The Siege

Getting all of our player forces together only took around fifteen minutes before everybody was standing out front in ranks. Since Zekrom was going to me working his alchemy on the skeleton NPC, two hundred players looks like a paltry number. However, each player was heavily outfitted in the best equipment, weapons and accessories owned by top clans.

Even though we would be going without any skeletons, there were still more than twice as many familiars of different species as players in this group and each player was equipped with a 'Chaos Soul Lance' to breach our target. The rest of the enemies in the engagement would be dealt with by the usual means.

The front line of these players was made up of my team interspersed by the elites of Crafters, Thirteenth, and Duality wearing different matching armors like clan uniforms. There were more than a few players in extreme heavy gear like Stonewall around the front few lines, but most people were common medieval more than fantasy armor with variations in the metals and magics to make up for it.

Mistress' and my own teams stood out like sore thumbs in thick paper armor and heavy leather medium suits of 'primitive' fashions.

Nodding my approval of the muster, I wonder at whether or not somebody should say a few words. Shrugging casually, I declare, "We're about to kick some demonic ass and take a base! Looting rules are as follows, the individual can keep all you can carry on a first-come-first-serve basis and everything else is divided by clan. Stay alive if you want more loot and experience! Let's go!"

Short, sweet, and to the point. Everyone present loved it despite the fact that the skeletons were being left behind. However, I could hear even their ghostly voices cheering our small numbers on.

Using transmutation on the outer wall sealing the cathedral gates, I create hinges and a crossbeam on the inside for locking the gate before leading the way out. Luckily, there was a platform thirty yards behind the gate so there was no pit directly ahead of the gate and only short earthen walls were left in our way.

The reason I had kept my 'speech' short and sweet was because of what followed. Just getting through our own obstacle course took twenty minutes and we were still a few miles away from the closest outpost. Riling up the troops would have only been a waste of everybody's energy at this point.

Instead, it was best to just tell them what we were doing and offer some playful advise to set the mood so that they would maintain themselves at that neutral level until it was time to actually fight.

Roughly two miles away from the cathedral was a medium sized outpost that was a group of partial demolished structures surrounded by tall walls of rubble. This and the outposts to either side of it were the source of the demons who attacked the cathedral. The number of troops was greater than the number of reinforcements the received beforehand, meaning that they had spent not only the extra numbers but also their own forces in the attack.

Those three outposts would be our foothold in the encirclement, starting with the one dead ahead of us. Its rubble walls were broad and tall but the angle was easily climbable even if we could not topple it with our breaching lances. Aside from not knowing the numbers or specific enemies within, I had few doubts about our impromptu success.

The ruined city's terrain was deeply cracked and pitted, making for a natural obstacle course to bodies our sizes. Even though we had managed to mount every player present with a collection of unclaimed pets, it took us almost an hour-and-a-half to creep through the darkness cast by mountains of stone while avoiding sight with our smaller numbers.

Although I was not good with Shadowmancy itself, I was able to use it to create dark elemental mana and interact with other shadows to some extent. Using these abilities, I could create a smokescreen of true darkness that shielded up against the light in between shadowed areas. Its cost also accounted for some of our slow traveling speed.

When we finally ended our march it was at the top of an unnatural ridge formed from several large stone buildings and similarly sized boulders crushed together. The makeshift mountain that rose fifty feet above the 'ground' was only about four hundred yards away from our destination and large enough for two hundred people to spread out on top of in three spacious rows.

From this height, our range was increased by several folds and we could probably throw our spears right into the outpost. However, destroying the buildings and ruining bodies would destroy our loot. It was safer and better for us in general to use out current advantage for focusing on a single area of wall.

Once everybody was on their feet and in position below the crest of the ridge, I held up a hand with three fingers that slowly closed one at a time. When my hand became a fist, everybody stepped up and out in unison with a Chaos Lance in hand. As previously agreed upon below the ridge, all eyes and spears were set on the wall dead ahead of us.

Two hundred shiny black lances with long glowing heads flew up into the air almost in perfect unison, flying straight up and out for hundreds of feet before finally arcing downward and forward for even more hundreds of feet. Four seconds after entering the air, two hundred Chaos Lances struck home all around the southernmost area of wall facing the cathedral.

The unnatural piling of rubble naturally had thousands of holes and crevasses into which the spears fitted with tragic perfection. Dozens of spears detonated all over and all throughout a fifty-foot area of wall, sending smoke and dust and all forms of debris flying through the air. Some of the smaller pieces of rock actually managed to make it within a hundred yards of our position.

Once the smoke cleared, the wall had been breached with a broad 'U' that touched the ground with thirty feet of open space before stretching outward and upward. Even before we had a view of our destination the players had all mounted up after throwing their spears and started forward over the mountain. We were already reaching the bottom when the enemy finally reared its numerous ugly heads.

Despite the size of the breach in the wall that could fit ten men abreast, the giant bone demons who started pouring out could only exit the breach we had made three and four at a time. After the first dozen or so had made it out there came dozens more from over the walls. This time, though, there were numerous other demons running wildly among them.

