Meanwhile, on the castle’s inner wall, five bone mechas watched the outer wall with shock as a massive explosion took down their first line of defense.

“Those bugs! To think they would execute such a vile plan. Our brothers and sisters… We must avenge them!” A feminine voice hissed as she crushed the wall beneath her mecha’s hands. She tried to descend below, if only to save a few of her comrades, yet another mecha held her back.

“Sister Lexie I know how you feel but we’re under orders to wait on the wall until Brother Robert comes back from visiting Master Malous.”

“It is as Brother Gotao says. Please wait to unleash your anger until we are ordered to.”

The agitated Lexie threw off his hands with one of her own then motioned to the battlefield below.

“You want me to wait?! To let my anger smolder? When we all witnessed George, Welt, Carlos, June, and Sidney die a dog's death? I didn’t take you all to be mere puppets, needing to wait on orders to get your revenge.

“We were all supposed to ascend together with Master Malous. But those bugs, those vermin down there pissed and shit on our dreams, on our brothers and sisters! Where is your honor, where is your anger, your will, your need to avenge our brethren!? Ritter? Gotao? Vatara? Keth? Will all of you merely stand for this slight, sitting here to await your precious orders!?”

“Hey.” A gruff voice filled with barely contained rage came from the largest mecha of the group.

“You know how I, Keth, like to go into battle, Lexie. First one in, last one out. And if you question my honor one more time, I’ll cut you down where you stand.”

“Is that a threat?”Lexie asked as she moved for one of the magnums strapped to her side.

“Depends. How far do you wanna go?” Keth growled as he reached for the greatsword strapped to his back.

“H-hey... l-let’s not fight among each o-other. W-we need to crush those i-insects.”

“Stay out of this Vatara or I’ll cut you down first.”

“Interfere and I’ll plant a bullet in your head, Vatara.”

As the two turned their bloodlust towards Vatara, Ritter and Gotao moved to protect her.

“Enough.”

Just as tensions were boiling over, Malous' right hand, Robert, appeared in a jet black bone mecha.

“Master Malous has informed me that as long as we hold out for thirty minutes, he will ascend. We shall fight to the death to gain enough time, with Kota being the final line of defense.”

“I-isn’t he s-still heavily wounded?” Vatara questioned, filled with suspicion.

“Kot- it is fine. He... it volunteered to give up its personality and become a... berserker puppet. Any that go into that chamber that isn’t one of our kind will get torn limb from limb.”

The moment his words registered, Lexie smashed a ledge on the bone wall and leapt down, heading towards the battlefield and stunning those she left behind.

Ritter moved forth and yelled down at her.

“Where are you going?! We weren't given orders!”

“To get revenge!” Lexie roared as she walked forward, not even sparing a glance back.

“Fucking idiot... Brother Robert, are you going to allow her to do as she pleases?!”

“We’ll be following her.” Robert declared.

“Huh? Wouldn’t it be better to set up defensively, using our mechas as cover for our soldiers instead of going on the offensive? After all it won’t be long until our master ascends. His power alone would be enough to clear out all the insects.”

Ritter questioned as the others nodded off to the side, agreeing with his assessment.

“We can’t stay on or behind our walls if they can pull a stunt like that again unless you enjoy the thought of being a sitting target. The inner castle and lower chamber are protected against such vile use of mana, but if we’re forced to retreat there, the battle has already been lost. Even if we retreat to the castle and create a chokehold they’ll just use suicide bombers against us like they did a few nights ago.” Robert explained in a depressed tone.

“So we must go on the offensive. Ritter and I will follow Lexie’s lead. Vatara, you’ll go for the left flank, Gotao to the right. Keth, since you are the strongest of us you will be the second line of defense and stop any vermin trying to sneak past us to assassinate our king. The rest of the necromancers will be under your leadership.”

“Understood. I will not fail you, brothers and sisters. Stay alive so we can attain happiness together.”

“For happiness,” they chanted before descending from the wall.

…

“Reporting! Our earth mages say that even with our explosives they won’t be able to punch into the core of the castle. It seems to be made out of some sort of strange material our mages have never seen before. Also, the advance scouts have reported back. Five bone mechas are taking to the field, and one of them is black in color. Three are moving towards the vanguard in a spearhead formation while the other two mechas are each moving northeast and southeast respectively.”

“Figures. Another cup of tea.”

Ubel leaned back lazily as he ordered a nearby fox-kin child.

“R-right away Mister!”

“What are your orders, Commander?” Kist asked.

“The gods really don’t want us to win easily, those bastards. Send down the order, we'll be switching to plan B-2. And call off the suicide bombers, it’s better to hold them in reserve against the unaccounted for mechas. Plus who knows how many skeletons they have in reserve, it’s best to face them head-on and crush them.”

“Understood, should we also inform them about what happened to Volt?”

“No,” Ubel shook his head. “We can’t distract them from the fight.”

“Alright.”

It can never be an easy win.

“Here’s your tea, Mister Commander.” the fox-kin said, holding the cup out to him in his small hands.

“Thank you.”

Ubel took the cup and stared into the steaming orange-tinted water, swirling it around a bit in his hand.

Urist, I tried my best to scheme, to crawl and scrape our way to having an advantage. But all I’ve managed to do is make it a fair fight. How disgraceful. It’s up to you now to take it the rest of the way.