Van moved into the abandoned and ruined village. He sent his girls out to investigate and explore. But they found nothing after a few minutes of searching other than the number of bases and resource points.

He wondered how all of this looked like for those in the stands watching. Supposedly the time in the arena was sped up to twice the speed of those outside. And should the match drag on, will be increased to three times the speed. With the floating images above helping everyone keep track of everything going on. Not only that, but the announcer's voices were cut off to prevent those in the arena from hearing anything that might be useful.

“Van, we found fourteen resource points and two bases.” Karmine said, returning with her report.

He nodded and began ordering everyone to capture any that they saw. He himself went to look at the resource points and bases to see what they looked like.

“So these are what they look like…” Van thought as he watched a group of his girls pull down a flag from a flag pole by injecting their mana into an orb at the poles base. A gray circle surrounding the flag poll slowly began to change blue as his girls worked. When their clan flag was fully raised, the circle went completely blue. “And so now every minute that passes we get a point.”

He then turned around and began following a few of the girls to the base. It was a box-like wooden mini fort within the village. In the base’s center was a glowing crystal surrounded by skeletons. Once they were bested, the girls did the same to the crystal they did to the flag poll. When the crystal turned their color, the option to purchase upgrades, equipment and other things became available.

Van wasted no time in buying a watchtower and a map. Terrain information was imperative for these kinds of battles, and having a look out for the enemy was important so as not to get taken by surprise. They then spent the next ten minutes getting every flag pole and base they could get their hands on.

“Odd… The enemy should have been here by now…” Van wondered what was going on, and quickly called on Kella to get her professional opinion. “Kella, you're the closest thing we have to a real commander, do you know what's going on?”

Kella slowly looked at the terrain around her. “If I have to be honest. I’ve never really trained in taking command of an army. I was a knight first, I just followed your fathers orders. But… If I was in charge of this army, I would have gone to the hills and secured my position first, then waited for reinforcements. Either that, or fled until more favorable terrain presented itself, and or I gained a method to pick off the opponents without much loss to my forces.”

“I admit. This method of battle is new to me. One normally can’t just summon troops and weapons as one pleases in real battle. So I deferred to your judgment in this case. Though if there was one suggestion I would have provided before we began. It was that you should have sent Karmine to the forest where her skills would be the most useful. And Ashina to the hills where her maneuverability would likewise made her useful in such terrain.”

“Yes… I was actually thinking the same… If the enemy isn’t coming to us… Then that means…” Van began to look worried.

Kella voiced Van’s fears. “That means they have abandoned capturing this village in the hopes of depleting our forces by dealing with them in either the hills or forest. Perhaps even both.”

“Shit! What do we do? What should I have done differently?” Genuinely asking Kella for her wisdom.

“Like I said, if this was different I would have gone for the hills or retreated. Though with the ability to immediately replenish one's forces… I can’t be so sure abandoning the village would have been a good idea myself… If Karmine was in charge she would have probably gone into the forest, where she could use her years of being a bandit to good use. Ashina may have also preferred the forest due to her build. But…”

She gave it some thought. “We have Avalyn and her troops. They probably would do much better fortifying a village then trying to fight in the hills or forests. And most of your troops and your fellow students are green when it comes to battle. Telling them to try and act like bandits in the forest, or like skirmishers in the hills probably wouldn’t have been a good idea. Fortifying the village and replenishing our forces would probably be our best bet. If I remember correctly, it's cheaper in the points to summon your reserves than actual school sanctioned mercenaries.”

“I see…” Van gave it some thought. Then nodded to himself already coming to a conclusion. “Even if Seral and Cerina are attacked… We can’t abandon the village since it provides to good of a defense for the majority of our forces…” He then made his decision.

“Kella, have Avalyn and her troops take charge in fortifying this village. Then send runners to Cerina and Seral. Have them come back as soon as possible.”

Kella nodded. “As you command.” But just as she was about to turn, she paused and looked up.

Van confused, turned to see what she was looking up. “What the…” A sudden swarm of imps descended upon the village, setting fire to everything they saw. They reminded him of a little of his own imps in appearance, though with far more colors and hues, mostly of the red variety. They swooped in setting to flame anything that was wood.

“Where the hells did these fuckers come from!” He couldn’t help exclaim. “We didn’t see them with the enemy army, so where did they come from!?”

He turned to Kella. “Kella! Get my orders out! And Tell everyone with a bow to shoot these imps down! Those without any long range attacks are to work on putting out the flames!”

Kella nodded and began moving around using her loud and clear commanding voice to calm the nerves of her fellow soldiers and the students who were freaking out from the sudden attack.

Van wasted no time himself firing bolts of mana and arrows of darkness to shoot down as many of the imps as possible. But whenever he defeated one, their shielding would break and they would be whisked away out of the arena.

--- Zariel ---

Zariel smirked as she watched her imps cause confusion in the village below.

“That should slow them down a bit.” She thought as she continued summoning more and more of her imps from her shadow, sending them down to the village below. “Shame that I only have a few dozen. But it should be enough for now.”

Her smirk deepened. “Poor boy. So long as you register what troops you're bringing in with you before the match begins. You can summon them out whenever you need to. So long as it doesn’t go against your cap of course… It was foolish to think that what you saw at the beginning was what we had…”

“Commander! Were routing their army. It seems like you said, their retreating quicker than usual. Should we give chase?” One of her soldiers said.

Zariel gave it some thought and instead asked her own question. “How many students did we kill?”

“Of about the eighteen or so we saw. Only six… The rest fled after that male gave the order to retreat, no real losses on our side.” The soldier said.

