Two Days Later.

General Cornelius had called Henry to discuss everything that had transpired.

"Tell me, what do you think the enemy could have done to defeat us?" The General asked like he was talking about the weather while sipping tea.

"As far I could tell, the elves could do nothing without the dragons," He answered after giving it a long moment. He was seated cross his mentor eating some biscuits while going through the most recent reports.

"Oh, nonsense,
If the Earthblood elves bypassed our mines and reached our trenches, we'd be screwed.
If the Moonshadow Elves managed to link up with them at the trenches, then we'd be screwed.
If the earthblood elves went with the Moonshadow elves against our tanks, we'd be screwed.
If the airborne units were invisible, then we'd be screwed.
If they used a layered earth wall defense then our main front would be screwed.
If all of the above happened, then we'd be seriously screwed." he said as he counted them off his fingers.

"Bottom line, they had the means to defeat us if they knew what they were facing." He stated bluntly without any hesitation.

"So will the coming battles be costlier?" Henry didn't like where this was going.

"Depends on the composition of their troops, however, dive-bombing by dragons will be our main threat followed by earthblood elves who can just overturn our tanks if they got close enough to make an earth wall underneath."

"What do you propose?"

"We wait for our radar to be actually working first, till then we focus on defense while the flight mages do aerial raids on military targets, commercial routes and any messengers to disrupt them."

"To guard against any scaly dive bombers?" Henry guessed, thinking back to the damage they inflicted.

The General nodded, "Exactly, we'll need several of them so we can counter them, till then our armor and infantry stay here. On that note, our mission in the oasis was a success, they brought back quite a haul it seems."

"Any prisoners?"

"Almost 5,000, though once we start the air raids using mages we'll start running out of gold coins"

"why do we even need to coin them?"

"Leverage, the elves will eventually tire of war and when that time comes we can use the coins as a bargaining chip." though he had no idea how many that would entail.

"Would they even accept that?"

"Does it matter? once their people learn of it they'll star pushing their leaders to save the captives. Our goal is territory after all."

For a few moments none of them spoke, Henry decided to break the silence and ask him something that's been weighing on his mind, "Is it true? the rumors I mean?" Henry had started hearing about them over a year ago but they seem to be getting more frequent.

"Its true, the top brass are planning to launch a massive invasion of Duren, Rustreau, Eshijan and Vosnuavania."

"So this.."

"yes, our invasion of Xadia is solely to aid in the coming war."

Some distance just outside the human encampment, a pair of Moonshadow elves were looking through spyglasses to see what the humans were doing. They were ordered to keep an eye on the enemy but they spent every moment in fear that the humans already knew of their presence and were merely ignoring them.

The humans had mages create a massive pit, the elves could tell it was deep based on the amount of earth piled nearby.

An hour later they saw two new iron behemoths, several looked like large iron boxes while the rest had a single large claw-like thing in front. They were accompanied by humans covered head to toe in pure white while wearing some unusual kind of mask. Their backs had a bright red cross on them.

"Just what are they planning to do with those,"

"shhhhh,."

They saw it heading towards where the ice barrier once stood, the humans in white began to go through the dead, though they couldn't see what they were doing. after some time had passed the humans waved to the behemoths and they brought their giant claws towards the corpses.

"By the moon, are they going to feed the corpses to those things?!" one of them looked on in horror, in fact at this point they still weren't sure if the those things were alive, some sort of golem or something else entirely.

They looked on as the masses of corpses were picked up by that thing and were thrown into the other behemoth, they understood it must have been mostly hollow and used to carry things. They occasionally saw bodies fall from those claws, some were so bad that their organs were spilling out.

"Do wars among humans produce this many dead?"

"I don't know but I fear that to be true. "

The elves looked on in horror while fighting the urge to vomit.

The behemoths brought the bodies and dumped them into the pit. Then the humans in white began pouring in some liquids and powders into it, this continued till all the corpses were taken and the pit was completely buried under dirt. A large block of stone was placed over it and they noticed the humans began to inscribe something on to it before leaving.

"They were burying them?" One of them asked,

"I guess it makes sense, that many bodies would create pestilence if left to rot."

"Don't they need those bodies for dark magic?" They knew dark magic needed material harvested from xadians to perform so it made no sense that they would bury them when they could use them.

"Maybe they only needed a few."

Once it was night, they quietly ventured close to the stone to investigate, they noticed some strange odor as they came closer, it reminded them of lemons. As they approached it they saw the words were written in olden elvish.

"Here lies the brave soldiers of Xadia who died during the battle of the Breach,"
It was followed by the date of the battle and number of bodies buried.

"Why would they make a tomb for our fallen?"

"I... don't.. know," the other said as he brushed his fingers against the inscriptions. They continued to look around making sure no one found them.

-
1 Week Later.

Inside the city, people were lining up the main roads anticipating the return of the triumphant army that marched out not long ago with the jubilation from that day was still present on their faces.

They began to cheer loudly as they saw the massive gates open. But within moments, their cheers were slowly choked away. What they saw was different from the army that had left in such high spirits. In front of them was an army that had completely lost the will to fight.

The people noticed something else, the army was half the size that departed. Some called out to the men asking to know what had happened, but the answer they got was complete silence, not even once did they acknowledge the existence of those calling out to them. Those that looked in their direction quickly turned away as they had no way of describing what they had gone through.

Next to enter their view were horse-drawn carts carrying those who were too injured to walk, many of whom had missing limbs, many had bandages soaked in blood. Fear, panic, confusion began to spread.

As time went on they began to learn of what happened, none could believe it at all, none wanted to. They tried to rationalize it as the survivors exaggerating things, but they rebuffed them by simply telling them, "If you don't believe it then go see for yourself,"

Two Days Later.

