Biggest thanks for Ace-Triad for fixing my SPAG problems, and Angel Wraith for beta-reading the chapter, and providing feed backs.
As always, I will blabber some more in my end note.
Cross posted on AO3, for anyone who prefer that site.
Most people think of large windmills spinning in the wind, and chimneys that extend towards the sky bellowing out dark smoke when they think of Faubley in the past twenty or so years. And while the image certainly isn't wrong, Faubley is still a large country both in its territory on the main continent, and the island surrounding its seas with very different biomes and climates. The city of Karnaca located in the Serkonos regime for example, has very warm weather all year long, and is one of the top vacation spots alongside the Cal Mira archipelago for the rich and the powerful. In fact, the natives of Karnaca pride themselves for their home's ability to attract its visitors on its beauty, comfort, and passionate hospitality without relying on the fame of past heroes like Cal Mira.
Lord Lucius Malfoy's boots click on the clean street of the port city. This is hardly the first time he's been to Karnaca this year alone, but the feeling of relaxed contentment is the same when he doesn't have to breathe the acidic, slightly foul odor of Faubley city. The Lord of the most ancient and noble house of Malfoy, and the pure, human descendents of the First Shield Hero is currently walking on a stray road that leads away from the busiest part of Karnaca city towards the countryside manors for those who can afford them. He didn't bring any of his usual guards to follow him, and not his usually loyal subordinate lords Crabbe And Goyle. Although he knows there are people who secretly protect him hiding in plain sight, or in the shadows. So long as they stay hidden and not disturb the person he's trying to meet, he wouldn't complain about those who make his trip safer. As a highlord sitting in Faubley court, especially someone from the Order of the Shield, he has his fair share of enemies who would happily arrange an accident, or an assisted suicide for him if they can get away with the act.
As Lord Malfoy's snake headed walking stick clicks alongside the road with his dragon leather boots, the large manors and well patrolled, clean road begin to give way to untrimmed grass and sandy beach. Only a single, dirt trail leads further away towards a cliff where a single, unassumed looking cottage resides. The wooden residence is both sturdy built and cleanly maintained. And sitting a distance away from the beautiful and well-guarded manors, most of the thieves would overlook it. Which of course, suits the residents just fine.
"Uncle Malfoy! Are you here to see my father again? I don't think he wants to see you though." A teenage girl, not quite an adult, with her pale hair tied into a ponytail and wearing young, trendy clothes walks towards him from the other direction. Lucius notices that there is some dirt, and even a few spots of oil stains clinging to her otherwise fashionable clothing. "Have you heard anything from my sister?"
"Contacting us would be the opposite of what Willow wants to do when she wants to make something of herself, not to rely on her father's name and connections. But I'm sure she's fine. She's the daughter of our lord, just like you, Delphi. Are you working with that stubborn old jackass Jindosh again? I thought he wanted to prove the superiority of technology over magic?" Lucius smiles and asks a few of his own questions. Delphi quickly looks down at her clothes, notices how dirty she looks and blush.
"Well, he still does! But after Emily and I showed him the limit of what technology alone can do, he decided the best way to prove it is to combine technology and magic and show how they can amplify each other. Sorry, I have to go clean myself up. I'll ask my father if he wants to see you this time! Tell Big Sister and Emily I said hi if they contact you again." Delphi nearly barreled her way into the cottage, throwing the door back on behind her. Lucius shakes his head slightly, letting his mind wander on how Delphi still needs more time to mature to distract him from the real goal. Every year, he does this old song and dance with his lord, trying to get him to leave his self-imposed retirement and his lord vehemently dismisses the idea.
Normally, it wouldn't matter much other than keeping up with the tradition due to how the Order of the Sword controlled the court thanks to that pig king's pettiness to further spite his adopted brother. But this year, everything is different. Not only have the newest Shield Hero been summoned (and from what Lucius heard alongside the grapevine, doing quite well for himself so far in spite of a rough start), they are also supposedly facing an end of the world crisis with the current Wave of Catastrophe. If there is one good time for his lord to come back and reunite the Order of the Shield, it's this moment.