Zariel nodded and then concentrated with her mind. A few minutes later an imp came flying to her. “Any news from the forest?” She asked.

The imp nodded happily. “Felicia took seven students out and wounded one! The rest fled back to the village. She gave chase, but stopped right before the clearing and is waiting for your orders while she takes all the resource points and bases in the forest.”

Zariel smiled. “Good. tell her we will attack in half an hour.”

The imp happily flew back towards the forest, carrying her mistress’s orders.

Zariel turned to her soldier. “Prepare the troops. Summon all our reserves and use the points to buy siege equipment.” She then turned to the small village below her. “It’s time we have a little fun…”

--- Van ---

“Thirteen students… We lost thirteen students…” Van muttered. “Thankfully that doesn’t mean we automatically lose all our troops alongside them…”

“Sorry Van…” Seral said.

“Indeed…” Cerina apologized looking crestfallen.

“What? No, I wasn’t blaming you two.” Van said as he peered over the map on the table they were gathering around. “I’m just trying to figure out now how we can turn this around…”

“Perhaps we can be of help.” The guard captain of Avalyn’s royal guard spoke up, gaining everyone's attention. “We have some skill in… Dealing with foes that out number us…”

Van took some interest in that. “That is true… But how are you going to fix this mess we're in? We don’t exactly have the time to fortify this village to Fandorian standards. And those Imps really set things back quite a bit…”

“Do not worry about that.” The guard captain said. “Even if we are facing hundreds, each guard is enough to kill hundreds more for every guard lost… All we need is to create a kill zone and multiple choke points that we can fall back onto as many times as necessary.”

Her eyes blazed with passion and pride. “We could probably deal with this all by ourselves…”

The group looked to each other, then at Avalyn and then the guard captain until Van finally addressed the guard captain. “May I know your name? We never really properly introduced ourselves.”

The guard captain straightened her back. “I am captain Misra. Royal guard and protector of crown princess Avalyn.” She said with large hints of pride. Making Avalyn somewhat embarrassed.

Van nodded. “Alright then, Misra, I leave the planning to you. What would you have us do?”

Despite being a fandorian, most of the other students watching didn’t say much in the way of protest. Showing how important this victory was to them.

Misra leaned forward. “First things first… We're going to need a lot of stakes…”

--- Zariel ---

Zariel rode at the head of an army of eight hundred. Her second in command no doubt headed an equivalent number of troops from the forest side. This was the real size of their force. Most of it though in skeletons and other cheap units that can easily be replaced. How she wished to increase that number even further, but without money and resources that wouldn’t be possible. But with this victory, finally reaching the unit cap wouldn’t be a dream anymore…

“Hold!” Zariel called out raising a fist.

All the troops behind her stopped and waited for her orders.

“Hmm… Well… Isn’t this interesting…” She thought out loud as she saw the heavily fortified village in front of her.

She then called her imp familiar who came flying over. She then told the imp to scout things out and report back to her and in a few minutes she received some interesting news.

“It’s like a maze in there boss!” The imp said, her surprise clearly in her voice. “There's wooden walls, pit traps and stakes all over the place! I got dizzy just looking at the layout! Though it didn’t seem like they were entirely finished setting things up. And it seems a few of their own troops are confused… But if we go through all that without a plan, we’ll face a lot of casualties!”

“Hmm…” Zariel began thinking about what this could mean. “The Fandorians are probably taking charge and setting up whatever this… Is…” Unable to describe the sudden change of the village. “I’m surprised they allowed them to do such a thing… It makes everything a lot more… Interesting…” A bloodthirsty smile growing on her face.

The imp looked giddy at her mistress’s expression.

“Anything else?” Zariel asked the imp.

The imp thought about it. “They had to leave the resource points as is and work around it. Other than that, I don’t think I can help provide a birds I view with how convoluted everything is. I’m not sure which is a dead end or a door. They hid it very well. Though the majority of their forces seems to be in the base near the center of the village. The two on the edges are probably just being used as a gathering point.”

“I see… And you can’t tell me anything else?” Zariel asked.

The imp thought about it. “Umm… A lot of choke points and siege weapons… Oh! And their front door isn’t as heavily defended for some reason.

“Ah well… It is what it is…” Zariel shrugged.

“What are you going to do?” The imp asked, curious.

“Well it’s clear they are inviting me to come in through the front door… “ Zariel gave a vicious smile. “It’s too bad I leave manners at the dinner table…”

She turned to the army behind her and began ordering the siege rams out forward, followed by the skeletons carrying battering rams.

“You're not going through the gate?” the imp asked.

“I prefer making my own entrances…” Zariel replied with a smirk. “It is a shame they went through all that work making all those walls… But they will have to be coming down now… Tell Felicia to attack from her side. I’m going straight for their base…”

The look Zariel was giving, one of a bloodthirsty predator, gave a shiver of excitement through the imps body.

--- Van ---

The siege was on. It was clear as day as the sounds of battle started from all around them.

“Do you think we will hold out?” Van asked.

“Don’t worry.” Misra said with confidence. “I’ve faced vampire hordes before… They always send out their expandable troops first. Which means we-”

“REPORT! REPORT!” A student came rushing in the command tent set up in the base. Eyes filled with panic. “The army from the north! They didn’t go through the gates! They- They’re just busting through all the walls with battering rams! And having all the skeletons swarm over the spiked and staked traps! They’re headed straight here!”

Shocked silence descended on the group.

Well… Shit… I guess wooden walls weren’t enough…” Van commented.