“Numbers aren’t everything, but they certainly help.” - Liang Shi-Zu, famed strategist from the Huan Confederation.

As the Ptolodeccan army charged into battle, the Vitalican crusaders quickly fell into a disadvantage.

The crusaders were inferior in number to begin with, and despite how many of their members had the Light affinity and focused heavily on using their magic to annihilate the undead, they were already half-spent from fighting the Antemeians. Having a fresh army that outnumbered them by nearly an order of magnitude was far too much for them to handle.

And all that was while discounting the fact that Èirynn’s undead constructs – be it the steeds of the Wings of Night or her pets – were particularly resistant to such magic, easily handling blasts that would have utterly eradicated most regular skeletons or zombies with ease. Needless to say, the crusader’s overspecialization in fighting undead also rendered them particularly vulnerable to the living members of the army.

Which was one reason when the Ptolodeccan heavy infantry hit them, they rampaged through the crusader formation like a hot knife through butter.

All that while, the two divisions of the Wings of Night made repeated forays into the flanks of the crusader formation, breaking their lines every time they passed, causing disruptions that an army engaged in battle could ill afford. The crusader’s cavalry was half in shambles, demolished by the far more skilled fourth division under Leah’s lead, while the other half was stuck in a quagmire as the Antemeians focused their remaining zombies against them.

Skeletons controlled by Ptolodeccan necromancers shored up the weak flanks of the Antemeian lines, and helped push the crusaders back, even while archers continued raining arrows at the crusaders far in the rear of the formation. Whether it was out of dogged persistence, faith, or whatever, the crusaders still attempted to struggle despite their disadvantage, but the tide was clearly turning against them.

On the larger scale of the battle, what Aideen, Mimia and Èirynn, their children, Calais, or Celia achieved could only be considered small feats. While they greatly demoralized the crusaders that faced them, the effect was mostly localized, though it did cause disturbances here and there in the enemy formation. On the other hand, Kino caused a noticeably larger effect, despite her being on her own.

As Kino got more accustomed to the battle, she used her void magic more freely, and with the lethal qualities of said magic, she carved a path of carnage that was thoroughly disproportional to what a single person should have been able to achieve. Some enemy mages even turned their attention on her, but those who focused on killing undead found their magic completely ineffective, while those of other affinities found their spells swallowed by layers of void magic before they could come close to the girl.

The sight of people in front of you just suddenly dropping dead while missing whole chunks of their bodies proved to be quite a terror to the Vitalican rank and file, which caused many to flee from Kino. Even when a knight came at her, all the girl did was to raise one hand and point at the knight, all too nonchalantly for the eyes of the spectators.

A moment later, an orb of void materialized where the knight’s upper body used to be, only to vanish with it. Two arms, no longer attached to a torso, as well as the knight’s lower half, fell to the ground moments later, and a greater panic broke out amongst the crusaders who saw what just happened to one of their vaunted knights with their own two eyes.

Once the two thousand Ptolodeccan heavy infantry – all of whom were hardened by countless hours of training, as the Lichdom were never shy about using their skeleton soldiers as training partners for their living soldiers – forced their way into the crusader formation, the battle was as good as over. The Vitalicans broke and routed, running every which way in desperation to escape the tide of skeletons that already began to encircle them.

Not even the runners were allowed to get away, however, as Arno and Leah led their riders to run them down. Even the remaining Vitalican knights engaged with the Antemeians fell as they were buried under the weight of the remaining zombies. That Aideen had also reached that area and took down a couple of the strongest knights might have also played a role in their downfall.

Within a couple hours, the fighting was over. While there were plenty amongst the rank and file that surrendered and begged for their lives, there were others that displayed a fanaticism that bothered Aideen. The fanatics all chose to fight to the death, some of them even slaying other Vitalicans who tried to surrender. If anything, their actions might have hastened the total collapse of the crusader formation instead.

In the end, out of the five thousand or so Vitalican crusaders, around a couple thousand surrendered and were captured alive, while the rest were killed. The Antemeians were pretty badly decimated, at least when it came to their zombie horde, which was down to a few hundred, but the necromancers behind them were mostly unharmed.

As for the Ptolodeccan forces, other than a few skeletons that had been annihilated, they barely took any losses. Besides, with a healer like Aideen present, it would be difficult for the injured to die, unless they had been killed instantly during the battle. Aideen immediately tended to the injured after the battle settled down, while Mimia and Èirynn came over to the Antemeians and looked for their leader.

While the battle was over, and a good portion of the Antemeian populace on the southern half of the nation had already evacuated to the Lichdom, there remained the question of what to do after that. The Antemeian Council had yet to contact them, so Mimia and Èirynn figured asking the locals who already contacted them might be the best avenue to pursue at the moment.