Now that the armies were within sight of the enemy defenses, everyone was able to take note of the unnaturalness of the area. Constructed walls were quite normal, but the lack of plant and animal life was a stark contrast from the surroundings. Cultivators were known for taking anything of use to them, and while the invaders would certainly find uses for lumber and medicinal herbs, uprooting trees was completely unnecessary.

The end result was a low point in the surrounding natural energy, sustained only by the flow from adjacent areas. Nobody was quite certain if it was an intentional tactic, some sort of petty vengeance, or if the invaders legitimately thought every plant and tree to be of value. It could be any combination of those factors, but it seemed like an unnecessary amount of effort. It would also have the effect of reducing what they could rely on to power their formations.

It would also take a very long time for the area to recover any of the ecosystem, but obviously the invaders didn’t care about that. They would only be around for a short time, and seemed intent on getting away with everything they felt had value. Which was exactly why they all had to die. There was no way anyone was going to let this venture be profitable for them if they had the chance, and they did.

Trebuchets were the first to begin to fire. There was little in the way of freestanding rock, so the local alliance had to resort to what they had brought with them or begin carving out sections of the ground around them. Not an optimal situation, but they had learned from Diamond Hill Sanctuary and stocked up on as much ammunition as they could. Everyone with a storage bag had at least one sizable boulder or other functional pieces of ammunition. With only a few dozen trebuchets they would have over a hundred shots each and thus not have to dig into the local supplies. The cultivators had little else in the way of bulky items they needed to carry, with only the formation masters requiring much other space. And while everyone might have liked to bring a mountain of medicines with them, they simply didn’t have them to take up that space.

The trebuchets began the bombardment, boulders smashing against the enemies’ formations a significant distance from the walls. WIth the ability of multiple cultivators contributing their energy to each trebuchet hundreds of cultivators were able to contribute, but they were only a small portion of the total. Nearly a thousand cultivators were present just from the Order of Ninety-Nine Stars, and they were pulling forces from many more groups of different sizes and strengths.

Those who studied formations organized groups to defend the trebuchets and others with ranged abilities that could contribute to the bombardment, making use of their combined energy to sustain temporary barriers.

A few of the trebuchets did more than hurl rocks. Making the utmost use of their range they launched projectiles up and over the face of the barrier to bombard the area from above. The barrier of course resisted such attacks just as easily, but what happened after that relied on how the defensive formations were made. First, it could be designed to annihilate incoming projectiles. That was the most energy intensive option, but also allowed for killing careless cultivators who tried to rush through, as opposed to solid barriers which would simply stop them. There was also the possibility of combining solid and retributive barriers, lashing back at anything that struck the barrier.

However, the invaders had opted for the simpler approach of a purely defensive barrier. It avoided messing around with complicated situations that might waste energy… in most cases. There was just one issue. If something landed atop the barrier, what happened to it? It was possible to halt its momentum before letting it drop through, which had its flaws. The option that had actually been chosen was to keep the barrier firm, which involved holding up the object in question. Normally barriers were sloped on top so that such objects would slide off. In the case of anything vaguely roundish it worked flawlessly, even with a much more gradual slope like was required for a large scale formation. However, for oddly shaped objects it worked quite differently.

A tangle of western creeper certainly didn’t function as a ball. It also had the advantage that its thorns were quite adept at piercing through energy. For something with the power like the formation they were up against it couldn’t truly ignore it, but it didn’t need to. All it needed was a slight hold and then it could just… sit there. At that point it was a constant drain on the formation, which would either try to reform around or through the thorns or have to deal with imperfect flaws. And the weight of the plant… while minimal, it still required support from the formation’s energy.

Formations simply set up and left to their own devices were easily exploited by such tactics, but the invaders clearly had actual formation masters with them. A quick adjustment on their part and a tangle of western creeper could be allowed to fall through the barrier with no further expenditures of energy, and the opening would only be formed for the briefest moment. Some attempts were made to attack through the openings, but few had the skill to do anything with it.

Those who could make such shots chose not to. The western creepers were only one part of the puzzle. They might fall harmlessly where there were no enemy soldiers standing, but other combinations were possible. The Grasping Willows, Wandering Bush Sect, and the Pink Pollen Sect all added their own little additions to the puzzle. Bundles of poisonous powder that would be happy to scatter about came along with anything that could perform the same function as the western creeper of sticking atop the barrier. They could either stay there, causing a constant drain, or drop through- hopefully causing damage to those below.

