What they set up was a partial wall in the middle of the road, extending in the middle of the trees on both sides. They wanted the imperials to go to the middle of the forest, where they couldn’t use their formation properly.

A messenger told something to Alua and she repeated it to us.

“We are not going to leave the road, we will have to break down the wall and then advance through the road. The road is probably the part they have filled the most with traps but we can’t face them without our formation. Be prepared, you might have to fight soon.”

We nodded.

A little later the wall became visible, it was fairly large and it was full of Zavenians ready to shoot.

The army advanced slowly, trying to block both the spells and arrows while being careful of traps. But although there were some scouts mixed in on the front line, for the front line it was difficult to detect the traps with so little notice while blocking shots without stopping to advance.

So inevitably the mines made some victims on the front line.

The front line’s soldiers were rotated often since it was so tiring, but that also slowed the advance.

After some more time, the army’s mages and archers became able to return the fire to them, so the fire became a little less oppressive for the warriors, so the advance became a little faster.

I could hear the screams of pain and rage from the front, but it didn’t touch me at all this time. Now there were only professional soldiers on the field, they choose to be here, it would have been different if they were conscripts though. The ones from Zaven were partly adventurers, but they were still professional fighters and adventurers often participated in wars anyway. Actually, they were often even worse than normal soldiers, participating through mercenary companies and not being fully under the control of their employer, they were still better than the purificators though.

This time I planned to not hold back and harvest as many souls’ fragments as I could.

It took some sacrifices, but eventually, the front line reached the wall and the earth mages started working on it while the enemy shooters retreated to the sides, to get down and reach their comrades.

The wall was fortified just enough not to let the mages destroy it from the distance so it took very little to create a passage big enough for the army to pass.

The road ahead was devoid of any traps, but soon the front line saw something that made it gasp in frustration, another wall.

The archers and mages that shot upon the army until a little earlier were already positioned and ready to fire.

The slow advance under enemy fire restarted from zero.

This time even the Zavenian warriors attacked from time to time, usually attacking the front line on the sides right after a trap hit them.

The thick wall of lances always repelled them though.

At a certain point, Alua ordered us to start advancing towards the front line, and we took position behind the right side of the front line.

Mark protected us from any projectile and we were too far to be hit by traps even if they were triggered, but it was still stressful.

The next time warriors attacked we helped by attacking whoever managed to slip under the lances or tried to jump, we were helped by other soldiers around us, but we still did the most damage. Well, that was also because we didn’t hold back on the mana and ki expending since we knew we only had to fight for a little bit. Alua made sure to broadcast everything with illusion magic, and the morale among the soldiers rose again after being steadily lowered for all this time.

Eventually, We reached the second wall, and again it didn’t take much to open it up, but the shooters mostly got away.

Then there was another trapless section, and after that, another wall. But this time it looked much more solid, I could feel the power of its runes from here, after all, we knew the forest was about to end, it was the last obstacle before an open battlefield.

The commander spoke words of encouragement.

“This is the last wall, remain strong soldiers, the goddess smiles at our victory. We will break through this one too.”

The advance restarted, but this time there were traps other than mines, like swamps and smoke mines.

It was the first time they used smoke mines, and when a team of warriors all using Dark Vision attacked the soldiers inside it, the soldiers were unprepared for it, and the army took quite a few losses.

The Zavenians also used the swamps to give their warriors an opportunity, but they didn’t work as well as the smoke mines.

The imperials continued their advance, we participated by supporting the front line from behind. We still weren't face to face with danger, but this time we were closer than ever.

We mostly shouted encouragement to the soldiers and supported them with spells and arrows.

Once a mine of demonic mana exploded in front of us, but the soldiers in front of us blocked it, taking the brunt of it, they survived, but a couple of them were wounded and had to retreat to be healed while other soldiers replaced them.

Some of the explosion reached us, but Mark blocked it. The soldiers' morale was being shaken with every explosion, and every charge by the powerful Zavenians, but our presence and the priest's blessings were keeping it afloat. Holy spells also had a calming effect on the mind, which was extremely helpful in this situation, but even with that, I wouldn't be surprised if those guys returned home with PTSD.

We were now starting to get closer to the wall, victory was at a hand's reach, but suddenly Zavenians started charging from every side except behind us, they wanted us to flee.

The shooters on the wall continued shooting even while risking hitting their own comrades, it became impossible to rotate consistently the warriors on the frontline so it became quite a difficult situation for the imperials.

The commander then decided to continue advancing even while under attack, the paladins were concentrated on the front, taking them away from the flanks and the buffers started casting blessing after blessing.

The advance restarted, but the flanks started to be worn out.

