「West Bridge – Next Morning」

Morning arrives at the end of the day-long preparation from the soldiers of Melas. The snowing temporary stops and withdraws to the background. If it doesn’t, how else can today’s main actors take the stage? The castle gates from the West and East are already shut tight, but most of the battle however will occur mainly at the West side of the Melas, due to being the bridge that connects to the West side of this continent, the direction the humans came from.

And so, the demon soldiers gather near the West gate to defend the castle. On top of the castle walls, lines and lines of soldiers are already lined up in formation. Standing beside the common devilmen of the Demon Realm are the skeletal soldiers of Annwn – a secret backup force summoned by the castle’s lord to take part in battle. While the soldiers aren’t exactly pleasant with the sudden participation of the undead, right now, they have no rights to complain when the situation is too dire to be picky about helps.

On the walls directly on top of the West gate, the top brass of the castle can be seen watching the scenery ahead of them, one of them being Nilrem Erramun.

“Damn trees, should have cut all of them when we had a chance.”

Says a commander. Ahead of them in the West is a dead forest obscuring their view of their enemy. The only path that connects the rest of the West and this castle is a large stone bridge, built on top of a deep valley. If the commanders can keep the attacking enemy forces concentrated on the bridge, maybe victory will not be just a mere fantasy.

“Madam, I still have some objection to your battle plan. You spread our forces too thin while we should concentrate them all at the walls near the gate! And you also didn’t place the mages on the castle walls when we’re really in need of firepower right now!”

A commander approaches Nilrem and voiced his opinion. The battle plan made by the Headmaster wasn’t something the commanders expected. In her plan, instead of concentrating all their forces to solely defend the West Gate, Nilrem evenly spread most of the manpower to the North-West, West and South-West walls, essentially all the West side of the castle’s walls from North to South, even though the bridge solely connects to the West side. She also placed a small amount of men at the South-East and North-East as well, with North-East being the place with the least manpower to defend due to this place have a literal forest behind the walls. On another side of the troops placement, the woman ordered the devilmen and skeletal soldiers to stand guard on the walls, but not the mages, even though having mages on the walls will greatly increase their offensive power to hit the enemy.

“While soldiers are essential, the mages are more indispensable, Commander. It’s easy to replace a soldier, but you can’t quickly replace a mage. Our hands are tied here, I can’t risk what little manpower we have.”

The woman answers. You may give someone a sword and call him a soldier, but you can’t just give a guy a staff and declare him a mage. An untrained man can fight as long as he can swing a sword, the same can’t be said about an untrained magic user.

“But…!”

“Commander, you shouldn’t follow the standard battle doctrine to a tee like that. Humans have the penchant to do unexpected actions. They are known to be clever, afterall. Blindly doing something just because it’s the standard tactic will surely bring doom to us all.”

While the commander looks like he still have some words to say, he holds back, knowing he shouldn’t disobey his superior. The commander backs down and walks to his comrades to await further orders.

When the little discussion is done, another witch interjects in after ascending the stairs led to the walls. There’s a sleeping black cat on the witch’s right hand.

“The preparation is done, Headmaster.”

When she hears the words, the Headmaster steps down to see the ground inside the castle. Near the entrance to the castle, there is a group of soldiers holding a big, black coffin. They put it on the ground after they’re done, and another group – this time mainly consists of mages – starts approaching the coffin and stands guard.

“Good work, Walpurga. And have you located that girl’s location?”

“Little Ferdelin here saw the girl walking toward the North-East area. While I still have doubt, I think we can leave that place to her.”

“…for the time being.”

The Headmaster answers. She seems anxious, even when she already have everything under control. But Nilrem is no fortune teller, she can’t predict the things that will happen when the battle unfolds.

“Let’s hope that we can make it through this battle.”

An attacking force of four thousand and four trebuchet, against a defense force of two thousand and five hundred, with only castle walls as their ally. Even though numbers and weapons may make a difference in war, there’s usually no telling of how a battle may end, and who will prove victorious in the end.

“Enemy sighted!”

Suddenly, a soldier shouts. The attention of the whole army starts to point to the west.

On the other side of the bridge, there are no sight of the enemy army due to the obscuring forest, but there is a person standing near the west side of the bridge. He is a rather old human, but his tall physique doesn’t give him the vibes of a weak elderly. His long hair is already turned white and is covering his eyes and part of his face. It is only matched by his equally long white beard. The old man is wearing a brown robe. He’s also holding an old tome strapped to his waist with a leather cord.

The soldiers of Melas are already on their guard. The archers have their bows loaded, with arrows point right at the old man in brown robes, but they haven’t shoot yet, not until they have the orders to.

“Orders, madam!”

The commander in charge of the archery squads shouts. Unexpectedly, the following words from the Headmaster isn’t something that strays from the standard protocol like the commanders around her expect her to, like the words “Wait and let’s see”.

“Shoot him. At this point, we have no need for negotiation.”

“Y…yes! Archers, shoot at will!”

As ordered, the archers released the hold of their bows. A wave of arrows starts racing to end the old man’s life. But of course, the old man won’t stand here just to get himself skewered by a rain of arrows. He opens his tome, and suddenly, the pages inside start flying out. They band together, and form a shield to protect their master from the upcoming arrows. Even though they are just papers, the paper shield prove impervious to the iron arrows. None of the arrows make it to their mark. The archers don’t stop, of course, they start shooting another wave, but before the third wave can be made, the Headmaster orders the archers to stop wasting more arrows.

When the old man is done with his preparation, the paper shields scramble aside to let the old man do his work. His hands are radiating some sort of brown light. Suddenly, the old man punches the ground with his hands. A small part of the ground is destroyed by the impact. This leaves one to wonder what sort of man this elder is. But that is just the start of his ploy.

