Chapter 95: Minvaral The Liar

To the west of the fourth ring, was the third ring, the desert which belonged to Siion. While in an enemy god's land, there were disadvantages, for the invaders, and advantages for the defenders. Each god had a passive ability, its effects weren't always obvious and some were incredibly unique. For the people in Onias's land, their advantage was speed, and their opponents would suffer a painful fire which would burn them slowly inside, during combat.

Siion's people gained immense strength, while their opponents' healing capabilities were halved. However these advantages were only augments to soldiers' existing abilities, it would only grant them a slight advantage over the enemy.

Minvaral and Mek-dih watched the other, looking out for any suspicious movements. "Sir, our mages say that the enemy mages are moving."

Minvaral quickly called one of the higher-ranked mages. The mage quickly explained the motions the battery-mages were doing and how it indicated possible attack gestures. Minvaral quickly asked one of his enemy-intelligence officers about what type of attacks battery mages were known for. "Goren battery-mages are known to charge their spells but attack individually. Their attacks are especially effective against slow-moving massive golem machines. Some of our foreign-intelligence units have described that their attacks range from tier 1 to tier 4."

The intelligence officer described the enemy personnel as succinctly as possible but the amount of information they had on battery-mages was immense and Minvaral had always been a thorough architect.

Minvaral began rearranging his troops. All the mages were wearing the same clothing, however, they were not the same kind of mages. Those of the 3rd army specialized in fast short burst attacks and were best against low armored, quick enemies. They were primarily a homeland defense force that met with threats that broke through Inatian borders and aimed for their strategic cities.

Even so, their power was undeniable, and their ability to adapt was just as incredible. The mages in the third army were primarily support mages, they were accustomed to casting mass-defense spells and mass-boosted-strength spells. The 3rd army's infantry were heavyweight troops with [barrier] shields and [tearing] blades.

The 20th army was optimized for invaders. Minvaral protected the holy land's first desert ring border. His soldiers had also grown accustomed to hunting the massive beasts that roamed the desert and also trained in some desert warfare. Their mage spells were explosive in nature, which used the environment as a weapon and shield. Of course, those were his attack mages, the majority of his army, however, consisted of omni-mages. That day, he hadn't brought his entire army for a specific purpose which Minvaral kept secret from most of his army; however, the reason he had given was Miar's distrust of his army, which wasn't a whole lie.

Mek-dih was slowly moving his troops around, the two knew that a battle would soon break out. After another tense hour, Mek-dih made his move.

"fire!!!" Mek-dih commanded and suddenly a large mechanical device on the mage lines began to glow and its pistons began to fire, the mages quickly calibrated the machines' positions: a massive red orb the size of a large tree formed inside a catapult-like holder. The mages whispered some incantations and suddenly these massive orbs arched into the sky; when they reached their highest point, the mages quickly cast some secondary spells, and in the next instant, these orbs fell towards the Inatian army at a speed nearly invisible to a normal man's naked eye.

BOOMM!!!! A single one of these orbs blasted a hundred infantry and tossed them into the air, along with them was massive dust cloud that covered the sun. Blast after blast, Mek-dih couldn't help but smile, his battery-mages' range was superior to everyone on the battlefield. Even so, Mek-dih didn't relax. Minvaral was quick-witted and cold. Minvaral was a man willing to sacrifice many men for a single killing blow.

Ordinary underhanded tactics wouldn't make him budge. Even so, Mek-dih felt he had the advantage. "Archers, Arcane sight!!!" Mek-dih wasn't going to take any chances. His archers quickly cast a [arcane sight]: an ability which allowed them to see mana signatures. Almost all things, both living and non-living, possessed mana within them and when an archer trained their [arcane sight], they could rid themselves of ambient signatures, dedicating their complete focus on faraway objects.

However, there was something wrong. Their sight had been affected. The massive dust clouds were laced with specialized mana, completely obscuring their vision. The surprise was short-lived as almost a soon as they realized what was happening, new orders came in, "fire!!!" The archers quickly began firing blindly into the sand cloud. However, the archers grew anxious, the lack of screams perturbed them. no matter how many arrows they fired, they couldn't help but feel that they weren't hitting anything. Mek-dih also sensed the subtle quietness, something foreign to a battlefield.

"STOP!!!" Mek-dih commanded as he quickly turned to his scout mages, "Scan!!" these handful of frightened mages quickly cast their [scan] spells, searching both the skies, the earth, and the radius around them. however, the revelation of what they found was almost too much for them to bear. "Where are they?" Mek-dih asked. The head of these scanning mages quickly uttered, "In front of us commander."

Suddenly, the words from within the dust cloud caused Mek-dih to shiver in anger and anguish. "ICE!!!" A common low-level omni-mage spell burst from withing cloud in a cold blue hue, hitting the desert hill the front line infantry stood on: the infantry suddenly lost their footing and slipped into the dust cloud. "AGHH!!!" the terrified screams of men fell on the armies ears, but they didn't dare show any hint of fear. More then the men below, they feared Mek-dih's wrath. But to their surprise, Mek-dih remained completely calm, as if such a situation was within his expectations.

