Dragon Gods Reign

Chapter 266: Start of the Battle

[Ouroboros' End]Appearing as small dots that were scattered across the skyline, the mythic ranks among the smugglers mirrored the group around Darganth as well as the town’s mythic ranks, observing the battle from far behind the front lines yet staying close enough to be able to quickly intervene when necessary. And while neither Darganth nor anyone else on his side could definitely say when this would happen, evidently, their troops' first line of defense falling apart didn’t rise to that point.

Because shortly after the first volley from the siege artillery struck behind the smuggler’s front-line and threw their reserves into chaos, Melidra’s troops descended from the skies. Diving down a few hundred meters ahead of the individual cavalry formations that were galloping toward the smuggler’s entrenched positions, these winged undead slammed down amid the enemy formations.

What followed was pure chaos as the tightly packed formation broke apart mere moments before the cavalry reached them. With both the soldiers themselves and the third rank supporting them distracted by the undead that had suddenly appeared among them, their charges found success more often than not.

From his position atop one of the towers, Darganth watched as cavalry tore through the defending lines and shattered the first line of defense not even ten minutes after the signal had been given. While it was faster in some areas and slower in others, ultimately, most fights ended in favor of the attackers. In contrast, only about a dozen of the over fifty entrenched positions that had been attacked even managed to beat back the town’s soldiers, with only about a third of these managing to inflict serious losses on their foes in the process.

And with this, one layer of the army-wide spell formation that covered the entirety of the smuggler’s troops and even the furthest of their camps slowly lost its power. Though centrally controlled, especially at the edges, this formation’s power had been sustained by the interlink between the spell formations projected by and around the different units of soldiers. With their position overrun and whatever they used to power these destroyed or captured, this outer layer naturally failed, something that was only further aided by the town’s army deploying its own large-scale spell formation, which clashed with the other magical energy wherever the two met.

In response to this, magical signatures flared up all across the second and third lines of the smuggler’s army.

“It’s finally starting.” Darganth said with a smirk, his active dragon eyes allowing him to watch the shifting mana flow in great detail.

“Should we stop them?” Allaire asked, eyeing the rapidly condensing mass of mana cautiously.

“It’s too late for that.” Darganth responded and shook his head. “Maybe the spell formation of the unit they are targeting can hold out, but that will depend only on its quality and the skill of whoever is sustaining it. However, as much as their own spell formations are shielding them, now that these mages have revealed themselves, they also won’t be having a good time for much longer.”

Though he saw Allaire nodding from the corner of his eye, Darganth noticed her frustration over the fact. It was something he could empathize with as he also hated the fact that he was effectively unable to directly do anything against such weak foes, though in his case, it was more a matter of pride instead of him wanting to protect their allies.

However, the logical part of his mind knew that for all his power, contending against even a freshly promoted mythic rank wouldn’t end well under these circumstances. While he could shrug off the offensive aspects of it, a spell formation powered by probably over a thousand anchors spread across the army could significantly boost even a mythic rank's already impressive power, not to mention the shields and other defensive measures it provided everyone under its protection.

Thus, he and the rest of his group stayed back as the smuggler’s counterattack struck one of the cavalry units. Having just finished routing the last bit of the formation that had blocked their advance, they were in the midst of regrouping while throwing nervous glances at the undead around them when the enemy spell struck.

Before any of the mana users among them could even perceive it, the standard at the center of their formation lit up with runic inscriptions. All across the wooden shaft and the flag at its tip, glowing lines and spell symbols flickered into existence, causing the eyes of the officer carrying it to widen in shock before his training took over and he reinforced the mana flow between himself and the magic item.

Not a moment too soon, because a fraction of a second later, crimson red balls of fire appeared barely a few hundred meters above their formation. Already carrying momentum with them, they came plunging down onto the town’s soldiers like meteors. In response, a dome of defensive magic became visible around the unit, straining the soldier carrying the unit's banner even further as his magic was rapidly drained to sustain the transparent shield around him and his allies.

Soon, the barrier couldn’t hold up to the barrage of magical attacks. But even as cracks formed along the shield around them, the soldiers were emboldened by flashes of spell-fire that erupted along an entire portion of the wall. From these, streaks of elemental power filled the skies, sailing across the entire battlefield and heading toward the smuggler’s mages. The enemy’s army spanning formation threw up barriers in response, causing colorful eruptions across the skies as spells of various elements hammered into obstacles.

