After settling down the refugees, they realized that the village was strong on the outside but weak on the inside — no, it couldn't even be called "strong" on the outside. The wall was like a wax spear tip made of silver. It could only defend against small-scale trolls. They couldn't understand how the villagers survived until now.
According to a piece of parchment with crooked handwriting submitted by the village chief, Panbo Village had a total of more than 700 villagers. Including Oditore's garrison, there were about 1,200 people in total. The refugees suddenly brought a huge burden to the village because there wasn't enough food!
Many of the food stored in the space ring could last for about a month. This was the result of him sweeping the entire food market in Sith's court and causing severe market price fluctuations. Anyway, Birkins had a lot of money. This was just a drop in the bucket. But it was far from enough to survive the entire winter!
Oditore's reinforcements didn't come, so they could only rely on themselves. Many realized that there were two problems they were facing.
One was to settle down the refugees and solve the food problem in the future. The other was to fight the trolls again.
In this regard, Many gathered the entire mercenary group and discussed for a long time. They decided to solve the problem of fighting the trolls first. If they lost their lives, how could they eat?
In the battle outside the city, Athena revealed her original form as a unicorn. That snow-white and tall figure made all the mercenaries gape in shock!
Her image amazed the people who didn't know what was going on. It also scared Sylvia. Salia, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear. Her proud expression amused Sylvia. Sylvia pinched her little cheeks and laughed for a long time before forgiving the little rascal who had been hiding it from her.
Of course, she also gently pinched his arm as a "severe" punishment for him. Unexpectedly, what she got in return was a hug that made her blush.
The civilians didn't know what this big horse that was more than two heads taller than ordinary horses was, but they knew that this unicorn wasn't simple. As the elves gradually became isolated and left the mainstream of the continent, there were many legends about unicorns that ordinary civilians wouldn't have heard of in their lifetime.
This magical beast would normally not appear in front of humans. The reason why Athena could appear in front of the world was because of that mysterious contract.
Athena finally didn't have to change her form. She strolled around the village freely, looking around and playing with Salia intimately. She wasn't worried at all.
On the other side, many Henry and the others were frowning as they looked at the map of Pang Bo Village's defense in front of them. All of them were thinking about how to defend against another attack that could happen at any time.
※ ※ ※
"Damn it!
Why is it raining again? "
Stu was very annoyed. The rain was not heavy, but when it fell on the ground with all kinds of stones, the road became very slippery. Several horses had broken their legs, and their speed was greatly reduced.
According to the way of a commander, Stu had always maintained a poker face. He was always cruel to his enemies, but he loved his soldiers very much. It had to be said that if he could fight on the battlefield for a few more years, he would also be a charismatic commander.
But he was still too young. For the past few days, the troops had been marching from Bolpe to Sith Court, and the villages they passed by made him a little impatient!
There was not a single person in these villages!
There wasn't a single f * cking person around!
Stu felt that it was already hard enough that he didn't order these damn villages to be demolished. Not only was there not a single person alive, there was not even a damn bit of food!
Fortunately, there was still water in the well, but it really couldn't improve the embarrassing situation where their food had been halved for five or six days in a row.
Some places still had wheat that had been confiscated, but the amount was not enough for a small team of soldiers to eat for a day. Stu originally wanted to speed up and reach Sith Court before the troops ran out of food. Unexpectedly, the weather was not good, and the whole troop's speed was slowed down. It took them a third more time than usual to reach the periphery of Sith Court.
Stu turned around and looked at his army. Although there were no signs of casualties after they walked out of the Khalim Forest, the prince felt that he was not leading an elite army, but a group of defeated soldiers. They walked listlessly and looked like prisoners who were about to be executed.
The gloomy atmosphere brought about by the rain intensified this feeling. The water on the armor flowed down to the clothes and gradually soaked them, making the soldiers feel sticky all over. It was very uncomfortable to walk, but due to the slow speed of the troops, they were unable to take a step forward. All of them lowered their heads and looked at their feet, afraid that they would slip if they were not careful.
