The fire elementals were pretty normal, they were just flames in the shape of something else. These water elementals seem to be some type of colonial organism, their bodies are made of rich blue water and filled with mana, their insides have different animals, or animal parts.

The large seahorse for example, has giant crab claws which it uses to speed up its movements. The woman-shaped elemental riding it has a long, really long, bobbit worm coming out of its arm. On its back there are twitching crab legs, on her head there are two fish fins to the side of her head.

Those two are not the only ones, all the elementals seem to have some marine animal parts, a few have living ones, like cone snails, which they… seem to be carrying around like guns. Thankfully my undead do not care about lethal venom, so they should be safe from the stings. One interesting thing is that the horse elemental is a Water Wave Elemental, meaning it may be the actual leader, not the rider.

I have told everybody to back off and regroup a little. I am somewhat fearful that the water elementals will be able to just push my undead around with their mass.

I find it interesting that the elementals are charging me, instead of just waiting at the pond. Maybe they have a time limit?

I take a closer look at them. Now that I sabe what to look for I quickly found the small ash tainting their bodies. I also see the constant flowing water that is their bodies leaving some of the ash behind as they move. Interesting.

Throwing necrotic ash at them seems like it will be effective too, the problem is their size and water mass and speed. Maybe…I have a few undead who might be pretty good against these guys. I tell my undead to keep retreating as I tell Asterion and his miners to start advancing under the tunnels.

This goes on for a little bit, me running back and the elementals chasing. I get to see some of them use some purifying magic on themselves, and even see them using conjuration magic to create more water.

Merlin decided to get a headstart, and together with some mages he’s wiping up a small ash storm that is following us back.

The elementals see my large blood garden, and for some reason decide that is a good place to attack, maybe they think it has some strategic value?

Regardless, Merlin shoots his dust storm to intercept and the elementals do not stop or dodge, but weather through.

Maybe they can get something from the blood? They want to get there, so that’s enough reason for me to stop them.

Lucky enough they are getting close to one of my underground teams, who are finishing up some traps.

Another unit is charging to meet the elementals. They stop and brace, and a prickly aura rises from them.

It’s Meli, she along with her soldiers did quite well in the battle with the lizards. She was not flashy, like Gorger or Kaiman.

Instead she just parked herself and her soldiers in a place and did not let enemies pass her, or if they did pass they were filled with holes.

Of her unit, only she took the Zealot class, transforming her Squire and Cultist class into a Rose Dawn Zealot, her unit kept those classes though, they also transformed their Squire classes into Red Squire, which is a Squire that has abilities to strengthen their unit.

She also went through level 25, becoming a Commander of Thorns, her soldiers became Osseous Thorn Soldiers. By themselves, they are not that strong, their power comes from joining all their effects together harmoniously.

Meli begins showing that. She forms a simple shield wall, which becomes a large thorny dense bone wall as her soldiers layer their skills with hers, their aura rises and combines, the ash and necrotic energy picks up and forms spikes and black roses around them, which is an actual skill {Black Roses}. A black shield of necrotic mana forms in front of the shields, making two layers of defense, then the last one comes in.

Blood pools out from under Meli and her soldiers feet, it mixes with the ashes and forms a muddy ground, which the unit can maneuver easily, but their enemies might not. {Bloodtide} is the name of the skill, it creates a patch of blood where their movement is better, it also anchors them a bit.

Their aura is really big, the elementals start feeling the thorns way before they come into contact with the troop itself.

Kaiman gets to the blood garden before the elementals and assumes a ankylosaurus-like form, his tail picks up a mud-like mixture of blood and necrotic ash, and lobs it at the elementals, like a catapult.

The attacks from Meli, Merlin, and Kaiman end up focusing on the left flank of the elementals, this is on purpose on my part, I am trying to lead them towards the right, closer to my traps.

The elementals seem to have multiple ways of dealing with the corruption of the ash, from actually using some kind of cleansing spell, to letting the polluted parts of themselves fall off, they seem to be resistant to do the last a lot though. The elementals seem to specifically slow down and dodge Kaiman’s mud balls, which tells me those are probably too costly for them to take and purify, which is wonderful for my trap.

The elementals take the bait, they start moving and I let the pass through. When most of them have passed I spring the trap.

