Arthus dashed back through the tunnel network and found Lucifer setting cross-legged against the cave wall with his eyes closed again. He sighed and went to shake Lucifer awake again, however, Lucifer's eyes suddenly opened and he said, "Tell your men to get ready, it's about to start"

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Above ground inside the citadel walls.

Most of the defenders were focused on the new opening created by the religious maniacs, while all the duchies were now working together to breach through the new opening creating a fierce battle.

The defenders had nowhere left to run and fought with a savagery that came to soldiers without an escape route. The attacking duchies responded in kind with their own vicious attacks. Men were sacrificed to activate powerful magics sending explosions onto the defenders as if they didn't want the defenders standing on non-rumbling ground until their deaths.

On the walls, the defenders rained cold steel bolts from above. Only enchanted armor and prohibitively expensive metals could stop a strong siege crossbow, and this showed as each bolt either reaped a life or crippled one on its way to the ground.

However, the men holding the breach were slowly being pushed back. each man they killed was replaced with another and even though they were elite soldiers with the best equipment they couldn't fight forever. Soon they became tired and the few healers that they had run out mana, or worse, they started to get "overhealed", Their primitive healing magics over drafted the knight's bodies until the only thing left to burn was life energy and the knight's body itself.

The smarter knights stopped accepting the healing and simply tried to deal with the injuries until a Sargent overseeing his section could rotate him out. Those less intelligent or too afraid of death panicked and kept calling for healing.

The lucky ones simply dropped dead, their lifeforce already practically non-existent from constant wars. The unlucky ones fell to the blood-soaked mud screaming as their muscles and organs magically disintegrated. Most of these men were quickly put out of their misery by their enemies or even their allies if afforded the time. Some of these men found themselves dragged outside the walls to be sacrificed in some insane religious ritual.

On the city walls, the defending mages focused on countering the oncoming magic, each time a ball of light lobbed towards to walls or breach a different mage would finish his spell and erect a barrier in front o the projectile. They figured out that the light magic the enemies were using to destroy the walls exploded on contact with anything, so they took turns using low-level magic barriers to make them prematurely explode before they got to the walls.

The mages weren't having much trouble right now, they even had spare mana to support the knights below for once, however, the knights below were just forced back past the breach, now the other duchies flooded the Knights line and expanded the line like a balloon, and just like a balloon that was overinflated the knights line ruptured.

Thousands upon thousands of men rushed into the citadel, most ignored the islands of defending knights as they were being swept away by the attacking tidal wave of infantry.

Orders were bellowed out from magically enhanced throats and the walls began to be swarmed, the wall stairwells became packed full of enemies trying to get on top of the walls. the defending crossbowmen who were out of bolts took out their simple arming swords in an attempt to protect the mages, however, they were outreached by the enemies spears and quickly fell.

Meanwhile, men using iron spikes climbed the walls coming up behind the mages, before the mages could react they sunk their climbing equipment into their skulls. The mages counter attacked sending gouts of flame down the stairwells roasting everyone inside alive.

Those who could not attack he stairwells sent their spells at the climbers with limited success. Most of the spells missed as the climbers jumped back over the wall and stabbed their climbing equipment into the walls on the way down. Several men didn't have the strength to stop themselves or they were unlucky and tried to penetrate a particularly hard brick falling to their deaths. While others didn't get out of the way in time and were torn apart by magic.

The battle for the wall continued for only a dozen minutes before they were overrun and soldiers cheered at capturing the walls.

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Lucifer along with Arthus was in a tower on the 3rd most inner wall watching over the battle. Lucifer was sitting on a comfortable chair that Arthus wondered where he got it from, while Arthus half stood half crouched peering out the window.

"they only have the take the keep now and that was only built recently, so it isn't designed for siege warfare," Arthus said.

"a castle that isn't designed for siege??" Lucifer questioned.

Arthus shook his head, "blame my brother for that, the keep was originally only a small building with a garrison next to it, the original intent behind this place was big thick walls to stop beast hoards. if the walls were breached then the cause was lost and the nobles could escape through the secret tunnels, however, my brother didn't like having such a small castle for himself so he rebuilt it"

...