Chapter 49: Deadlock
"[Air Strike Shield, [Barrier]." Naofumi stands at the front of the combined formation of the heroes. He throws up one defensive ability after another into the sky to stop the cannon bombardment from falling on the head of his allies. And pretty soon, he realized it's more efficient to use his weaker defensive abilities than the more advanced techniques, since they get immediately obliterated by the number of enemy strikes at the same time. He can afford to create larger barriers, while at the same time wasting less of his stamina using a beginner's technique than a more advanced one. Above his own head, Minato keeps up his three pointed spirit shield to ensure he isn't going to get taken out by shock waves, or a stray shot that got lucky enough inside one of the many defenses. Yatsuhashi stands right beside him, ready to push Naofumi down on the ground and cover him with his much larger body, while Lori helps create barriers with him, and heals anyone who gets injured.
"We can't just sit here like ducks and not do anything! That's the guy who nearly killed Ren!" Itsuki sounds impatient and angry beside him. "We need to do something about that cannon formation. But I can't get a good shot at our enemies!"
"We are doing a lot by taking the fire for our allies." By contrast, Dio seems much more confident and patient standing ahead of everyone. The veteran hero is speaking more than his usual. "Large cannon formations like this take time to completely change their direction, and they need to keep suppressing us to keep us grounded. Any cannon ball we draw over and block out with our defense, is a fatal attack our allies in the south avoid. But stay focused! Our enemy will try something more than suppressing us."
"Tisk. That old ass dared to use someone like me as bait? He better watch over his wife from now on. I'm going to fuck her up for this one of those days..." The Whip Hero is also rambling a lot. But the only thing coming out of his mouth is petty complaining.
"Kou is doing something with his brothers and sisters! Keep them safe!" Motoyasu's voice suddenly draws Naofumi's attention away. As one of their group's top defensive fighters, his focus had been on putting up barriers over their head since the bombardment started. Only briefly diverted to finding Raphtalia once he realized his surrogate daughter is no longer beside him. So he finally uses this distraction to look away, and give himself a few moments to rest.
Just as Motoyasu said, Kou is standing about twenty paces behind them, a pair of dark-haired filorial women with the same look, hairstyle, and matching cloth differed only by the color of their outfits right behind him. Around the three of them, about a dozen more magically focused filorials such as Tsukiumi, Homura and Akitsu stand around them. Likely doing that 'formation/ritual magic' thing Malty sometimes mentioned. Sure enough, Kou and the pair of twins ball up their fists while bending their upper body slightly down, in a very typical 'Dragon Ball Z power up stance' as golden aura surrounds them, with white lightning dancing across their bodies. Kou's eyes turn completely white, with the same bolts of electricity emitting from them as he pushes both of his arms forward, aiming slightly towards the sky as the twins place their hands on his back. "Formation Spell, [CHAIN LIGHTNING STORM]!"
strings of lightning bolts leave Kou's hands, surging up at the cannon balls falling towards their barriers, detonating them prematurely before they fall onto the many barriers opened above everyone's head. What's more, this ritual magic apparently inherited the same trait of the [Chain Lightning] spell from many different games: It jumps from target to target. In this case, other cannonballs shot towards Naofumi and his allies. And just like the bombardment from the back of the Spirit Tortoise isn't slowing down. Neither are the lightning bolts from Motoyasu's children. The battle seems to turn into a slow attrition on if Kou and his siblings have enough magical power to outlast the ammunition saved up by Astaroth.
"BACK! My thane!" Naofumi suddenly feels his own body go flying, until he body is caught from behind. He blinks his eyes, and sees Yatsuhashi leaning his body down, while furiously clashing his large, curved blade against multiple weapons falling towards him. A group of familiar looking warriors riding wolves have come upon everyone standing at the front, but the riders atop all look human instead of someone with animal-like features. The wolf raiders worked for the Mirror Demon Astaroth, not his own Siltvelt allies. Itsuki pedals back while pulling back the bow string of his weapon, looking ready to fire one of his bow weapon arts back at the enemies quickly converging on them. But an arrow suddenly imbues itself into his shoulder, making him fall back down and nearly tosses his own hero weapon away if it wasn't attached to them. Rishia throws her body over Itsuki, and she would have likely been turned into porcupine if Motoyasu didn't immediately step over them while spinning his spear over them into a makeshift shield.
Itsuki isn't the only one who is currently being taken down, as a barrage of arrows begin to rain towards all of their allies from both sides. Naofumi realizes that Astaroth, or one of his subordinates, wasn't content to have them pinned down by suppressing cannonball fire. The self-righteous fucker is trying to kill them, and his army is pressing forward now that it became clear a long range bombardment isn't doing the job. Naofumi quickly goes back to maintaining energy barriers around them, thankfully the arrows are much less damaging than the previous explosive shots so his barrier isn't immediately destroyed as soon as they are put on, but he can only maintain one shield art, and one miracle barrier respectively, and it's nowhere near enough to cover everyone.
