Chapter 795: The fifth day of the development trial (part 7)
Chapter 795: The fifth day of the development trial (part 7)
With Mylene’s call, a whole bunch of girls from the alchemist peak, regardless of faction, climbed the platform while carrying backpacks with different colored ribbons tied to their straps, green, orange and purple to be accurate.
"Please show us the current calculated position of the enemies", said the pink haired girl to the giant eagle who nodded to then fly and make turns around a spot at fifty meters from the walls.
Mylene took a moment to make a few calculations before she turned to see the girls from the alchemist peak as she said.
"Purple Lotus backpacks, second compartment, five capsules each", without a second of hesitation the girls that carried the three backpacks with the purple lotus mark opened them to take out five black capsules each, for a total of fifteen.
"Violet, throw them in front of the area signaled by our ally", said the pink haired girl, most girls from the alchemist peak are either non-combatants or they fight with poison rather than with their own bodies.
There are exceptions of course, Dahlia is a good example of it, and the sole remaining core disciple from the purple lotus, who chose to stay and had recently gotten closer with other disciples outside of the few remaining from her faction, Violet is another one of them, she can use poison and the like, but she is also a combatant and a close range one on top of it, therefore even as a mortal she has a strong body.
"Yes", with a single word, Violet took the black capsules from her fellow disciples and threw them one after another making them explode due to the strong impact against the ground a few meters before reaching the area signaled by the eagle, a strong wood smell spread on the battlefield.
’They were discovered, it doesn’t matter even if they use poison, they are dead animals...’, before the bear could finish his inner monologue, he saw the pink haired creature apply a similar liquid to the one that had spread on the ground on the arrows of three archers and a bad premonition invaded his heart.
"Lit up the arrows and fire!", unfortunately before he could roar to warn his subordinate, Mylene gave the order and three girls from the orange lotus used matches to make the pine tar applied on the arrows catch on fire, that’s right the black capsules that Violet threw earlier all contained pine tar, so you can already imagine what happened when those three archers shot the flaming arrows at the pine tar covered soil.
"Booom!", a sudden blaze came to life as the pine tar caught on flames, creating a controlled fire that covered both the area signaled by the eagle and the area in front of it.
"Screech!", loud screeching sounds echoed through the battlefield as the soil being heat up by the flames forced the enemies underground to surface, a lot of hairy finger sized spiders emerged from the ground only to catch on fire the next second dying not to long after.
One could see the slightly irked expression on the faces of the girls of the sect as they saw the seemingly countless spiders getting caught up in the fire, though they aren’t the type to scream and freeze at the sight of insects and similar, they weren’t exactly thrilled at the idea of having to deal with a lot of those spiders up-close.
"Ugh, there were so many of them", mumbled Tiana unconsciously, which earned her a teasing smile from Aster.
"Who would have thought that the valiant Tia was weak to these kind of things", he jokingly said.
"It’s not like that, I just thought that it would be annoying to kill them one by one with a spear!", exclaimed poor Tiana as she was gazed at by the others, to then give Aster and accusatory gaze.
’This bastard, can’t he let go of a chance to tease others’, thought the energy constitution daughter.
"As expected of brother Aster, he is the only one who can make sis act like a girl", added Erick, luckily for him he was too far from Tiana and they were in the middle of a siege, otherwise he would have taken a fist to the face right there, still knowing what was waiting for her boyfriend once this was over made Sophia sigh.
Back to the fight, after a few seconds and a lot of burnt spiders, a large figure jumped out of the ground to then flash towards the grass in a though fast, awkward way, it was an adult forearm sized spider which had suffered some burns here and there, naturally that was a spider king.
"Kana", seeing the spider running away, Aster gave the little girl the green light, Kana drew her bow almost to the limit and then let go of the string.
"Whistle!", first a wind piercing sound could be heard through the battlefield.
"Roaaar!", followed by an angered roar as Kana’s arrow pierced the spider’s head pinning it to the ground the next second, the first king level animal had died, at the hands of the little girl.