Lucifer asked, "how long do you think it will take before they take the keep"

"an hour at best"

"then we attack now," Lucifer said.

Arthus turned his gaze towards Lucifer, "more of them will die taking the keep so we wait"

Lucifer stared back, "and in an hour they will have a keep for shelter"

"do you think we can win this battle, we are severely outnumbered and the mages college isn't here, we ca--"

Lucifer interrupted, "we WILL win, with our combined forces it won't be a problem"

Arthus frowned, "you haven't told me what forces you do have, so how can I just send in my army this early on your word, we should wait for them to fight amongst themselves once they start distributing the loot"

"haah" Lucifer sighed, "everyone is nice and ordered over there, once things get chaotic I won't be able to use my trump card effectively"

...

...

"still not going to tell me"

"no, but I tire of your information gathering, I'm sending in my forces, do whatever you want with that information" Lucifer yawned.

"What!" Arthus almost yelled, "we are supposed to be allies--"

"I see it more as temporary cooperation, we are fighting a common enemy, I help you reclaim your countries lost land you help me fight against my common enemy which is also your enemy if you have forgotten"

Lucifer with a faint smile on his lips waved his hand and commandingly said "FIRE", Arthus looked surprised for a moment at the mention of fire, a lot of things were on fire it was a war zone. CRACK!!, CK.CK.K.ACK. Thunder cracked several times in quick succession and Arthus quickly turned his head towards the inner walls.

The skies were clear of any clouds, "was that thunder" Arthus mumbled before suspiciously looking towards Lucifer, "was that your trump card".

"I don't know what you're talking about, FIRE" CRACK'K'CK'CRACK.

Arthus quickly turned his head back afraid to miss what happened this time, but he still couldn't see what happened, he saw the previously still army that was preparing to siege the Keep suddenly abuzz with activity, however, he couldn't tell what the commotion was from here.

"FIRE" CRACK'K'CK'CRACK, this time he was looking in the right direction and he saw several ripples in the air from on top of the walls, it was extremely vague, so much so that even his divine eyes could barely make out the shockwaves.

Arthus enhanced his sight to the maximum he could before his eye muscles tore, he saw people in grey robes the same color of the stone walls carrying some sort of staff. they were laying down still and he would have missed their Silhouettes if he didn't just see the air fluctuations go off in concert with the thunder.

"wha--"

Lucifer interrupted, "I would suggest you get your men on the walls as soon as possible", as he motioned towards the duchy armies that were beginning to move"

"FUCK" Arthus cursed before he activated a crystal ring on his finger and issued the "GO" command.

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Underground.

A message went to all the generals and moments later the same message found all the Sargents in command of 100 soldiers, they gave the order.

Soldiers smashed the couple inches of topsoil roof above them and tore the newly grown roots apart, sunlight burst through into the cave mouth and hundreds of soldiers charged out as quietly as they could. they found themselves just outside the first citadel wall and the Sargents heartbeats quickened, 'what a frightening ambush tactic' some of them thought.

Soon they were grabbing anything they could find to scale the wall. the duchies armies helped greatly in this matter as there was still plenty of siege ladders against the walls.

Once the first people vaulted over the edge of the wall they quickly stabbed daggers into the few distracted guards on the walls. Meanwhile still on the ground, the Sargents were confused, there wasn't sound of any fighting above, but they could see their men continuously going over the wall.

They climbed up after their men and put daggers in their mouths so they didn't have to waste time drawing them when the jumped over the wall, their armor would have to take the first blow before they could sink their blades into the enemy.

However, once they get on top of the wall the deafening sounds of a large army below weren't from sieging the keep, they were fighting each other.

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Inside the fighting duchies battle.

Scouts and messengers ran back and forth looking for their superiors but couldn't find them where they should be. The battle was complete chaos. Several Sargents who's men weren't in battle temporarily gave their command to their underlings and went to find their superiors.

