A couple days later, the last minute preparations for the attack go smoothly. From loading improved versions of the flying busses and ‘siege weaponry’ along with spools of roots to connect us back to the village and mask our tremendous mana utilization. Most of this mana will go to another addition coming in the form of well crafted buffing runes that go beyond the basic effects engraved on everyone’s armor.

Hordes of people sit in the inner world as I get closer and closer to the final destination, every single one of them fully clad in armor.

We still only had some 600 high level people, but the main body of troops reaches nearly 80 thousand. All of them were as well trained as we could get them in the limited time.

If our population had increased fivefold, the enemy’s added a zero on the end of their numbers. Adding in the ones that stayed hidden in the protection of the system, we would be fighting 41 thousand troops, most of them at a slightly higher average level than before, which is higher than our average.

Though they didn’t have all our advantages, every single one was clad in the best protection they had at their disposal and armed with a sharp sword, a magical staff or another weapon that suited them.

Still, none of that concern me nearly as much as another development. Looking into the inner world, I watch the people inside the command tent that I would put up on the edge of the island. It could be productive, but if we mishandle it, it could derail Earth’s defense.

This time, there aren’t a pair of people from our village with loyal lieutenants, but a dozen other diplomats and military commanders from our nearest neighbors, most of which had brought their own troops to the attack greatly reinforcing our numbers. I’m really glad to have the cream of the crop from across a huge swathe of the population, but the cost at which it came is far from negligible.

So far everyone seemed to be working together and in good faith. They mostly ceded control of their troops to us, but if things turned sour and even one of them ordered a retreat, the situation could turn bad in seconds.

Using my avatar skill the way it was intended, I let most of my attention inhabit one of my root avatars that had been sitting unnaturally still to the side. Then I ask:

“Everyone ready?”

I almost chuckle at the jerk of surprise from one of the diplomats that had chosen not to send troops for this attack. Though with the small conglomerate of cities they controlled on the very edge of South America and the corresponding longer travel time frame, I couldn’t even blame them too much.

Nods all around and even a few genuine smiles light up on everyone’s faces.

“We are, oooh, great guardian of the magical forest. Keeper of Yggdrasil.” Says a stark faced man in a low tone for me. He is the picture of a respectable commander and the one that controlled the largest group here excluding us, but his words betray a real human underneath it all.

“Ohh, did you know Pando before all of this?” I ask, already have interacted with him, but not enough to know details like that.

“Yes, my niece wouldn’t shut up about it.” He says with a smile hidden underneath all the layers of sternness.

“Did she ever visit us?” I ask remembering the few kids who were so enchanted by Pando that I end up gifting a hint of my Aether to them in a pale imitation of my first interaction with Alex.

“No, we were planning to travel a few months after all of this started. Now, I don’t even know where and how she is doing. So far I only found a single distant relative of mine and I don’t care for her much.”

“Not to give false hope, but statistically speaking, someone of her age has the highest chance of making it than anyone else.”

“And here I was hoping the tree man would have magic words to soothe my anxiety.”

“Those types of words aren’t my calling. I ask questions and I answer any that I can. I learned to love the forest and it wasn’t hard, but inside I sometimes feel I’m half machine, relating more to the mechanism of a clock than to other people. I can’t look at the world and not start to translate it into math, physics and now magic. If I hadn’t met Pando, I have no idea who or what I would be now…. So: no magical words.”

A low chime leaves everyone else that had been politely following our conversation to the watch on the wall.

“Three minutes before the drop,” I state even though everyone here should know what that chime meant. Then a similar sound echoes throughout the inner world at an audible volume that couldn’t be missed but concentrated on any one spot strongly enough to hurt anyone’s ears. Not when it’s coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

The dream and the nightmare of Audiophiles everywhere.

Orders stream through chains of command and I see the relatively organized lines of troops become pictures of perfection as the lines mark their paths on the ground and everyone streams into their vehicles.

Then I raise the illusion wall while we are still a few kilometers away and repeat my last attack’s actions almost on automatic. But this time with a lot more people. On top of that, comes our new formations and different techniques to try out and figure out what works best in each scenario.

