We spent the rest of our time preparing more inside the city walls. Since the enemy was already close by, we couldn’t go out hunting anymore. Training with swords to increase our masteries or helping others carry luggage. My vitality and stamina increased by 5 this time.

On day 7 in the evening, the enemy reached us. They were camped at some distance away to restore their stamina but they could be seen. As the enemy rested, so did we. The count wore his silver plated armor. I guess this count is a warrior one too just like Count Duke. I won’t be a disappointment again.

“Holy....” Hasega let out a comment.

“Think Rohan will save us this time?” Victor commented as we saw the enemy marching towards us. They literally filled the entire plains before the city. I couldn’t even see the end of them as they kept popping up from the forest further south.

The green plains were now filled with enemies in black. Just as the soldiers had said, the enemy was evil. They were not merely a dark aligned, they were evil monsters. It was clear by the black fog that they exuded from their bodies which made the green grass field they passed whither. It was a symbol of corruption.

“That black fog.” Elkami shouted.

“Serenaa...” There was only one man standing in front of the marching army. But his presence was darker than the others. A helmet hid his face but from his voice we already knew who he was. His armor was pitch black with the same dark cape. His attire was just like a dark knight with his sword sheathed on his waist and a tower shield in his hand all in black. But his power might even reach more than lvl 300. The evil presence from the man alone made everyone shiver.

“Whew. I never want to get famous in this world.” Victor said. Everyone in Tantalus now knew of Stella’s story with Reis. ”That is one crazy army.”

Skeletons from every profession (knights, mages, archers). Zombies, ghouls, banshees, trolls, orcs, flying mosquitos, dragonflies, even normal looking soldiers, elves, dwarves, huge rhinos, Cyclops, what the heck that army had every monster in the book! Even bugs like spiders and ants could be seen. Ahh, there are some soldiers there with the crest of City of Acolyte on their plate. It was a resurrected, necromancer and a dark fog army, didn’t we already destroy that dark gem? Does he have another gem in his hands?

#Ting

You have received a quest

Defend Trisia

Trisia is under attack by the legions of the Dark Army. Defend Trisia by defeating the Dark Army

Quest difficulty A

Quest failure all citizens of Trisia are killed and Trisia is destroyed

Blessing of the goddess is activated

Your mana regen increased by 50%

Your health regen increased by 50%

Mana and health increased by 30%

Magical resistance increased by 20%

All stat increased by 40%

All damage received will be reduced by 20%

Faith increased by 200

Stamina regeneration increased by 100%

Stamina consumption reduced by 30%

Morale is at maximum

The buff will last until Maria’s praying is disrupted.

“Wow, that girl is something..” Hasega said. “I have never seen a buff this good.”

“So this is what those nobles wanted.“ Iris commented.

“Why does she never use it when we go hunting?” Victor asked.

“She said she only can use it when there are churches nearby. She prayed at the underground chamber at that church. So, even if the church got destroyed, the buff will still activate. No worries. The church is on the higher level at the topmost level,. We will have this buff until the last man.” Said Hector.

Reis stopped before our arrow target lines. All his warriors also stopped a few meters behind him in a nice and neat line. Despite the different variety of monsters, I guess all of them are just puppets with no souls only skills left. He then drew his dark blade into the air and brought it down signalling his army to attack.

“Trebuchets! FIRE!” Ragnar commanded. Stones were flying from the city towards the marching army. The scenery now was like putting few white grains of sand into black paper.

‘They don’t even need to aim huh? Anywhere they shoot it there would be a 99% to hit someone.’ I thought as I saw the stones they shot just always hit something. It was just like I described before. Putting a grain of white sand on black paper.

The enemy ran towards our wall. I began to command my archer unit. Actually I tried to refuse this position, but after seeing my achievement in City of Acolyte, they deliberately put me here commanding all ranged units. On top of the wall and on the front side. Again!

“Archers! Prepare to fire!“ I waited a few more seconds “Fire!”

Hundreds of arrows flew towards our enemies. Piercing the enemy here and there but it barely had any effect on the marching enemies. Retaliating to our attacks, enemy archers shot their arrows. Trolls and Cyclops brought some slingshots with them. With a spin, they threw the rocks towards us.