They quickly found each other when they couldn't find their generals and moved towards a group of frantic light mages nearby.

"you're not getting any commands either," remarked another Sargent, but the man he was talking to didn't hear him. He was staring wide-eyed at the center of the babbling light mages. The man moved to see what the other man was seeing and he too was stunned.

On the ground their general was dead, they could only recognize him by the excessive war medals the general wore because the generals head had exploded. Both Sargent's eyes met at the same time and they sprinted to the next general's location.

However, they found him in the same condition as the previous general, except this time the general's chest had exploded instead.

Again and again, they found the same thing until they found the commanders corpse. They were suddenly the highest command of the army, or at least that is what they guessed. One of them pushed the useless healers aside who were just "looking busy" to not make themselves look bad and grabbed the commanders ring.

One of the healers saw what he was doing and told him to wait, but was ignored. The man raised the ring to his mouth pushed mana into it and roared, "THIS IS--" CRACK'K.

The man's head exploded showering the healers in blood and brain matter. One of them ducked down and pleaded, "stop please stop" looking towards a tower in fear.

The remaining Sargent looked in the same direction, "YOU BASTARDS--" CRACK, his chest exploded into a blood-mist.

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The forward Swadian units on top of the walls watched the ensuing chaos below, they noticed ants climb the walls from all directions, but they stayed on the other side of the wall to remain unseen. when they looked behind them over the wall they saw undead marching from underground, some were skeletons while most were zombies carrying picks or spears.

The undead moved next to either side of the breach careful not to be seen from those inside the walls.

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The battle continued for some time, when a few squad leaders with no one to command them took it upon themselves to make their own strategy, they took their 10 soldiers along with crossbows and headed for the wall stairwells.

They stepped into the stairwell and it took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the light, "SW--" the first man to enter called out but his life was cut short when a blade removed his head.

The second and third person wasn't so lucky either and were cut down, however, one of the men protecting the stairwell was pulled down by his weapon that got stuck in a duchy man's body. "SWADIA IS HERE!!" one of the men bellowed.

This attracted the attention of several more groups who then forced their way into the stairwell and dragged the now dead Swadian troops out. With mana enhanced muscles they hosted the Swadianmen'ss bodies above their heads on spears yelling, "SWADIA IS HERE", while troops started swarming into the stairwells.

The surviving Sargents who were in the thick of battle or near it heard the chants and soon rings were activated and the Message channel flooded with reports of Swadian troops.

Specialized mages from all the duchies picked up on the unencoded messages and the other duchies men found out too. Soon the fighting slowed down to a crawl while most of the duchies worked together to verify the information.

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The Swadian soldiers knew the jig was up and their Sargents commanded the crossbowmen to attack. Bolts flew from ontop the walls and hit the unprotected Duchy soldiers below inflicting massive casualties.

However, their time was limited, they could only fire so many times before the staircases were overrun. They tried to find something to block them off, but they only found a few chairs some lazy nightwatchmen used. Just as the sounds of battle in the stairwells was getting close to the top and the soldiers were preparing to go back down the ladders, the ants swarmed over the wall.

The Swadian soldiers cheered as the ants dropped on top of the Duchy soldiers tearing them apart and giving them breathing room. They were able to let loose half a dozen more volleys before they received orders to retreat. The Sargents were confused but still complied.

Meanwhile, the undead flooded through the breach.

"UNDEAD" someone shouted.

Thousands of soldiers turned around and saw undead shambling towards them. "THOSE ARE THE DIGGERS"

"WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THEM"

Soldiers were shouting while the smarter and more observant ones kept their heads down, CRACK"k'CK, the thunder sounded again and a dozen yelling soldiers exploded. one man crouched down below line of sight and yelled in the ensuing silence, "ANYONE THAT IS SEEN GIVING ORDERS EXPLODES SO DUCK"

People quickly caught on to why they weren't' receiving any orders, their commanders were dead. so why were they even fighting here? They didn't have long to think about that question when the undead reached the frontlines and the fighting reignited.