Multiple spools of roots connect us to the mainland and the greater root network as I land with the 16 hundred flying buses around me under a light rain of fire. Even at this distance of nearly 500 meters, the loose and nearly fading fireballs wash over our shields.

Damn, next time we might have to stage our assault farther away or come up with something to cover our landing. If they can shoot this far away with only basic silver turrets, I only wonder what they can do with proper gold engravings.

Still, even as I dread their capabilities, my mind instantly goes through even the minutest runes on their weapon turrets that seem to be toys compared to what I find in their defenses. So I start to madly sculpt it with roots in the inner world once again, to see if nothing has changed, and to record it in person for me to analyze later. Another piece for me to bang my head on, but eventually, someone will crack the code, maybe fully unlocking the trick behind their effectiveness.

Carefully trying not to trip each other up, our advance begins, as I start to layout roots underground stealthily, avoiding as much attention as possible from the Elf's eyes and that is why Pando’s gaze shifts back and forth, growing and inhabiting several fences above ground that might good cover if we needed it.

As the fight approaches and our advancing mana shields take an increasing battering, I look for their commander. Though I find their Arch Druid and he mostly conforms to my expectations, there is something about him. I use my one step towards connection Skill and all that returns is a faint sense of competence, of following orders and a Styrofoam shield.

Noooo… nothing that weak: a balsa wood shield.

Still, all need is a sharp knife to cut it If I can cut along the grain. And if I can get both my hand around to move the lightweight obstacle aside, I would even have to begin dulling the edge of my weapon.

Then my mind reference frame shifts and I realize, the weight impression I’m getting isn’t from someone so light and insignificant that I can just blow away or ignore them, but from a normal person. The last Arch Druid had just been an outlier. A commander with gravitas so strong, that it seemed to warp reality, while this one may be competent, he doesn’t even come close to striking fear in me.

If I don’t miss my guess, he must have gotten here two weeks ago because before that their numbers were low enough that I managed to keep track and I hadn’t seen him.

The one I killed is just such a contrast to his replacement. But before I count my blessings for the much less formidable opponent, he is only one ‘weak link’ in an ever growing army and he is not that weak. From the little I knew, I could extrapolate that Earth was a thorn in their side but we weren’t gonna roll over.

For now, while we have the advantage, we are going to make do with everything we can, even if they no longer act as ‘proper’ Elves being forced to nearly abandon nature and surround themselves in stone, with only a few plants deeper in their territory. Plants that would be of very little use to me but at the very end of the fight. Worse yet, no plant matter sat near where the hot spots of our fighting, before knocking down their walls, the houses inside would be outside my control.

Our advance shakes the Earth in tandem with our timed steps. 80 thousand troops in near-perfect lockstep. I can see the faintest accumulation of sweat on a few of the enemy’s troops and that sends a grin to my face. Our march forward even influences the field of Aether that they naturally form about themselves. They may be experienced veterans of a thousand battles and significantly above average, but we have the numerical superiority of roughly two to one. And if even before we hadn’t seen their most elite troops, then these will have an even larger problem with us.

My impression of their competence is that the first levy of soldiers ranked around the top ten percent while these ones range from the top 20 to 50 percentile.

They were more hopeful than last time around, without the knowledge of our power. Maybe they even wanted some payback on us after learning that they failed in their job of killing Pando, but this time they are a lot more measured.

That isn’t going to last forever, they will keep getting reinforcements at a higher rate than we will and they will seemingly grow at a much higher rate, even as their defensive entrenchments get stronger.

If they reach a million troops, they could split that into a hundred pieces and that would be enough to flatten just about anywhere, but our major cities. Even with their limited mobility so far, we would also be forced to split our forces into a hundred in their pursuit. Command and control would suffer, along with the difficulties that coordinating any such efforts would entail. In a more chaotic situation like that, they already had the experience and the protocols to deal with it, having used their ‘technology’ or rather magic in actual field situations.