A short and sharp horn suddenly sounded not far from the rear of the group!
That was the sound of the scouts, which meant that there was an enemy attack!
Then, continuous alarms came from the rear.
"Enemy attack!"
"Enemy attack!"
"A large number of enemies!"
Along with the sound of hooves in the distance, the scouts in the rear shouted loudly on their fast horses.
Stu pulled the reins, and the horse under him suddenly stopped. He suddenly turned his head to look at the rear of the troops.
His Royal Highness happened to be at the top of a hill. The cavalry of the troops were in the middle, while the infantrymen and archers formed a long line around the periphery. A small part of the front of the troops had climbed over the hill. When the enemy attack alarm came, these soldiers suddenly raised their heads, but did not do anything else. Instead, they waited for the orders from their superiors.
From this, it could be seen that these soldiers had been through continuous battles and had become real elites.
"Infantrymen in the rear, form a defensive formation!
Archers, get ready!
Cavalry, get ready!
Frontline infantrymen, wait for orders on the flank! "
Stu immediately gave the order to the adjutant next to him, and the latter immediately began to relay the order to his subordinates. In less than a few minutes, the originally long line of troops quickly integrated into a half-moon defensive formation, ready for battle. The cavalry rushed to the top of the hill, waiting for the horn to sound at any time!
Stu looked at the front of the troops in the misty rain. Originally, there were originally three scouts at the back of the troops. Originally, there were ten scouts at the back of the troops!
"Your Royal Highness!"
The captain of the scouts, whose leather armor was lined with blue cloth, jumped off his panting military horse. He did not have time to pull out the arrow on his shoulder, and knelt on one knee in front of Stu's horse.
"Speak."
"A large number of undead suddenly appeared at the back of the troops!
They are very fast!
And there are archers!
There are ten necromancers!
There are about a thousand of them!
There are no cavalry! "
The scout captain didn't waste any time and quickly reported his findings. As a Tier 6 scout, he didn't immediately flee after discovering the Undead. Instead, he only retreated to report after scouting out the movements of the entire Undead army. However, this risky action had cost him the lives of several elite scouts.
After hearing this, Stu slightly frowned and waved his hand, saying, "Hurry up and treat your wounds. You are dismissed."
"Yes, sir!"
When Stu raised his head again, he saw a group of figures appearing on the short hill in the distance.
"Archers!"
All the archers picked up their arrows. The longbows in their hands were slightly soaked in the rain. This kind of weather greatly affected the landing of the arrows, but at this moment, they couldn't care about this.
The archers who relied on their strength to survive were a little weak after not eating for the past few days. They took deep breaths to adjust themselves, but they still couldn't suppress the slight trembling of their fingers due to the lack of food.
Those black figures gradually approached, but it made Stu a little surprised — because he saw that the undead were actually divided into a few distinct camps!
This situation, which he had never seen before, immediately made him very puzzled. He could see that these undead didn't have any orderly formation to speak of, but there were a few empty "cracks" in the huge army — this was very conspicuous in the army of more than a thousand undead.
More than a thousand undead wasn't a lot, but it wasn't a small number either.
Salia's forbidden spell could destroy the same number of undead in a few words, but it was obvious that the two magicians beside Stu didn't have this ability.
"Split up their formation and leave an opportunity for the cavalry."
Stu gave an order to the two magicians who were walking not far from him. The two magicians nodded slightly, raised the reins in an arrogant manner, and walked to the front of the troops.
Stu didn't find this strange. He turned around expressionlessly, but began to calculate the situation of the battle and the advantages and disadvantages of both sides.
The undead seemed to have learned some fighting methods from the previous battles, but after a few waves of undead mixed together, they seemed to have forgotten these things that they had learned with great difficulty. They just charged forward in a messy manner without any formation to speak of. And in the middle of these undead, there was an inconspicuous figure in a black robe walking in the army. When these undead were about 500 meters away from Stu's battle formation, they suddenly waved the magic staffs in their hands!
Four to five bright fireballs flew out, accompanied by intense magic fluctuations!
