Chapter 793: The fifth day of the development trial (part 5)
Aster who was standing on one of the many watching platforms that were built behind the double layered defense wall, saw the giant eagle followed by a few normal sized eagles and falcons return to then land on the railing of the platform.
"So, how many of them do you estimate there are?", he asked to the king of flying beasts who let out a soft sound in response while she also scratched her claws on the wood railing three times.
"Chirp!".
"Miss eagle says that between two to three times our side’s number and besides wolves and lynxes, there are snakes and some smaller "wolves" that she has never seen before", said Kana translating the giant eagle’s words.
"Mmm, those are probably animals from the desert zone, so they must be jackals, their numbers are big but they are still within our predictions, how about the kings, I doubt the bear is the only one commanding them?", asked Aster to which the eagle nodded.
"I saw, the two wolf and the two lynx leaders, one of each are alive and stand next to the bear while the other two have dull expressions, there is also a snake leader and a jackal leader, besides that I found traces of other strange animals but... I couldn’t see them", said the eagle.
She felt a bit embarrassed because she takes pride in her powerful sight, but couldn’t exactly pinpoint the animals that were hiding in the shadows, which by itself is still valuable information for Aster though, because to hide from the eyes of the giant eagle, it can’t be a big animal.
Also, if it was something like a small rodent the traces would be somewhat recognizable by her, there are small mammals in the forest after all, and since it must come from the desert part that connects with the rocky area, that leaves only a possibility an insect or an arachnid, because there are very few insects in the forest, similar to fish they don’t act outside of what the normal mortal races would, they don’t have kings either, but this is within the forest.
"Humph, they are afraid that we would dive and kill them on the spot that’s why they are hiding... ouch!", the son of the king of flying beasts was in the middle of bragging when his mother used her beak to hit his head a couple of times.
"Have you not learned not to underestimate others after being beat up by that little white snake, go and reflex on your actions for the next hour", said the giant eagle as she saw her son leave with a downcast expression.
"Miss Sarina sure is lucky, I would love to have a good child such as little Kana", of course that doesn’t mean she is actually discontent with her son, she simply scolds him because she doesn’t want his recklessness to end up killing him, this is her way to express her care for her son.
"No worries, the enemy doesn’t have the capacity to target flying animals so, as long as you remain in the sky acting as our eyes, there shouldn’t be any danger to your group, leave the offensive to us", said Aster.
"Thanks human king, we’ll be sure to prove our value to the flock", answered the giant eagle as she slightly bowed her head at Aster.
The flying animals lacked the strength to kill the large terrestrial animals that will be coming, sure they might have been able to provide support like attacking the eyes of the enemies by diving from above, but doing so would expose them to too much danger since they will have to descend from the sky which is their domain into a crowded environment, rather than aiming at a single target which is their area of specialty.
Basically, sieges are not their optimal battlefield, but hunting and harassing single targets is where they could shine the most, of course Aster already had ideas to solve this problem, but they will have to wait for the next occasion since they have to train and teach the flying animals for that.
Therefore, for this battle, their role is acting as the scouting unit, they will watch from the sky and rely the changes in the situation to Aster and the other leaders, which is still an important job and a major contribution to the team, because in an open field like the area between the border of the forest and the camp, trying to play tricks is already really hard, Aster made sure of this by cleaning most of the tree agglomerations except those that are far from the forest, so with eyes in the sky, trying to surprise them is basically impossible.
The enemy can only resort to the most primitive and less efficient, swarming tactic, it’s worth mentioning that this wasn’t the idea nor a petition from the king of flying beasts, Aster gave them that role which earned him the gratitude and trust of the giant eagle, as he maximized their utility while prioritizing their safety as well.
"No problem, Kana please hand the banners to our flying friends", said Aster, to which the little girl handed the selected eagles and falcons a pair of banners for them to hold onto with their claws, one red and one yellow colored, this was the simple signal system they had prepared.
