Several hours later dust began to rise in the distance, it was not obvious at first but soon a portion of the sky to the south turned slightly brown. Bells tolled from somewhere in the city and Lucifer could see people starting to evacuate to the north, however, he found the number of people fleeing was far lower than he anticipated, an idea struck him and made him realize Merlin must have pre-warned the city of the impending attack.

Lucifer would have informed the people himself, but he doubted anyone would believe some random stranger, so he made a mental note to make a connection to someone in power inside the city.

Before he knew it the walls created by the earth mages at a natural choke point were manned by soldiers, the walls looked rather simple compared to what he knew of castles when he zoomed in his vision, they were just tall and thick walls similar to the early castle designs on earth.

Lucifer admired the troop's response time even if they had been warned beforehand. they got to the wall quickly but they seemed quite busy with carrying boxes on top of the walls, but what these boxes contained was a mystery to Lucifer.

Now the army finally came into view, because they were climbing a hill Lucifer could not see the entire army, however, the army has been marching forward for a few minutes without showing any sign of stopping and he could still not see the end of them. He found the numbers surprising because there were already multiple times more enemies than had attacked previously.

The army formed ranks and groups of shield bearers moved forward in unison with mages hiding behind them. Once they were only several hundred meters from the wall they were peppered with arrows and bolts from the defenders, however, they expected this and already had their shields locked into a tight formation, occasionally an arrow would pierce the shields and hit the men behind them, but another would take the place of the deceased or injured immediately which stopped any holes from forming.

The groups stopped just one hundred meters from the wall and the mages started to cast their spells, shortly after the mage's hands glowed and a thick mist spread out before them.

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General Drake Haynes sat atop his earth shaker mount and commanded: "they can't see now, get the support mages back and send the ladders and the siege mages, I want that gate down before the mist clears".

Rank of the army split open revealing giant ladders used for climbing walls, platoons of men equipped for close quarters combat while climbing rushed forward with the ladders, eager to get to walls before the archers could gain vision again.

Behind the ladders, the siege mages closely followed on lizards the size of rhinos with hooves, on the lizards back there were baskets filled with iron balls the size of watermelons.

When the mages were within two hundred meters they stopped and let loose the spells they were previously casting, each of the three dozen mages had a ball float out of their baskets and rocket towards the wall.

Each iron ball impacted the stone gate with a deafening thump and shattered a small section of the door leaving a crater behind. The mages began casting their spell again and the ladders were just starting to be lifted to the walls.

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Wolfram bellowed "NOW" over the sound of the impacts and his mages activated a spell.

The mist that had been covering the wall was thrown into the air by a massive gust of wind and dispersed, Wolfram, drew his bow made from an unknown steel and on the arrow tip a crystal gleamed in the sunlight. He commended "FIRE" and all the archers on the wall with similarly modified arrowheads let lose the volley.

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Drake saw the mist disperse suddenly and immediately called for the mages to retreat, however, it was too late. The volley of modified arrows stuck the group of mages and the crystals strapped to the shafts exploded on impact, most of the mages were non consensually spread across the battlefield in the form of an assortment of severed limbs.

Just when Drake thought it couldn't be any worse the people protecting the walls threw mana crystals down onto the ladders, the explosions decimated the people below and destroyed the ladders.

After he witnessed the enemy using magic crystals so freely he wanted to find the person responsible for reconnaissance and tear them apart. Thay failed to mention that the city was being defended by elite troops because they would be the only ones who could afford to use magic crystals like this.

He furiously thought of a way to breach the walls without taking too many casualties and becoming a laughingstock amongst the generals. This conquest should have been easy at the start, just capture a new city being constructed, the hard part came afterward when he had to keep it from the Swadian armies.

However, the city defense turned out to be an elite unit and a rather rich one at that, this was the difference between a country with a dungeon and one without, one could simply throw money at the enemy and the other had to throw humans at the enemy.

He knew that a Swadian counter attack would come quickly if he didn't breach the walls and quickly set up proper fortifications, he had brought most of the Grand Dutchies earth mages specifically for this job. This gave him an idea, it was not a good one, but it's the best he could do with the time constraints.