"The wolf riders are yours, Tact. Don't let them run around like flies." Dio the Gauntlet Hero steps forward. The earth underneath his feet cracks with each step as he stomps the ground. Arrows around him are slapped away with seemingly invisible hands. The white tiger hero crosses his arms in front of chest and face, and then waves them apart with a loud roar. His body begins to grow larger, till he inflates into five times his original size till he's standing easily over ten meters tall. Granny is about ten paces away from him, also walking forward but with much more serene and graceful steps. A glowing, large idol the size of a three floor building with a hundred arms silently trailing behind her.
"[Hengen Musou Final Secret Technique: DYNAMAX]!" "[Hengen Musou Final Secret Technique: Hyakushiki Kannon]." Both giganta sized Dio, and Granny who called out her giant stand look at each other. A look of realization seems to be in both of their eyes even if Naofumi has no idea what they both figured out. They stopped distracting each other as they both charged towards the group of archers in the distance. Dio's giant body pulls both of his arms backwards, as Granny begins to make elaborate looking hand gestures.
"Who does that big cat think he's talking to? A Faubley Prince like me should be showing off my strength and skill against a worthy opponent, not cleaning out trash like some common street sweeper." Tact mumbles under his breath, but he obediently flexes his whip, letting it crawl alongside the earth. His whip split into nine at the tip, and then each further split into countless black snakes as they creeped forward, biting and snarling up the legs of the enemy wolf riders. Either tripping them up, or binding them in place to throw off the rider on their backs and making other riders collide into each other when their overall movement suddenly comes to a halt. Naofumi's own raider retinue didn't waste this opportunity, they rode out of their own formation and the defenses Naofumi and his allies put up. Ignoring the arrows still falling on their heads as they begin to cut down their enemies while howling with bloodlust and excitement. Thankfully, they didn't have to endure the rain of arrows for long. As both Dio and Granny walked closer towards the enemy's archer formation, they seemed to forget trying to hit their target and prioritized the two approaching giants instead. Makes sense, Naofumi supposed. He'll be pretty scared too if a giant is slowly but steadily stomping their way towards him.
"[Max Airstream]!" Dio thrusts both of his arms forward, palm opened up in front of his chest. A gust of hurricane shoots out from around his arms, growing larger and larger as it rockets towards the archer formation to the left. And when it reaches its enemy, it has already grown into a monstrous serpent that's large enough to swallow an entire battleship. Naofumi can hear his enemy making a desperate and fear-filled scream as they are blown away or torn apart by Dio's attack.
"[Ninety-ninth hand]." The arms of Granny's giant construct begin to thrust out at the enemy archers, and they didn't put up any better defense compared to the other group facing Dio. Bodies fly away like they are tossed around by elephants, their screams cut out abruptly as they hit ground. These might be the lucky ones compared to the one where the palms of the giant Kanon idol hit downwards, who are merely reduced to stains on the ground.
Naofumi narrows his eyes at the two veteran heroes, and one elderly martial art master. His attention was on Dio the most. Each of them were able to contribute massively to the ongoing large-scale battle in their own ways to help turn the tide of a bad situation. Especially someone like Dio who stepped up when things went bad for his allies. By contrast, his shield arts and miracles should have been much more suited for large scale battles than Dio, yet all he did was passively putting up defenses while everyone was being hit, and he still needed Yatsuhashi to protect him because he couldn't be aware of the battle around him while he's focused on his defense. Naofumi knows he still has a long way to go to become a real hero, and Dio has pointed out the direction he should work towards.
Astaroth grits his teeth. The battle isn't going nearly as well as he had expected. Maybe he should offer some praise for the generals of this world. So far, all of his usual traps which he uses to easily dominate his enemies on the battlefield have been avoided. The cannon bombardment didn't- no, barely had any effect other than forcing the 7,000 men that came with this world's 'heroes' to stay out of the battle. Eve had dispatched one of her lieutenants they recruited in the world of Malach to apply further pressure on the eastern front, and the commander proves himself to be a complete idiot who overestimated his own intelligence. Him pressing his armies forward while the 'heroes' were being suppressed by cannon firing seems to be a reasonable move on paper, but all it got for him was having his troops decimated by the veteran 'heroes' of their enemies. Troops that would have better served their purpose as fodder when The Burning Legion arrives. They would have no shortage of these thanks to the Spirit Tortoise's ability to create undead creatures, but humans who can think can do things undead can't. FOOL! The idiot would not have another opportunity to command anything other than a cleaning crew after this blunder.