If everything looked normal no banner will be displayed, if something suspicious or a doubt emerged in the minds of the flying animal, they will display the yellow banner and then descend to meet with a designated leader on watch, in this case Angela, Valentina, Aster, Guardian and Mira who are stationed in watch platforms on different sides of the camp, in order to inform of the situation, they were chosen because they could to some extent the understand what the eagles tried to communicate without Kana’s help.
Then, depending on the situation the leader will respond, the red banner was an urgent situation and, it would prompt an attack to be launched at the area which the eagle that displayed it is supervising, no questions asked, which is also why the requirements for it were strict.
The eagles led by the king of flying beasts soared into the sky, an awkward silence fell on the vicinity before heavy steps could be heard coming from the forest, accompanied by roars and other guttural sounds that obviously came from different animals.
"Roaaaar!", as if announcing its presence and with obvious anger in its voice, the bear toppled a couple of trees at the border of the forest as it made its entrance, followed by seemingly countless of other animals.
"Heh, looks like someone is angry because he couldn’t further add other animals to his army", said the sportsy sun diamond princess with contempt.
Agnes was right, there were two prime directives in the mind of the bear, the first was to obviously go and destroy the camp of the myriad occupation sect and the second was to add every single animal in his way to the army he commanded.
Unfortunately, he didn’t expect to suffer a loss against Aster even before the fight started, it wasn’t the bear’s fault though, how could he know that a wolf from the eastern tribe survived and escaped being added to his army.
Then, who would believe he will be smart enough to bring this news to the human camp where Guardian now resided and further than that, it was more incredible that in just a few hours they would move away all the animals in the path of the bear’s army.
You must know that even Guardian with her authority and identity as the one watching over the forest couldn’t have done this in such a short amount of time, but that is if she was alone, with essentially another four kings from different races supporting the motion and more importantly Vivian as persuasion, they managed to pull this off in the time the blue flaming board got for them.
’How did they do it...’, just as the bear was wondering how was the plan to increase the size of his army seen through, he saw a familiar figure appear next to Aster on the platform, it was Guardian.
And with that, everything made sense in the mind of the bear, also the five-claw scar that nearly ran through his whole chest ached on the spot as he saw the lynx.
"Is it me, or does that guy appears to be more lucid?", said Valentina, the eyes of the bear were still bloodshot, but one could tell that there was also intelligence in them.
"That’s probably a trick from the supervisors, he has to "command" an army now after all", said Aster to which the purple lightning princess nodded.
"Bastards, making trouble for others, I could be rolling on the bed with Aster if they minded their own damn business", softly cursed Alice, making a few girls give Aster some questioning gazes.
Luckily the bear actually came to Aster’s "rescue", because followed by a loud a roar from him, two howls, two growls and one hissing sound echoed through the battlefield, producing a heavy invisible atmosphere, the bear being able to use lineage suppression was a known fact, there was no surprise there.
However, the wolf and lynx kings as well as that desert snake being able to use such an advanced ability for a mortal animal, made no sense until you take into account the fact that there were at least three supervisors who rallied them together to attack Aster.
That being said, as the wave of invisible pressure advanced towards the camp with the intention of paralyzing and terrorizing the two-legged creatures, their attack was met with an equally strong wave of pressure which forcefully stopped it.
"Roaaar!", a loud fierce roar echoed through the battlefield drawing the gazes of the bear and the lynxes towards its origin which was naturally Guardian.
"Hissss!", but then the gazes of the enemies were forcefully attracted towards the origin of an elegant hissing sound produced by a pretty white snake whose head was laying on the shoulder of a golden eyed two-legged creature.
The reason of the sudden change in the enemy king’s focus is simple, they know about Guardian and are fully aware that she stands on par with the bear, therefore her suppression being able to counter the one of the bear is normal, however the white snake at which they were gazing now, stopped their five pressures combined... by herself.
The desert snake king was especially shocked, one could see how it shivered for a second when his pressure clashed with Espi’s one, even when assisted by other four kings, he nearly vomited blood on the spot.
