Vol. 4 Chapter 6: Siege (Part 1) (Patreon)

When the Empire had begun their attack, in a particular part of the city lies the hidden headquarters of the war preparation division headed by Marquis Teristro. After the imperial princes were slain in the palace and order was briefly reestablished, it was decided it would be better to keep things as they were. And thus, Meril stayed here and did as he had done when he was appointed as supervisor.

And when they heard the explosions all over the city, they couldn’t be more shocked and confused. They never expected such a thing to happen, even more so to Meril, who was supposed to be the head of intelligence. If the Empire would ever begin their attack, he should be one of the first people to know or discover this.

He had been having some foreboding feeling through his intuition, but he assumed it was just because of the upcoming war. But he never foresaw that they would attack tonight, and this suddenly. His ability has proven to be ineffective in large-scale situations such as this. He cannot foresee the future.

He didn’t imagine something ridiculous as this would happen. But there was no point to wallow in his confused mind, and do what he should in a situation like this.

“Hey you!” he shouted at a Wisterian knight. “Get that shelf!”

Meril, the knights, along with Ayana, were grabbing pages upon pages of documents from the shelves, drawers, and tables and throwing them into the center of the room. The papers made fluttering sounds as they were flung into the air.

“We need to make sure we burn everything ourselves!”

True that the Empire was already burning everything, but who’s to say that this building itself will be obliterated, or the important documents inside will burn completely? They couldn’t let the Empire get their hands on them. They would rather destroy them to make sure. Leave not a trace of their actions for their war preparation.

Meril scoured his own drawers, he might have left something here. And indeed there were. He quickly grabbed them and threw them into the pile. There was now a mountain of letter and number filled papers on the floor, consisting of reports, statistics, transactions, and activity logs.

“Is that everything?”

“Yes, my lord,” Ayana answered.

Meril held out his hand and used his magic to set the documents ablaze, and the flames gradually grew. An explosion boomed from nearby, the shockwave from the blast caused their building to shake. He watched for a moment as the papers turned to ash before facing the knights.

“Set the building on fire.”

As he headed for the door, the knights used fire magic to set the cabinets, drawers, and shelves on fire. The overwhelming flames quickly began to spread all throughout the room, crawling on the floor and walls, and up to the ceiling.

“Alright, let’s get out of here, quickly!”

He and the knights ran out of the building. And once they were outside, they watched the fire spread out and started consuming the building. They looked up and saw balls of fire falling from the sky, and exploding upon impact, scattering into multiple bright colors.

They couldn’t help but feel intense pain in their heart to see their beloved city being destroyed.

“This is too early, Lord Teristro,” said Ayana as she watched the fires with wide eyes.

“... Indeed.”

“How did they even get here?” asked one knight.

“I don’t know.”

And then, several blue streaks of light soared high up in the sky like falling stars. From the looks of it, they were heading for the palace.

They have weapons like that?

He was shocked, almost speechless, to see them.

To have a weapon that reached that far to the palace was simply absurd. To think the Empire possessed such terrifying weapons. As he watched them closing in on the palace, suddenly he had a weird sensation. And he took a deep breath, placing a hand on his chest. He felt pain.

“No…” he muttered.

“My lord?”

“You need to join the others,” Meril said to the few knights with him. Every number will count.

“Not before we take you to safety,” Ayana said.

“Fine, Ayana, you take me. The rest of you, help defend the palace.”

After a moment of hesitation, the rest of the knights quickly dispersed and rushed to the palace.

“I will take you as far away as possible from this assault.”

“Where even is safe right now?”

He glanced towards the palace. That grim feeling he felt in his heart still lingered. He wanted to go there. However, he would only get in the way. All he could do was hope and pray.

***

Once the wall’s defenses were heavily diminished, half of the catapults, and all the ballistas, began to move and enter the city. Dozens of imperial elites surrounded the convoy. Along with them were, out of the total twelve elves, six came along with them to defend the contraptions of war. Following behind the convoy were two hundred more soldiers, all lined up to march. At the head lies the commander with his most reliable aides. 

The knights marched on foot carrying an intimidating air around them. As they moved through the main highway, some of the more fidgety men who stood as guards wrecked buildings using their magic, destroying homes, shops, or any kind. There was a family hiding in one of the buildings that was still intact. But when one of them took a peek, one imperial knight took notice. He gestured to his allies and pointed at the building. And a moment later, they barraged the building with magic, destroying and making it collapse.

As for the family that hid there, perhaps that goes without saying, as none moved amidst its rubbles.