He didn't get the same result with Melromarc's southern battle group either. The most stinging failure, to his surprise, came from their center vanguard charge. Before the battle, he had Eve gather the information of all the famous generals and strategists. Just because he had already proven his superiority in his original world with his practical way of fighting doesn't mean he's going to underestimate any of his future opponents - fully knowing the strength and weaknesses of his enemies is a key part of laying his traps, after all. And the biggest reason The Burning Legion conquered his world aside from their near endless number was he knew nothing about these otherworldly invaders, so he can't lay carefully made traps for them beforehand to maximize the damage caused to his enemy with the least casualty of his own, and he got forced into a losing battle of attrition. But with a new world full of self-important and corrupt nobles who are used to pampered life, he was convinced that he would easily take the world and turn it into another fortress ready to resist The Burning Legion.
Diaz Gazelle Anderson, someone known in this world as 'The Beast', acts exactly like Astaroth expected after a vicious slaughter of the undead fodders and the first line of soldiers: a brutal maniac who completely ignored the position of his allies, got his own vanguard group disconnected with the main force of their center battle group and charged headfirst into the center of Astaroth's army formation. Allowing his own group to be surrounded from all three sides. And as expected of his longest servant Eve, she immediately commanded the rear guards of their southern troops' left and right wing to pivot, aim closing in at their enemy's center vanguard like a clamp in an attempt to rout, or destroy them.
Except the vanguard of their center army is much more resilient than both Astaroth, and also Eve expected. They didn't even show any sense of disorganization let alone outright panic when they are surrounded on three sides. Some of the sub, and lieutenant commanders of their general immediately split apart from the main group with their own troops, and began their own separate charges at the rear units of their own left and right wings. And now the formation of their own left and right wing had been completely twisted into a mess, and in danger of crumbling if their enemy's two wings begin their charges.
The finger of Astaroth brushes against his observation mirror, a wave of ripple cut through the surface like a disturbed pond. Instead of looking at the overall battle from above, he's now closely examining each individual battle group of his enemies, trying to find out an easy target for him to exploit. Astaroth isn't worried about the forces of his two wings crumbling because of the mess caused by General Anderson's charge. It's obviously not the best case scenario for him (that would have been this new world recognizing his superiority and unconditionally surrendered), but he had made plans to sacrifice all of the troops he brought to this world so far. He had prepared for some surprises for his enemies in addition to his cannons and the Spirit Tortoise. But unlike the cannons, he would not trigger them with a single enemy group. That would be a horribly inefficient way to spend his resources.
At first, he wasn't too worried. Because both the vanguard of his enemy's two wings were led by inexperienced young leaders, and he knew their types well. They are always naive fools who can easily be taken hostage by vainglorious lies such as the ideals of honor or virtue. Or they could be impatient glory seekers. And once the vanguards of his enemy goes into a full charge, their center and rear guards would be forced to follow up, or risk being separately destroyed from their vanguard units. Which gives him a chance to either spring his trap, or bring more army from his world to catch them with a battle maneuver they wouldn't expect.
The enemy's left wing acted exactly as he expected at the start, where its relatively younger leader immediately ordered his riders to charge Eve's right wing. But he's just as quickly stopped by that sickly looking man with a funny mustache. And instead of charging in a straight line like a released arrow, they used a battle formation where their riders ran in a circle, to cut down the men of Eve's right wing one layer at a time. The result was his enemy's left wing vanguard is a good few heads behind the center vanguard due to their slower advancing speed. But due to the intimidation factor of them cutting down wave and wave of men, Eve's right wing is now paralyzed by terror, and on the verge of panicking.
"Things don't look good from where I'm sitting, Boss. Are you sure you don't want us to go fight on the frontline? If we wait any further, Eve might actually be threatened by them." Axel's flippant quip nearly burst a blood vessel or two in Astaroth's head. His newly recruited subordinate from Malach didn't show any sense of fear in spite of the cold glare Astaroth is giving him. In fact, he's so relaxed he's actually poking his own ear canal with his little finger. He shrugs his shoulders and blows his little finger. "Or maybe you'll just throw a mountain at them, and bring Eve back with your mirror? Not sure why you didn't start with it though. It would probably look more intimidating if you didn't get your ass kicked in the open battle first, just saying."