In fact, he was still conscious only because the pressures of the two wolves and the two lynxes clashed with Espi’s one first, he only got to experience the slightest amount of the little wyrm’s pressure, otherwise he wouldn’t be standing right now, the same would have applied to the lynxes if they tried to clash pressures with Guardian, which is why the bear completely focused on her.
Feeling the hostile gazes of the five enemy kings on her, the little wyrm proudly raised her head as she looked down on them from above, naturally they who were given the ability to use lineage suppression by the supervisors were no match for the little wyrm who awakened it through her own merits, but even if that wouldn’t have been the case, Espi is sure she could withstand their pressures together by herself.
"Humph", Espi softly snorted at them, to then gaze at Aster, she had the words "praise me" written all over her face.
"You smug girl, fine, fine, you are amazing", jokingly said Aster as he petted the little wyrm’s head a couple of times making Espi cutely rub her face against Aster’s cheek.
"Roaar!", angered but without much of a choice, the bear gave the signal and a part of the army charged outside of the forest, towards the camp.
’It’s just basics, but still an animal who can understand and use tactics, those guys really hate us’, amusingly thought Aster, first the bear and his army remained within the limits of the forest using the trees as a natural cover and then the ones that were charging right now were the dead animals that have been brought back through unknown means.
In other words, the bear was using cannon fodder to probe the enemy, but of course Aster’s plans weren’t so easy to see through, the group of dead wolves and lynxes hadn’t advanced much when batches of them suddenly "vanished" from the sight of the bear.
"Crack!", countless shattering sounds echoed through the battlefield as batches of animals, seemed to disappear, of course they weren’t being transported nor killed by a spiritual array or anything of the like, they simply fell on traps that were prepared by a certain red-haired girl.
"How do you like the combination of trenches with glue and spikes at their bottom, hidden with nets that have grass covering them", said Mina as she giggled, she looked especially shrewd but slightly evil with her almost closed eyes and a smile on her pretty face.
Of course, traps prepared by her couldn’t just be holes on the ground with spikes at their bottoms, she also smeared a sticky substance all over the pit, so even if not all the animals that fell on it died due to the spikes, combined with the deepness of the pit they would not be able to get out and to top it off, she concealed them as well.
Aster had to give it to her though, even he had a hard time noticing the pits that were dug by the girls of the sect, because Mina was cunning enough to use the same grass that was unearthed during the process to cover the tensed nets that created the fake ground on top of the traps, so from other people’s point of view, there was an open path during the first hundreds of meters between the forest and the camp.
"Roaaar!", seeing dozens of his subordinates dying or being rendered immobile by the traps in a matter of seconds, the bear roared to halt the charge, in a rough calculation he just lost a hundred dead animals, don’t think that’s too little in exchange for the effort put by Mina and the girls who assisted her, that’s around a ninth part of the whole bear’s army and they weren’t even close to reach the camp.
"Tsk, I wanted to get rid of at least two hundred enemies at once, if the supervisors hadn’t returned the bear its lucidness, a lot more would have died", complained the oldest of the three sisters as she saw the animals carefully advancing now, they sacrificed one or two dead animals here and there to discover the pit traps.
"We knew it would be a one-time thing, but it’s not like the pits don’t serve any purpose now that they were discovered", added Eris, the origin of rune masters were mortal strategists, they worked in primitive "arrays" be it in the form of battle formations, city structuring or battlefield arrangements, in this case as the frown on the face of the bear suggested, the pits had a secondary role to play as a battlefield arrangement.
Because the way they were dug, left a narrow path between each other, what’s more the path created by the pits wasn’t a straight one, if the enemy wanted to advance through it, they will have to twist their way for around five hundred meters, yeah, Mina and the others dug that many pits because that’s basically all they did the whole day, it was in part thanks to Alice though, digging the pits wasn’t that hard for the girls of the sect, moving the heaps of soil result of that was the most arduous thing.