‘A living catapult!’ My thoughts screamed. The trolls and Cyclops just shot stones with their slingshots. It was true that they didn’t bring any siege weapons, but what they did just now is no different from catapults!

While the enemy trolls and our trebuchets exchanged blows with their stones. The Ants army crawled at our walls climbing up. Aww, I will hate bugs for my entire life for this. They literally crawled up our walls with no difficulties. Our walls were useless against them, it even inhibited us from shooting at the ants.

“Umm. Don’t pour the oil yet. Shot at those beasts first. Baran, rain down some spells on those bugs.” I judged that the enemy hasn’t reached our front wall. These bugs were the first therefore, we did not need to pour the oil yet. Baran nodded and his men shot their magic at the disgusting bugs. Some bugs that made it to the top were slaughtered by El’s magic and the reserve troops that were stationed at the top of the walls.

“Okay pour the oil now!” I commanded after seeing that the enemy had reached our front door. Fire then engulfed the armies at the gate and front wall, burning ants and some other armies. The walls were safe for the moment.

A buzzing sound could be heard as mosquitos and dragonflies with an archer rider started their attack.

“Heads up. Shoot at them!” Hasega who commanded a smaller archer unit under my command gave the order.

“No! Leave them to the volley group led by Hector. The archers on the wall need to shoot at those mages and archers that harass us!” I commanded after judging the situation.

*Reiner! Aim the ballistae at those trolls and cyclops.* I whispered Reiner. Javelins from the ballistae were then shot hitting bullseye. Sling shooting trolls and Cyclops went down one after the other. Some even went towards Reis, but he blocked it with precision with his shield. He couldn’t be touched just now.

“White princess! The enemy shot a web towards our walls!” Some soldiers shouted while I was looking at my behind commanding the volley troops to aim at the mosquitos above us. After the shout I turned my gaze back at the battlefield again. It is true that the spiders now shot their webs towards our wall making an instant ladder! No, it was better than the ladders I met at City of Acolytes the web was fireproof and it was a little bit sticky making it so the whole army could climb our walls like Spiderman now.

“Ballistae! Kill those spiders now! Archers at top of the walls. Fire at those spiders. Bring them down in an instant!” I screamed at them. The web hadn’t covered our entire wall, only several parts of it now. But they managed to use it well since some skeleton knights and zombies could climb up.

“Archer units, evacuate the webbed part of the walls. Reserve troops. Focus on those parts of the wall.” I gave another command. Arknum and Iris then charged at those parts of the wall with some priests as backup.

If you were thinking where the count is, he was at the uppermost level of the city. He was in charge of monitoring the battle at bird’s eye view while coordinating which section needed troops. He was the rear guard I assumed since he was also in charge of our retreat route. He was also in charge of the supply depot (Blacksmiths that repaired equipment and supplied arrows). Then, just as promised the nobility group was put the furthest back a.k.a. the supply group and archers. They were now sniping some dragonflies, transporting stones and javelins to the trebuchets and ballistae and other stuff. Basically, they were lackeys now. Well, considering they had the highest survival chance no one could complain.

Many spiders were shot down by javelins it was a disgusting sight when their abdomens were pierced by javelins splattering their guts. Some soldiers almost threw up seeing it. Another section of the wall was webbed. With a command I ordered Arknum’s unit to stay while Iris handled the other section. My archers and their volleys did not need to be disturbed now since they were shooting nicely at the opponents. If we could hold the wal like this, we would have no problem defending the city.

‘Phew.’ I breathed a sigh of relief.

“White princess!” Now what!? “The enemy is making an empty line.”

“Huh?” It was true that now I could see an empty line being formed towards our city gates. At the end of the line were two 10 meter tall horned and armored rhinoceros. Seriously they were almost as big as a 1 story house. I could already guess what they were about to do. Now how do I stop them. It would be bad if they rammed our city gate.

“Umm,” I continued to pondered while said rhinos were charging ahead. I could already feel the impact that rhinos could do to our gates. Heck they might even be able to break our gates in one hit.

“Unlock the gates! El cast one of your enigma spells in front of the gate.“

“Umm, which one?“

“The one that attacks anything in front of the gate for at least 20 seconds!”

