To Kill the Nemesis of Humanity

Following the less than desirable attempts at retaking the two towns of Hadrow and Dawn, the five crusading armies regroup at a military base in a friendly neighbouring county.

As the commanders from the Church and the Kingdom of Virpal enter a conference room, the three other leaders are already sitting there with disgruntled expressions.

"From the look on your faces, I would assume your attempt at conquering Hadrow ended in failure," Aurelius says.

Hearing the remarks from Aurelius, Raúl's already poor expression worsens while Stanislav remains expressionless. Garvin is the only one to respond.

"I don't believe your expedition went much better."

"On the contrary, if not for a surprise appearance from the Steel Mirage, we could have won the battle," Cardinal Luke says.

Garvin looks to Aurelius for his response, but the Virpalin General shakes his head.

"It may have seemed as such at first. But the moment the battlefield would have been cleared the tides would have been turned. Alone we lack the firepower to deal with the Warden if he's alone on the battlefield. Cardinal, you saw for yourself what he can do in that state."

"So the Warden did his thing. That's the reason I wanted to avoid him in the first place, not that it really worked out well in the end. Moving forward, what should we do? It's clear that we won't meet our original goal of surrounding the Sea of Trees at this rate. With the amount of effort it's going to take to capture those two towns, I don't even want to think about the colossal operation that'll be necessary to move on the Sea of Trees itself," Garvin says.

"As things stand, we've lost too much of our overall fighting force to take either of the two towns, even if we combine our armies. Thanks to the fog, any scouting attempt has been rendered mostly pointless. But since we've seen the targets for ourselves it's no longer a problem. Dawn had very simplistic fortifications, if not for the Warden and the Steel Mirage, taking Dawn likely wouldn't have even required a siege. From what could be seen, there had also been areas where the fortifications were of processed stone and metal, but it was in very small amounts. General Armstrong, Viceroy Levitsky, what of the situation at Hadrow?" Aurelius asks.

"Hey, why aren't you asking me?" Raúl asks.

"If you believe you can say anything better than the other two feel free to go ahead," Aurelius says.

Raúl can't help but swallow his anger at this disrespect. Not even he thinks he could say anything that the other two can't say better. He'd just be making a fool of himself.

With Raúl's thoughts clearly visible on his face, Aurelius shakes his head as a single thought crosses his mind, the son of a tiger won't necessarily be as fierce as the father.

"On an individual basis, the Oulvgar, that's what they're called right? I think they're even stronger than the Mystics. In terms of form, they have all the advantages of their animalistic bodies, but with few, if any, of the drawbacks. Beasts that large should not be able to move that fast. Honestly, it's incredibly uncanny. Fighting the Oulvgar head-on is as much as a death sentence as would be directly fighting the Warden. But unlike the Warden, they are able to easily force a melee confrontation. Ranged weapons seem to have every little effect. Some of the Oulvgar are capable of erecting a psychic barrier that will block most weapons a soldier would carry. They use this barrier to protect the entire army. Although damage from heavy weapons like tank shots seemed a little more effective, any damage to the barrier was quickly repaired. But the most devastating part is they have absolute air superiority due to the fog. There's very little we can realistically do with the situation as it is against those bird bombers," Garvin explains.

"What about the town itself?" Luke asks.

"Although we never truly got to approach it, I can easily say that is a town no longer. It's a bonafide fortress. Unlike how you described Dawn's defences to be incomplete, Hadrow is the opposite. Its walls stand tall and there were plenty of traps scattered around in the surrounding area. We all knew that Hadrow was devastated when the Oulvgar first took it, but they rebuilt a crumbling town into a fortress fit for war within the span of just barely over a week. Our only saving grace is that it's made of wood, so as long as we are given the chance we should be able to easily destroy their walls," Stanislav says.

Organising the information in his head, Aurelius lays out his thoughts.

"As it stands, it is unavoidable that we'll have to wait for reinforcements. This will also give time to our opponents to finish the fortification of Dawn. Assuming they transfer the people who built up Hadrow over to Dawn, we can expect that Dawn will experience a transformation into a fortress just as Hadrow has. But it will likely be one that is much more difficult to take with the Warden overseeing the design. Moving forward, it won't really matter which area we chose to attack, the difficulty is the same. The Oulvgar army is just as dangerous and perhaps even more so than the Warband."

"Then what do propose we do?" Garvin asks.

"First, we absolutely can not split our armies again. Our greatest strength in the war is our superior numbers. It's clear that we won't take either Hadrow or Dawn if we split up again. I propose that we target Dawn. There are two reasons for this. The first is geography. Ignoring the Mystics that are skilled in camouflage, there isn't anywhere to lay an ambush as the land is mostly plains, whereas Hadrow is surrounded by hills. But the second reason is that I noticed something with the Warden, something that I've actually noticed a couple of times in my previous engagements with the Warband, but it was even more clear in our last battle. The Warden's movements have gotten sluggish."

"What do you mean?" Raúl asks.

"The Warden's old age is finally catching up to him. He isn't nearly as strong as he was in his prime," Aurelius explains.

Raúl remains sceptical of the claim, but Garvin and Stanislav begin comparing all their previous battles against the Warden and the Warband against each other, specifically their first encounter. While not apparent at first, they do seem to notice a gradual decline in the Warden's strength, specifically in the engagements after the Warden had used his ability to grow in size.

"I see, after using his growth ability his general capabilities seem to fall slightly in the aftermath. And it seems to be even more pronounced when the Warden grows to extreme sizes," Stanislav says.

"This probably wasn't a problem a few centuries ago, but now the Warden's body likely can't keep up with the strain of growing to such heights and his cells can no longer regrow properly due to his old age," Garvin says.

Aurelius smiles and nods, "It looks like you gentleman have figured out what I was trying to say. Although it will be a bit cruel to the soldiers, I propose we engage the Warden into an extended battle and force him to grow to heights the world has yet to see and in doing so, we kill the nemesis of humanity once and for all."