Everyone had convened an emergency conference to discuss the battle after they had time to process everything and going through the reports. They quickly went through how the battle progressed while trying to gain an understanding of the capabilities of the humans for future battles. But they were interrupted as they were notified of a report from the scouts who returned from the sanctuary and an accompanying messenger arrow that just arrived from those that stayed behind. Everyone was staring blankly at the scout who reported what he found and read the message that followed.

Zubeia quickly ran out of the room and flew off to the sanctuary. Avizandum knew there was no point in stopping her and as much as he wanted to go himself, it was more important that he stay here.

"what do you mean the sanctuary was destroyed?" one of them asked.

"What of the dragon eggs or the dragon guard?" Vaeril wondered whether the egg of the dragon prince or if Lain and Tiadrin were alive.

"The oasis is covered with massive craters, we've found neither the eggs nor the guard." the scout still vividly remembered the devastation he had seen when he arrived, the smell of burnt ash and smoke lingered on his clothes.

The floor began to crack under Avizandum's claws as his breathing became ragged, he quietly left the room. Minutes later once he was finally outside, he let out a deafening wrathful roar that shook the air around creating a massive thunderstorm. Lightning began to tear through the sky, the wind was strong enough that it could knock down trees and the rain was so intense that it could be heard through even the thickest of rock. In the unending downpour, none could notice the tears flowing down Avizandum's face. During his long life, he had never felt so powerless as he did now. It's all my fault he blamed himself for being complacent and allowing the sanctuary defenses to be lowered despite knowing that it would've made no difference if they had stationed an army there.

His roar was heard by the entire city, everyone quickly left whatever they were doing and ran for shelter as soon as they saw the sky darkening, they knew it was suicide to be outside in this storm. The lightning had destroyed trees and turned the ground it struck into glass.

Back in the conference room, Vaeril had told everyone that they would reconvene once the dragon monarchs had calmed down. they quickly began to prepare for disaster relief. They joked self depricatingly that that this might be worse for their morale than anything the humans could've done

Next Day.

They had finally reconvened but Queen Zubeia had returned to the Storm Spire to mourn while Avizandum remained in Lux Aurea.

Vaeril began "Now we shall continue from yesterday. I believe the best way to fight them would be using dragons to perform diving attacks using their breaths then quickly retreating before the humans can counter. After that, it will be using earthblood elves to get close and create earth walls underneath those iron behemoths. All actions will be organized around these two principle strategies."

"The war will be one of attrition and rapid strikes at critical yet isolated targets, large engagements are a last resort only."

"Is there no other way" Janai wondered if a protracted war of attrition was something they could sustain as their economies would collapse if too many people were conscripted."

"Large armies marching together in formation are rendered obsolete against those weapons, quick and devastating surgical strike are our only option."

Avizandum nodded, he saw how effective their attack was despite it being short-lived. "All of dragonkind is fully committed to this fight, we shall follow whatever plans you create."

The startouched elf spoke up "Our people will also follow your commands"

Vaeril cocked an eyebrow "and I believe it's time you explained WHY you value my opinion to an unnatural degree." He was getting tired of this abnormally preferential treatment he'd been subjected to and the fact that he's stuck doing the jobs of these people who shouldn't need his advice in the first place.

Now that he had said it, all the others present realized that Vaeril was scholar who preferred burying himself in research, and not some military leader nor a person with any political influence, it made no sense for the dragon's and startouched elves to be showing so much unquestioning deference towards him in the first place.

"Because only you can lead us now," the startouched elf said though Vaeril noticed that wasn't really an answer of any kind.

"There is no point in hiding it, he has the right to know this." Avizandum had hoped they wouldn't have to reveal it. " You are what we call an Artisan of War."

"A what?!" Vaeril had never come across such a term before.

Avizandum exhaled "During the great war, to gain an upper hand both sides sought to create military leaders who were vastly superior, to whom war an is an art form. To that end many individual both human and elf were modified against their will." He remembered what Luna Tenebris had passed on to him when he first ascended and told him that this knowledge was to remain buried.

"You are one of their descendants, a universal trait is a deathly glare that chills one to their very core. The moment you silenced the entire conference room we knew what you truly were. "The startouched elf added,

"So you listen to my words because.."

"Because in matters of war, an artisan is the equivalent of a highly experienced and capable military leader."

"Then why aren't there more of.." this made no sense to him, he never recalled anyone in his family ever having anything to do with military matters.

"It's not that simple, we don't know why but only an extremely few of their descendants ever manifest such ability. Those who do manifest it only show a fraction of their ancestors capabilities and they live their lives without ever knowing."

"We sought to bury this matter because we want to avoid a situation where someone might try to recreate anything from that horrible war."

Everyone else was staring at Vaeril as they listened to Avizandum and the startouched elves. Janai was the most shocked, she finally realized that she had been trying to recruit the embodiment of war itself.

"So what should we do?" an earthblood elf asked, this was the same one that caused Vaeril to glare at him during the first conference. He now truly didn't want to anger the tidebound elf.

"Is there anyway for us to cross the veil?" Vaeril paused, he still didn't believe the whole artisan thing nor did he understand much of it but he felt it did explain a few things, but that could wait for later when he had time to contemplate.

"What do you have in mind?"

"We NEED to cross to the other side to gather intelligence as at this point in time we know nothing about our enemy who currently has an upper hand. We need to know about how things are like on the human side and if there is something we can use to fight back."

Avizandum turned to the startouched elves "There is a way but the spell is extremely difficult to learn so it will take time before we can fully train someone to perform it."

"We don't really have a choice." He distantly wondered if maybe he could find some allies among the humans. He hoped they would be willing to share knowledge at least, we badly need whatever information we can get or we might as well just surrender right now."