The ash opens like antlion pits, the elementals behind start falling down, the rest keep going.

They are now isolated and my underground minions attack them. The elementals look at their enemies, who are weirdly similar to them.

Snapping shrimps. Specifically speaking they are Digging Chimeras, most of them being part dwarf part snapping shrimp. They are all a riot of forms, the only thing they all have is an adaptable pincer, which they use to excavate using necrotic water. Some of them look mostly like a skull dwarf, others look more like shrimps with beards.

Truly speaking most of them are not that strong at combat, but right now they have an advantage. They point their pincers at the water elementals and shoot a stream of necrotic rich water right at them, the jet pierces into the elementals and goes deep.

It works and the elementals trash around in fury and what I assume pain, yet it barely does anything to the miners. Jets of water, small waves, needle droplets of water hurling out of the elementals like bullets.

They do almost nothing to the miners. Yes, they are not the strongest in battle, but they are very very resilient. Most of them have steel skin, and rock bodies, or other defensive skills which make attacking them be very similar to hitting your head against a wall.

The water jets are not the only thing the pincers can do either, one miner sticks the pincer into an elemental, and it starts to suck the water out of the being, which coupled with the necrotic jets deals with most of them in very short order.

Still, I am glad I had some caution and only took about 20 or so of the elementals in my traps, the things are going berserk and even the very tough undead miners are getting chipped at an alarming rate.

Another pit trap opens up, swallowing a few more of the things. This one also has Asterion, who's swimming in the ash and earth, using his adapted hands, which are like a seal’s fin, to batter the elementals. This group also has a few Fulminating Nervelings, who enter the bodies of the water elementals and fry them from the inside.

Yet again the water elementals do not stop, they keep advancing and I am starting to get worried, they seem to have a plan.

The water horse shines, and a wave of mana comes out of it. All the elementals suddenly grow water horses too, and they all charge down into the garden.

They are planning something for sure, this move is only going to get them surrounded… Unless that's the point?

I notice the leader making a straight line to the large tree in the middle, the one that has the blood gems…shit.

I tell everybody to retreat and make space. The elemental reaches the tree and pulls the gems out, and I see the amount of mana it uses to transmute them

The blood gems become water gems, and then explode.

The water elementals fuse with the huge wave the gems created and flow into my troops, their weight and mass is too big now and they push my undead into the ground or carry them along with the waves. They push the undead down into the ground with the water and then… try to purify them as if they were water.

In a somewhat comical moment I see the waves come and hit the mages and Merlin, which immediately starts releasing large amounts of necrotic energy.

Merlin pulls a huge amount of necrotic mana from his core, he also pulls in ice mana from the frost heart… and then I hear the cracking sound coming from within him. The mana of the core is too pure, it flows into the heart and cracks it, the heart absorbs the mana and starts to mutate, the cracks start to bleed a weird ichor.

Honestly I can’t be mad at Merlin for that, especially since I can feel he is not too happy about corrupting his ice heart, still I hope he does not make a habit out of breaking magical items inside his body.

The mixture of ice mana and necrotic mana combine with her exoskeleton, then it all explodes into a crystalline pale purple nova. The mages band together and let the nova pull in their mana.

It washes over the battlefield, freezing and corrupting the water near them, and cooling down every water monster in the battlefield. It's more effective on some than others, it breaks down the wave, making some keep going while others slow down.

The elemental momentum is sapped. They stop moving and feel…lethargic. The Horse commander… lets out a neigh, it sounds like a drowning neighing horse actually.

It sounds really weird.

Yet, it is effective, the water elementals suddenly snap back to attention and find themselves all separated over the battlefield, similar to my skeletons actually.

There is silence for a moment, as all combatants take a look at the current battlefield, accessing closest enemies and allies. Thinking about battleplans.

Calculating— Stinger leaps up at the commander. In a single whirling split kick she somehow kicks both the head of the horse and the water woman hiding it, twice.

Fights break out immediately after that awesome kick. All combatants start to wail at the closest enemy.

Merlin decides to absolve himself of any blame, and decides that his broken heart is the fault of all the elementals. He shoots his necrotic beams, yet they are different now, they are being powered up by the core and the heart.

When the beam hits an elemental they start to freeze.