"General. We are reaching their city outskirts soon. Should we set up our camp here to rest while sending out our scouts to inform us about their situation before embarking for the assault?" One of the leading Majors asked Yaega Nern, the attacking general from the City of Taris, as he looked back to see the fatigue in his soldiers after a long march from their city. They needed to take some long winding path in order to prevent their away army from being mistaken by other cities as an act of aggression and not incurring the wrath of other cities.
"Aye, we should and set up a defence parameter as we make camp here," Yaega said as he took his stuffy iron helmet out after a long trip from his city. Unlike the Demopolis City who had immense magical powers to teleport their armies for a shock intensive raid, these human cities did not have such luxuries. The only thing they had in their possession were numbers.
From the poor and impoverished to the middle class who wished to gain an achievement, all of these people were drafted into this particular army for the assault. But all these changes when the Church Agents had given them a small shot of a secret serum that gave even the weakest his ability to fight at least two people at once.
After all, in Yaega's mind, he knew that the Church wanted Demopolis out of the picture and all Taris wanted was a piece of the pie when the Church Agents suggested a coordinated attack. The Taris army would be moving out of Demopolis as soon as they got sufficient shares of Demopolis's treasures, the other cities fight it out for the grand prize of owning it.
"We would be coordinating with Bodek City and Merah City's armies for the morning's attack. According to our last communication, they should be able to rendezvous by nightfall. Other than that, this is proceeding way too smoothly than I expected. The infighting had indeed taken a toll on their defences." Yaega smiled as he could still see smoke coming from the city at the cliff view he was standing upon.
"Yes, sir. Usually, we would have to meet up with such aggressive defence from the Demopolis forces that it would be impossible for us to step a hundred metres into their territory." The Major smiled as he pulled out a small bottle of wine from his bag and asked if the General of Taris City wished to have a gulp of it for a job well done leading their army here intact.
"Drinking on the job?" Yaega questioned and the Major's eyes were as thin as a slit of paper, smiling from one corner of his mouth to the other.
"No, General. More like a good luck drink." The Major rephrased it and Yaega could not refuse when he put it that way. In the meantime, the General's orders were being passed down to the rest and a platoon of guards had spread out as ordered so that the rest could have peace of mind to set their camp out.
Thankfully, it was uneventful as the Taris Army set their camp up for the night. Even though they were in the enemy's territory, they were still brazen enough to establish a full temporary base right in the enemies' region. It was as if telling the other incoming city armies that the Demopolis' defences were non-existent and that they could invade with a drink in their hand. The commanding officers even thought that this could be a tale to savour for time to come as they partnered with the other cities for the morning's coordinated attack.
However, Yaega did not wish to be complacent in his defence after coming a long way from home. So, he ordered a few more platoons of guards to keep watch of the new encampment and send his scouts to check ahead as the rest of the army were allowed to have a hearty meal and some winks of sleep before the morning's assault.
———
"Are these humans really naïve or what?" Tinda, one of the Night Fox Elites grumbled via the System Channel thinking that this was an insult to the defenders while passing the binoculars to her pal.
"That's the whole point of this retaliation. Tinda, take a chill pill." Narris said as she looked through the binoculars to confirm that there was little activity within the encampment even though the sun had yet to set. At that moment, Tinda already gave instructions to the rest of the Night Foxes to surround the encampment and the rest swiftly flew to their allocated positions with their gearbox suits.
If they were going to massacre the entire encampment, they needed the element of surprise and those gearbox suits which the Mousefolks used previously during the Southern Region Battle were the right tool for the job. (Of course, they were equipped with gearbox suits which were bigger in size and not Mousefolk sizes.) Not to mention, the dark elves already excelled moving through the forested regions with ease even without the gearbox so the new suit merely accelerate their movements to be more fluid like a floating shadow, allowing Tinda to be able to execute an extremely precise ambush with a lesser number of elves in the team when they split up.
And that was what they were waiting for the entire time.
Massacring an entire army of two thousand troops with fifty odd Night Foxes was overkill in the eyes of Kraft when he knew that a small coordinated group could easily handle a number bigger than that. (He did oversee their training and expected them to perform an equivalent as a God of War in a medieval setting.) But he wanted these many people not because he wanted to send a show of force or create an explosive scene.
This was because the rest of the incoming army would be wary of their firepower and perhaps indulge in the Church's illegal experiments to succeed in this alliance attack on Demopolis. Instead, he sent this many Night Foxes for one reason.
Sabotage.
The Night Foxes whose subterfuge was second to none had been sent into the Taris Army to poison their food and water stocks with a rather nasty virus. A virus concocted none other by the Ravenous Lord Kiva.
That bad Bat Lord was no doubt a competent scientist which could rival Ayse in their individual field of expertise. His poisons had earned him the privileges of being the right hand man of King Baal and this was no exception in the eyes of Kraft. If anything, Kiva had revitalised and produced a previous concoction of stomach flu virus that would be used to target a person's life energy. Except now it was more refined, more elegant and undoubtedly top notched effective that give Kraft the idea for mass biological warfare.
However, that was not the most impressive portion and rather, the ability to have a delay activation when the virus entered their body. Kiva had made sure that the activation would happen when the body arouses its adrenaline receptors, hence causing them to fall ill the moment they were anxious, excited or even felt fearful. In theory, the virus sounded fun for Kraft and decided to give Kiva an entire army as his experiment sample.
As for the location of the food stocks, the Night Foxes had been there keeping an eye when the Taris Army set their entire encampment out in the open the entire time. From the moment they arrived up to now, their watchful eyes had seen where the food and water items were placed and allocated. Also, this was a true test of their subterfuge abilities as the sun had yet to set and they were poisoning the water and food supplies before their dinner started.
While it might sound like a handicap, the Night Foxes even for the likes of elites, both Tinda and Narris relished this stealthy close encounter as they poisoned their enemies' perishables. Their objective was not to kill anyone at all while making sure they were able to complete their mission.
Even though it was a roundabout way to do this, chemical warfare was something that Kraft had been looking into for some time and with Kiva's 'evil' expertise at his disposal, this was one more way to defeat the enemies of the Panda Clan.
