The countdown hit 0 , and a very organized March began from the enemy troops outside Purplehaze city.
Rudra could see that the troops were seperating into three seperate attack contingents , the biggest was heading straight for the north gate , while one seemed to turn left and one to the right , possibly going to try their luck at East or West gates or even circle completely around and try attacking south gate.
Attacking south gate when the main army was busy attacking north gate was plain stupid , however Rudra did not mind the enemy from attacking any side , as every side was equally thick and reinforced with equal supplies. Wherever they would go , they would be pelted by the Elites army.
As the enemy closed in to about 600 meters range , Rudra signalled for the Archballistae to start their volley of arrows towards incoming troops.
Although at this wide range it needed to use a parabolic path , loosing a lot of power in the process , it was still good enough for armour penetration to cause severe damage.
About 20,000 Arrows covered the sky in less than 10 seconds of Rudra giving the order , drowning the charging enemy with a rain of arrows .
The rain of arrows was met by a cover of shield by the charging enemies, as they used tucktail , to hide completely from under the fire of the parabolic arrows.
Under the first volley , less than 20 men died while only 50 more were injured. The army at a large remained unhinged. Continued to advance at a very slow pace .
Hao Mi knowing that the Elites boasted an impressive fleet of Archballistae weapons , specially acquired a armour design for her front runners , that gave a -60% arrow damage reduction. Meaning that death casuality due to being pierced by arrows was going to be significantly less .
Splurging a large amount on this equipment , she came prepared for this war , doing her homework well. The result was evident as the loss of life on her side was quite minimal.
For the next 100 meters of ground that the army covered , they lost 1200 men and had 2500 more injured , but the formation of the army did not break as they were slowly yet surely approaching the walls of Purplehaze city.
The moment they crossed the 400 meters mark , Rudra gave the second signal , to the manual archers to shoot the flame arrows .
The archers dipped the arrowheads in oil , and set the head on fire before shooting a volley of flame arrows at the advancing army.
This was a masterstroke by Rudra , as although the enemy used tucktail to avoid direct damage from the volley of arrows , the dry grass under their feet caught fire , making the situation such that the frontlines were caught in a blaze of fire.
Burn damage caused casualities from many frontliners , as the others could not move forward nor retreat under the constant rain of arrows from the archballistae .
In the first small moment of chaos , the frontline assaulters lost 2200 men and 5000 more were injured , as they had to hold their positions for a few minutes untill the fire calmed out.
When the ground they walked on was scorched to ashes , the army picked up the pace again. The foots of triad soldiers crunching on the burnt grass , as they shielded themselves from the rain of arrows going forward.
Rudra was impressed that even under soo much duress the army had not lost its attacking shape at all , the spots of those who died were replaced quickly and the army moved in a tight formation , to reduce casualities to minimum.
The journey from 400 meters mark to 300 meters mark saw them loose 1000 more men while 6500 more were injured.
This is when the attack pattern of Archballistae changed from parabolic to machine gun type direct assault . Meaning that the tucktail was no longer usefull as the arrows came flying in from the front.
As a result the 300 to 200 meter March saw the enemies loosing nearly 12,000 men , while 20,000 or so were injured.
The moment the 200 meter mark was reached , the Elites started to launch javellins , and the archers inside the city walls started to pick off their targets one by one. As the full force of the city wall defense was on display.
The one's who were pushed at the front lines by Hao Mi currently were not her best men , but cannon fodder who she knew were going to die anyway . Hence the losses of those who were being slaughtered under the Elites right now did not matter to her at all. She was actually glad to see the progress they were making in covering distance to the ground.
The way this system worked was that , while the Archballistae was focussed on the 200 meter range front line , the better soldiers had a free pass to cover the 600 meters to 200 meters patch of land , unhinged and undisturbed. Which would be pushed even further as the front lines progressed.
Even with heavy casualties there was no real loss to the Traids , as the weaklings from acquired guilds and servant crime organizations were the ones putting their lives on the line right now.
The army hence barely reached the 120 meter point when it was met with a complete stalemate , as noone was able to breakthrough , the Elites assault was too heavy for these inferior players to break through.
However the suicide cannon fodders were given only one task , which they were going to do no matter what the consequences were.
A group of 400 men suddenly banded together , and assumed a tortoise shell formation , putting out tanker class high level shields out as defense , as about 200 tankers supported by 50 healers and 50 assaulters and 100 rangers broke away from the main group moving towards the nothern gate.
Rudra did not have a clear vision of what these people were trying to pull off , but he had no intention of letting them reach the wall anyways.
At this moment , a small five tailed fox ran onto Rudra's shoulders and nudged him on his face and licked his neck .
Furball was pleading Rudra to let it have a crack at this contingent . Rudra was hesitant , but he firsthand knew that Furball was capable of terrifying things after seeing her in action inside Fort Magma.
Initially Rudra wanted to use solar descent to handle with this group and then use blink to teleport back up the wall , but now he thought to take Furball down for a stroll and wipe the enemy party as and how needed.
Thinking soo , he took Furball in his arms and took a leap from the wall.
The leap was absolutely magnificent , as like a absolute legend Rudra flew 100 meters from the wall before landing infront of the rushing contingent with a loud thud.
Mid-air many projectiles targetted the Elites leader , but Excalibur sword in hand they were cut in half unable to even land a scratch on Rudra.
Landing down Rudra immediately used
EARTHQUAKE!
His impact was amplified multiple times as the Excalibur was implanted into the ground causing the earth to rattle as the enemy contingent lost their footing.
Furball hopped off Rudra's arms and at this moment used a move soo powerfull that it would give chills to Rudra who was standing beside her.
Rudra was ready to activate the sun god's bracelet and use some big moves , but before he could do so , Furball used VORTEX FLAME attack
Nine giant flames circled the 400 men contingent untill they spun around them faster and faster and faster , becoming a flaming vortex burning everyone trapped within .
Within 10 short seconds the 390 of the 400 men were burnt to ashes …. While the rest were desperately clinging onto some large container.
Rudra looked at Furball in horror , this was undoubtedly as strong as a peak tier 3 spell … When did his pet turn out to be soo strong?
In response Furball burped as small flame escaped her mouth hitting a soldier in his bum.
Although Rudra did not know what the remaining 10 men were protecting , the men also did not know that the heat from Furball's attack had already unstabilized the reagent … And that within seconds there would be a large explosion.
And that was exactly the case that happened , just as Rudra used blink to teleport out of the area and go back to the wall . There was a massive explosion about as strong as Furball's attack whose shockwave was felt by everyone on the wall.
The unstable reagent had exploded …. The recoil killing hundereds of Hao Mi 's own forces.
However the faces of both sides were pale , The triads could not understand what just happened with their forward contingent , and how a small animal just devoured 400 men.
While the elites were terrified of the weapon in possession of the Triad forces …. Should they set it off at the wall … Would it be able to sustain ?
Rudra gulped down in anxiety , he was the closest one to where the blast happened , had he been a few milliseconds late , he might have been dead and out of the war for good.
It seemed like the Elites were not the only ones with hidden cards in this war. The triads had some tricks up their sleeves as well.
/// Special shoutout to Adrian_Hardin for the 1000 coin gift and to Cole_Bromley for the 500 coin gift !
The patronage helps the novel a lot.
I hope we can pick up the pace with the golden tickets , as we are still 120 tickets short of hitting the next bonus target. Let's get the pace back up guys ///