Although it was drizzling, the fireballs that were the size of washbasins still seemed to carry a suffocating heat.
The fireball flew out from the ranks of the undead, drawing a large parabola in the air. It fell like a stone shot from a catapult, and smashed into the ground!
Boom! Boom!
After a few explosions, a few frightening deep pits appeared on the ground.
However, these deep pits were still 30 to 40 meters away from the outermost infantrymen of Prince William's army. Before the soldiers could laugh at these unreliable magicians, the second wave of fireballs came!
Boom! Boom!
The 30 infantrymen at the front were sent flying by the violent shockwave!
"Damn it, are they calibrating the trajectory?
Do they really think they are catapults?! "
The elderly magician who was about to cast a spell couldn't help but curse!
It was no wonder that he said that. From the perspective of orthodox magic, a big fireball wouldn't have such a trajectory!
For example, High Mage Sally and Chris, who had almost beaten Many and Norda to death, their fire magic was fast and overbearing. However, the fireballs they cast relied on the high temperature of the fire element after it came into contact with the target, as well as the impact of the elemental explosion. Moreover, their fireballs relied on mental strength to lock onto the target. Within the effective shooting range, there wouldn't be any parabolas at all. Instead, the fireballs would basically shoot in a straight line.
However, these magicians were completely different from the traditional fire magicians. Their fireballs looked bigger, but they couldn't compare to the advanced fireball spell 'Flame Blast'. Moreover, this kind of fireball was not completely composed of fire elements, but more like a huge burning stone. When it hit the ground or the human body, it had a more terrifying impact and lethality!
This kind of parabola casting method made people speechless. This was simply treating the magicians as human catapults!
This was simply an insult to the title of 'magician'!
From the perspective of the elderly magician, the first thing a magician should do was to use his own magic to play a decisive role in reversing the situation at the critical moment of the battle, and then create an overwhelming advantage. Looking at the necromancers who were constantly throwing fireballs as if they were expending their magic freely, the elderly magician felt that these people were really too much of a bastard!
It was like a knight throwing out his glove and waiting for the opponent to respond, only to find that the opponent took out a crossbow and started shooting. This was completely illogical!
But now was not the time for him to feel emotional. The elderly magician quickly chanted a spell, raised his staff, and pointed to the front of the team.
A faint blue light flashed in the air.
Gradually, the rain in the sky seemed to be suddenly blocked by something, and it actually stopped above the team!
The number of these stationary raindrops in the air increased, and with a sudden flash of intense blue light from the old magician's staff, these water droplets began to contact each other and condensed into a water enchantment that enveloped the entire team!
This enchantment seemed to be very fragile, but when the next wave of 'fireballs' came from the sky, everyone witnessed the power of this enchantment!
When the seemingly powerful and blazing fireballs came into contact with this seemingly thin layer of enchantment, the red and yellow flames immediately extinguished!
Moreover, in an instant, they seemed to have turned into black stones, and their falling speed suddenly slowed down, as if they had hit a soft sponge. When these black objects fell on the exposed ground that the soldiers had made way for, they suddenly collapsed into a pile of pitch-black debris, and then as if they sublimated into smoke, they disappeared into the air!
"Ridiculous tricks!"
The elderly magician curled his lips in disdain, and then immediately began to cast the next spell. The younger magician cast two protective enchantments on him, and then cast the same spell on His Royal Highness.
Obviously, he was an expert in defensive and protective spells.
Just as the elderly magician was chanting the spell, the undead at the forefront of the army had already collided with the soldiers who were ready for battle!
However, the scene of the infantrymen firmly blocking the zombies with their shields did not appear in Stu's imagination. Instead, what appeared in front of him was a scene that almost made him jump off his horse!
Like a hot knife through butter!
That's right, these zombies actually rushed into the phalanx of the infantrymen with irresistible force!
The soldiers standing in the first row who were holding up their shields with all their might seemed to have been rammed by magical beasts running at full speed. Not a single one of them could withstand the terrifying impact, and all of them were sent flying!
