Chapter 209 - The Dance of Elements

It was not just Leif and Lela who were assigned to my section. They were both also leading a squad’s worth of specialized archers and earth mages.

That made a huge difference on the battlefield.

I knew it would now be very difficult for Frosthallow to storm the town wall, and I was proven right.

The next day, working together, the archers and mages killed two Tier-3s and injured more than five Tier-3 combatants from Frosthallow in just the first hour.

But after that, Frosthallow grew more cautious.

Instead of focusing on my squad, they changed their target, increasing the intensity of their attacks on the eastern and northern sections of the town—the areas near the merchant and scholar districts, where Leif and Lela’s squad had been stationed before coming to support mine.

Avalon’s command could not reassign Leif and Lela’s squad to those sections because Frosthallow always kept a squad of mages within sight of my section, letting us know that as soon as our defenses were reduced, they would target us again.

This tug-of-war continued for the next eight days.

Whenever a few mages or archers left our section, Frosthallow would try to attack the area I was defending. But when my section was well guarded by mages and archers, other sections would face heavier attacks than usual.

One evening, when a few Tier-3 warriors reached the top of the southern section of the town wall, they threw bombs similar to the ones Frosthallow had used when the domain was created.

That night became one of the hardest nights for Avalon’s army.

It was not because the soldiers were scared after the attack. By now, most of them had seen enough death to keep fighting.

The real damage came from the casualties among the commoners.

Those bombs did not just kill soldiers. A few of them landed inside the town, killing and injuring civilians. That spread fear throughout the town and threw the commoner districts into chaos.

The situation became so bad that people living near the outer wall had to be temporarily moved farther inward, closer to the central walls.

Thus, while casualties on my side remained on the lower end, it was clear that the battle as a whole was accelerating.

And it was not just Frosthallow causing damage.

Avalon also conducted five more night raids.

Those raids were focused solely on destruction.

Two of them were complete failures. The units conducting them were detected as soon as they stepped outside, causing each unit to lose more than half of its members.

Two more units were somewhat successful. They caused some damage, but they also lost a few members and were unable to draw out any Tier-4s from Frosthallow.

But one unit, which had gone out last night and was made up of elite archers and assassins from the Petrae Battalion, caused the most damage.

They were not only able to lure out a Tier-4 from Frosthallow, but the Tier-4 lieutenant accompanying them—who, I learned, possessed the dark element—was also able to assassinate the Frosthallow Tier-4 before being injured himself by another Tier-4.

That made last night the first time a Tier-4 from Frosthallow had died during the last fourteen days of battle.

It was also the first Tier-4 death on either side, excluding the first day of the siege, when the Tier-5’s domain was created and Avalon lost three Tier-4s, with just as many being injured.

And that major event brought changes to Frosthallow’s strategy.

Just as before, the spear unit came first.

But this time, Leif’s mage unit stopped them by raising earthen shields from the town wall, making the fiery shards from their spears almost ineffective.

What followed, however, was something I had not expected.

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A coordinated attack from two earth mages sent a massive block of earth flying toward the town wall. It embedded itself in the stone, and the impact shook the entire section of the wall, making me fear that it would cave in.

That was when I sensed the Earth-Stability Array activate and spread throughout the wall.

When I looked at the battlefield, I saw a unit of about fifty mages running toward the wall, with around ten earth mages controlling blocks of earth roughly the same size as the one that had just embedded itself in the wall.

Once again, a coordinated spell from two mages sent a block of earth flying toward us.

This time, when the block embedded itself in the wall, the tremors caused by the impact were far weaker than before.

They kept running toward the wall and throwing those blocks at it, placing each one a little higher than the last.

It was clear that they were forming steps to climb.

Leif’s earth mages moved into position to remove the blocks from the wall, but the spear unit fired once more, forcing them to focus their attention on defending themselves instead.

At Lela’s order, the archer unit fired at the mages, with each elite archer precisely aiming at a target while the militia archers aimed at the spear unit.

Yet before their arrows could hit the enemy mage unit, a shield of water appeared in front of the mages.

Moreover, the enemy mages sent wind blades toward the archers, which I blocked by creating a mana shield over the archer section.