Though that spider didn’t obtain the capacity to use lineage suppression, it was still a king, and yet in a matter of seconds not too long after it had gotten closer to the walls of the camp, it was killed with a single arrow, the bear was more than furious at this moment.
’We can’t advance frontwards, underground, through the water, take an alternative route nor be safe if we retreat, what the hell, this isn’t anything like what the beings in the sky said!’, inwardly screamed the bear.
According to the information he received, the enemy might have some feeble wood walls to defend their camp, that was the first error, the walls that protected the enemies were taller than him and the trees were really thick, to the point that he would need to use his full strength to tear them apart.
Then, they were supposed to use sticks or maybe sharpened bones as weapons, with some occasional "gray" tough stone of some kind added to them, which the supervisors told him to look out for, but not only all the weapons used by the enemies had that gray thing, which was obviously metal, but the two-legged creatures could also create large amounts of fire in a moment as well.
The only thing that his army was prepared for was poison, the beings in the sky warned him to be specially careful if he were to see a white haired female creature and only send dead animals her way, but without that special existence making her appearance he had already lost three hundred dead animals and eighty-two living animals, as in the eighty desert snakes, the spider king and the second in command wolf, the small spiders were dead animals that weren’t originally included in the 900 totality of the army, so they didn’t count for the loss of the dead animal total, there were more than a hundred of them by the way.
’Only one hundred and seventy-two dead animals left...’, thought the bear, there were fifty remaining dead animals from the batch that tried to open the path towards the camp only to die, be trapped at the pits or be killed by the archers of the war chariot unit.
Of course, he still had another one hundred dead animals and then there were the ten seconds in command of the eastern wolf and lynx dead kings and said two kings as well, obviously the spike in seconds in command was due to the help of the supervisors, because no race had that many of them, just look at the horses, besides Selene only Ember’s parents had the strength of seconds in command with Ember herself being just a bit far from that level.
Guardian originally didn’t know where did they obtain so many lynxes and wolves, since the four tribes of the forest didn’t amount to more than four hundred in total, but now there were almost twice that number between the dead ones and the living ones, until Aster explained to her that with materials a corpse could be turned into more than one dead puppet, the supervisors probably ordered the lynxes and wolves to unearth the bones of the dead lynxes and wolves from past generations and used them to multiply the dead army and that’s how the big number of four hundred something dead lynxes and wolves, two hundred living ones, around a hundred desert snakes and two hundred living jackals that conformed the army, came to be.
’There is only one option left, damn if it knew it was going to be like this anyway, I wouldn’t have tried to play it safely and those dead animals would have been put to a better use’, thought the bear after a moment of contemplation.
He could have just used a hundred dead animals to gain the intel he had obtained after three hundred losses, if he didn’t aim to give dual functions to the dead animals as cannon fodder and the first wave of attackers, but now it was too late for that.
Perhaps he was given too much "intelligence" for his own good, sometimes the simplest and most obvious solutions are the best, of course this might also be because the bear isn’t used to use his brain this much, unlike Guardian whose evolution is balanced between improving both her physique and mind, the bear was all brawl and no brain until not too long ago, obviously he couldn’t make use of wisdom as efficiently as the lynx.
What is the simplest and most obvious solution we are talking about, a good old head on charge with everything the bear’s got, of course that doesn’t mean he will lead said charge, but contrary to one would expect, he didn’t direct his attention to the remaining dead animals, but to the... jackal king.
"There is no other way, we’ll charge head on through the obstacle filled path, your race will take the vanguard, followed by the dead animals and lastly the lynxes and the wolves, remain at the back of your subordinates and make sure they don’t stop advancing no matter what", ordered the bear, which made the jackal king tremble, as he could already imagine the result of the previous.
"W-Why aren’t the dead animals being put at the front, that’s their purpose right?", asked the jackal king, he didn’t dare to disobey but at least he could question the bear, as he is a king.
