Chapter 28: Iron Boxes

 

Evening arrived and the skies were starting to turn yellow. The battle raged on as the two sides continued to fight on a large bloody battlefield.

As expected, the demons were starting to get tired. It has been almost a dozen hours since they started, their eyesight started to get hazy, their movements more sluggish. They also have no path to retreat. Once the Seventh Army stopped covering their flanks, they were immediately flanked by the humans in a concave which soon developed into a full-blown surround.

That was the beginning of the end. The demons' defeat only accelerated from there. Sure they fought bravely but it was only a matter of time before the Alliance finished them off. The demons were getting more fatigued by the moment but the humans were not. They simply rotated their armies, giving the tired ones room to breathe while the rested ones took over the fight.

This is a basic strategy— to maintain energy in a prolonged fight.

The Ak’hims attempted a few full-powered assaults to make a hole on the surround, but it was only proven futile as the humans would just kill off the stragglers and close the circle again.

Why haven't the demons thought about this beforehand and try to prevent it? Klauna may never know. Maybe the demons were too prideful? That they think it would be an easy win? Maybe they thought they could easily break out of the encirclement? God knows. The amount of incompetence that plagued this Kingdom was rather mind-boggling to Klauna.

Nonetheless, if there was anything to praise about the demons, it was their tenacity. They kept fighting on without rest and with ferocity. Although, such fierceness would do them no good here. They were slowly but surely losing ground— the encirclement getting smaller and smaller. 

The Sixth Demon Lord, Sylendri, was fighting against a group of Alliance heroes who were keeping her overwhelming powers at bay. Clashes after clashes of mighty blows happened between her and the group. The shockwaves resonated across the battlefield. 

Sylendri swung and threw out her biggest spells and skills but could be seen visibly frustrated when none of them worked. Either they were dodged or they were blocked. The heroes were wearing very strong magic resistant equipment and had very powerful magic users combining their strength to overcome Sylendri's powerful strikes.

Her blitzing speed in the air proved to be useless as the heroes used the same spell as the one seen in Fort Kron, an ominous wind that prevented Succours from taking flight.

Sylendri was powerful indeed, but it was quickly made apparent that she was no fighter. She is the type to rely on her brute strength to settle things. Her previous opponents never lasted long against her so she never learned how to fight properly. Her movements were predictable and her thought process very simple-minded, wasting a lot of mana on repeatedly trying things that clearly didn't work.

A one-trick pony.

Just a few short minutes of fighting was enough for the heroes to learn her patterns and injure her. It was only small cuts at first, but soon, over the hours, these small cuts turned into a serious problem as she finally gave a big enough opening for a human to deal a significant wound to her. A stab in the chest by a young prince wearing a crown.

By luck or sheer moxie, Sylendri managed to live through the attack and retreated back to her army, before passing out shortly after.

Now the demons were really screwed. Whatever morale they had a while ago was now completely gone. Panic and fear started to fill the demons as they realised that they were all going to die there. The fact that the heroes' hands were now free only meant that the heroes could start concentrating on slaying more of the already fatigue demons with their overwhelming power.  The Ak'hims were rapidly losing men.

Their defeat was imminent…

It was then that the sound of several large horns was heard and the ground shook beneath the Alliance soldiers. This horn was different from the normal horns. It was the sound to signal a retreat. The demons were perplexed by the retreat horn. 

There was nowhere to go, how could they retreat? Their questions were soon answered when the ground soon erupted, throwing rocks and dirt all over the place. Soon, more and more eruptions occurred, throwing the Alliance into disarray as they were flung into the air as well.

Once the dust settled, they could see about a dozen giant iron boxes all over the place. It had lots of iron wheels which were chained together with a continuous track. The boxes were coated with a red eerie glow and had spikes all over them. It had small openings and windows on the sides of it and if one looks closely, one could see a whole crew of Ak’hims within the boxes— Analysts that were charging a magic ball within the iron box. With the clever application of magic, the magic ball within moved and so did the iron box.

On the top of one such box was Klauna who waved the banner of the Seventh Army and was looking at the battlefield. The sight of jaw dropped soldiers could be seen. It came from allies and enemies alike.

She then pointed the banner towards the enemies. The moment she did so, streams of fire and magical bullets appeared from the holes of these boxes, burning the enemies and shooting the enemy from the boxes. The Analysts were throwing out spells from within the boxes.

The enemies fought back of course. As soon as they regained focus, they charged right into the boxes in order to dismantle them. That plan was soon found to be rather dumb as they would just get run over by the iron boxes which were many times heavier than them. Anybody not within crushing distance was either burned alive or had their head blown off by the mages within the iron boxes.

Not willing to give up, the humans threw spells of their own and shot arrows at the contraption. They will soon find out that it was useless as well. All the iron boxes were covered by the Analyst’s signature skill, the 'Force Field’. And even if the spell got through the bubble, it would have done very little damage to the miniature iron fort anyways.

Yes, the contraption was fondly called by Klauna as the miniature iron fort. It was greatly inspired by her last battle where she used a similar tactic with the Siege tower. Her idea was simple, what if... There were miniature-sized versions of that tower but made with stronger materials. 

Her designs caused a great deal of confusion and frustration for the Analyst’s engineers who had to come up with a viable design for the contraption. The initial draft given by Klauna was rather terrible after all. It was Yuupiecca who came up with a workable prototype that satisfied Klauna enough for deployment. 

Once the iron boxes moved out of the way, it revealed a small tunnel that had whole divisions of soldiers within them. They poured out of these holes and started attacking the Alliance as well, using the iron boxes as cover. The holes were fantastically made by the veteran Saboteurs within the Seventh Army. 

