It took Reign about 2 days to travel to the west fortification, he had of course traveled together with the reinforcements that were being sent that way. To be attacked by a smaller scaled army of the coalition was a rare thing to happen, the fortifications were incredibly strong and the chance of a smaller army destroying them was almost non-existent. Of course, it's not like similar things hadn't happened before, the coalition tried multiple crafty methods in order to take the reinforcements down, sending a smaller army was one of those methods, and the first time they had done so, they nearly managed to achieve their goal.
The first small-scaled army that the coalition sent their way was about 2 000 men strong, considering the fact that there were about 1 000 people in each of the three fortifications it was almost impossible to take it down without having at least five times the numbers, the king and his advisors felt that it would be fine to simply leave the fortification as it is, but all of them were bothered by the fact that the coalition only sent such a small army, even if they were arrogant they wouldn't have simply underestimated the kingdom that much.
They were being attacked by tens of thousands of troops at the other two fortifications and the king and Lios had to go at one since three first evolution fighters had started making their way there. They still sent about 500 people to help the fortification that was being attacked by a small army just to be safe, amongst those troops was also one of the strongest fighters in the kingdom and it was thanks to him that the fortification was saved.
The crafty coalition actually managed to create hundreds of mana bombs in secret, each of the bombs was incredibly powerful and the explosion could kill tens of people. Upon reaching the fortification the army started attacking them carefully and methodically, it was only the next day that they used the mana bombs. By then the people defending the fortification had relaxed as they knew that the strength of the opponent was too low to defeat them and the result was horrifying.
The mana bombs took hundreds of victims in mere minutes as the attacking army threw them relentlessly. Thankfully it was at that time that the reinforcements arrived, the fighter that had been sent there was actually Lico and it was thanks to his wind ability that he was able to turn the situation around. The very second that Lico appeared he used his wind manipulation in order to stop the bombs in the air before returning them back toward the attacking army, of course right after he had done that he quickly summoned tens of wind blades every couple of seconds and bombarded the army, quickly cutting down hundreds of them.
The troops he had brought were royal soldiers of his house, each of the noble houses had the freedom to create their own personal troops and Lico's house was of course no exception. Back then the war had just started and Lico hadn't been active in the kingdom that much since he had only recently broken through and achieved a rank S in swordsmanship.
The royal family had a personal troop of 2 000, the noble family that held the second place had about 1 500 troops in their personal army, and so on. Lico's family was only considered to be a medium-ranking noble house in the kingdom back then and 500 men were their limit. After Lico saved the fortification however the tale of his incredible deed and power quickly spread throughout the kingdom, one of the reasons that happened was because Lios, the person that was second only to the king in the kingdom intentionally gave the order for the news to spread and strengthen the standing of Lico and his house.
Reign got down from the horse he used during the trip, he was originally given a carriage but declined it and opted for riding a horse, even though he wasn't very good at horse riding he quickly managed to improve as his strong body allowed him to adapt quickly.
The fortification in front of Reign was incredible, it was situated in the middle of a gorge, the high rocky walls on both sides of the gorge were hundreds of meters high and it was impossible for an army to pass any other way than through the gorge. The gorge was about 10 meters wide and there was an imposing wall placed in front of Reign, the wall was about 40 meters high and about 10 meters thick, he now knew why it was so hard for the coalition to break through any of the fortifications as even he would have an incredible amount of trouble simply destroying a part of the wall.
It wasn't only a wall that could be found here however, a castle was situated right behind the wall and there were many watchtowers that were built on the rocky walls themselves, each of the towers was connected by a bridge and a couple of thick steel wires if any of the bridges were to be destroyed, the soldiers could simply use the wires to slide back down as each outpost was higher than the other.
Upon reaching the fortification Reign was quickly escorted inside the castle where the current leader of the fortification was holding a war council. While he walked toward the castle he thought of the conversation he had with the king before setting out, and the brief and interesting visit from Lios.
…
"Can I count on you?" The king asked Reign after telling him of his plan, it was a simple plan, send Reign with reinforcements and defend the castle, since he was a new fighter in the kingdom then even if the coalition had heard about his power, they still couldn't be certain how truthful the news was.
The king wanted Reign to try and completely destroy the attacking army, or at least take care of any powerful fighters that might be there. Reign didn't have any reason to refuse and quickly went back to his room to get ready, upon doing so however he found Lios looking out the window while waiting for him.
"Mister Reign." Lios looked over at him.
"Sir Lios." Reign nodded his head at Lios and started taking his clothes and folding them in a leather suitcase he had received. He didn't want to show his inventory here as he didn't know whether or not anybody in the kingdom had it, he had seen multiple spatial rings but unfortunately, he wasn't able to tell how good the rings were and how much space was inside of them.
"You came to talk about the task I was given right?"
"Correct."
"Alright, I guess we have time for that." Reign put a shirt in the leather suitcase before sitting down on one of the chairs in his room and motioning for Lios to sit as well. Lios simply smiled at him before sitting down and looking straight at Reign.
"Judging by your behavior, it seems that you already have an idea of what is happening."
"Well, it's not really hard to guess, the king suddenly asking me and Lico to spar during the banquet even though there were tens of people watching, I think anyone would have guessed that something was not quite right."
"Correct, we were using that time, and this attack to check for spies, every single kingdom has a large network of spies in the whole area, us included of course," Lios said before stopping for a brief moment and taking out two glasses and a wine bottle from his spatial ring, he poured both of them the wine before continuing.
"To put it more simply Reign, we're using you to try and figure out who amongst the higher society of the kingdom are spies, as you have guessed, it would have been advantageous to us if we didn't show your power during the banquet, we could have simply sent you out to battle later as a trump card, capitalizing on the lack of knowledge the coalition had of you, you would have been able to kill a couple of their high-level personnel, but after what had happened in the throne room that was scrapped, even if only one person amongst the people there was a spy then the coalition would have a general idea of how strong you are."
"So it's my fault?" Reign asked with a calm voice.
"Not at all, to be honest, you simply wanted to show that you are a powerful person and get recognized, there's nothing wrong with that, even if you hadn't done that our enemies would have probably become wary of you quite quickly, so we decided to switch plans."
"I probably don't need to even tell you this, but there will definitely be a couple of powerful fighters from the coalition attacking the fortification, don't underestimate them." Lios finished his wine and got up, before he could leave however Reign spoke again.
"Why tell me this though?" After hearing his question Lios simply chuckled before turning his head toward Reign.
"Only a fool would keep their own people in the dark, instead of making you distrust us, why shouldn't I simply lay all the cards on the table so that you can be ready for what's to come, not to mention that all of us have high hopes for you, and I definitely don't want you to become an enemy."
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