They knocked down the soldiers in the second row, and the entire front line suddenly became a mess!
"Steady!
Steady! "
The captain of the squad shouted loudly, but his ears were filled with the rotting howls. He raised his sword and fiercely slashed at a zombie that was tearing apart a soldier, but with a "clang", the sword cut into the zombie's body that was wearing a tattered leather armor from the waist. Then, he found that the sword was tightly clamped by the zombie's muscles, and he could not pull it out at all!
Just as he tightly grasped the hilt of the sword with both hands and was about to pull it out, the zombie turned around and fiercely pounced, directly knocking the captain into the air!
Then, it suddenly raised its bloody arm, clenched its fist, and smashed it into the ground!
"Bang!"
The captain's neck bone was smashed open, and blood splattered everywhere. The astonishingly powerful zombie had dug out his heart, and he died a horrible death!
The morale of the entire front line suddenly fell to the bottom. They found that they could not stop these zombies at all!
How the f * ck were these zombies that they had encountered before?
They had simply become magical beasts with unparalleled strength!
All the soldiers felt a deep sense of fear in their hearts!
Looking at the swords in their hands, it was as if they were slashing at the tough bark of a tree. Every attack of the zombies was powerful and heavy, and their movements were so agile that they did not match the name 'zombie'!
With a solemn expression, the old magician's staff flashed with blue light again, and he suddenly pointed at the front line!
Suddenly, blue icicles appeared on the ground, and immediately after, the entire army of zombies that were chaotically pouncing at them were frozen into a wall of ice that was more than five meters tall!
The frozen zombies did not even have time to react before they were imprisoned in a two-meter thick block of ice. Then, the zombies that were following behind could not climb over the slippery wall, and were blocked outside the ice wall that was more than a hundred meters long!
With the help of powerful magic, the morale of the army immediately rose. Although the strength of the zombies had increased a lot compared to before, the weapons in the hands of the soldiers were not just for show. Because the zombies were separated by the ice wall, the entire frontline immediately became a situation where they outnumbered the zombies, and in an instant, they had regained ten percent of their strength!
However, at this moment, continuous bugles of retreat sounded from the back of the battle formation. Although the soldiers did not understand why, they immediately retreated from the tangled and chaotic area, and retreated in an orderly manner.
"Your Highness?"
The adjutant panted, and looked at Prince Si Tu with a puzzled expression.
Si Tu loosened his collar, and discreetly wiped away the stains of sweat. With a calm expression, he raised his horsewhip and said, "Cavalry, protect the rear. Everyone, advance at full speed towards the Sith Court!"
He turned his head, and said to the two magicians not far away, "Use all your strength to stop the zombies!
I need half an hour!
After the mission is completed, the Empire will not forget your contributions! "
His words were sonorous and forceful, but also carried a heavy sense of entrustment.
The two magicians were stunned, and immediately turned to look at the zombies in the distance. The old magician nodded at the young magician, and then put his hand on his chest and lowered his head to His Highness, "It is our honor, Your Highness!"
Magicians were not hot-blooded. They were extremely rational, and could even be said to be a group of people who were a little sick. Those who were able to become magicians were not simple people.
There were two reasons for agreeing to Prince Si Tu's request. One was that the old magician was very confident in holding off the zombies for half an hour, and the second was that His Highness had promised them benefits.
None of the magicians were poor, but none of them did not need a lot of money. From the various kinds of experiments to the purchase of magic materials and magic books, this profession had long been labeled as the "most expensive profession" by the people of the continent. The prince's words could be said to be worth a thousand gold, and no matter how one looked at it, it was a suitable transaction.
Without hesitation, the old magician turned around and began to cast the next spell, while the young magician held a magic staff in his hand, protecting the old magician at all times.
This was a formal academy magician, and they had strict combat standards. From combat awareness to experience, those wandering magicians could not be compared to them.
The entire front of the army began to retreat in an orderly manner. The cavalry changed their formation, and protected the two sides of the infantry formation of the caravan. The excess supplies were directly abandoned, and the army began to advance at full speed in the rain.