“Alright. Enigma of lightning god! Zeus bolt shower!” A magic circle then appeared in front of city gates with a 40 seconds counter. My entire mana bar was gone in an instant!

“Have you unlocked the gate?”

“Umm, we are on it.” Xmoon replied somehow doubtful. Well, actually in a real war, only crazy people unlocked their front door in front of invading enemies.”

“Done!” Itsa shouted.

“Archers below. Evacuate. Paladins and priests prepare yourselves!”

#BOOM#

The gate opened in a single motion. The rhinos charging ahead then slipped and crashed into some random stone houses destroying the houses.

“Fight off the enemy and close the gate!” I ordered. There was a lag of 10 seconds between the opening of the gates and Elkami’s spell. But this was the best I could do. Armies of undead, zombies, ghouls and ghosts poured into the gate, paladins and mercenaries led by Victor then charged ahead blocking and crushing them. Priests at the back healed the possessed mercenaries and casted light based attacks at the dark forces. They somehow managed to hold them back.

“Archers turn around and hit behind the gate.” I ordered.

And a moment later El’s spell activated. A lightning crystal dropped from the magic circle. With a spark the crystal hit everything in its surrounding with sparks of lighting clearing the city gate. Said paladins and mercenaries were then able to close and lock the gate.

Now to deal with the rhinos. My archers kept hitting it but they seemed fine. Magic and arrows were used against them. Paladins and mercenary also charged at them but they were send flying by their horns. Said paladins’ HP was red in an instant.

‘That’s some crazy attack. It could kill someone here in one hit.’

“Surround but don’t attack. Let the archers and mages deal with it.” I commanded.

After 20 minutes the rhinos were dead. Those monsters could take as much damage as huge as 200 soldiers could deal for 20 minutes! It was more than scary. Now let’s turn our gazes towards the field again. Even with javelins shooting here and there, even if the numbers of sling shooters and spiders decreased greatly, somehow they persisted on the battlefield. After one was killed, others replaced it. Ahh, another part of the wall was webbed again.

“Xmoon, lead some soldiers and guard that area.” I commanded them. This was getting tiring. I was exhausted, shouting here and there. The sun was almost down and they didn’t let go of their attack. My stamina was fine with the buff but my mind was not. I also could see some players huffing here and there but the NPC didn’t seem tired. I guess this was another difference huh?

The buff has been deactivated

I stared at system notice. All other soldiers also stopped their attack with the sudden decrease in power.

*What happened to Maria?* I shouted at party channel.

*Maria is exhausted. She fainted and needs time to rest* Reiner whispered to me.

I quickly reacted. “Everyone. Don’t just stand. Continue the attack. Our acolyte just needs to rest. We need to hold them back.”

With a nod everyone continued. It was already dusk. In a few moments it will turn into night. The enemy got a 50% boost on their side now. The reserve troops were now doubled in number to block the webbed sections of the wall. Casualties were starting to increase among the reserve troops. Seeing this, I had no choice but to arrange archer and mage units to attack the enemies that were climbing the wall helping the reserve troops.

“How large is this army?” Iris who was resting beside me commented. No wonder, we have been killing them from dawn to dusk. Trebuchets were still spitting rocks and rubble to who knows where. Some were destroyed by mosquitos and dragonflies. The warrior in charge of those trebuchets had been taking turns loading the stones. It seemed like they were exhausted as well.

“El, lightning charge on my blade please.” Lightning charge was basically filling a weapon or body with lighting dealing additional lightning damage when the body touched or the weapon struck its target. I decided to take some action. After unequipping my shoes, I ran and stabbed some orcs. The lightning damage then took effect. After that I threw a fireball at it and he was dead. Due to my high dexterity, I could deal critical hits easier.

Continuing the battle, I sidestepped here and there picking off some dark forces that managed to slip from Iris and Arknum’s group. Stella helped too and we were able to be keep the dark forces at bay. Hasega and Victor had been busy since beginning to help block the dark forces.

*Riri, Ragnar said we are ready to throw balls of flame!* Reiner whispered. About time now.

*Alright. We are at our limit here. Please use it now!*

Trebuchets were then filled with a big round vases instead of stones. “Fire!” Ragnar shouted.