However, the sheer volume of attacks quickly overwhelmed the smuggler’s defenses, with barriers shattering under the onslaught and the anchors that sustained the spell formation failing as their wielders fully exhausted their mana. Thus, as the town’s cavalry and the group of Melidra’s undead close to them was consumed by flames, those of the smuggler’s mages that had exposed their position for this attack suffered the same fate.

And Darganth knew that among both groups, only a few fortunate and powerful individuals would survive. Spell formations allowed units and armies to survive attacks that the individual soldiers would’ve been far too weak to endure. But that also meant that when they failed, there was often little these soldiers could do to save themselves.

Still, these losses didn’t mean the battle had suddenly slowed or even paused. While the flames still raged where the town’s mounted soldiers had been moments before, the still advancing formation of infantry shifted to accommodate the sudden gap in their vanguard. Reserves sped up their march to join the front line in that area and strengthen the formation's ability to resist a possible counterattack.

Meanwhile, a small group of five mounted mana users guided their mounts forward, galloping through paths that opened in the shield wall of the main line’s infantry. Once they were past the formation and on a clear field, they pushed their mounts even further, with the animals quickly accelerating to speeds that definitely showed they weren’t mundane creatures.

When they did so, Darganth’s attention briefly wandered to this small group, curious as to what they were planning. Letting his gaze linger on them for a few seconds, he watched them reach the inferno that had formed where the smuggler’s spell barrage had struck and conjure a massive wave of water that put out the lingering flames. Seeing this, he had to commend their coordination, especially as the five melted back into the regular formation once the frontline reached them some fifteen minutes later.

And though the battlefield hadn’t stood still during this time, there had also been nothing major that happened during this time. With Melidra not yet committing a second wave of her undead to the battle and the town’s infantry still almost two kilometers away from the second line of defenses, only the vanguards of both sides were clashing.

Still, with magic allowing entire armies of mana-less soldiers to be imbued with the strength that was normally reserved for mana users, at least among humans and most other humanoids, this distance was close enough for the first exchange between the main forces to draw close. Already seeing the first signs of this in the form of both sides' archers knocking their arrows, Darganth watched as the two armies then came within one and a half kilometers of one another.

Though still too far for the mana-less archers even with the physical enhancements they were under, this range was enough for some of the stronger mana users of the two sides to unleash the first volley. Drawing back bows whose draw weight was more in line with that of heavy balistas and similar stationary siege weapons, they let loose a shower of aura-infused arrows that left comet-like trails in their wake.

When this volley struck, it carved through the line of mostly mana-less and first rank aura users. Not even the combination of shields and heavy armor could save these soldiers, with the former only resulting in a shower of wooden splinters accompanying the deadly projectile as its aura imbued form easily tore through the material. Meanwhile, the armor was at least partially effective. Though it failed to protect its wearer in almost every instance, it at least slowed the projectiles enough that they only rarely pierced all the way through a soldier. Still, rare didn’t mean it never happened, with portions of the formation unfortunate enough to have been targeted by an especially powerful enemy losing as many as three soldiers to a single arrow as the attack cleaved through multiple people in the densely packed battleline.

However, even as openings were cut into the formations by the range attacks, new soldiers quickly replaced the fallen on both sides. And amid all of this, the town’s army marched on, their shield-wall steadily pushing closer toward the phalanx of smugglers awaiting them across the hilly landscape. Soon, this allowed the lower-ranked archers to join the exchange. Slowly but surely, this caused the number of projectiles flying between the two formations to rise exponentially.

Despite this, the number of dead barely increased. In sections of the battlefield where the hail of arrows took a particularly heavy toll on the archers themselves, it even decreased as the mass of weaker archers failed to replace the firepower provided by the few dead high-ranking aura users. Whereas the attacks of the latter punched through shields and armor, these weaker attacks only had a chance to wound their targets if they struck gaps in the armor. And while the sheer quantity of them ensured that it happened rather often, these wound also simply weren’t as fatal.

Even if such an arrow found its way into the shoulder of a soldier, the formation of mages marching behind the front lines and archers ensured that it didn’t take them out of the fight for long. Protected by massive barriers they themselves conjured, these groups contained more than a few mages specializing in healing magic, ensuring all wounded soldiers could be healed in relative safety, allowing them to rejoin the frontline within the minute.

This availability of healing magic meant that when the two armies finally reached one another some minutes later, their ranks had only slightly thinned. Thus, as the two forces closed to within a hundred meters and the town’s shield wall broke open to charge at the smugglers' phalanx, two full lines of infantry met in a clash.