"What is THIS!!!"
Mera was enraged. She had thought she would sweep the floor with her huge army and rain carnage upon Ashton before putting him back in his place. However, never in her wildest thoughts, she could have imagined her enemies would defend themselves so fiercely.
Just knowing the odds would have made most armies surrender on the spot, but these bastards were built different.
The moment her soldiers were about to enter the gates, a series of explosions ceased their march. In a blink of an eye, she had already lost a fifth of her forces to the explosions, While those who were fortunate enough to not die, had their will shaken to the core.
Even she was baffled by what she was seeing. Explosions should not have had any effect on them! The humans tried it before and failed miserably and yet... her troops were dying from mere explosives? It didn't make any sense.
Nevertheless, seeing the explosions in action, further strengthened Mera's resolve to take them down. With technology like this, she could finally attack Jonathan and have her revenge. But before that, she needed to get Ashton and whoever had developed the explosives on her side.
"Keep charging ahead, you morons!" Mera yelled at the top of her lungs, "They can't have infinite explosives to throw at us!"
The soldiers were hesitant but knew better than to argue with a mad witch. Gathering all of their courage, they headed straight through the area with mines littered everywhere. However, much to their dismay, the barrage of explosions didn't stop.
Within minutes her forces had been halved, most of them were dead and those who weren't were left incapable of fighting.
It was at this time Baiter gave everyone the bad news, that all of the mines had been used. They were on their own now.
Although the odds had increased in their favour quite a lot, they were still going to lose in a head-on fight. After all, 30 to 1 was a ratio anyone would be fond of.
"Stop sulking and prepare for battle. We only need to hold them back till Ashton gets back!" Virgil tried his best to incite the forces but it was clear that he wasn't very good at it.
Only Baiter and Virgil knew the secondary objective of using the explosions. The rest of them didn't so they didn't know what bullshit Virgil was spouting about Ashton coming back and even if Ashton arrived there, what could he possibly do against an army of fifteen thousand men by himself?
It was at this moment that Sheera stepped up to take the charge and fill her duty as the second-in-command.
"My soldiers! I have always said, a life that ends with a foolish death is not worth living. But this death... it's not filled with foolishness but honour and bravery, for only honour and bravery can make us embrace death like an old friend."
"I'm not going to lie to you and say we'll make it alive. For even Lycaon, himself wouldn't have lied to you. But with his blessing, we shall meet in heaven once again, to drink alongside the gods and our fallen comrades."
Sheera continued, "Those who still want to desert us, they can. I won't hold a grudge against them, but my soldiers! I ask you this, what do you want? A warrior's death or a coward's life?"
"Warrior's death!"
"I can't hear you!"
"A WARRIOR'S DEATH!"
"Then take your arms and charge at the enemies without any fear! We are the descendants of Lycaon, no matter how big of an army we face, we shall be the ones who will be remembered for millennia to come!"
And just like that, the soldiers who were afraid to die, charged into the battlefield, ready to embrace death as an old friend.
"Your verbal skill is scary..." Virgil mumbled while smiling.
"Let us handle the crowd. You should try to figure out a way to take Mera down. With her gone, the soldiers would stop as well." Sheera returned his smile before charging along with her soldiers, "Good luck!"
"What about the king though? You contacted him right?" Baiter shouted at her retreating form.
"Don't expect help from them. Mera is more of a strategist than any of us. She had someone destroy the portal leading to Livan before coming here." Sheera shrugged her shoulders, "It would take at least a couple of hours before king Jonathan would get here."
It was bad news, but it wasn't as bad as Baiter had expected it to be. At least King Jonathan was not siding with Mera. So even if they died, there was a high chance she would receive some sort of punishment. But knowing Mera, she must have already planned something for it as well.
"Baiter, you're the one with a brain. I'll leave the thinking to you." Virgil patted the man on his back before rushing towards the fight himself.
"Sure... if only it was so easy."
Baiter shrugged his shoulders and began thinking of a plan. But nothing came to his mind.
He could have used the spare hand cannons he had to try and attack her, but the weapons did not have the range to do so and sneaking up to her was out of the question as well. Even if he did, he would likely get killed quicker than he could pull the trigger.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Sheera's ferocity and the courage of her troops had left everyone else baffled beyond any limit. With a single strike, the royal knights were taking half a dozen heads. However, apart from them, the rest of the soldiers were not doing so good.
The numbers advantage was too much for them to handle and slowly but surely, they were losing the fight.
Though just as everything seemed to be lost, Lycaon heard their prayers and a saviour arrived on the battlefield to protect them all.
"What is that!?" one of the knights guided Sheera's attention towards a figure standing at quite some distance.
"What the hell is Mera up to now!?"
Sheera cursed loudly as a giant made of bones was seen heading towards them. Since none of them had the ability to pull off something like that, she automatically assumed it was another one of Mera's plans.
But when Sheera stared in Mera's direction, she realised the mistress was just as shocked as they were.
'If it doesn't belong to her them could it be?'
"Wait, is that someone on top of its shoulders?" Virgil pointed out and a moment later everything became clear, "It's Ashton! HE'S BACK! I TOLD YOU HE'LL BE BACK! HAHA!"