“Explosive arrow!” Some nobles that had archery as a hobby shot the vases with fire arrows. The vases then blew up scattering burning oil on the dark army. The dark night suddenly went bright with burning oil scattered here and there. The javelin from the ballistae too were coated in oil. The ballistae then shot through the torch in front of it lighting the javelin and piercing a dragonfly. Those ballistae will never run out of targets I tell you. There were still some war trolls that were climbing up. After that there were some normal sized rhinos that were trying to ram the gates. But their impact was far below those earlier ones. Even then, there were still some veteran knights roaming around the dark knight. It was up to the ballistae users to pick their targets. After reinforcing the gate with wooden planks and metal bars, it would hold out.

We were starting to take casualties now. With the enemies getting 50% stronger at night we were clearly at a disadvantage. Clerics and paladins were doing their best to hold their place and live. But casualties were still inflicted one by one.

#BOOOM#

Alright. That was a bad sound coming from my area. Some explosions occurred near one of the trebuchet posts where 2 barrels of oil were burned. It was definitely not their doing as that post should not have a single flame lit. That only left us with 1 other possibilities. Enemy attack. Now which one is it? The enemy should no longer have such a weapon right? No there are three. Three cannon-like flowers had their petals opened, a pink sparkle of light filled their petals. 20 seconds later a cannonball sized pink ball of light pierced through the sky hitting a ballista post this time. Those flower were definitely bad news.

“Ballistae or Trebuchets. Kill that cannon flower.”

“Holy... they have 3 mortars with them. Isn’t that for the Industrial Age? Why do they have one in a medieval setting?” Hasega made a useless comment.

“Ahh, Riri, there is a laser beam version of that flower too.” Victor said.

The mortar version was purple coloured, the laser version was yellow coloured.

“Watch out!” Stella screamed while jumping and kicked me several meters away. Without even a second delay, a purple laser shot past us and hitting the wall behind us causing an explosion. This army never ceased to surprise me.

A flaming javelin then pierced that flower. After 2 more shots one of the flowers turned into pile of unreachable loot. The battle was still going on at a stable rate. The enemy still held up their pressure but we managed to hold them off.

*Riri, Ragnar requests you to come to the church* Reiner whispered.

10 minutes later after running from the outer wall and climbing the many stairs to the upmost place of this city. I met Ragnar and Count Ignis at the big hall of the church. If some of you were wondering, the church of Freya here was far more grand than the count’s mansion. Since the goddess Freya loves beauty and Trisia had it, this place had become one of the churches’ favourites. A message was sent to the cathedral requesting more reinforcements. After seeing the numbers of the enemy, the bishop had requested another use of the portal to call other reinforcements. But none had arrived so far.

“Thank you for your hard work Riri.” The count complimented me.

“No, it is nothing. Umm. So why did you call me?”

“Well, Ragnar has informed me that this army belongs to only one man. Is it true?”

“Umm, yes. I think.”

“If we kill him. The entire army will vanish?”

“Umm. Perhaps. Or at least become wild monsters. But we have not able to kill him. He blocked the javelins with his shield.”

“I see. Well, I am at my wits end. So, any suggestion to turn tide of the war? To be honest, if their purpose was conquest not annihilation, I would have gladly surrendered even before this battle began. So, what do you think?”

The room then went silent. We couldn’t surrender. We couldn’t escape to the hills either and the cliff to our back blocked us while the enemy was in front of us. We could only keep fighting for who knows how long.

“Well, Iris is in charge of the army now you do not need to worry. Here is our current standing.” Ragnar opened the city map with its surroundings. Well our surroundings are the plains ahead and the cliff behind us.

“Before the battle we had around 200.000 men... I mean soldiers or combat orientated classes.” Ragnar edited his words. “Only 10 or 20 died in daytime. And all of them were low leveled. Just some unlucky ones that got hit by flying rocks. But the number escalated during night-time. I heard the casualties are over 20.000 by now and still increasing.”

The count then said. ”Well, these 20.000 soldiers are ones that belong to you.” He pointed at me.

“Umm. But.”

“Ahh, we do not blame you white princess. In fact you did quite a good job. But nevertheless our casualties have skyrocketed.”