Even our best military commanders could not compete in experience with even their youngest commanders in system powered combat. That lack of experience just added to the chagrin of the cronies send ahead by Old Earth’s powers trying to reestablish themselves. I could see an advantage or two on our side beyond what Pando’s village and I brought to the table, but we need to rectify our myriad shortcomings as soon as possible.

Edited ===============

As I look into the inner world, protected by the nature of the space and my own powers, the representatives all watch on magical holographic screens perfectly replicating what I could see along with sound and even the vibration to a degree. Though on second thought, with my admittedly shallow understanding of human psychology, I shouldn’t allow them to get too comfortable hidden inside. If they come to believe combat was like this every time, they might grow detached from reality.

Still, with my plans for the latter part of the combat and their knowledge that if I fall in the middle of the enemy’s encampment, I couldn’t guarantee their safety, it wasn’t totally divorced from how the others experienced combat.

Though I didn’t mention my guesses about what would happen to the inner world if I ever did fall. I had no proof nor any direct indication that it would react in a particular way, but I simply hug and blossom the little intuition in my chest. I didn’t risk even mentioning or in any way disturbing that fleeting sense, at least I risked it leaving me forever.

I can only hope that I never have to find out.

My musings come to an end, as the number of simultaneous things that I keep track of blows up. Roots grow from the ground further reinforcing a few entrenchments, though they were there mostly there as a last measure if the enemy somehow managed to kill or injure most of our troops along a section of the wall or something else went catastrophically wrong. It might buy any survivors a few extra seconds as we tried to recover.

Roots entrench on the walls finding every little crack and grow. Though this time the restrictions seemed to be stronger and I have trouble controlling them beyond the basics. That’s where Aspen’s will comes through. His efforts slowly widen cracks trough out their defenses, though not nearly enough to endanger their walls. But if we need to knock it down, every little bit will every little bit might help.

The strongest fields ready to buff our troops are in place, with well coordinated and trained responses.

+5% speed

+5% defense

+5% strength

+5% endurance

+4% health recovery.

We could only ever keep one of these effects in play, but while they are mana expensive, they provided an enormous advantage and a degree of flexibility that we wouldn’t get anywhere else.

Everyone would ‘lose’ the 1% or 2% buff from their own equipment, but it would save us a decent amount of mana if my calculations were correct for a group of our size and formation. Furthermore, this way we can tune it through the battlefield for specific conditions at any single place and time.

Though at first glance the health recovery may seem weaker in both number and effect, it didn’t seem to increase only someone’s health points, but the rate at which their injuries healed. That is why we have several ready to run at full blast inside the inner world’s hospital.

Too bad that we haven’t even come close to figuring out how to stack multiple effects at once.

So with one last charge, everyone simply sprints the last 20 meters to the wall atop the rising ground that simultaneously springs up. The will of a thousand seeds permeates every square meter of the roots all around and I spare no expense even with my own Qi, melding with Pando to make sure this goes smoothly.

Our front lines get to an even level with the enemy. And through all the attacks from their artillery, all their layers of protection and all my moral quandaries, the slaughter begins and to my shame, it is nowhere near as one-sided as the last time around.

For every ten enemies that fall in a rather permanent fashion, one or two of us goes too far beyond my ability to help.

I chomp at the bit, looking to head in and put myself in the path of danger, to become a wild thing that would become a target for their attention, To let my skin that so much tougher weather those blows. Seeing the losses, about two hundred avatars leave the roots control to the other and take up arms amidst the enemy, and I’m at least slightly vindicated that they can accomplish what I cannot. They do their best to let chaos rain on the enemy, trusting that Pando would recapture their ‘conscientiousness’ if they fall and then I can regrow their bodies.

While this continues, I have hundreds, thousands that I can save by using my Life resource.

So many more lining up whose only chance is at my hands. So I stay back steadfast as cocoons of roots envelop any who are seriously injured and portals more often than not open by the very seeds controlling the roots bring them to my inner world. With over a kilometer of range, I can reach anywhere in this ‘small’ battle.

If the best I can do is soothe the injured, that is what I’m going to do and I’m going to do it well.