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Wolfram wanted to know what his opponent would do next, Wolframs forces were rather limited in comparison to the enemy, so they could simply surround the city and climb the walls from all directions, most soldiers can use their mana to break small handholds in these bare walls and scale it safely, and the walls haven't been enchanted to prevent this yet.

The army started moving breaking Wolfram out of his contemplation, they moved towards the wall in a large group causing him to frown, he had no idea what they had up their sleeves this time, so he ordered the crystal boxes restocked from the boxes still below the wall.

Wolfram spotted dozens of people wearing earthen brown robes spread out in the army and he broke out in a cold sweat.

Earth mages make enough money from making homes that they didn't need to join the army, but most importantly these mages could just reshape these unenchanted walls to have as many doors as they want.

He ordered everyone to just start throwing the crystals because they didn't have time to use them on arrows, even if this would not deal as much damage.

Magic crystals started to rain down on the army below and they raised their shields and hoped they wouldn't be the next ones to explode.

The shields they used were lightly enchanted to absorb a small amount of mana, this was mostly used by generals to dampen the effectiveness of mages against their infantry, however, against the explosive mana crystals they offered no protection.

The earth mages who were hiding amongst the normal finally finaly compleated their first spell, the earth raised in front of the walls and created a small ramp a quarter way up the wall. The soldiers that were under what felt like artillery looked at the ramp hopelessly.

Wolfram looked at the ramp and nearly burst out into laughter, he thought 'the mages of the Dutchy are really behind, even the generals were unknowledgeable about magic. he grinned to himself and commanded his men to keep throwing with the extra time he had.

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Drake was painfully underwhelmed at the earth mages performance, it would take nearly 5 times longer to take the walls than he thought like this, worse yet it seemed like the enemy had an endless supply of mana crystals which the people in the Dutchy would kill for.

However, even if it took 10 times longer the amount of damage the enemy could do was like a drop in a bucket. It may look bad when dozens of men are being torn to shreds every second, but his army could take casualties like that without worry. The enemy simply didn't have enough people to win, although the casualties he sustained against such a small force did erk him slightly.

Just as he was feeling complacent he heard the sound of heavy thumps, he instantly recognized this sound as wings, large wings. He looked up and saw a lesser dragon flying towards his army with a man sitting on top of its head.

He expected the mage to show up at some point, but not during the siege, he thought that he would have fortifications up and have his siege crossbows mounted in towers to shoot the beast out of the sky, then he could surround the mage and crush him under sheer numbers.

Drake ordered his elite troops to return to the supplies behind the army and deploy the siege crossbows, however, Merlin was faster, he mount flew behind the army and breathed fire as it passed igniting all their supplies. The support mages casted rain magic to stop the fire and save some of the equipment while Merlin circled above.

He flew perpendicular to the city wall and finished a spell he had been casting since the start of the battle.

Everyone could feel a massive amount of mana surging, even those who never practiced magic before could feel its familiar tingle in their bodies.

A deep blue hole tore open in the sky and a moment later a torrent of water flowed through. The water formed a large wave that flowed downhill towards the army, soldiers scrambled to get out of the way of the wave, but it still caught a third of the army in its currents.

The men caught in the water were washed down the mountain across sharp and jagged rocks, armor gave no protection against being thrown down a mountain and most soldiers were crushed and broken only leaving a few lucky survivors that could be counted on one hand.

Drake looked on in horror as Merlin circled round and reignited the supplies along with a few of the mages trying to put out the fire.

Then he noticed Merlin flying away on his mount, he could vaguely tell that Merlin was slumped over and he realized that spell must have taken a lot out of the old man.

Drake inspired his men by telling them the great mage Merlin only had that one spell in him and ordered the army to charge, the ramp did not reach the top, however, the soldiers simply jumped the rest of the way over the wall without any problems.

The army was thirsty for the blood of those who rained death on them, but only found the city empty, their enemies had killed them when they couldn't fight back and when they could finally battle they ran away.

Drake sighed at the losses he suffered, but consoled himself that it was the great mage Merlin's doing so it wasn't his fault. He ordered the earth mages to start fortifying the city into a fort.

Several moments later his lieutenant whispered to him "the earth mages were trampled beneath the soldiers when the wave was coming, I don't think there are any left".

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