With a smile, Konrad got on his horse and led his mercenary force northeast, toward the fortresses. The decisive battle was about to begin.
♱
My first impression of the place was that it was an unimpressive fortification. Its walls were imposing, but the place didn’t have full cover, and it was completely exposed from above. Its towers were low and didn’t offer a far enough line of sight. They had clearly been built during a budget deficit, making the whole fortress pretty unreliable.
“Sérignan, the enemy’s coming. The Ripper Swarms I sent out to scout ahead report the enemy’s approaching.”
“We are ready any time, Your Majesty.”
Ripper Swarms couldn’t match heavy infantry, so I put their superior mobility to use by having them act as scouts. They stealthily slipped behind enemy lines, hiding in the vicinity to transmit information to me through the collective consciousness.
“The wyverns are the real problem,” I muttered.
Wyverns. In the game, the Gregoria faction used units called wyverns too. They were flying units with relatively high firepower, making them a tricky opponent for the Arachnea, whose meager aerial units were frail.
On top of that, the game’s Marianne faction would shoot all the Arachnea’s aerial units out of the sky, making things even harder. Just remembering it pissed me off. The Gregoria was tricky for us as it was. The hardest faction for us was the Necrophage faction, with their necromancer leaders, but the Gregoria was definitely a close second. The Necrophage sacrificed mobility for superior defense and firepower. They were a definite headache.
“How’s the fort’s reinforcement going?” I asked.
“It is nearly complete,” Sérignan told me. “We’ve set up Eyeball Spires in all of our important positions.”
I’d found the Eastern Trade Union’s fortresses lacking, so I’d decided that we would improve them ourselves. I had informed the Union’s leaders of my intentions, of course, and they’d told us to go ahead. In anticipation of the Nyrnal Empire’s army, we’d added a second layer of walls and built Eyeball Spires. I stationed Toxic Swarms in the Eyeball Spires, allowing them to easily dispatch lightly armored units from a distance.
This gave me an impromptu response against the enemy’s aerial units. I also posted large numbers of Toxic Swarms on the walls, granting them enough elevation to shoot down enemies below. The Genocide Swarms would wait inside the walls for if and when the enemy penetrated the fortress. Should that happen, they would go and cover for the Toxic Swarms.
As the enemy approached the walls, the Toxic Swarms would whittle down their numbers, softening them up so the Genocide Swarms could make short work of them once the fighting began in earnest.
“Do you think the battle will go well?” Sérignan asked me.
“Who’s to say?” I replied with a shrug. “In any case, we have to do this. If the Union falls, it’ll have lasting repercussions on our tactics. Besides...”
I paused, taking in the horizon.
“I like this country.”
Assassins may have come after me, but apart from that, I enjoyed shopping here. Lysa was still bedridden, but hopefully she’d recover soon, and then we’d be able to enjoy the sights in Khalkha again.
I haven’t forgotten my human heart, Sandalphon.
“Huh?!”
Just then, a Ripper Swarm sent me a message that betrayed my expectations.
“They didn’t!”
The Gregoria was ruled by draconic creatures. They had wyverns and dragons to fly through the air, sea serpents and leviathans to dominate the sea, and lindwyrms and behemoths to conquer the land.
Of those units, the lindwyrm was a relatively tricky opponent for a standard unit. Lindwyrms performed like heavy tanks, and their high defenses meant normal attacks wouldn’t dispatch them easily. They could also function like battering rams and had high offensive stats. I had many bitter memories of lindwyrms busting through my defenses.
Right now, there was a force of sixty lindwyrms marching on the fortress lines. The issue was that both lindwyrms and wyverns were sentient creatures capable of acting on their own. They took orders of their own volition, but they would heed their masters without question even if it meant their deaths. Wyverns only had riders so they could be ordered in the heat of battle to take the most effective action in a given scenario. And if wyverns landed, they could independently fight on the ground.
The same could be said of lindwyrms. They didn’t require riders, as they were accompanied on the battlefield by commanders who could issue them orders. The Nyrnal Empire must have used the Gregoria’s heritage to produce dragons, and just like in the game, these dragons obeyed their masters.
But this time, they were not lorded over by dragons of old like in the game. Their current master was Maximillian, but they were just as loyal. It was the same as how the Swarm were loyal to their queen.
“Sérignan, this is really bad,” I said. “They’ll probably break the fortress line easily, and through multiple points at that. We’ll need your strength.”
“Understood, Your Majesty.” She knelt before me. “Order me as you wish. As an Arachnea knight, I will accomplish your will.”
“Good. Then I have something I need you to do.” In my mind’s eye, I helplessly watched the Ripper Swarms’ transmission. “Kill those giant serpents. All sixty of them. They have heavy armor, and they can sweep away anything they run into. Somehow, some way, I need you to stop them all.”
♱
The Empire’s army showed up three hours after the Ripper Swarms’ warning. Since we knew they’d be bringing lindwyrms to the front, I had as many Carrion Cannons as possible arranged along the walls. The lindwyrms had hard scales, but there was still flesh underneath them, and inflicting them with poison would cause continual, residual damage.
As they oozed that chip damage, I’d send in Fire Swarms to bomb them. I could have used them to spew fire on the enemy as well, but the heavy infantry could easily defeat them.
Once the other Swarms weakened and cut down the enemy numbers, Sérignan would swoop in to slay them.
If only that unit would get here in time, I’d bring them into the battle too...
Still, there were sixty lindwyrms. They were among the toughest, most durable standard units in the game; even the Carrion Cannons’ continual poison and the Fire Swarms’ explosions might not be enough to stop them. And once the army reached the walls, bombing wouldn’t be an option anymore.
If there were fewer of them, even just forty, we’d have an easier chance of winning. But sixty was just too many.
“You can count on me, Your Majesty,” Sérignan told me, sounding confident. “I will slay the enemy serpents for you.”
Right. A commander acting timid would have a negative influence on the rest of the battle. I had to believe in our success.
“They’re coming!” a lookout called out from one of the watchtowers.
The nightmare was coming into view. Sixty serpents. They were quadrupedal reptiles with large, winding tails. The enemy was dead set on crushing us right then and there.
“Can we defeat those things?!” Konrad uttered, his eyes widening as he saw the horde of lindwyrms.
His mercenary band had arrived on time. I had them stationed on and inside the walls to aid the Toxic and Genocide Swarms.
“They’re not undefeatable, but you should be prepared for some casualties.”
“Well, don’t worry about that,” Konrad told me. “A mercenary’s always ready to lay down their life.”
I found the man’s tough disposition encouraging in this trying time.
“Can we use battering rams against them?” he asked me. “Maybe we can put a few together with the materials we have here?”
“I never tried it, so I can’t say. But it doesn’t hurt to try. Anything will do so long as it can deal damage.”
At this point, I wasn’t going to be picky with what we used in the fight; our enemy was too troublesome for such trifles.
“Our folks’ll craft a battering ram, then. I just hope we win.”
“We have no choice but to win,” I replied.