Loekan hasn’t shown himself. An expected development, since we’re not being subtle about our tactics here, but a disappointment no less. He’ll be hiding himself somewhere that we won’t easily find him, but at the same time, he won’t just let us destroy everything he’s built.

We press on.

Anyone who has lived to grow as powerful as him knows how to be cautious, how to fight without allowing yourself to become too vulnerable. At the same time, those who can’t stand up for themselves will never rise to such power.

He will show himself eventually.

As I balance the massive ball of magic swirling within me, I turn my eyes to the battlefield below. In the gap between the forest and the city walls, Lakesh leads my army into battle, slaying the beasts that pour from the gates.

Blending my vision from above with the sight from the dozens of warriors below, I watch the battle progress from all angles.

Lakesh stands in the middle of the formation nodding his head slowly, likely giving orders through the support device, while observing through his soldiers’ eyes with a similar means as with my own Skill.

The front lines are made up largely of warriors that I’ve pulled free from their collars, those who have been training under Red for the last few weeks. The dedicated training has certainly made them formidable.

Their formation isn’t uniform, but it’s not meant to be. Each fight with their own weapons and styles, supporting those next to them as needed without causing issue.

A tall, hairy, beast of a man swings around a hammer large enough that the weight of it tosses his own body with every movement. It’s made from the bone of some massive beast, polished down into an oversized club.

He slams it into the face of the first creature to reach him.

The bone hammer smashes the massive raptor-like creature back, the head folding, the neck snapping, and the rest of its body tossed under the feet of those that follow.

A downward strike finishes the pair that struggle to find their feet again, dying before they get the chance.

Beside him, a lithe, feathered bird-man spins about with sharp blades attached to the forward edges of his wings. He jumps high over the heads of the encroaching reptiles, falling on their necks with the sharp blades of his wings, bouncing up off the ground to slice them as he passes them again.

They don’t fall instantly, but when they stumble more lethal wounds put them down for good.

Next in line is an insectoid lady who uses a set of scythe like limbs to cut her way through the same hoard. A few slip by her reach, but a spear thrust from the vampire lizard behind her kills them without trouble.

Some use metal weapons, others weaponize their own flesh to deal with their enemies. Some are fast, some are slow, some dodge and some block, but together, supporting each other, they put these beasts to the slaughter.

Our warriors giving this fight their all, while the more experienced soldiers support from the back row. I’m not sure the reasoning, but I’m not an experienced military commander.

“Why can’t I join the fight?” Tkarn asks, her bullish body stepping back and forth as her face tentacles wiggle uncomfortably.

“In case something happens.” Lakesh says, watching the lines carefully. “I’m not confident that everything will go as I want it to.”

“You’re not confident?” Tkarn asks, turning towards him in shock. “You’re commanding this army and you’re not confident?”

“I’ve led people into battle for years now, but I don’t often face intelligent enemies led by commanders.” He admits, “Red has provided useful advice, so you don’t need to be so worried. I can handle commanding this army, but be ready for anything.

“Beasts will almost always throw their everything at you, smart enemies are different. I need to keep some of our forces in reserve to counter the enemy when they try something. I need you to put out the fires that are coming.” He says, looking up at the walls.

The gremlins are lining up in neat little rows, and from my birds view up high, it’s clear that there’s someone taking control over them. A figure that waves his little arms and shouts to be heard over the screeching of the rest of his kind.

A gremlin, and not a particularly tall or well-armed specimen. The moment he stops shouting I lose sight of him in the shifting mass of grey flesh. After that, the rest of the gremlins start moving around in smarter ways, strangely, retreating from the gates that have been left open.

Lakesh tries to borrow my sight, and I ease my defences, letting him gaze down from above.

“Forwards.” He says, waving us towards the city gates lifting his own spear as he gazes suspiciously about.

“Isn’t it going to be a trap?” Tkarn asks, nervously trotting along beside him.

“Assuming they’re competent, then yes.” Lakesh acknowledges, nodding his head as the army moves towards the gates. “The gates are a choke point, but our troops are stronger there’s less advantage to it.”

“What do we do?” Tkarn asks.

“You can go ahead and defend the vanguard.” He says, “I’d feel safer with you there to respond when the trap hits us.”

The soldiers tense up, moving a little more slowly as they receive their new orders and warnings. Their job is to bait the main forces of the enemy, and they can’t do that by hanging around outside the walls.

If the enemy just lets my army do what they want, retreating constantly from them, then there’s nothing we can do but walk through traps and suffer the consequences. I’ll be forced to order them to stand down if it comes to that.

I’ll risk their lives to win this war, but I will not let them die pointlessly.

They can still reinforce a defensive position for the elite-hunter teams to return to, but it’ll be more difficult for our agile teams if there’s hordes of gremlins swarming them everywhere they go.

Even as I watch, the army of gremlins builds up in number, but they hold themselves back. Their forces looking frighteningly dense. The primary reason for spread out forces is the fact that so few are able to fight at their full power when that close to their allies.

The gremlins don’t seem to care, and the simple mass of them, so thick that they can’t even lift up their arms, is terrifying to see. A few dense spells could do incredible damage to them, but if that swarm can overrun our army, our people won’t be able to even swing a fist at them.

They tried the same tactic on me to a lesser degree the last time we assaulted the city, and the only reason I made it out alive was because of my overpowered defences.

“Something simple, easy. The enemy commander doesn’t know much about us, does he?” Lakesh says, smiling as he turns his head towards where the gremlins are gathering. The wall between them not blocking his sight as he gazes down through my own eyes.

Tkarn has moved ahead, reinforcing the forward movement of the army as they reach the gates. The vampire lizard troops, which make up the majority of the veterans of my current army, have taken the lead with the less experienced warriors retreating to the centre of the formation.