"Patience, Axel. Everything is going according to plan." Astaroth does his best to keep his own calm. It wouldn't do well to lose his cool, especially in front of a subordinate who isn't entirely loyal to him. "Our enemies have more unstable hidden problems than we do. All we have to do is to continue fighting and stalling them, and they will crumble from the inside."
"Is that so? But I heard only idiot and brainless trash novel writers depend on their enemy's stupidity for their own victories." Axel smirks at Astaroth back, making the Demon King grit his teeth once again. He ignores his insubordinate henchmen and refocuses on the commander of Melromarc army's right wing vanguard. It shows the face of a bloodstained boyish looking face with black hair that's twisted by anger. No doubt, any plan Astaroth has will revolve around this inexperienced commander.
"We charged too deep into the enemy formation, Leif." A blonde woman grabs the black haired man, clearly trying to warn him of his own foolishness. "General Anderson charged out of his position because he wanted to bait out the enemy's trap. We'd be failing him if we sent our own troops if we followed his example."
Once again, Astaroth feels like grinding his teeth. To think his plan was somehow discovered, or more likely guessed by total coincidence by a brainless brute feels like a slap in his face. But predictably, the black-haired man didn't listen to his female companion. "If our enemy truly laid a trap out for our army, they would not be content with only catching General Anderson and his men. Someone has to work with him to spring the trap, and I'll not have one of my allies take on this dangerous task while I'm still around. Lance Knights, anyone who has to take care of his family may join my brother's rear guard. Anyone wants to help our allies to victory and aren't afraid of the risk, WITH ME!"
The wave of cheers from his fellow knights abruptly stopped when a hand flew out of nowhere, chopped the young man on the back of his neck, and nearly made him drop to the ground if the blonde woman didn't immediately grab his unconscious body. The figure moves into Astaroth's mirror, and the demon king sees an old man with aged lines on his face, completely white hair... and only a single remaining arm. The same one that knocked the young lord out of cold. "If someone will spring a trap, it should be me. I'm old and have only one arm. But I can still make the enemy reveal the card they've been holding back with my life."
"You will need someone to act as your spear head. I shall lead the charge at the front. Nanna, take Lord Leif back to Lord David. He'll be confused when he wakes up, his older brother will protect him till he recovers." A blue-haired knight rides to the front of their now stalled group, and rearranges all of the men into an arrow shaped formation for charge. The blonde woman didn't waste any time, and took the black haired young man in the opposite direction.
Astaroth can hear a whistle from behind his back, and knows it comes from Axel once again. "Well, well, well... would you look at that? All the members of an army, a noble family working towards a common goal without worrying for their own safety, hmm? That's not the kind of teamwork we'd see in our group, isn't it? Maybe their sense of honor isn't such 'useless hypocrisy' after all."
"If you are truly inspired by these native's sense of virtue, you may try to take my head any moment. I'm sure they will happily accept you once you kill the 'Mirror Devil' who is trying to invade their world." Astaroth didn't even have to look back to know that Axel's feet are firmly planted in the ground, and his body isn't moving at all. "All talk and no action? Just as I thought. You prove it yourself that such naive ideals are ultimately nothing more than pointless dramatics from brainless fools, or lies used by hypocrites to manipulate the unenlightened masses into following them. And such support can be just as easily gained by granting them security and prosperity to their lives. The world I came from. My detractors call me the Two-Faced Coward, but my people certainly don't remember as such."
"Whatever, Boss. You don't have to get into a serious philosophical argument with me. So long as you keep on winning, I'll keep following you. But that's the problem right now, isn't it? Because I don't see you winning right now." Axel makes another snort back to him. "Not saying I'm thinking about taking your head right now. But you certainly have to do something about the army that's trying to kill you."
"I am aware of this, thank you for reminding me. Eve, we can not keep letting our enemy have free reign on the battlefield." Astaroth does his best to ignore Axel's sarcastic remarks while contacting his oldest and most faithful servant. "Our cannon firing isn't as effective as I initially planned. I have already devised Plan B, and even a Plan C for such an occasion, but I will not have our enemy's belligerent behavior jeopardize them too. I'm sending you support to apply more pressure on our enemy's southern army. This should force them into committing more troops than simply relying on their vanguard. And we'll catch them all in the trap I laid down."