"march!!!" Most of his infantry had escaped the [ice] spells effects, however the sudden order they received felt as if the outcome would be the same. "archers fire!!!" The couldn't understand Mek-dihs reason but they did as they were told. The archers switched to their bright arrows; arrows that would flash blinding lights within large radii. The infantry quickly shut their helm which had anti-flash magic already cast on it.

Within the blinding sand cloud, moments of clarity surfaced as the bright arrows illuminated everything in short radii for them. their opponents were heavily armored men and. These men were unperturbed by the dust clouds, but the sudden burst of flashes blinded them, giving the Goren infantry the advantage.

The bloody melee continued for several minutes, neither one giving the other any room for respite. For every Goren soldier which fell, an Inatian soldier would also fall. However, as the battle continued, the Inatian army began showing a stronger resolve, as the Goren infantry stamina dwindled, the Inatian soldiers only grew more energetic.

“ready!!!” the battery-mage commander relayed to Mek-dih. Mek-dih quickly responded, “fire!!!”

“but.” The commander suddenly grew anxious, their soldiers were still engaged with Inatian infantry, if they fired, it would certainly kill their soldiers.

“I said fire.” Mek-dih quickly said in a calm voice but the suppressing energy he emanated proved his state of mind was opposite to his visible expressions.

"Yes, sir." The commander didn't waste any more time. "FIRE!!!" he relayed to the battery-mages.

“let see your men escape death a second time.”

The red orbs arched into the skies and the moment these orbs reached their highest point, the many soldiers within these dust clouds got into a turtle formation. The Inatian soldiers abandoned all offensive action, some Inatian soldiers lost their lives in the process, but many more still managed to group with there or so soldiers who were fighting alongside, them and together they charged their barrier shields as much as possible. Some Goren soldiers, despite the dust cloud covering their vision, in between the bright flashes, they saw those massive red orbs and almost instantly dropped their weapons, as if surrendering their life to its majesty.

“BOOM!!!!” countless body parts splattered all across the battlefield, some even reaching the archers who sat at the highest peak of the hill. These men did not shake when they saw the arms and legs of Miar armored limb, but among these body parts were Goren armored limbs.

"My brother!!!" one archer to fell to his knees in tears as he spotted on of the many limbs, and arm; on this arms wrist was a bracelet given to them by their mother, proof of their brotherhood. He had lost his brother to his own army, and his fellow brother was to low ranked to ever be approved for revival, this was his true death and the archer new it. He wanted to attack those battery mages who had dared fire on their own men, and skin Mek-dih who had given the order, but he wouldn't, his mother had just lost a son, losing two would break her completely. The archer stood up and continued to fire onto the battlefield, picking up his resolve off the shattered pieces of his heart.

There was prevalent silence when the large explosion ended, the mages were reloading, and the archers had switched back to lethal arrows. Despite their firing into that dust cloud, more screams emanated from the red clouds, but their sight was still being affected by whatever spell was cast on it.

For a moment Mek-dih had thought he had won, but the sweet sense of victory was shattered by the sudden burst of roars that covered all other sounds. A large group of infantries suddenly burst out of the dust cloud, on their armor was the Inatian insignia. These men were bloody and weak from the attack but their energetic fervor was like a contagion that spread to even the weakest and most bloody of these soldiers.

"IMPOSSIBLE!!!" Mek-dih couldn't believe the soldiers had survived, a single concentrated bombardment from his battery-mages could take down the elephant golem riders from the Onias kingdom. He couldn't believe it but they were there marching up towards his archers and mages.

Mek-dih quickly moved into action and began sweeping away the infantry. However, his slaughter was short-lived as Minvaral suddenly appeared from the cloud and knocked Mek-dih into a group of his troops; the impact killed many of his archers.

Mek-dih rose from the crater his impact had created and dashed forward with his blade, quickly slicing Minvaral's flesh apart. "What's wrong Minvaral!!! Can't beat me without one of your tricks!!!!" Mek-dih thrust his blade forward, the blade dug into Minvaral's stomach and then Mek-dih moved the blade left, tearing off a chunk of Minvaral's stomach clean off. Minvaral clenched his teeth but before Mek-dih could even mount another onslaught, Minvaral's flesh began to regenerate at a visible rate. "support magic?" Mek-dih took a step back.

“you’re not Minvaral. But, that’s impossible” Mek-dih couldn’t believe it. Different categories of spells had different signatures that could be identified, transformation magic, and some support magics had similar signatures, but the Minvaral in front of him showed no such signatures. Only doppelgangers could completely transform into another person, a disguise so thorough that even gods could be fooled.

“who the hell are you!!!!”

The Minvaral in front of him only smiled as he ordered the support mages to strengthen him further.