"The Imps are lacking the firepower to breach this, or they were unlucky to be attacked by the Gold-Tier Two-Faced Monkey that killed some of its stronger members... whatever, it doesn't really matter right now; we need to make our move already."
The lunch was excellent, which was food that Samiel cooked for the occasion, made from the best Magical Beast meat available on the markets of the Goldtooth Fortress City, which he then packed into small packages and stored in his dimensional rings. In this way, he could enjoy the best food even though he was at a forsaken place on some island at sea, swarming with magical beasts and other hostile species.
After they finished the lunch, they started discussing the strategy, which in the end was reduced to the part where Samiel would blast the Wards around the trenches with his Void Magic, and then, he would flood the place with his Undeads, as that was the most rational outcome of it.
Of course, what they needed, aside from breaking the resistance in the trenches, was also destroying them entirely, so the humans did not retake their former positions when the trenches area cleaned out.
"Do you see how those lines are cleanly cut and always in perfect symmetrical shapes?"
Suddenly Yvriane asked this weird question the moment they were prepared to leave to launch the attack, but he agreed with her because, indeed, those trenches were too clean and too nice, which could mean only one thing.
"Golems."
There were countless types of Golems out there, some were weak and some were strong, but overall even the weakest Golem that was created was at least comparable to the Steel-Tier. Certainly, the strength of the Golem depended on several factors, which would be deciding the overall strength of the Golem.
1st was the material from which the Golem was created, 2nd was the Energy Core the Golem had and the 3rd was the overall structure such as runes and inscriptions carved onto the Golem or the complexity of the schematics.
"These should be just some worker Golems... there is no way that Magisterium would give them some of the combat-oriented, not to mention some of the AMA's. And the Avalon Kingdom is too poor to be giving such things away like there was no tomorrow."
Still, even the worker Golems were problematic because the majority of the Golems had some sort of Magic Resistance, meaning to destroy one, Casters would need to use their most destructive and strongest Spells. Of course, this all depended on the grade of a Golem and the materials from which the Golem was made from because that was the deciding factor in how strong Magic Resistance the final product would have.
The AMA was an amalgamation for Arcane Mechanical Automaton, which was basically an extremely advanced form of Golem, though not created purely through magical means, but through the Magetech. The combination of the pinnacle of Magic and the pinnacle of Technology gave birth to the Arcane Mechanical Automatons.
The Arcane Mechanical Automatons were developed by the Magisterium and other factions and have long tried imitating them, with the Hall of Kadath to which Samiel belonged being no exception to this rule. Designing the complex Arcane Mechanical Automatons of all Tiers was something that required tremendous resources, research and of course, Arcanists and Engineers that would create it.
The Arcane Mechanical Automatons were the pinnacle of Golemancy, or rather just short away from it, and the Mechanical Legions of the Magisterium were famed across the entire Cosmos, as they had proven to bring entire High Worlds to heel when the Magisterium deployed them en masse.
"Hopefully, they have only a few of them; in that case, I can blast them apart or freeze them entirely."
Even though the Golems had a certain degree of Magic Resistance, Samiel could still make use of his Level 3 Ultimate Ability to freeze the entire Golem. Of course, if, in some cases, there were a lot of Golems, especially the high-tiered ones, that would create a problem and they would need to invest a lot more power to deal with them.
"How many humans are in the 3rd trench?"
Samiel looked at the outermost trench as he asked this while Yvriane used some spells and started scouting the area, quickly counting the enemies one after another. Screening spells were very useful to know, and both of them knew a whole variety of them, with Yvraine knowing even more screening spells of Divine-type from the Magic of her Goddess, while Samiel knew of those of Arcane origin, as he was a proper Arcanist foremost, even though he was a worshipper of the Outer Gods.
Unfortunately, in this case, the Outer Gods didn't have some sort of Divine Magic and Divine Spells like the majority of Gods across the Cosmos because their own power was too dangerous in the hands of mortals that it would crush those of weaker will into the madness.
"950 to 1,200, there are some outposts, to where I can not properly see; the warding on those places is relatively strong."
When Samiel heard those numbers, it was lower than he expected, but whatever, as he stated, using the Level 4 Transcendental Ability Architect to calculate the weak spots in the ward. Instantaneously, he analyzed the entire trench lines, together with the wards that were protecting the entire trenches.
Even though his knowledge about the wards was low, he still had something which he was able to use as the basis for his calculations; several seconds later, he analyzed everything about the wards, and calculated the location of the wardstones based on the flow of Mana through the trenches. As the Eldritch Creature, Samiel was extremely sensitive towards Mana, and he could clearly see it flowing through the trenches from several locations.
Those were the places where the Wardstones were located, and those were the places that were, at the same time strongest and weakest chain in the entire ward. Strongest because the barrier itself was strongest around the Wardstone, but yet at the same time weakest, because once the Wardstone is destroyed, then the entire part of the ward will crumble down. Not only that, but it will also cause collateral damage to the other Wardstones.
That was the reason why typically experienced Wardmasters or Casters in generals would create another defensive spell formation around the Wardstone, most commonly several of them, and even use some physical means of protection, like placing the Wardstone in something extremely durable and resistant against devastating attacks.
Something that clearly didn't happen in this case, so either the caster was just some inexperienced newbie, or he didn't want to waste resources in creating a proper ward. After Samiel located several Wardstones across the entire trenches, he started conjuring several 5th Level Spell Void Bombs simultaneously.
It took him only several seconds for him to conjure them and drop them on their designated location as the earth shook, and from the high spot atop the tallest tree, both of them could see tremendous explosions happening another after other as the Void Bombs were falling like the rain from the sky.
"We can go down... the wards are down."