"Yes, my master. It is truly a tragedy that the natives of this world refused to cooperate with us, and so many lives have to be wasted fighting us when they would have been better spent fighting the Burning Legion. But it can't be helped. And... I'm sorry for my failure of not being able to draw our enemy towards your carefully laid trap, my lord." Eve bows her face down, seemingly hiding her gaze from Astaroth's own. "That being said... I implore you to send more aid towards the east side. The Heroes, and their direct retinues are laying waste of the forces I dispatched to slow them down. And our trap didn't consider this smaller, but stronger group of split enemy forces. My instinct tells me that they'll be a potential danger, especially to the Spirit Tortoise under your control."
"Do not worry, Eve. Everything is going according to plan." Astaroth quickly ends his communication with Eve. He can offer her something much greater than pointless words of comfort after all. He finally stops looking at his mirror and turns around, letting his eyes settle on his more useful subordinates. "I won't mince words here. The natives of this world, or at least the natives we are currently facing are stronger, smarter than those who resisted me from the world of Malach. Possibly even better than the one we originally came from. But they will fall in the end, no different from the others who resisted me. Because by taking one of the Guardian Beasts under our control, we left them with only one eventual path to proceed: fight, and try to kill the Guardian Beast. And I lay my trap for that eventual outcome."
"We really aren't here for you before the battle pep talk, boss. Just tell me who you want me to go after. I'm sure most of these seven agree with me." Axel yawns into his own hand, while pointing at seven of Astaroth's henchmen who just arrived from Malach to this world. He received a mixed look of disgust, excitement, and indifference from the seven newly arrived.
"Ludope, Zuido - you two will reinforce Eve." The two who were named by Astaroth turn their gaze away from Axel and look at him, waiting for his elaboration. Ludope is a midget, white skinned, toad-like creature wearing spiked armor and a mask covering his lower face. Zuido is the opposite, a giant with fish features on his head, easily standing over three meters tall, and as wide as two men standing together. "Attack the two wings of their southern group as hard as you two can. If you can kill someone important to them, good. It'll be much easier to provoke them into my trap. But listen to Eve when she tells you two to retreat."
Ludope and Zuido nod their heads, and Astaroth turns to look at the rest of his subordinates. "Lamia stay, the rest of you. Go take care of the so-called 'heroes' of this world from the east. Use your full strength and hold nothing back from the start. Some of them are veterans who are giving us trouble. Kill the remaining three amateur heroes immediately before they have the chance to grow more experienced and stronger. We are already spending way more resources than we should on this world. That's why we must destroy all further threats while they are still weak to preserve our own strength to fight The Burning Legion."
Aultcray's eyes are narrowed as he looks at the ongoing battle among the heavy protection of the center battle group. So far, his enemy hasn't shown anything worth noticing as an army, or as an army commander. Their soldiers are competent, well-trained, and much better equipped, but certainly not impressive compared to the Siltvelt occupation army he had to fight during The Great War. He has already told Malty that when she is leading a group of experienced and talented army commanders, she doesn't have to do any command herself and can leave it to the subordinates. But he's still surprised at how little he needs to make any adjustment, and his enemy is already on the verge of collapsing under the pressure from the charge of his vanguard troops. What is their enemy's leader playing at?
Kyo has told them about Astaroth's preference of using underhanded traps, or catching them in a moment of weakness to cause massive casualties to his enemies. And so far, this doesn't match how the Mirror Hero supposedly likes to operate. He's facing them head on during a battle, and he's already showing his weakness in his command ability as his enemy seems to be on their last leg. Why would he openly use his weakness against an enemy's strength? Even taking into consideration that Astaroth simply overestimated his own army and underestimated Melromarc, he could have made some adjustments to minimize their losses. At the very least even disregarding the supposed traps he laid down, he could have completely flipped the table on everyone simply by having the Spirit Tortoise come out and start a rampage.
The former Wand Hero takes a look at the guardian beast still looming over Stormwind City and everyone fighting on the plain. It's still standing quietly, doing nothing yet exerting an overwhelming pressure over everyone. Letting it go all out would have been such an easy thing for the Mirror Demon, all he has to do is release the control he has over the giant leviathan and let its instinct of collecting souls do its work. That must mean Astaroth has something else planned, that makes the demon king think he can still flip the tide of the battle and win without having to resort to using his last trump card. Which begs the question of what that trap is.
Aultcray looks to his daughter again, and sees that her attention is still focused on the east, where the waves of explosion have elevated from the ground to the sky, indicating that the heroes have survived Astaroth's initial bombardment and are doing well enough. He could also see the two large figures, miniscule compared to the Spirit Tortoise, but easily standing over regular troops causing havoc to the army that's trying to encircle the heroes and their retinue. "Focus on the battle ahead of you, Malty. You can't do anything for the heroes right now, nor do I believe they need your help."