These divisions of troops would provide much-needed manpower on the field, to do things that the clunky iron boxes could not. Such as striking foes as they were backing away and preventing the boxes from getting surrounded. 

They may look invincible now, but it will not last long. They only had a short time before the fuel, the mana of the Analysts moving the boxes ran out.

“Yuupiecca, call Medica for the airstrike now! And where is Kazakiel?” Klauna yelled to Yuupiecca who was beneath the iron box she was currently on top of.

She was busy throwing spears from the top of the iron boxes at the enemies.

“The Airstrikes are incoming right now! Kazakiel is on the way as well!” Yuupiecca shouted from the inside.

Just as Yuupiecca finished saying those words, Klauna looked above only to see a few very small figures in the skies, completely outside the range of the ominous winds. They flew around in place before leaving the area. They were soon replaced with another group of small figures.

*Boom! *Boom! * Boom!

Suddenly, small clumped up explosions occurred all over the battlefield, blowing up people left and right.

Back during Fort Kron, Klauna had decided that the Succours casting magic in the air were simply too slow, too weak and too risky. Having control of the air should mean much more in a battle, so she had Yuupiecca and his group of engineers to develop a magic bomb that they can drop from the skies. 

The plan was for them to alternate between each other to drop these bombs and resupply at Harbin’s location to drop more bombs. This way they reduce the danger to the Succours and increase their effectiveness.

It wasn’t accurate by any means. Some of the bombs even landed on demons and the Seventh Army. The Seventh Army was lucky as the force field protected them, but the others were not. Nevertheless, Klauna didn’t order the Succours to stop. They needed the firepower badly, they cannot afford to care about the people who were literally going to die if the Succours weren’t there in the first place.

At a completely separate location from Klauna was more and more iron boxes bursting from the ground. It was Kazakiel and his battalion. They employed roughly the same tactics as the Klauna’s battalion. Only instead of magical spells, his battalion shot out small poison arrows and poisonous gas at the enemies. Kazakiel’s men then soon made a path through the Alliance soldiers and regrouped with Klauna’s.

The shock and awe tactic served to do two things. Kill as many humans as possible while keeping as many soldiers of the Seventh Army alive and to open the surround on the demons, giving them a path of escape.

And made a path it did. A path that the Kingdom's soldiers gladly took as the Seventh Army covered for them. Not all of them though, some of them, but more specifically, the Sixteenth and Seventeenth army stayed behind to help the Seventh Army. The lamias and minotaurs making a line to prevent the enemy from chasing after the retreating demons.

Their help was somewhat appreciated as the demons poured out of the encirclement and into the safety of the plains.

Once enough of the demons had escaped, Klauna gave an order to her soldiers to retreat from the area as well. A signal was launched to the skies and everyone started retreating from the area. Some of the iron boxes covered for the demons while some others lead the way to a specific pre-planned retreat point.

"Tell the others to proceed with phase four. Keep us behind the others as closely as possible. I'll cover them as much as I can," Klauna said to Yuupiecca through a small hatch on top of the iron box she was on.

"Roger." Yuupiecca responded.

The iron box soon turned around and slowly moved towards the retreat point. Albeit lagging behind and slower than the other boxes.

As the box travelled, Klauna was throwing spears after spears at the chasing enemies who were aiming to rout them. Once she ran out of spears to throw, she switched to Indominatus and did mighty swings towards the enemy. Each swing sent out huge shockwaves that caused the enemy to be blown away. Everything was going according to plan and in a few more minutes, they will soon be out into safety. 

However, things are never always easy. 

The iron box that Klauna and Yuupiecca were riding soon flipped over as the ground beneath them exploded. With a thud, the iron box landed on its sides. The wheels were moving, but only one part was touching the ground causing the box to move in circles. This allowed the enemies to close in and do a surround on the iron box. 

Fortunately, the soldiers within the box survived and were in good condition. They scrambled within to see if they could get moving again. Their hearts were racing and they panicked, but Yuupiecca told them to stay calm.

“Yuuko! Status report!” Yuupiecca yelled.

“WE ARE DOOMED!!!” She yelled hysterically at their situation.

“Yuuka! Status report!”  Yuupiecca asked the other triplet.

“We are grounded. The controls are busted, we can’t repair it!” Yuuka replied.

“Stop pumping mana into the thing. Keep the Force Field and the flamethrower spell up!” Yuupiecca shouted as he made his way into the emergency hatch.

Once opened, he sneaked his head outside to see the situation. What entered his eyes was the sight of hundreds of Alliance soldiers moving towards their position— or rather, moving towards the single lone figure fighting with a banner. Klauna obviously survived the crash and was single-handedly fending off the Alliance soldiers. She swung her spear to prevent the humans from coming closer to them.

Yuupiecca took a closer look at Klauna and confirmed her status. He let out a sigh of relief to find out that she was relatively fine and without injuries. The only thing that bothered Yuupiecca was that she was engaging with a few heroes that wore special equipments. One of the humans was a young man wearing a crown. They were fighting with her rather equally, trading blows and moving around the battlefield with great speed and precision.

This was rather shocking to Yuupiecca as… There weren’t many people who could fight that monster of a woman on equal footing like this...

He immediately popped out of the hatch and charged a spell in order to assist Klauna with her fight. His endeavours were denied when his spell was knocked out of the air by an elven archer who was aiming directly at them. The heroic elf then shot multiple arrows onto the iron box only to be repelled by the force field made by the Analysts.

It seemed that the elves were concentrating their efforts on Yuupiecca’s group instead.

Battle of Fate, Status so far:

Ak'hims            : 1860 Dead. 11287 Soldiers remaining. 
Seventh Army : 1547 Soldiers remaining. 
Alliance            : 4000 Dead. 48512 Soldiers.