On the way, there were a few stragglers. A few were civilians, some were adventurers, others were common soldiers and knights. All of them were given a chance to flee or fight back, and all of them were slain, one by one.

Given the conspicuous movement of the armed convoy through the city, it of course didn’t go unnoticed. A small group of church fighters and Wisterian knights gathered to work together. The mission was to destroy as many of those contraptions as possible. Even damaging to stop them from moving was enough.

It was essential to do this, because considering their trajectory, they were heading straight to the royal palace. It was clear that they were intending to use those weapons on the palace. If that happens, there will be chaos, seeing the building of their rulers being destroyed would cause significant emotional damage for the people of Wisteria. It was more than a mere building, it was a symbol. And thus, those that found each other, decided to work together to stop the enemy from what they intended to do.

The Wisterian forces began their surprise attack. The Wisterian knights fought ahead, engaging the enemy guards head on, causing them to disperse to fight. Afterwards, the church members moved through the small gaps in the enemy’s defenses at swift speed.

Golden weapons of light immediately appeared in their hands, spears, greatswords, bows and arrows. The others held out their hands forward to cast a powerful offensive spell. The weapon wielders threw their weapons and shot their bows, spellcasters used beams of golden light, each aimed at the different contraptions of war. They either aimed at the thing itself, or at its wheels.

“No!”

The imperial forces sprang into action, moving in to shield their siege weapons. Wisteria should have been able to at least damage a couple, that was what they expected. However, a burst of wind suddenly came between them, blocking and destroying the divine spells and weapons. The church fighters looked on with surprise, they didn’t expect a wide and powerful wind to protect the entire convoy.

They saw a cloaked man standing atop a catapult, with his arms spread apart. Clearly it was the caster. He held out his hand forward, and suddenly, winds circled and gathered at each imperial siege weapon. Domes of wind formed around the weapons, protecting them like barriers.

With that chance, imperial knights quickly fought off the church fighters that got through. But one priest went directly for the cloaked man, in hopes of dispelling the wind barriers. He unleashed a powerful golden beam at him, but to his surprise, the barrier that already encompassed the man, was unscathed. It was hard to believe that someone could sustain these many barriers and keep them this strong. Producing quantity should have affected its quality.

The hooded stranger glanced at the priest and casually waved his finger. Thorny vines instantly sprouted from the ground, and the priest quickly tried to evade, but there were too many. They caught his arm first, then his leg, and they started wrapping around his throat. Thorns pierced his skin, blood seeping out. And then, a sharp vine sprouted behind him, and it stabbed all through his chest, ultimately killing the priest.

Disregarding the insignificant human priest, the cloaked man waved his arm, and countless more vines sprouted all over the battlefield. They swiftly weaved through the men, aiming for the Wisterian forces. They lashed at them, tied them, overwhelmed them. The large number of vines were so thick they were almost reminiscent of a forest, and some of them were as high as a two-storey building. 

One priest was getting outnumbered. Watching his friends get killed off one by one, he quickly attempted to retreat, leaping into the air to avoid the enemy soldiers on the ground. However, the tallest vines moved towards him at a frightening speed, and fatally stabbed him in the stomach. The priest gritted his teeth in pain, the thorns on the vine piercing his internal organs. With his golden sword, he quickly sliced off the vine. But then another wrapped around his leg and violently slammed him into the ground.

The priest spat out blood, his face grimacing in pain. He was about to try getting up, but vines had begun swarming him. And then, the thorny vines began stabbing all over his body, twisting and revolving inside, blood splattered all over the place. His body was gruesomely shredded.

Many more Wisterian fighters here went through the same demise. Priests and knights. Even the imperial forces looked on with shock at the gory way of how they were killed. 

At any rate, a moment later, all the attackers of the convoy were terminated. The streets were littered with torn corpses and painted with the crimson of blood.

The wind protecting the siege weapons dissipated, and the bloodstained vines returned to the soil.

An elf jumped beside the hooded caster.

“That was unnecessary. Conserve your mana, we still have a long fight ahead of us.”

“My apologies. But I didn’t want to waste too much time.”

It was mana well spent.

The elf sighed. “Whatever you want. Just don’t overdo it. Last we need is you running out of power before everything is close from over.” He just didn’t want him to spend a lot of mana against a bunch of measly humans when others could handle it pretty easily.

“Very well.”

The imperial knights checked their war contraptions for any damage. But as one would expect, they were completely fine. With that, the convoy continued on to the palace, for the most part without significant hindrances. There were a few Wisterian defenders that tried to get in the way, but it was all futile.