"Yes, Father." Malty's body twitches on the raptor she's riding. It reminds Aultcray of a cat having its tail stepped on. He knows that his daughter isn't paying full attention to what's happening in front of her own eyes, and it's hard for him to fault her for worrying about her lover. But it's something she needs to learn how to control if she's going to be leading an army one day on her own. Because as much as she obviously would like otherwise, there will be times where she is separated from the Shield Hero.
"Very well. Tell me what you think of our situation so far." Aultcray gives his daughter a nod, and begins to test her. It might be too early for such a step when this is the first major conflict Malty came to, and she seems to be sleep wandering half of the time (not that anyone needs her to actually assume the role of a commander). But it would be a good opportunity to gauge how much she has learnt so far, while they seem to be at an advantageous position.
"Aside from our eastern group where our hero allies are exposed and cut off from us, we seem to be in a good position. Our vanguard is pushing their army back, on the verge of routing them." Malty's reply was unremarkable, and anyone who had rudimentary knowledge of warfare and wasn't blind could say the same thing. But Aultcray continues to nod along his daughter's words, encouraging her to continue and hope she has more insight. "I think our enemy is planning something. The Book Hero Kyo was arrogant and rude, but he is brilliant in his own right. And based on their conversation, I don't think Kyo lied about how Astaroth defeated him and destroyed his nation back in his own world. I doubt the Mirror Demon could do so if he is an incompetent idiot."
"True. The Mirror Demon must be planning something, or else I'd expect the Spirit Tortoise would have already come after us." Aultcray gives another nod back to his daughter. She came to the same conclusion as him, even if her reasoning was different from him. But he decided to test her even further. "And what would you expect his trap to be?"
This time, Malty didn't immediately answer this question. She keeps her head low, looking like she's genuinely trying to think about the answer she's going to give before speaking. She leans closer to his ear, whispering back to him. "It could be anything our allies suggested while we were preparing for this battle. An open plain isn't the best place to plan for an ambush, or lay any kind of traps. But with the Mirror Demon's magic, especially his strange dimensional magic, anything could be possible. Honestly, I think it depends on how much of his own casualty he's willing to suffer. He could do something as simple as making one of his mirrors over our head, and have the other side connect to the ocean, and then it would be a simple act of having the water flood us from above our head."
"True. What you proposed would have been a very fearful trap for us. And it's something we admittedly have no proven counter against. Despite the description of your companion Miss Raphtalia, Lord Dio's ability was able to stop Astaroth's dimension magic. So a barrier spell should be able to block his mirror. We'll have to wait and see if that works. However..." What Malty suggested is something he admittedly hasn't thought of beforehand. Then again, it's also next to impossible to plan around if the Mirror Demon is willing to stoop so low. And Aultcray feels like it's something that Astaroth is definitely willing to do once he loses a certain number of his troops. He takes a brief pause, before continuing on what he wanted to explain to his daughter. "That wasn't the lesson I was trying to teach you. As an army commander, a trap, or major attack launched by a powerful magic is devastating. But simple battle tactics could also easily turn the tide of a battle around. And the most basic one is that an army needs its commander to function. So when the tide of a battle is against your enemy, you need to be careful when they launch an attack aimed at your army's commander in an attempt to break the chain of command. This is especially true in our situation where our vanguard is separated from our main group, and against someone who has strange and terrible dimension magic..."
As if trying to prove his point, the mirror hanging over everyone's head, which had grown dark after Astaroth cut off his communication suddenly comes to life, showing a scene of ragged, stoney terrain with trees far in the distance. The first thing that came out of the mirror were angry-looking wraiths that poured out of the dimensional portal, wailing and charging towards them. The priests among their men immediately begin to pray for the gods' blessing as archers launch arrows towards them, making the intangible undead creatures blow up into smokes of white and purple trails. The next wave came with a hail of explosive bombs, falling towards them. Once again, the priests begin to conjure barriers over their heads, while mages and archers shoot at them to detonate them before these lethal contraptions can reach the ground. And while everyone is busy defending against this new wave of attack, a collection of mirrors suddenly appear over their heads as wolf raiders charge out of them, pouncing on top of their archers and mages. One of them, with the same escaped young boy who led the attack on Melromarc Castle appeared right over Aultcray and Malty's head, the cleaver in his head swinging at them. Aultcray's body moved before his mind, as he leaps off his steed and tackles Malty off her steed, rolls on the ground and covers his daughter with his own body. He manages to keep the two of them free of injury from the boy's initial attack, but they are still in danger of being cut down, or mauled to death by the boy's wolf steed. Lucky for the two of them, they aren't alone in the middle of the army.
