Chapter 74
Riaret the Severing Strike rushed down from the battlements to the square. Gharakar, one of the best of her captains, was waiting for her, and together they marched over to the gate and her five thousand soldiers waiting in front of it. No matter how many times she’d seen it, it was impressive: ten columns of five hundred demons each, all of them ready for the fight ahead, ready to sink their blades into minotaur flesh, to bring their axes down on the Third Ringers, ready to unleash their spells and burn or freeze any that stood in their way. She couldn’t help but smile, seeing the faces of her captains, their eyes burning with the desire to kill all enemies of the Fourth.
Not far behind their formations, Hyde’s catapults, the bloody EXP wasters, were loading flameslime jars onto the huge contraptions for the last salvo. She couldn’t recall crafters ever willingly participating in battle, not with this much enthusiasm and inflicting this much carnage upon an enemy. She had to admit the human’s idea was effective and served his plan well, but still: all the EXP that could have been had! Perhaps she could still make it to level 41 with the leftovers in those camps. And it was almost time, so she turned to face her soldiers.
‘Follow your orders without hesitation! If I say go you all go. If I say stop, you all stop. If I say kill you kill, if I say run you run! If I catch any of you disobeying, the minotaurs will be the least of your worries,’ she bellowed at her army. ‘When those gates open, we’ll be fast and we’ll be merciless! We will slay the damned minotaurs in our way, and we’ll march on to the gate where we’ll shove the entire Third Ring up its king’s ass!’
The army roared in unison, weapons lifted high, just as the last salvo of fiery deathballs shot into the air, flying over the walls to fulfil their mission to turn the enemy into ash.
It’s go-time, Riaret! Hyde’s voice came to her.
She turned around to face the south gate of the city. The two leaves of the gate began to move, dozens of demons working the mechanisms to open it. It was go-time indeed — a catchy, easy phrase she hadn’t heard before, but it somehow embodied the excitement and anticipation she felt. Then, she gave the order.
‘March!’
***
With the gate and walls behind her, Riaret ran with her halberd in hand, the thundering footfalls and deafening battle cries of five thousand of her soldiers right on her heels. Camp Colossus, or Colosseum or whatever name Hyde had come up with, was coming into view; the orange glow of the fires consuming the tents and structures and all the Third Ring scum inside them was a beautiful sight, EXP be damned. The plan was working so far; another minute and they’d be at the fortifications, and she could now see the minotaur earth mages — the ones who hadn’t been burned to cinders or fled — tearing up their own berms and filling up the ditches with earth to put out the fires, then trying to rebuild them as quickly as they could. They could see her army coming, too — it was hard to miss it — and minotaurs and werewolves were gathering to receive them. She was sure their generals were screaming all sorts of orders right now, but this kind of chaos had its way to prevent the troops from carrying them out — exactly what Hyde had wanted, exactly what his plan had delivered. She was almost there, the camp’s defences were almost wide open, and if the enemy was hoping for reinforcements, then they were out of luck. Some of the catapults kept firing at the two smaller camps on either side, making it difficult if not impossible for them to muster their forces and converge on Camp Whatever-or-another. At least for some time. And in that time, she and her army were going to rampage through them like never before and kill as many of them as they could.
The last time she had tried to break out had been a complete failure; uninterrupted lines of minotaur mages with thousands of warriors behind them had been waiting for her and her soldiers to crash against the berms, to bunch up in the trenches, and the earth spells of the enemy mages had buried her demons under rock and dirt, buying time for the rest of the camps to send their forces and crush their attempt to break out. But not this time.
Almost there. Mages to the front! Pick your gaps in the wall and don’t get stuck in the trenches! She ordered her captains, and she grinned as the fortifications filled her view, only a few moments separating the wretched enemy from their doom.
Her aura skills bolstering her soldiers’ strength, speed and the effectiveness of her mages’ spells, she led them into the fray, into the onslaught of earth spells and spears and arrows, but she could feel it once again as the camp, which had been designated as a garrison, exerted its own large scale aura effects, not only nullifying her boosts but taking away more than she could give. But this time it was worth it; with the burning or smouldering minotaur corpses outnumbering the active defenders, and with the berms damaged by those trying to put the fires out, her army had the upper hand. Instead of an irresistible barrage of earth spells, the few dozen mages that had survived the firebombing couldn’t put up a fraction of the defence they once had. She dodged stone spikes flying at her, she batted away chunks of rocks and earth with her halberd and advanced without looking back, and finally she reached the wide and deep trench in front of the earthen walls of the camp. The fire and ice spells of her mages slammed into the berms and their defenders; gusts of freezing air, sharp spikes made of ice, streams of flames and swirling firestorms ended the feeble resistance of the enemy mages. It was time for her warriors to give the bastards a bloody thrashing.