The commander and some aides then came to the front line, Ces was among them. They didn't take the brunt of the enemy attack though, they stood behind the front line, just like us, and occasionally ordered the soldiers to step aside and attacked the enemies. He used Lightspeed martial arts to swing his greatsword with the speed of a knife and then retreated, luring the enemies to his position and allowing the aides to hit them from behind with spells or arrows, then changing position and luring them to another position and making busy many enemies like this.

The commander was a magic swordsman so he couldn't be killed easily, and his lightspeed attribute, an attribute created by mixing light and wind attributes in equal proportion, allowed him to flee easily if necessary, but it was still a risky tactic. But like this, he managed to keep many enemies busy, do more damage, and raise the morale.

Ces shot ice projectiles while occasionally striking over the front-line soldiers with his rapier.

He was using the stillness attribute, an attribute formed by mixing the water, dark and holy attributes in equal proportions, it created everlasting ice and its concept was stillness, it was an interesting attribute for something that wanted to change its homeland's ruling system.

While the flanks were starting to get overwhelmed by the continued attacks, the front line finally reached the wall.

The Zavenians fighting the front line retreated and merged with the ones attacking the flanks, but the same was true for the imperials, like this, not all the Zavenian shooters could attack the army, and the imperial shooters could attack more frequently. The paladins that were occupied on the front line also went to help the flanks and some of the front line also went with them. The people protecting the rear also started getting attacked, but they were still fresh and rested, while the Zavenians were not.

The traps were over, now it was a matter of sheer strength, and the Zavenians were now running out of steam because of the wounds inflicted until now. The imperial army had a big edge in prolonged battles thanks to all their healers after all.

The enemies finally retreated, the archers run to the sides of the wall, and the warriors ran back, they were probably going to accept the siege, but our commander was thinking differently.

“Commander Brom, it's time!”

He shouted while enhancing his voice with magic.

I heard another amplified shout coming from the middle of the formation.

“All right, you heard him, let's start running after them, guys, we're going to win today.”

Regardless of how much the Third Holy Army struggled, the Purification Brigade didn't do anything to help, until now.

Now they started running after the fleeing enemies, mowing them down, but most of all, stopping them from using their tunnels to return to the city because if they did, they would bring the fully rested purification Brigade with them.

The earth mages started to work hastily on the wall, if we got to the city before them, we would lock them out of it, maybe they could go all the way to the other side of the city and enter from there, but they would have to flee from the purificators in the meanwhile.

The mages created a small hole good enough for the soldier to pass through, and they started pouring on the other side, reforming the formation on the field.

The city was now in front of the army, and there were no more trees to offer cover, the imperials now had the advantage.

The army advanced halfway through the field, the officials then arranged the ten cohorts in a row, occupying quite a lot of space.

Then from the trees groups of Zavenians started to emerge disorderedly, chased by the Purificators.

From the cohorts, centuries moved to try intercepting them, sometimes achieving the purpose and blocking them as the purificators slaughtered them, sometimes they only forced them to go around them, still giving more time to the purificators to catch up to them.

Then, even if they reached the city, Cail's garrison couldn't open the door to not let the purificators in they had to throw ropes to help them climb.

In the meanwhile, the purificators took little damage from the garrison since most of the artillery was designed to deal with the numerous armies of the empire, and they chased the fleeing Zavenans until the walls, decimating them.

The last to come out of the forest were the shooters who were once on the wall, they were much slower than the warriors, so the purificators had little trouble chasing them. They were fleeing in one big single group and an entire cohort blocked their way.

Then they were one-sidedly killed.

I participated in this fight, I killed two mages by approaching them thanks to the illusory smoke and Shadow Leap. I felt a bit sorry for them since they were just fighting for their homeland, but only a little bit. I felt much more sorry for the people they would be unable to protect if they died.

After that, the situation finally settled.

The city was still standing, but they lost a significant amount of troops, it was in their interest to win before arriving at this stage, so I guessed they used most of their troops in the battle earlier, now it was just a matter of building siege weapons.

The imperial army divided into two groups, one stayed in front of the city, the other went all the way around to the back of the city, bocking the two doors of the city.

Some small fortification was built, then it was finally time to rest, the final nail in the coffin would probably be nailed in a few days, to prepare some siege weapons.

We stayed in the first camp.

I gained a good amount of power in the fight from earlier, the enemies were powerful and I could do big damage thanks to the safe position. But I would probably get another opportunity to gain power during the next battle.

I didn't feel excited this time though, it just felt like something I had to do, I would feel excited if I could kill someone like a purificator, but fighting those guys left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.

If I choose to accept Ces's proposal I would have this feeling many more times, I wonder what was better to do.

I would have to create a good plan of escape if didn't want to accept, and I didn't have one right now.

I stopped thinking and went to sleep, it was better to think about it with a fresher mind, but that night the nightmares left e little time to rest.