“The enemy has a 50% buff at night” Ragnar answered.

“Yes. That is the problem. The problem is that their melee troops could climb our walls. So, I have a suggestion.“ The count said with sad expression. “Let’s sacrifice 200 men at the walls. I will assign 20 veteran combatants and 180 temporary soldiers.”

“Huh?”

“If we can rip out the web, we will have no problem. Our casualties mostly lie there.” He then inhaled his breath. “Let’s command those 300 men to climb down those webs while ripping them. The web is stronger than the adhesives. This way we will cut down on the amount of casualties.”

“But, Sacrificing others.” I was dumbfounded.

“Besides who would do that kind of task?”

“I have filled most of this unit with low level foreigners. Only 40 or 50 are natives. They would come back to life in 4 days right? A little fame would be a good reward for them. I saw that some of them even accepted it with a smile. While the natives pursue gold for their families. Riri, your job is to cover this unit while they advance downwards with your archers and mages.“

“Umm. I see. Okay.” Somehow this idea left a bad taste in my mouth. But logically speaking, this was the best way to deal with it.

The meeting was then closed. As a reminder, my Mana bar was always at half or lower. It was because El was still out there fighting with her magic. I swear that when I saw her fighting with normal spells, it was no different from Pikachu with blue lightning. She sparked here and there spitting out her lighting attacks without pause. She paused only when she noticed I only had 20% mana left, I guessed she had enough spells to do a full cycle (Full cycle is continuously casting different spells until the first one finished its cooldown thus repeating the same pattern of attacks again). She fired her spells randomly but they always accurately hit and killed their target. Well, the exp was always flowing to me.

I ran back and returned to the front wall. The troops were said to arrive in 2 minutes (I have higher dexterity so I ran back faster). I then informed Iris, Baran and Arknum about the plan, Xmoon was too far away so I just send a certain little fairy to explain things to him. They just gave a sad nod. With this the plan was established. Iris informed me that we managed to kill all the enemy flowers. But in return, we lost 5 of ballistae and 3 other trebuchets. We were now down to 3 of each siege weapons.

“El, stop your spells. Cast that one.”

“Huh? Which one?” She asked after she came back.

“Umm, that one hit KO skill on the reaper?”

“Alright. But you do not have enough mana.”

“That’s why you need to stop and let me recover my mana to full first.” I sighed. Sometimes she is quite dumb I guess we are just tired.

The group arrived and quickly reported as The Suicide for Trisia Group. What a lame but fitting name. I guess the count didn’t want to lie to these poor souls. They were then divided into 3 groups, I went to Xmoon while the others went to Arknum and Iris in the rear.

“We are going to do it in turns. El, cast it at the Xmoon’s webbed section of the wall” I said.

“Enigma of the lightning god, Zeus strike!” A magic circle then appeared on that webbed section. At Xmoon’s webbed section of wall. A few seconds later with a loud thunderous roar that part was cleared with El’s magic and said one hundred people started to go down diligently.

“Baran, deal with Arknum’s section.” I commanded. The one hundred men then went down slowly while the enemy was constantly being shot at by Baran and the others. Some of those 100 men were warriors like the others so they were not exactly defenceless.

The soldiers managed to clear half or two thirds of the web before they were annihilated. But, with this we had no longer feared the enemy climbing up again.

Finally out of oil vases, the trebuchets were now filled with dry straw. It was then shot and ignited with flaming arrows. Some of the nobles were quite something for being able to snipe them continuously well, not all of the nobles were wimpy and corrupt men. The last of the dragonflies and mosquitos were annihilated by other archers. We had survived the first night.

http://www.royalroadl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=350&t=3691&p=23531#p23531http://www.royalroadl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=350&t=3729

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author note

- here all the next release hope you enjoy

- currently i am engrossed in playing some RPG (Fire em,blem) i can't write at the moment. well, i planned to hiatus on chapter 30 until my college for this semester is done. after this week we might see each other again in 4 or 5 months.

- comments and suggestions are welcomed. if you have any questions, please post it here or at discussion topic. i am happy if somehow i can improve my skills.

- MC stat will be posted when the battle has ended. somewhere in the next 3 or 4 chapters more i think.