"[THUNDER HAMMER]!" Captain Lotheringan's voice booms right besides Aultcray, as a lightning-covered mace rockets its way into the falling wolf. Its howl of pain is cut off as abruptly as it starts as half of his body is instantly obliterated by the royal guard captain's attack. The boy also spits out a mouthful of blood and drops his weapon, but he's lucky that his steed had taken most of the damage from Captain Lotheringan's attack as he's knocked flying right back into the mirror he came from.
Aultcray makes a quick check on his daughter to make sure Malty wasn't seriously hurt. Once he's satisfied that she's safe aside from a few scratches, he jumps back onto his steed to get a better look, and is happy enough to see that his army didn't panic in spite of Astaroth's surprise attack. The archers who weren't being mauled by the wolves immediately put down their bows, pulled out their axes and hammers to help their fallen allies, while the soldiers who were stationed around the mages quickly rushed over to kill the attackers. They suffered casualties from this surprise attack, but it's well within what Aultcray expected.
He quickly looks forward to the vanguard of the Melromarc army. The attack on him was very sudden, but not enough to overwhelm and kill him thanks to his well-trained troops. Which means it's a distraction. And sure enough, he notices the vanguard of both the left and right wing has stalled. No doubt to further isolate General Anderson. But he can't get a good look due to the distance between him and the affected groups. "What is the Mirror Demon playing around now? Regardless, we shall advance. Not to join General Anderson's charge, but we can't allow him to be cut off completely from us by our enemy."
"The pegasus knights haven't arrived yet, father. Are we to disregard what you already planned with them and leave us vulnerable?" Malty looks up into the sky. clearly worried for what Astaroth has planned.
"I understand your concern, Malty. But we have no choice after Anderson initiated his charge. If we remain stationary, Astaroth can command his numerical superior troops to eventually surround, and then destroy his host. While we still need to concern ourselves with whatever trap Astaroth lays waiting, to do nothing in this situation would be the worst decision." The former king lay a comforting hand on his daughter's shoulder. "The worst thing you can do as a leader of an army, or the people is to be indecisive. Sometimes even when you are unsure what the right decision is, or if there's no right, or even decent decision left. You must still do something. And if Astaroth has truly laid a perfect trap for us when there's nothing to hide and use it to defeat us, then he deserves this victory even if the tactic may look underhanded."
End Note:
Forgot if I mentioned this before or not. But aside from all the over the top Shounen manga and Chinese webnovel shenanigans that I took inspiration from every franchise I ever encountered (which to be fair, is a LOT), the one Shounen manga that had the most influence on me when it comes to large scale war chapters is [The Kingdoms] by Yasuhisa Hara. Granted, that manga series had a loud of over exaggerated warfare technique/strategies that it's flat out made up fantasy not in the time period it depicted, but cold weapon period in general (yeah... I'm no history buff. But I'm pretty sure an entire calvary legion that charges up and down a 90% cliff WITHOUT saddle is flat out BS). It still had some of the most brutal yet blood pumping large scale battle scenes in mangas I read. To the point I just flat out tossed whatever Shilling of the Author's Pet did to Iris' grandfather (not like that story was particularly well written anyway), and made him into a The Kingdoms general.
Not much going on with the heroes group aside from them acting as the decoy while the combined Melromarc host makes a push at Astaroth's men, which he claim to be playing right into his hand. Of course, we'll see if he's bluffing or if he truly had something planned in future chapter. And of course, Aultcray gives Malty some further advice that I think fits his cannon portrayal without hopefully making him look like a complete idiot.
And yes. I did give Nitro's [Hyakushiki Kannon] from [Hunter X Hunter] to Granny Elrasla. Because aside from her supposedly being a master martial artist (meaning she essentially act as a Deus Ex Machina plot explanation to explain why Bitchassfumi's entire party is overpowered even through they were supposed to be under leveled), she really didn't have something too memorable of herself. To be honest, I was originally planning a form of [Hyakushiki Kannon] for Atla first, much later in the story, but the scale of this battle really feels like all the veteran fighters have to bring out their most powerful technique at max level.