Ice Bolts rained from the sky muddying the ground as soldiers hid behind trenches of earth. Occasionally a soldier would thrust their head up and fire off a round before ducking behind the earth again. Thud, thud, thud, the ice bolts hit the earth. The sound of them akin to the pitter patter of rain, but louder and deadly. The thought of them was not the soothing pitter patter of rain, but death incarnate. The commander was yelling orders uncaring of the wounded on the ground growning. Their siblings in arms too scared to bother to help as they slowly bleed from wounds.

Every soldier can identify them now. The piercing wound of a slowly fading ice attack. The weeping wound of the super heated flame attacks. The telltale signs of a water attack as the body bloats up, skin wrinkles, or blue faces. The clean cuts of an air attack. Or worst of all, nothing, just the empty space where your fellow soldier used to be, of a ground attack. Across the battlefield pegasi battle for air supremacy with wyvern. But that is only in the ‘real’ battlefield of the center. There these weak levies couldn’t even physically survive, the air physically molten or frozen would kill them in minutes without the enemy even having to do a thing.

Boom, boom, boom, the telltale signs of fire rain. The path momentarily cleared by allies. “It’s time to charge you pig fuckers! You want to live long enough to get back to your pig wife on the farm?” Screamed the commander. That would be them, each unit had it’s own ‘fuckers’ variant… for distinction. The pig fuckers were the levies, spear fuckers were your run of the mill soldiers, horse fuckers were the cavalry, and ma’am or sir were your rankers. Yeah, nobody dared to piss those guys off, and nobody lived long enough to say that they had either.

The levies ran through the temporary hole in combat. Charging towards the next trench or divet that would give them cover. They didn’t take anything that would weigh them down. The army only gave them a shield and a short spear while some would have a helmet, light leather, or a shortsword. Nobody had a complete set since it was all bought with what little they themselves had. It didn’t matter, it would all be sold fresh off the corpse by some scavenger anyway.

Jumping in the hole and seeing a cower troop of enemies they didn’t hesitate. Literally diving on the enemies as they jumped into the crater of some spell. The levies dived into the enemies bringing up their shields to block the spear hastily thrust at them as they shoved a spear of their own back. The allies and enemies would then fall onto each other in a tangle of limbs as they fought tooth and nail. The one thing that each soldier did have at this point was a quality knife for combat just like this. Nobody could be sure exactly where they came from, probably from one of the smarter soldiers' corpses. After all, that leather armor didn’t do shit to that ice bolt that just pierced that dude's torso.

The tangle of limbs continued. The invading troop never seesing as they attempted to take the crater. They dived in as lemmings to the now coordinated spear wall. But it didn’t matter, the literal press of bodies broke the spear wall every time it was formed. And the flailing bodies under their feet fighting life and death battles didn’t help much either. The allied levies took the crater from the last of the stragglers, most making a desperate stand, a few making a desperate run for it. It didn’t matter, all those outside the crater were whipped out from a new bombardment of spells, whether they be the stragglers of the allies or the cowardly enemies. There was no turning back here, only death awaited the cowardly.

The troop rested and prepared. They kept their spear tips down, no point in giving the enemy a clear target and announcing their presence. A quick scry later before the next bombardment would surely reveal their location but no need to make it easy. Besides, scry bombardments were always notoriously less accurate then visual bombardment, or so the magic fuckers would say was the reason they launched that bombardment on that allied troop.

The soldiers rested up for the next push, another sprint to the next cover in no soldier's land. The troops hunkered down and prepared their own shield for the inevitable assault. The enemy must have just taken this hole since they were so unprepared. That or the cowards hadn’t moved for so long that they let their guard down. It didn’t matter, they probably weren’t going to live anyway.

The soldiers got up and ready for the next charge, it would be soon. The magic fuckers were worse task masters then those pompous fuckers, the commanders. Getting ready to sprint they tightened the grips on their shields. It wouldn’t protect them directly from a siege spell but leaving the crater without it was a death sentence. Not that they weren’t already sentenced to death.

The spell hit and the troop charged finding another hole, another troop to slay, and hoping that this time they would become a demon, a ranker, a true [Soldier].

They rejoined with the forward troop, the one that was preparing an assault on the front lines of the enemy. Similar to the enemy troop on the opposite side of the lines preparing for a similar assault.

Micky screamed “Fuck this bastard, what the fuck is he even thinking? Doesn’t he realize what this is going to cost?”...

The troops marching around either fighting the trenches or preparing for an assault on the frontlines before retreating back to the trenches to rest and recover. A temporary bunker created to house the forward troop from bombardment. Of course, the mage had never actually been there to create it, it was made through a siege spell and thus not very accurately placed.

Inside was a 100 ranker commander. None of those weak commanders could handle staying in the bunker for long before the shockwave of some siege spell or another would outright liquify them. The troops were huddled together using their unified enchantments on their shields to create a bubble of protection against the continuous onslaught.

A messenger came over to the commander looking at a map he had of the front lines as it was. It was almost useless by this point, and updating would be as well, but it helped him plan out, well a plan. “Orders from the centurion, sir.” Stated the messenger as he somehow safely ran back to command. Messengers were the only truly safe ones running around. The only time they were caught and killed is when they were physically delivering the message. Shame that hawks were faster and more convenient. But it was useless to worry about such things since hawks were fairly easy to kill, and thus not used on battlefields.

The commander read the report and grimaced. It wasn’t good when command specifically stated ‘The legate’. It was never good when the first thing that he read was somebody else higher up the chain giving the command. It meant that the commander wanted you to know who to curse when you were about to die stupidly. Apparently ‘The legate’ thought it was a brilliant command move to order a fucking charge. I don’t know why, perhaps they’ll die. So they were to simply charge the enemy with everything they had. Yes, everything. That was the brilliant stroke of tactical genius. Sadly it will probably work, at least to take the field. The commander closed his eyes. He had a chance to not die today, but his entire troop was sure to die horribly.

“Get me legionnaire Jennings!” Shouted the commander, it was about time he told them the plan.

The troops massed on the allied side. It was time for a push, no all out assault on the enemy lines. The current lines were pushing the allies back and that was without the siege equipment that the enemy had brought to the field. The siege engines were too massive to bring back and forth. Not that the enemy hadn’t sequired the position after they took more of the field, just that they weren’t very fastidious about it.