Losing War

The Dark Elementals readily agreed to let us stay near their area for protection and further assured us that they would contact whichever human force they could find to extract us from the area, but also warned us that it was possible that no aid would be given. 

It would be too dangerous for most humans to travel to our area, unless they were extremely powerful - but in that case, they would be better served battling enemies elsewhere rather than trying to save us, not that they would care about us anyway. 

This left only Archmages, who could cast fixed Teleport spells at great distance to reach our area in just a day or so, yet it seemed presumptuous for a fifth-tier to rescue three second tier humans, especially since the Archmage would be put at risk during the cooldowns between their Teleport spells - moreover, the journey back would be even more dangerous, since Mass Teleports spells covered less distance and had longer cooldowns. 

All in all, it would be unreasonable to risk a fifth-tier for just the three of us. After all, Archmages were valuable assets - they were able to overwhelm most Lesser Elementals in one on one fight, while a group of them could even hold back a Greater Elemental for some time. The unreasonable situation where a Lesser Light Elemental killed an Archmage at the beginning of our misadventures, was a rare occurrence due mostly to the speed and surprise advantage it held.

On the other hand, neither could the Dark Elementals send an escort to accompany them out - although it was completely unreasonable to do so much just to aid us, I got the feeling they would have happily done so if they could - they couldn't spare the firepower. It took at least a Greater Elemental to safely escort us out and there were precious few of those, especially after the battle we had witnessed.

Although it was true that it had been an overwhelming victory for the Dark Elementals considering the losses on both sides, the Light Elemental encampment that had executed the assault was a central stronghold, with far more combatants than this outpost of Dark Elementals would have. As such, our protectors had been fighting a defensive war for a long time, slowly losing fighters to the occasional assaults. 

When I asked my companions, they patiently explained to me that the only reason they had held on as long as they had was because of their location. When establishing this outpost, a powerful and semi-permanent spell had been cast over it by a large group of Dark Lords and a Night Reaper, which made the area more conducive to dark beings and spells while reducing the strength of Light Elementals and their spells. 

Moreover, the Night Reaper had managed to create an effect such that daytime lasted only three hours in the encampment and its immediate vicinity, while nighttime lasted twenty-one hours. Moreover, even during those three scant hours, a small group of Dark Lords would always be present to cast a Sun Shadow spell, which effectively ensured that the sun almost never shone on here.

This held great importance because Light Elementals were stronger when the sun shone on them and were weakened when this was not the case, while the opposite held true for the Dark Elementals. This didn't make as much of an impact beyond the Greater Elemental stage, but still gave an advantage nonetheless. That, coupled with the fact that Lord Nightshade seemed to be an exceptionally strong Dark Lord, ensured that the Dark Elementals held an edge in confrontations at both Greater realm and beyond.

However, even with all of these advantages, the overwhelming number difference still meant that the Dark Elemental camp was at a disadvantage. Although battles at the scale of the one we had witnessed were rare, even minor skirmishes would slowly eat away at their strength. The unfortunate truth was simply that they were fighting a losing war.

Ultimately, this meant that we were likely going to be stuck here watching as our defenders' numbers dwindled, helpless to aid them in any way until our own inevitable demise.