After hearing the last explosion, Samiel stated as he jumped down with Yvraine following closely after him, as he summoned Ashimer and soon enough, over a thousand Undeads ranging from the Steel-Tier to Bronze-Tier appeared and started flooding the trenches, with Samiel, Ashimer and Yvraine becoming the speartip of the Undead horde.
Fortunately for the human troops, they were mainly okey, because they managed to evacuate from the places where the Wardstoens were located, and even Samiel had to admit that these wards were still very powerful. Though he knew that if he was Silver-Tier, then with the Void Bomb Spell, he would be able not only to bring down the wards but also destroy the trenches with all enemies at the same time.
Holding an ice trident in his hands, he pierced the head of another human soldier that he came across, as none of them were a match for him. If the explosions didn't kill them, then they would die under the steel and Magic of the Undead army and his own because the lady luck won't be sending them protection this time.
He jumped from enemy to enemy, like a death god incarnated, while he was commanding his Undead, who were advancing like a tsunami, taking everything with them. Through the Level 4 Transcendental Ability Architect, Samiel was able to focus on several things simultaneously, while not losing any efficiency or focus during the process because of the Architect's ability, Memory Partition, which allowed Samiel to divide partition thoughts to form multiple independent thought processes.
With the Bronze-Tier Undeads leading the charge, the tide was almost unstoppable; they slashed and hacked, killing everything which moved. Samiel's Undeads were a completely unstoppable wave; they cleaned off thoroughly the entirety of the area before they moved forward in the trenches, advancing without stopping a bit.
It took them half an hour to clean out approximately 50% of the entire outermost trench because it was extremely long, built across and through the entire area of the northern part of the island in a shield pattern. That was because nobody could avoid it, and every intruder would be forced to cross through all three trenches before they could ever reach the fortress.
Samiel's Undeads were in a good state, as there were no losses among them, as the soldiers of the Human Brotherhood didn't really have the power to destroy his heavy-armored and armed Bronze-Tier Undeads; on top of that, he was also boosting them with some Necromancy Arts.
Meanwhile, Ashimer already noticed some losses in his Undeads; fortunately, there were only about twenty to thirty destroyed so far, and that could be easily replenished. Ashimer's Undeads were only around the Steel-Tier, so despite their superior equipment, the soldiers of the Human Brotherhood could overwhelm them with numbers in some cases.
Of course, this terrain was highly advantageous for the troops of the Human Brotherhood, as they had built it and knew it best; thus, they were using every nook and cranny of the trenches as places to make ambushes on the Undeads and even on Samiel.
While he was here, there were already several madmen that attempted to ambush him from some hiding spot, as they most commonly ended up frozen to an icicle or blasted apart by the Void Magic. For some more unfortunate ones, Samiel cursed, or he used some spell to induct madness into their minds, causing them to attack their comrades and eat them alive as mad beasts.
Such was the terror of the spells that targetted the mind of the person; they could be used in many ways, not only to kill somebody to drive him to madness but also as means of breaking the morale of the enemies. There was nothing better to use as morale breaking method than seeing your fellow soldiers going mad, killing and attacking their comrades, or even eating them when they were alive, instantly turning them into bloodthirsty cannibals.
Finally, after another forty minutes, Samiek's Undeads managed to overrun the entire outermost trench, cleaning it from all troops of the Human Brotherhood. After the deed was done, Ashimer started replenishing his Undeads that he lost to the humans, while Samiel sat down and just rested because he was a bit tired from the expenditure of his Mana.
Despite the fact that it had not appeared that way, the fact that he was casting several 5th Level Spells at the same time to hit different Wardstones to cause the Wards to collapse, took a toll on him.
Even though he had frightening Mana Regeneration, that did not mean he wasn't tired at all. His stamina while hue was finite, but his racial heritage was overwhelming compared to those at the same Tier, and he could fight without any rest for entire days.
"Can we proceed to the next one?"
Yvraine asked as Samiel nodded his head, and soon enough, after looting everything of some value that were in the trenches, both of them proceeded deeper into the territory of the Human Brotherhood, heading towards the second trench.
Unlike the third trench line, the second trench line was much smaller, and unfortunately, in this trench line, the human forces were already fully mobilized and ready when the invaders arrived. Samiel frowned a little when he saw how strong the wards had become and how many soldiers patrolled the entire area. It was a little complicated, but not a lot, so he knew that this wouldn't be the easy peasy as the previous one.
Samiel observed the lines before he repeated the process that he did on the third trench line and started conjuring the 5th Level Spell Void Bomb several times over as he bombarded the Wardstones with it. Then he repeated the same process as he released his Undeads into the trench lines, as the fight broke out as hell, this time Samiel started casting more spells and supporting the Undeads.
***
Several hours later, the mission was already complete, as they managed to clean out all three trench lines. The last one, the first trench line, which was the innermost, was hardest to breach because the human troops up were armed far better and even had some forms of firearms that were able to penetrate the armors of Undeads.
Due to that, Ashimer's Undeads suffered a lot, and after devouring a few souls from the commanding officers in the trench lines, Samiel found out that those weapons were directly shipped there from the Avalon Kingdom, which was arming the Human Brotherhood from the very start.
With this new information, it was no wonder that the Imps suffered terrible losses from all of this. The greatest advantage of the Imps was the fact that they could fly; while not particularly fast or agile, the flight on the Mortal Level was still a great advantage.
Of course, the human troops were armed with some sort of primitive firearms, which Samiel recognized as gauss rifles, that were able to kill even Steel-Tier Creatures, and in case of the racially inferior, with enough luck and firepower, even the Bronze-Tier Imps.
They were all Magetech Guns, created and manufactured somewhere in the territory of the Avalon Kingdom probably, because taking down the Steel-Tier Creatures with a single good-aimed shot meant that they were of superb quality, meaning only some very powerful faction could design and produce weapons such as these.
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