Surprisingly the bear didn’t lash out at him, but his words were a threat themselves anyway.
"We can do it as you ask, just be prepared for all your race members to be wiped out, because if there are no dead animals left, that white-haired female creature can kill two hundred animals in a matter of minutes by herself", said the bear which made the jackal king shiver.
If they drew the arrows, then some of his race members might still survive the charge, however if the special existence mentioned by the beings in the sky interfered, then all of the jackals will die, so he didn’t really have a choice here.
’Fool, to begin with, the jackal race was brought to act as living cannon fodder if needed, that’s why the rewards offered to you in case of victory were so good’, thought the bear.
Originally there wouldn’t have been a need for the jackals to basically throw away their lives, the bear could have split the dead animal army, half to take on the arrows and half to act as a deterrent against poison, but the bear screwed up, so the jackals had to make do as cannon fodder instead.
"Roaaar!", with nothing else to say, the bear gave the order and the still quite large army of just a bit less of six hundred animals both living and dead ones, mobilized, the jackals urged by their king took the vanguard, followed by the remaining dead animals and lastly the living wolves and lynxes, except for the jackal king who had to remain with his race’s group, all the other kings and seconds in command were with the bear at the back of the whole army.
"Red zone angle adjustment", seeing the army spreading and bypassing the pit traps, Kana gave the order and the archers drew their bows.
Kana actually waited until the enemies had crossed half of the red zone, because she knew that the later part of it was too hard for the archers to land their arrows on the enemies, maybe ten out of forty will reach the animals, so she didn’t want to waste arrows, they weren’t infinite after all.
"Fire!", a round of arrows landed on the jackals right before they left the red zone, forty jackals fell into the pit traps and either died by having their bodies pierced by spikes or were immobilized, still the army successfully crossed the first two hundred meters, or a fifth part of the distance between the border of the forest and the camp.
"Yellow zone angle adjustment", like an experienced commander, the little girl waited enough for the enemy army to be at a perfect position that will allow two rounds of fire to be shot, this time while maximizing accuracy within the area to cause more deaths, this is because the glued surface of the pits had a limit and not all animals died upon falling.
"Fire!", with that the second volley of arrows fell upon the jackals, a few actually hit a vital point instantly killing them, which produced a few extra deaths because the jackals running behind the ones that died tripped and fell into the pit traps alongside those that were shot by the arrows and had their bodies flung away due to the impact.
"Fire!", happy with the result but still committed to her duty, Kana gave the order and the third round of arrows and the last one within the yellow zone rained down upon the jackals, this time there weren’t any extra deaths, however the jackal king had his eyes become bloodshot, the first round of arrows at the yellow zone killed fifty of his subordinates, plus two times forty from the other two rounds of fire, that was 130 jackals.
What’s worse is that he was sure the enemy could shoot down the rest of them, as they still had to pass through the green zone, so he will still end up with no subordinates left.
"Hurry up, rush and get out of this damn trap filled area, once we are out, we’ll be able to go at full speed!", shouted the jackal king.
A part of the reason as to why forty arrows caused forty loses for the enemy is that they are obstructed by the narrow twisted paths created by the pit traps and that those that don’t die fall in said pit traps, once they leave the obstacle filled area, they will be able to move way faster than as of current, and not every arrow will take down one of them at least.
"Half of you go cover the jackals!", ordered the bear who also noticed the problem, as he made half of the remaining dead animals rush in front of the jackals, of course he wasn’t helping them but helping himself, if all the jackals died, the dead animal army will be next, so it was better to sacrifice half of them and buy a bit more time for the jackals to keep working as shields for them.
"Green zone angle adjustment", as if a nightmare, Kana’s voice echoed through the battlefield.
"Fire!", forty arrows followed the little girl’s order and a mix of dead animals and jackals were eliminated.
"Fire!", a second volley of arrows took the jackals and the bear by surprise, they still hadn’t crossed half of the green zone area but a third of it, this happened because the bear didn’t know how a bow worked.