Luckily, they had a ton of black horses who were "happy" to pull on carts covered with permeated blankets, as if their lives depended on it, therefore the girls could completely focus in digging under the surprising lead of Dahlia, the girls of the green lotus are used to work with soil since they grow and tend to spirit herbs, and Dahlia has experience in the wilderness, they knew how to dig more efficiently than others.
Anyway, the point is that the enemies would have to tip-toe through such a large distance, it might not have been that troublesome to humans since the space they need to move is not that wide, but animals will have to squeeze through and that would leave them completely open to attacks, since their route of advancement is easily predictable.
"Red zone angle adjustment", Kana who just made her appearance on the platforms, followed by forty girls wielding longbows that had three color marks on their frames, spoke a few words, the archers raised their bows and aligned the arrows with the red mark.
"Fire!", with the little girl’s green light, the forty archers let go of the bowstrings and a volley of forty arrows rained down on the animals that were already having a hard time advancing through the twisted path created by the pit traps.
Of course, at such distance hitting the head of the dead animals with an arrow for girls that had just started to learn about mortal archery is but a dream, the distance between the camp and the border of the forest is of around a kilometer, the pit trap filled area covers half of that.
Normally an average arrow shot by a longbow wouldn’t cover more than three to four hundred meters, however don’t forget that the animals here are not normal mortal animals and the same applies to trees and the like, the frames of these longbows have some flexibility unlike normal longbows and the bowstrings are made with twisted sinew which had special characteristics activated by Aster’s Galaxy Forging, and so the shooting range of these longbows was almost doubled.
Of course, the main problem remains, hitting a target’s head from such a large distance is really hard for a mortal, but for every problem in this world there is a solution and it’s a leader’s job to find it, in this case the answer was simple, if they can’t kill the animals with arrows at such a long distance, they just have to use other means to kill them, like for example... the pit traps.
"Roaaar!", the bear who was just about to smile, since not even a single arrow hit his subordinate’s sole weakness, namely their heads, loudly roared as he saw how the animals were pushed into the pits by the force contained within the arrows, some died due falling on the spikes and some were stuck to the ground with spikes piercing their bodies, the result was, forty arrows, forty eliminated enemies.
"Yellow zone angle adjustment", then as if a nightmare, the little girl’s voice made the forty archers change their stance and align the arrows with the yellow mark on their bows.
"Fire", a second volley of arrows reached their targets which had crossed around half of the area covered by pit traps, the enemies couldn’t see it, but from above the pits actually had one of their walls which faced the camp painted, either with red, yellow or green, everything was arranged with Angela, Eris and Mina’s help as well as with Kana’s assistance.
Why Kana you ask, well, the little girl has a bit of experience with mortal archery, because she trained with Aster and the others in order to awaken her intent, as in she used some bows without runes or anything to familiarize with archery, since she basically had no experience neither fighting nor with weapons until not too long ago, also she has a trick up her sleeves, for mortal archery where the major trouble, besides the usual weapon limitations, is none other than wind interference.
Kana has a contract with Esmeralda, an embodiment of wind, well she is the embodiment of "green" as of current, but her original attribute was wind, so calculating a generic shooting angle that will allow the archers to have a decent chance to hit their enemies was not hard.
It’s worth mentioning that she did this by testing the longbows herself and seeing how the wind currents affected her accuracy, it was all with the help of her instincts and what she has learned from Esmeralda, so she didn’t receive any active help from her, therefore there was no "cheating" involved.
"Get back here!", seeing another forty of his dead subordinates being hit by the arrows and falling into the pits, the bear called the remaining two hundred or so back.
"Whistle!".
But then a sharp wind piercing sound made his eyes contract like needles, the bear turned to the left where one of the living seconds in command of the west wolf tribe was now laying down in a pool of blood, there was an arrow sticking out from his forehead.
As for the origin of said arrow, it was a young girl with blond hair and blue eyes who was holding onto a smaller bow in comparison with the ones held by the other archers, however this bow’s frame wasn’t made exclusively with wood, but also had horn and sinew added to it, this was the weapon known as the "king of bows" in the history of earth, the composite bow.