“Cannoneers, aim for the mages!” I ordered.

As the cannonballs flew toward the mages, three earth mages stepped forward. They created two large slabs of earth from the battlefield and sent them flying toward the cannonballs in such a way that each slab intercepted multiple shots.

Upon impact, the earthen slabs were destroyed, but the cannonballs also lost their momentum and fell to the ground.

Soon enough, the mages reached the bottom of the wall.

Then a few of them started climbing the steps they had created, while the earth mages made sure that the steps remained in place.

Even when Leif’s squad managed to destroy a step, the enemy simply added a new one. Once, when a step was destroyed and a soldier climbing it lost his balance, a Frosthallow water mage created a temporary step made out of ice to stop him from falling, while the rest of the water mages continued defending their fellow mages against arrows from Lela’s squad.

Once they reached the top, my unit faced the true terror of any battlefield.

Fire mages.

Fire mages and earth mages were the most commonly used battle mages.

Earth mages were valued for their defensive capabilities, while fire mages were valued for their destructive power.

That was proven by the first attack from the two fire mages who reached the top of the wall. A single large fireball thrown at the shield wall rendered it useless.

The heat alone caused most of the shield bearers to lose their composure, take a few steps back, and scatter in random directions, creating a gap for the mages to walk through. Only Garran held his position, and even he had a pained expression on his face.

But by standing his ground, he drew their attention.

As one fire mage aimed a fireball at Garran, I created a mana shield to protect him. But then the other mage targeted me with another fireball.

I dodged the fireball, then sent a mana arc toward the mage.

Using a burst of speed, I closed the distance between the mages in the hope of taking both of them down. But before I could, two wind blades flew toward me.

I dodged one by stepping aside and countered the other with my mana-coated spear, while my mana armor saved me from another fireball attack.

Thankfully, before the fire could penetrate my mana armor, Leif joined in, sending an earthen spear toward the fire mage, who ducked to avoid the spear aimed at his head.

After that, the battle only became more chaotic as Avalon’s other earth mages joined in, creating spikes from the town wall, while Lela’s squad also started supporting us.

Fire mages were devastating offensively, but they were poorly suited to stopping volleys of arrows and spears. Wind mages, on the other hand, could disrupt them easily.

This created a dance of various elements atop the wall. Frosthallow’s fire and wind mages complemented each other, with the wind mages defending the fire mages against spears and arrows while the fire mages pushed most soldiers back with their destructive power. On Avalon’s side, the earth mages tried to protect as many soldiers as they could, but they also kept the pressure on Frosthallow’s mages with surprise strikes from earthen pikes formed from the town wall.

Leif’s squad and mine were able to hold their own against Frosthallow’s mages, but most soldiers, even with the earth mages protecting them, were highly vulnerable to magical attacks.

In just five minutes, five soldiers were taken out of the battle by burn injuries, and two more were killed by wind blades.

Slowly, Avalon’s command started sending more mages toward my section, including a few water and fire mages.

Seeing that the intensity of the battle had increased, I sent most of the combatants farther back, leaving only the archers, mages, and Tier-3 members of my squad in the active battle zone.

Just as we were engaged in battle, I sensed the Aegis Array starting to take shape.

Sensing a wall of wind forming along the edge of the town wall, most of Frosthallow’s mages disengaged from the battle and withdrew from the wall.

As they were escaping, I used a mana whip to drag one fire mage and one wind mage back. The wind mage managed to cut through the whip with an attack, but we quickly killed the fire mage, who was the only Frosthallow combatant left on the wall.

At first, I was a little surprised.

It made no sense to use the Aegis Array, especially when only one section was being pushed back. With new mages joining the battle, the situation could have stabilized at any moment.

But then a booming sound from the east caught my attention.

I looked back, only to see a ripple of translucent white mana rise from the east along the wind dome.

Then the same sound came from the north, creating the same visual effect.

Finally, when the sound came from the southern section, I was able to see the reason behind it.

Frosthallow’s mana cannons were active, each of them firing concentrated blasts of mana.

Without the Aegis Array to stop them, those blasts would have penetrated the town walls and could have weakened or destroyed them from within.