"Tragedy's Traveler's, brace for impact!" I call out to my team in the front line as I start running forward away from the stretched company of players. Usually this call for bracing would be a warning but this time it was a signal for my companions to spur their mounts to full speed and pull ahead with me. Our followers picked up their own paces as well.

The few hundred yards between us and the forward charging demons shrank away in less than half a minute. A few hundred thundering feet shocked the ground every second, causing the loose dust and gravel to breeze or bounce away from the ground between us. For a few moments, it felt like my heart was beating at the pace of those hundreds of stomping feet.

Growing out my wings in the last moment, I flap into a lunge that closes the last few dozen yards of distance between the first demon and my raised staff. Stepping down form my lunge while slamming the full length of my crystalline staff forward, the angle of the staff perfectly slaps across the torso of a bone giant whose arms were originally open in running positions.

Before the bone demon even knew what was happening, its armor plated body was suddenly cracking outward and sizzling from a three-inch depression that stretched from its right shoulder almost all of the way to its left hip. Following this, the giant bone demon was slammed flat on its back on the ground with a visible shockwave of dirt and dust around its body.

Following through with the swing even though the opponent was on the ground, I vault myself almost ten feet up into the air from the strength of my own attack before flipping straight down into another polearm slam down the middle of the demon's face. Its health bar that had just lost over twenty percent of its health was dropped down to thirty percent from the suppressing critical headshot with dark knockback mixed in.

Bringing my forward hand back to slide the staff through my back hand and bring my hands back toward the middle, I whip back around to the other side while sliding the staff to grip its previous striking end. My feet had never even touched the ground yet from the sheer speed and force of my actions, keeping me aloft while landing a combo of three blows.

The third blow across the side of its head destroyed its head with despite no increased damage from the random slow effect that occurred. The bone demon had died so quickly that its nearest companions were just entering reach, one leaping into an overbearing dive for my much smaller body while the other raised a foot to stomp on both the dead and myself.

Flapping a single wing to throw myself sideways and a few yards up into the air, I snap my wings out to make a brief moment of stopping in midair to watch. The tackling demon sprawled uselessly over the dead demon and was unceremoniously stomped square between its massive shoulders by an equally massive foot.

Leaping forward as soon as I landed at the same time as the stomp, I hop up onto the legs of the dead demon while my team and dozens of other demons clash around me with massive waves of magic and short bursts of skills. Hopping up from there, I once again raise my staff up like a polearm weapon and slam it down across the back of the second bone demon's neck as it recovered from the stomp that took over ten percent of its health.

My critical blow not only darkened its body for a slowing effect but also dazed away two seconds and thirty percent of its life. In the first of those two seconds I lurched over into a hard spinning attack while gripping the staff in the middle. Smashing into the shin of the third demon's leg as it rose to free the second, I trigger a sizzling effect that begins eating away the bony armor of its lower legs.

Riding out the recoil from striking something do dense and hard with a backspin, I slam the other end of the staff into the other side of its shin to meet its off-balanced swing with a knockback boost.

The dark wave of energy that dispersed out from the striking point seemed to ripple the demon's leg as the second second of daze started, causing the weakened opposite side to start fracturing and fragmenting as the demon was thrown back and to the side. Before the second second of the second bone demon's daze could run out, I jackknifed my lower body up above my chest and threw my head back into a forced flip to polearm slam my staff across the back of the dazed demon's head.

Casting a few arcs of St. Elmo's Fire as I walk away, I finish the last ten percent of the demon's health with the direct introduction of electricity into its cracked skull. A simple thought occurred to me as I flapped over to the third fallen demon and behind the enemy's impromptu line that was now being stalemated by the arrival of the other clans. This thought was quickly answered by Melpomene's voice as I landed on the downed demon's chest with a pool-cue thrust of my staff into the underside of its chin which casting Shadow Ball.

[+350XP]

[+350 Staff Arts XP]

[Staff Arts Leveled]

[+30XP]

Only thirty?! I knew I never used other weapons besides bows since leaving Sierra but this is insane! I could have swore I was getting fifty experience from this mastery skill during the Elder Oak Challenge.

Silently asking for my notifications to be returned to their previous settings as I cast Spirit Wave through my staff to clear two dozen giant bodies worth of space, I return my attention fully to the fight at hand while anticipating the arrival of the smaller and slightly slower demons.

As expected, the smaller enemies soon appeared as I was maintaining my breach in the front line for the others to fill behind me. The gecko demons and undead were mixed among them, but most of these demons were a new type that had heads and teeth like rats but bodies like centaurs with four large humanoid arms. In any of their giant hands were spiky clubs and glassy swords that shone with dark energies.

The first was some serious ugly dude with a tag that read 'Lesser Taurian LVL132'. Taurian? Like Taurus or bulls? This damn thing has a rat-face and ZERO horns!

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