The sudden appearance of new foes had shaken the Demon army, and they split into two groups, one headed east and the other west, both trying to make a break for the south. However, the kingdom’s knights came to meet them with ferocious war cries. It caught them off guard, stopping them in their tracks. At some point, forces that clearly exceeded all of those in Anheim had appeared from the south.
“Take this!” Baron Zabel met the paralyzed Demon army near Anheim’s eastern gate, and he rushed into enemy lines while flailing his halberd, cutting down his foes as if he were merely counting on his blessings. He was a brave general, and he rued the fact he had only now seen action. But now that he had the chance to swing his weapon, he displayed his full power. Following his valiant example, the men under him—along with surviving knights and soldiers from Triot—joined the battle.
On the opposite side, near the western gate, Viscount Gröllmann’s army charged into the Demon ranks, Goecke’s mercenaries taking the vanguard as they mowed the enemy down. Viscount Gröllmann had participated in the retreat of Fort Werisa, and the core of his knights had trained with the Zehrfeld’s forces in squad tactics. They were among the few so-to-speak veterans of organized group combat in the kingdom’s army.
Viscount Gröllmann was also swift with his orders. Commanding several of his troops to isolate and surround enemies, he managed to pin the enemy between Anheim’s walls and his massed forced. There, he annihilated them.
While both armies had long camped out in the area, they had yet to see battle. Now carried by their momentum, they crushed their enemies and gradually forced them back north to where the knight brigade was.
The Demon army was completely surrounded.
Before the battle to defend Anheim had begun, Werner set fire to the second fort when he withdrew his troops. That wasn’t to inform Gezarius of their retreat but to convey by smoke signal to Baron Zabel and Viscount Gröllmann that the Demon army had taken Werner’s bait.
Their scouts who had already entered Anheim saw the fortress erupt into flames and returned to their domains to report the incident. Upon hearing the news, Viscount Gröllmann and Baron Zabel deployed their armies. This confirmed to them that since the Demon army had taken Werner’s bait, they wouldn’t be advancing on either of their domains. As such, they didn’t hold any of their forces in reserve.
The survivors of Triot in both armies led them over the river far from Anheim to invade Triot. Then, they hid their troops south of the river and waited for the knight brigade to arrive.
On Werner’s side, once he arrived in Anheim after passing the third fortress, he first ordered that the wood they prepared be delivered to the river’s southern bank. They were assembled into rafts, which would make it easy for Viscount Gröllmann’s and Baron Zabel’s armies to cross the river. Only then did Werner allow himself the luxury of sleep.
Then, to keep the Demon Commander from discovering the blockading army, Werner sent Goecke’s mercenaries—who among their forces were the most capable in close combat—to act as a commando unit in the south, severing communications between Triot and the Demon army.
In order to arrive in Anheim alongside the knight brigade, Baron Zabel and Viscount Gröllmann worked with Goecke’s men to build the rafts and cross the river. They then headed north to drive the Demon army away from the south.
Werner had always worked under the assumption that he wouldn’t use Goecke’s mercenaries in the defensive battle. That was why he had created the laser pointer and volunteer squad. He had put together a plan that would stave off the Demon army with ranged attacks alone.
Thus, the Demon army pressed deep into Wein territory, striking at Werner’s seat in Anheim while completely oblivious to the kingdom armies that had been deployed to the south, ready to cross the river at a moment’s notice. They fell victim to a pincer movement, assailed on one side by the knight brigade, who’d arrived early than they accounted for, and on the other by the kingdom’s armies who attacked from Triot—their own territory.
The appearance of these forces seemed impossible, and it left the Demon army so shaken that all they could do was run around in circles. All the while, soldiers rained arrows upon them from atop the walls, and the soldiers from Triot swung their weapons with palpable hatred. On both the eastern and western sides of Anheim’s ramparts, the ground was paved with roads of monster corpses and blood.
To the north, the first and second ranks of the knight brigade toppled the Demon army’s formation as they cut them down. Bolts from carroballistae took the lives of several Demons, and the mercenaries slew the rest without mercy.
But just as the monsters’ defeat seemed all but inevitable, a voice thunderous beyond belief roared through the battlefield. Humans stopped in their tracks, and even trained warhorses were so spooked they froze. Even some monsters stopped in their tracks. Then, the Demon army rushed the knight brigade as if possessed.
In the single moment that Werner and the rest of the garrison had lowered their guard, a large mass rushed and slammed into the gates. The whole northern wall let out a loud grating noise as a section of stones tumbled to the ground. Gezarius had crashed into the wall at full-force. Werner and his men had enforced them, but they now crumbled to pieces at an alarming rate.