Once the ploy had become clear there was another option- having someone burn whatever landed atop the barrier- but that still took effort of some kind to deal with, and kept the formation masters distracted with constant decision making. Given what was known about the invaders, there couldn’t many proficient in formations, and having a large group fighting for control over the defensive formations would be detrimental even if they had them.

Things sprang into motion as the enemy formation reacted to an intrusion from underground, signaling the Black Earth clan with some specially trained giant lizards to help them with quick burrowing had reached their positions. It had been expected that the formations continued underground, but if they hadn’t it would have been an excellent way to circumvent them. There had to be a limit to how deep they went, but there could only be so much probing done. If they were too slow to take advantage of any openings they found their opponent might repair them.

At this point the main body of cultivators moved forward to begin attacking the formation together, forcing the enemy to keep resources devoted to them. Cultivators could move quickly, so if the invaders were allowed to think freely they could deal with the burrowers before returning to the main siege, but they had to devote forces to fighting off this assault or accept the formation being broken through rather quickly.

The ants were a factor as well. Some were scattered among the main assault while a large force attacked from the southwest, tearing at the barrier and forcing it to react to different locations. Because all of the visible forces were further to the north, the forces ready to react to the ants who were ripping and tearing directly at the barrier and thus the energy powering it were unprepared. And there were precious few responses they had to deal with them at range. Were they supposed to shoot arrows that might kill one or two ants each? They certainly tried that and were disappointed. Lobbing large balls of fire at the ants would have been highly effective… if they were easily damaged by energy. As it was, the distributed nature of the attacks focused insufficient power on any single point, which meant even the younger and less developed ants were able to resist it. There was also the ever-present difficulty of attacking out of such a formation, which caused ripples in the energy flow even when a formation was developed by formation masters.

The formation simply couldn’t hold as it was. It wasn’t quite at a failure point, but it was voluntarily retracted to cover a smaller area, directly defending the walls. That forced the attackers to move closer and left them more vulnerable but they had momentum on their side. They pushed forward as great waves, weathering the attacks of their enemies and countering with their own. The walls had already been scoured for weak points, and they were the primary targets.

The formation was no longer able to hold itself completely, breaking apart in limited areas and leaving the walls open to direct attacks. Heavily armored cultivators from the Iron Fist Sect crashed into the walls… and sent a section tumbling back. A particularly eager young man from their ranks let his momentum carry him all the way through the wall… where he found himself suddenly over an open pit. Caeus was yanked backwards by his fellow disciple Printza as they observed what very well could have been a trap… but was in fact just a large hole in the ground.

Any who had the experience could recognize it as a quarry, though not a particularly well organized one. Large pits seemed to go everywhere, with some being backfilled with tailings from other work. Small tunnels shot off from the pits which were more like proper mines… but without any of the structural integrity.

A many-legged lizard burst through the bottom of one such pit, providing another avenue of entrance for more attackers, starting with the Black Earth clan.

It was unclear if the invaders had overestimated the structural integrity of their walls or the power of their formations, but neither were holding as well as they might want. Nor was the morale of those assigned to the walls, as they began to retreat through what winding paths that were all that remained between the holes filled with rocky rubble or nothing at all.

Only a small number of structures stood in the middle of the area, most prominently a large pagoda surrounded by a number of buildings similar in style. Then there were various cobbled together rocky structures, and fields of tents that were barely half sound.

The attackers were tempted to give chase while their opponents were out in the open, but great power could be felt from the pagoda and those within it. Instead of rushing into danger, orders were given to halt so that the situation could be reassessed- though work continued at properly capturing at least one section of the walls, or the ground beneath them in some situations. Efforts were also made to move up the siege weaponry and properly disable the portions of the formations that could be reached.

Catarina involved herself with the latter, of course, but she found her previous plans were thrown completely off target. In a good way, perhaps, but it still involved significant recalculations. She was already exchanging excited glances with the other formation masters present.

The battle turned into an unofficial ceasefire for the moment, with the invaders retreating to their central section where they had put up smaller but slightly more structurally sound looking walls. The formations there seemed more strictly put together as well, and great power radiated from there- but the area encompassed by the walls seemed to make it suboptimal for them to harass the attacking forces from that distance. The defenses seemed poorly thought out in the larger section, where they simply didn’t have the manpower to hold the entire area. It seemed a waste of time and lives to even attempt to protect the outer walls, but there was doubtless some reason for it. Perhaps they were waiting for something.