Novel Full Chapter 1996 Outside Gathering
Chapter 1996: Chapter 1996 Outside Gathering
— Hedera —
Hedera clicked her tongue as the fighting outside started with a bang. She wasn’t sure what caused the kick-off but the massive illusion hiding the army failing all at once was either the cause or the response. The guards quickly slammed on the defensive enchantments, raising wall after wall of glowing light… but they were temporary, imperfect things. They were never meant for this sort of combat.
The first few walls went down fast. Cobolt dealing with them himself with just a swing of his axe. The only reason more didn’t suffer the same fate was that one of the shadow creatures Shadowmancer had summoned went for Cobolt directly. The rest were diving into the backline, dealing some damage and accepting any that came there way. They didn’t last long under sustained fire, but taking out two or three people in exchange for destroying one of Shadowmancer’s many monsters was heavily Shadowmancer’s favour.
Hedera held her bow. For now, she wasn’t quite necessary. The guards had their own archers positioned up on the nearby warehouse roofs. They weren’t terribly effective. It seemed like the guards had prioritised teaching their weakest and lowest potential recruits archery. They could fire into a crowd sure, but the enemy had solid armour to tank the damage, alongside a number of them having shields to block with.
This was further exasperated by the distance. Part of why they’d chosen this spot was to ensure that nobody would caught in the crossfire, not even financially. There was a good deal of space around this warehouse and it meant the archers had been set up aa decent distance away. Nothing that would stop a REAL archer such as herself… but these weren’t real archers at all. It was a bunch of recruits with shit bows firing into a crowd of armoured and ready targets.
The desire to show them up was strong… but nobody has pushed past the defensive lines. Even if for her this was a bunch of easy shots… they hadn’t had anyone start to sneak past. Not since, apparently, a group covered in illusions had made it past her. That galled Hedera a bit, but there was nothing to be done.
It’s too dark to easily spot any issues with the illusion and there was far too much noise, both before and now to hear them. Which again, makes me think that I should just start to attack right now… but I was told to watch. To ensure nobody was sneaking past and to keep an eye on any enemy archers of some skill. There are a few, right at the back of the fight, but they aren’t a problem. In fact, I’ve seen two of them drop arrows on their own side more than once. Sure it’s a melee but come on, at least aim a bit further back.
Granted, she was pretty sure those archers had been trying and failing to take out some of Shadowmancer’s summons but that wasn’t really the point. The enchanted walls were keeping the crowd contained for the moment and… oh, there goes the head dwarf. Bother.
Cobolt had finally managed to cut down the bear that had been attacking him. Despite the shape, the bear shadow hadn’t been slow or inflexible. It might’ve pretended to be a hulking mass of muscle but it really was just a stretched out shadow. It bent and dodged attacks it had no reasonable way of avoiding were it flesh and blood. While the weaker shadows accepted damage for damage, this bigger one was trying to keep itself alive with all of the tricks in the book.
Hedera wondered if that was more of a mental limit issue or if there was something unique about the bear shadow. What was annoying for Cobolt was that the thing was FAST. He also couldn’t afford to just let it by, as the one time he dashed past it in order to break down another temporary wall, the bear had sliced open three separate men behind Cobolt. That was in the same time it took Cobolt to swing his axe once.
It wasn’t a good look for the dwarven commander, and while the army was sizeable for something just a small section of the city had put together… it wasn’t all that large in its entirety. Loosing three people was already a lot. They had perhaps a thousand people here maximum but Hedera was pretty sure it was less. The guards only number about two hundred all told, but the enchantments were really helping out.
“Fight me like a man coward!” yelled Cobolt.
“Fight me like a coward dwarf!” retorted Shadowmancer.
“What the fuck does that even mean?!” growled Cobolt as he lashed out with his axe in attempt to slice the bear in half. Shadowmancer just pulled the stomach of the bear backwards as if the spine was a rubber band, allowing it to pass by without harm. Cobolt, expecting something similar, activated an enchantment and a bloom of fire exploded around the axe cutting into the shadow bear, destabilising it.
“Finally!” growled Cobolt as he slashed through the next barrier shattering the entire thing with his force. Only for another bear to drop down in front of him. “FUCK YOU!” Cobolt swung the axe once again, and the bear repeated the same trick to get out o the way so Cobolt responded as expected. The bear dissipated… and another formed out of the lower half.
“That’s cheating that is!” growled Cobolt as he slashed at the bear once again. This time, Shadowmancer just let the bear sink into the ground, ducking under the axe and the explosion that followed the swing before bouncing back up with an uppercut. Cobolt simply slammed his forehead into the paw, barely getting cut for his trouble and yet destroying the bear shadow’s arm in the process which quickly destabilised it.
“If you’re not cheating you’re not trying!” insisted Shadowmancer’s voice from two directions as a third bear appeared leaping over the barrier towards Cobolt. The dwarf met the charge with his axe, only for two more bears to dash in from the side and attack from separate directions. Cobolt let the air around him explode into fire. Which nicely explained why nobody from his side was getting too close to him.
The other combatants were doing their best to break the barrier without Cobolt’s help… while avoiding the big fight. With the pressure on Cobolt ramping up, the pressure on the backline had diminished somewhat, though not vanished completely. What few guards there were had setup in such a way they could poke a spear over the top of the barrier and stab down at those trying to approach. It wasn’t ideal, and they had no proper platforms to aid them.
Worse, it showed off the fact that the barriers were only at about head height. The sufficiently strong combatants could easily jump over them. Worse, this wasn’t the only direction people were approaching from. Cobolt was clearly the main commander, but not the only one. Shadowmancer was keeping them at bay as well… but his focus had to be on Cobolt. His axe was deadly to the barriers for some reason.
It meant the other streets the army was using were losing ground now. Slowly still, and they had a barrier left before they caught up to Cobolt’s progress but it was only a matter of time. The juggernauts inside were getting a bit antsy. With Treant especially wanting to rush out and begin the construction of more layers of defence… but the worry was that they’d start to catapult in explosives and Treant would be needed to block those.
Storm could throw them away if someone spotted them in time, but that wasn’t a guarantee if they’d been warded against wind magic or perhaps even just to ’fly’ true. Of course, Storm was still inside to SPOT such things. More sensitive to the air currents and magical spikes then anyone else.
Titan was the only one that could reasonably leave at the moment but… the truth of the matter was that to truly be useful Titan would need to amp up the brutality of the fight significantly. As it stood, even with Shadowmancer taking out people, many were simply knocked out and moved aside by their brethren. Not all of course, but the fights were clean and only sometimes lethal. Titan introducing a wave of lava would make for, a currently unacceptable escalation of things.
Of course the other worry was that Shadowmancer’s mana wasn’t infinite. For all that the ongoing cost of using the armour helped offset the cost of using its abilities when they were needed the most… it was just an offset. Not a complete removal, and they’d been using a lot of shadows. Occasionally quite powerful ones as well. The real turning point would be if Shadowmancer failed to repel a sufficient number of combatants before their mana was empty. Cobolt, despite throwing around strong attacks and a bit of magic didn’t seem to be getting tired at all, so it was a real worry.