I can only watch as they move through the gates, waiting for some trap to snap shut around them. I steady my slowly growing magic, nervous for the ambush that awaits my people below.

As Tkarn walks through the wide open gates, she pauses, looking side to side at each open door, then up towards the portcullis hiding in the mechanisms above.

“A trap.” She whispers, looking up at the ceiling. Shaking her head, I see Lakesh react as he receives the details in a message too late to do anything about it.

The metal door falls from the mechanisms above with a frightening power, but Tkarn doesn’t move from her spot beneath it.

Trumpeting wildly, sounding almost like a whole herd of baby elephants walking on lego, she rears up on her hind legs and grasps the falling door with her face tentacles. The long limbs grab the falling mechanism, which has much more power and mana to it than she can handle.

Her strength is not enough to stop it’s fall, but she doesn’t stand alone. Other warriors gather beside her as she crumples under the weight of it, grabbing hold of the slowed portcullis and stopping it’s decent before it can crush her.

The same moment, the gremlin hordes rush towards the troops already gathered in the courtyard by the gates. They pour out from the buildings, from the alleys, and from along the streets. Their numbers enough to hide every single cobblestone from sight, they run and scream, waving poisoned weapons around with glee.

They’re ready to die so that they can kill us, but Lakesh only smiles as he nods happily at the turn of events. Our front row of warriors are not at all intimidated by the swarm of grey flesh that is rapidly falling upon them. They calmly lift their weapons up and draw their own blood to coat their spears, hammers, and swords.

As the first wave of gremlins reach them, they strike forwards as one, their blood magic flowing through their weapons and into the bodies of the gremlins they kill. The tide of flesh is fast, but the flooding blood is much faster.

The first gremlins to die become vehicles for the spells that explode outwards, slaughtering their neighbours. Each spell achieves the same, but through slightly different means.

One spearman has summoned a dozen red spears from the first gremlins back, piercing the entire tide that has charged after it. The spears withdraw, taking in the blood of every victim and reinforcing the spearman’s next strike.

A hammer user has crushed one gremlin, and the blood from it has spread out under the feet of the others. The wide pool of blood bounces into the air, tripping them, before a second hammer blow sends a ripple through the puddle that has lifted above their heads. The force of the hammer blow spreads out through the blood, killing all those beneath it.

Some of them summon blood-forged blades, others small spikes, some others are stranger still, one forging a small forest of bloody trees that spread out through the gremlin horde. Another forging panes of bloody glass that shatter into thousands of sharpened shards that cut through the horde.

Even seeing this, the grey skinned mob can’t stop their charge, those behind pushing them onwards. Those who can stop, are pushed to the ground and trampled, those who don’t stop are bled dry so that they can be used to fuel even greater magics targeting those behind.

It’s beautiful, the blood forming such a beautiful variety of shapes, while also strengthening the vanguard who continue to press the gremlins further back. A tide of blood growing so tall that my troops can hide behind it as a shield as they continue to push.

The red wave consumes the grey horde, and death fills the city streets.

It’s incredibly horrifying, but that’s nothing new to me at this point.

Tkarn and the others manage to clear the passage of the gate and the rest of my army enters the city easily after. Lakesh only frowns for a moment when taking in the sight around him.

As he does our troops halt their advance, killing the gremlins that come to them, while using the blood to reinforce their position. In particular, they focus on the gaps in the cobblestone, and everywhere else Loekan’s trees might attack from.

They’re digging in and defending the gate rather than pressing the gremlins. Not what I would have done, but that’s why it’s best that I’m not in charge.

The gremlins halt their assault, the same leader from before yelling and shouting at his brethren to try and restore some sort of order for those that survived. Even while they retreat, more come from around the city to reinforce them.

Thousands, then tens of thousands gather, already alarmed by the ringing of the bells. They surround Lakesh’s army, but rather than continuing the assault, they pause and wait.

Lakesh gathers a few archers together, gesturing towards the one gremlin that seems to be taking charge. The archers quickly draw their bows and fire at him, but the other gremlins step between, and the few attacks that were on target can’t carve through all the flesh put between them and the target.

The battle grows frighteningly still as the gremlin forces move around, and their leader gets lost in the mix. In some of the buildings around them, there are trapped beasts, snarling and hissing at the two armies. Traps that are meant for us, no doubt.

“It seems they’re choosing to fight smart.” Lakesh says with a long sigh, watching them through my eyes as he brushes down his unsettled feathers. “The most difficult thing they could do to us.

“I keep them busy, and I can’t let anyone die.” He hisses in amusement, “A worthy challenge.”

The armies move, my side readying defences, while the gremlins move around them in strange formations. It seems the battle here isn’t going to escalate just yet, but I’m worried about just what is going to happen when that gremlin is done with his scheming.

His first trap might’ve fallen apart, but it was well thought out.

If Tkarn hadn’t caught the portcullis our army would be split.

If Lakesh’s troops weren’t so well suited to combating hordes, then the dense army of gremlins could’ve overwhelmed them.

Now the enemy knows a little better what we can do, and that just makes me wonder what sort of plans that’ll lead to. For now, I turn my eyes towards the other battles sparking across the cavern.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 52,798 units

~Mana distribution:

Category Current Max. Defence 0% 100% Offense 0% 100% Mana Sense 0% 100% Recovery 0% 100% Gluttony 0% 100% Misc. 0% 100% Efficiency 0% 100%

~Favourited Skills:

-Tag and Film

-Trapping

-Mana surge movement

-Annihilation defence

-Annihilation flame burst

-Annihilation net

-Eyes of an Empire