Earlier, Layla herself had remarked that these troops excelled at bleeding their enemies dry. But what was this? These warriors did not seem to be slowing down at all. If anything, they seemed to grow more and more excited the longer they fought.
Meanwhile, the Legion troops looked like nothing more than meat for the grinder.
Layla’s mouth nearly fell open as she watched. This... was nothing like the battles she had taken part in before. It almost seemed too one-sided. She was beginning to feel bad for the Legion soldiers who had marched all the way up here only to be toyed to death by foes who saw them as nothing more than convenient chew toys.
As if to add insult to injury, this was the exact moment the summoners in the rear began to act. A host of summoned beasts broke through the haze and surged out of the barrier. There had to be hundreds of them. Most were rather small, but Layla knew better than to judge a summon by its size. After all, even an arrow could be deadly if it struck your throat. And these beasts possessed genuine intelligence.
The horde made it through the barrier and was immediately greeted by a shower of spells. Half of them died instantly, but the other half descended upon the soldiers outside the barrier with the fury of the possessed.
Layla saw a thorny crow slash past a man’s throat, leaving it mangled as he struggled for breath. Some kind of worm wrapped itself around another man’s legs, and a moment later he was convulsing on the ground. Biting, clawing, and all manner of other attacks left the next wave of enemy forces gravely injured before they could even reach the barrier.
Their formation was in tatters.
Even Layla herself felt confident she could have blocked such a charge, let alone those completely insane Beastblood warriors.
Eventually, however, the last of the beasts was brought down, leaving the space outside calm once more. But that was the moment the true horror of the summoners revealed itself. Barely a minute had passed since the fall of the last beast when the exact same horde of creatures came rushing out again.
Layla spotted the thorned crow once more, as well as that strange worm-like creature she had seen before.
She could only sigh at the Legion’s misfortune. That was the terror of a summoner. Unless you killed the summoner themself, they could endlessly recreate their bonded familiars. After all, the familiars did not truly die. Only their incarnations could be destroyed.
And the longer it took to bring them down, the more time the summoners had to recover their strength. In essence, that meant that if a summoner was properly protected, they could generate a veritable horde of nightmares without end.
She swept her gaze around, taking in the entire defensive arrangement as it began to fully reveal itself. Voidiron beneath their feet and at their backs. A protective barrier that shut out ranged attacks, followed by row upon row of close-combat specialists and a troop of summoners in the rear. Meanwhile, the sky was guarded by that flying fortress.
Layla could not help but sigh in admiration. It was absolute perfection. Even the Legion, which always seemed to be one or two steps ahead, appeared to have been caught completely flat-footed.
One thing was certain. If they did not do something quickly, the battle would be over before it had even truly begun.