His punch makes a wave to the ground, like the waves of the sea. It goes deep into the valley below. And then, it starts. The earth around starts surging into large pillars, aiming at the castle walls like thrusting spears. The earth pillars pierce through the walls and send flying the men who have the bad luck of standing near there. Almost all the walls at the castle’s west side have been attacked by the earth pillars. But it doesn’t stop there.

“So this is why they didn’t start the battle with the trebuchets.”

Says the Headmaster as she realized the true purpose of the pillars: They are made to serve as alternative bridges leading to the castle walls. If the demons’ positions weren’t stretched thin, their whole army would have been in shamble right now trying to fill up the broken holes in their defense.

“Class Six spell, 「Earth Surge」. They brought some good mages.”

The woman’s praise is soon overwhelmed by the war cries of her enemy. Out of the nearby forest, the enemy’s foot soldiers start coming out, waves upon waves. Climbing on the newly built earth bridges, all of them make their way to the castle walls, with the capture of this castle as their only one purpose in mind. But on the other side, the defensive force have also get themselves ready. With swords on their hands, shields in the others, the brave men and women of Melas move out to defend this place to the last of their breath.

“So it begins, the siege of Melas.”

Mumbles the Headmaster as the bloodshed enters its prologue.

----------------------------------

「North-East Area – Some hours later」

In contrary to the busy Westward areas, the battle has yet to reach the North-East ward. Due to the unimportance of the place, the castle walls near Darkwood are guarded by just a few skeletal soldiers of Annwn, with numbers only about a hundred. It’s a fitting role this small group can perform, since unlike the common soldiers, these skeletons won’t complain being forced to defend an unimportant place (Then again, its importance is debatable). As soulless beings, they can only do what they were told to do, and they were told to defend this place.

But let’s say that they have a soul for one second, would they complain when the battle doesn’t reach their place? If they do have a soul, they will probably shut up by now, since the battle has finally come to them.

In the dark shadow of the valley below, men upon men are climbing on the walls with their specialized climbing tools. Due to the limited equipment, even with some devilmen captains around to direct the battle, the skeletal soldiers can only do nothing but watch the enemies climb on the wall. But maybe…it is wiser to wait, because when the first enemies reach the top, they are met with fierce resistance from the skeletal soldiers. Each men that successfully make their way on top quickly have their life ended by a sword slash from the skeletons. Corpses of men start dropping down to the dark valley as the skeletons do their job. With the walls on their sides, the skeletons surely have the advantage. It will be foolish to continue like this, but the enemy’s soldiers know how much advantage this place can contribute to their cause if they are to succeed.

-Mages, give us some support!

As the soldiers let out their cries of help, the human mages climbing after them begin to start their job, even when they’re still hanging on the castle walls. With some fireballs and ice magic, the mages quickly clear some area above to let their men safely board the wall. It is wise of them to bring along some mages, since these skeletal soldiers are weak to the mystical force of magic.

When they have their foothold, the full force of the secret raid party can finally board the walls and turn the tide of battle. The newly awakened skeletons can’t fare well against the might of experienced soldiers and mages. It doesn’t take long until the undead are pushed back, allowing the raid party to have the chance to approach the forest.

-Hurry up soldiers! We need to quickly infiltrate the castle from this side!

The raiding soldiers don’t even bother to finish all of the skeletons. With their full force, the soldiers quickly run through the forest. After ten minutes or so, the hundred men strong raid party finally find a way out of the forest. The area map they brought along probably helps. The question is how did they have something like that to begin with?

-This side’s gate is that way.

Says one helmeted soldier as he points out to the castle’s inner gate. But before they can make their entrance to the castle, they are tailed by the remaining skeletal soldiers, still hell bent on fulfilling their duty.

-Some of you go open the gate! The remaining ones will intercept the enemy!

As ordered, a group of ten departs from the raid party to open the inner gate. Without the advantage of the castle walls, when on even ground, the skeletons find themselves torn apart by the full might of the human soldiers. The soldiers quickly dispatch the remaining enemies. Only one gate stands before them and the castle of Melas. Should they complete their mission, today’s battle will surely be remembered as the fastest siege in history.

BOOM!

But of course, the demons of Melas won’t allow their names be tainted in the history book just like that.

From the direction of the gate, there is a loud explosion. As the soldiers’ gazes are drawn to the gate, they find their comrades running away from that place, while their bodies are on fire.

-Arghhhhhhh!

Scream the ill-fated soldiers. They try rolling on the ground to put out the fire, but that only prove to be futile attempts. No matter how many times they roll, no matter how thick the snow is on the ground, the fire burning away their flesh can’t be extinguished. When their strength run out, the burning soldiers stop moving as life escapes from their bodies. Yet, the fire on their corpses doesn’t stop, not until all of them are returned to mere ashes.

-Who…who did this!?

Yell a soldier. The whole raid party is on guard as they hear footsteps at the gate’s direction. From inside the castle, a girl wearing black robe slowly walks out. A tall girl with long red hair and eyes. She’s wearing a black cloak – the signature uniform of Melas’s cadets. The moment their eyes meet, the helmeted soldiers know that this girl is the mage who killed their comrades. Fighting a fire mage may not be easy, but this isn’t the first time the soldiers fight a mage. They have the strength, the skills and the experience. The soldiers know they can win. It’s just a girl, how hard can it be to kill one fire-using mage girl?

Little do they know that the girl before them simply isn’t just a mere fire mage.

-None shall pass!

The girl shouts. And thus, the strongest fire mage finally takes the stage.