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She leaped over the trench, her level 40 strength and speed carrying her over the emplacement with ease, landing in one of the self-inflicted gaps in the berm on the other side. She didn’t waste a single moment; she knew her warriors were behind her, so she ran through the gap and into the camp where hundreds of minotaurs and werewolves greeted her with their angry roars and shouts among the smouldering wreckage of burned huts and tents. Her namesake Severing Strike skill flooded her bonded halberd with Hell Mana, and she picked her first victim. She leaped at the nearest minotaur soldier, who lifted his warhammer for a strike, but his speed was no match for Riaret’s; her halberd came down, its blade cleaving the vile creature of the Third in half from top to bottom, black blood spraying. Still, the act of dispatching the foe slowed her enough for the rest of her army to catch up; fire and ice-demons poured through the same gap and through some others. Spells, both of the Third and the Fourth Ring varieties, were still flying around here and there, but clearing the camp and killing everything that moved was now a face-to-face, toe-to-toe job for her warriors. And Riaret the Severing Strike applied herself to the job with bloodthirst and glee.
***
A minotaur and a growling werewolf with his mouth foaming fell to the ground in several pieces by a single strike of Riaret’s halberd. One of her soldiers was overcome by a pair of disgusting caver demons — she could just about see the ugly fate of the ice-demon. Gharakar was right behind her, navigating the makeshift streets between burning tents and huts, cutting enemies down with his curved, two-handed sabre, and behind them the rest of her army was chopping, cutting, skewering and burning anything that moved. The chaos deepened with every step her army took, and the stench of smoke and blood mingling together in the air became a fitting spice to add to the flavour of violence and the dying screams of friends and foes alike.
Having overcome the defensive emplacements — which was supposed to be the hardest part — Riaret was ready to keep going and gut this camp until it was devoid of life.
Keep going, Riaret! You’re halfway through the camp. Hyde’s voice echoed in her mind. I’m sending in the second wave in two minutes, so make sure you have a safe path for them. All the camps are mobilising around the city. Artillery is keeping the two closest ones busy, so at least ten to fifteen minutes before we have to worry about enemy counterattacks.
Riaret acknowledged Hyde’s words with a mental grunt while driving the spiky end of her halberd through the eye-socket of a minotaur who had been foolish enough to stand in her way. The Third Ring beast dropped to the ground as she pulled her weapon back. She jumped over the fresh corpse, lifting her halberd high, ready to bring it down on the next, low-level minotaur warrior. She felt the EXP trickling in, but with the average level of her foes considerably lower than hers, hard work and time were the only way to reach the next level. And she was working hard, so was everyone else in her army. She almost laughed out loud as she thought of Hyde just standing on the city wall and watching her with the help of that intriguing weapon of his. What was it called again? A zoom? Or was it a scope? Ah, it didn’t matter; if he didn’t want EXP that was fine. Either way, the Third Ring scum weren’t going to kill themselves, it was her job to do it, that’s what she had to focus on.
General! Levathan’s company has overtaken us already, all other companies are advancing and keeping pace. Our mages are staying behind, holding and dealing with anything we’ve missed. Gharakar reported.
She glanced to her right; her captain was some fifteen steps away, his curved blade doing its gory work carving up panicking minotaurs and cavers, the soldiers of his company right behind him, killing and tossing their victims’ corpses into burning huts and tents with the ferocity she’d expected of them.
Hyde is sending the second wave in two minutes; I want us to reach the far end of this shitpile camp and have that path ready! She told him as well as the other captains.
Will be done, General. The replies came one after another.
This was good, this was very good. Let this damned camp burn to the ground with everyone in it; they had repelled her attack once, costing her more than half of her army. This time she would erase them so completely no-one would know they’d ever existed, and to that end she stretched her levels, stats and skills to the limit, using her Hell Mana unreservedly to kill as many of the enemy as she could and as fast as she could.
Second wave away, they’re going through the gate now. Hyde informed her two minutes later.
She stopped for a moment; fires, smoke, destroyed structures and dead demons of all varieties — mostly Third and some Fourth — made up the landscape around her. Her halberd as well as her armour were slick with black blood, and to her disappointment, the far edge of the camp was mere steps away, and Gharakar’s grin and the lack of enemies meant she had completed the first phase of the plan.
All captains! Report! How is that path coming along? She demanded.
The reports began to come, starting with Levathen boasting that his company was the first to reach the end of the camp, then the others boasting about how much killing they had done and assuring her that the camp was firmly in their hands.
Hyde! We have the camp, we have the path. She let the Lord know.
Great! Second wave is a couple of minutes away from the camp; let them rush through and make their way to the Path in the Wilds. Hyde replied, sounding pleased for a moment, but after a brief pause his tone changed. Oh shit! Riaret, we have a problem.
A problem? Whatever could it be? Riaret knew she should have reacted with exasperation and worry to this announcement, but cutting through the camp had still not pushed her over to level 41, and she was sure she had killed at least one relatively high-level minotaur captain. Whatever that problem was, if it meant EXP, then she’d welcome it.