At a smaller distance, of course the strength needed to draw the bowstrings also diminished, which meant a shorter preparation time and that translates in a higher firing ratio.
"Fire!", therefore just when the animal army was about to leave the green zone area of the pit traps, a third round of arrows reached them, with Kana’s help the archers ended up still shooting six rounds of forty arrows, which took down two hundred and sixty enemies, since there were extra losses here and there.
The bear had dispatched around eighty dead animals to help the jackals and all of them fell into the pit traps, by a happy coincidence since they were slower, the arrows hit them more easily than the jackals, still after they left the pit trap area which covered a bit more than half of the distance between the forest and the camp, there were only twenty jackals and their king left, the army had around four hundred animals left in total.
"Now, charge!", still they managed to leave the obstacle filled area behind and as expected, they saw a dramatic improvement in their charging speed and maneuverability.
"Fire at will!", this was the last order given by Kana, the archers were now free to choose their targets and try to hit them at their own discretion, of course the little girl did so as well.
"Whistle!", during the remaining four hundred and so meters that remained, the archers still managed to take down another forty enemies, this was a proof of how harder it got now that the animals could move at their highest speed, that being said, there was fear among the living animals, as Kana shot down another three seconds in command, two lynxes and one wolf to be more accurate.
"Dead animal group, ram into that wood wall, the rest look out for those black spheres, don’t let that liquid stain you!", ordered the bear as they entered the one-hundred-meter area around the camp which was cleaned from any grass to prevent the fire from the pine tar to spread in a wrong way.
"Booom!", don’t underestimate animals weighting more than fifty kilograms clashing at high speed against the defensive wall, especially since the dead ones could ignore pain, they managed to make the solid wall erected by Angela and the others, shake, they made some of the logs split and crack.
"Roaaar!", the bear who accelerated out of nowhere, clearly surpassing the limits of a mortal animal tackled one of the most affected areas of the wall.
"Crack!", a loud shattering sound echoed through the battlefield as the bear broke through the wall after using his body as a battering ram, unfortunately just as he was about to give the order to charge and slaughter everything in their way to his subordinates, his face was met with... a second wall.
Though this was smaller in terms of height and the logs were also thinner, he couldn’t outright break it after dealing with the main wall, from this angle the bear who looked upwards, could see that the platforms on which Aster and the others were standing, were built in a way that from the outside it looked as if they were right behind the main wall, but in reality, they were behind the second wall.
Also, he saw a smirk appear on the face of the golden eyed creature as they grabbed onto sticks with that gray thing that were lying on the ground of the platforms, hidden from sight until now.
Those were spears that Aster had ordered to be left on the platforms before the army even reached the border of the forest, in other words they were a little "surprise" he had prepared for the time when the bear’s army reached their camp, because he had no doubts they will do it, after all they didn’t have enough time to prepare a flawless trap field.
Well, to be honest even if they could have done it, those fierce girls would have asked him to let a couple of hundreds of enemies reach the camp so that they could fight them and show the results of their training.
"Everyone, let’s give our "guests" a warm welcome!", shouted Aster, in response a couple of dozens of spears were thrown at the animals, of course the targets were the living ones, they were close enough to the camp so that the girls could choose their targets with ease.
"Roooaar!", the bear who saw the spears pierce his subordinates used his claws to break the secondary wall, and nearly lost it when he saw a fence block his way now, that was the evolution of the defensive perimeter of the camp, the fence which they initially used, then the short but still strong wall built once the group had settled up and lastly the tall and solid outer wall built once everything was properly organized, there would have been a fourth layer of defense had the bear’s army arrived one day later, but that’s why the supervisors did everything in their power to rush the last trial of the development week.
’Humph, be grateful that I had to postpone making the moat for the sake of the pit traps, otherwise the number of animals that reached the camp would have been cut down by half’, thought Angela as she saw the bear going on a rampage to then retreat and actually block a few spears thrown at seconds in command.