80
1430 Words
That was where the kingdom went from bleeding numbers, to hemorrhaging them uncontrollably. Under the waning light and with a swarm of Tier 7 hit squads running amok, there was little that anyone could do to make the retreat intact. The dropship teams had learned from Annie’s ambushes and set similar explosives along the defenders’ most likely avenues of retreat, further increasing the casualties.
So, they withdrew to the southernmost wall, and were holding a small fortification hastily created by the few surviving crafters that had joined Juni’s group.
They had thrown in the towel. The city effectively belonged to the queendom at this point, and they were preparing for their breakout run.
The kingdom had bled the enemy, and made taking the city a living nightmare, forcing a little more than two million casualties. Four dead enemy combatants for every one of theirs lost wasn’t a bad ratio by any means.
Even with the prince gathering a large force to harry the besiegers, they were still looking for an opening to break through. This would be their final shot. The enemy knew where they were pinned down and had excessively reinforced the opposite side of the city gate that they were pinned against. Attempting to retreat through there would be a suicide mission.
They were stuck.
But they had an idea. One born more out of desperation than solid planning. It wasn’t remotely perfect, but it was their best chance.
Juni turned to Matt. “Is everything ready on your end? Annie is in position and the platform is made?”
They had been over this three times already, but the man was worried to the extreme. This was another risky plan after the previous two had failed, and it would be the last. It was imperative that they get the remaining fighters out of the city, as they had earned an absurd amount of points in the last week and a half. If they escaped, anyone here would only come out stronger, with possibly hundreds of thousands of points to spend.
That was something the queendom was keen to prevent.
Juni pulled back the tent flap and, not able to see much, said, “The sun is about to rise. Everyone, get to your positions. You know your jobs. I’ll take the front. Follow my lead and stop for no one.”
Matt and the other surviving leaders funneled out of the tent with somber expressions. Their odds of getting out of this weren’t great by any means.
Nodding at the troops he passed, Matt climbed aboard the nearest wooden platform housing a mana cannon.
As the sun started to filter through the cracked stone walls, everyone stood without being ordered to.
Matt started charging the mana cannon. Most of the glow didn’t escape the blanket covering its surface, but it lent an almost eerie glow in the predawn light. He had to spread his legs a bit to remain steady while the platform was lifted off the ground.
Ten men were responsible for carrying the makeshift weapon platform, with another thirty as backup. Two hundred men were in a block formation around them, to prevent the enemy from attacking the most vital aspect of their escape plan.
Everyone fidgeted as the seconds ticked by, but a massive explosion in the wall that the queendom had created to box them in signaled their time to move. They ran in the opposite direction with quiet steps. Screams and shouts echoed across the nearby portions of the city as they moved to the other side.
Matt lined up his cannon and fired.
The wall in front of them disappeared. The sparse queendom soldiers, unable and likely unwilling to throw their bodies in front of the remaining kingdom defenders, left them a clear path out of their encirclement.
He reached up and pulled the burning cloth off the mana cannon and readied his next shot. He held the cannon at full charge as they rounded a corner and reached the street that led to the western gate. They turned right and ran to the northern gate when the western gate exploded as well.
Annie had set the two modified mana cannons near each location and charged them with a few mana stones after Matt had gotten them most of the way there. A remote device that charged them with even more mana essentially became a massive improvised explosive, placed in distracting locations.
They were hoping that with the prince hitting the western city gate’s defenders, they could clear the northernmost gate. The idea was that the queendom troops stationed there and at the southern gate would be moved to reinforce the western gate. The prince’s charge would be the distraction they needed to escape.
In what felt like seconds, but was closer to twenty minutes, they were blasting through the half destroyed northern gatehouse and into the open air. They’d escaped the city, but they weren’t safe yet.
The remaining encirclement was sparse, but that was only relative to the queendom’s forces previously, at multiple millions strong. There was still a line of defenders that they needed to get through.
Matt and his cannon cleared a path through the defenders as best as he could. He aimed his shots at the biggest clumps of people in rapid succession.
Still, they were being bogged down.
At the front of the formation, Juni cut his way through the queendom fighters with a seemingly plain-looking stick. It clearly wasn’t; it smashed its way through armor like it was wet paper, but there were no visible markings on it.
As they moved farther away from the city and deeper into the ring of enemy troops, their pace slowed even further, from a jog to a shuffle.
Between firing his cannon, Matt saw a fifteen foot tall wave of blood wash over troops in swirling patterns, freeing their men from being ensnared in a melee. Liz wasn’t exactly going for subtlety with her attacks.
Person-thick bands of blood lashed out at anyone who strayed too close to her blood wave. Archers shot at her, but nothing seemed able to stop the juggernaut of a blood manipulator on a battlefield. Aster was clearly with Liz, as shards of ice were forming at the tips of the tentacles and attacking anyone trying to flank the golem.
Juni was also performing beyond Matt’s expectations. He fought in a circular field of what Matt guessed was heavy gravity, from the way everyone around him moved sluggishly, and the grass flattened around him.
The prince’s right hand man moved like a dancer with a grudge. He wove between attacks and used his stick to kill anyone within reach. A group of six Pathers charged him, and in the time it took Matt to charge and fire his cannon twice, they were dead.
Conor was near Juni at the front. A clear area slightly larger than his [Demon Zone] helped relieve the pressure slowing the kingdom fighters down. Based on the space being given to him, the man was clearly a well-known threat. No one wanted to enter his airspace, knowing that their own attacks could hurt them, while the man in the center was unaffected.
Annie was using her crossbow, but disappeared off Matt’s HUD from time to time, so he assumed she was using her Talent when she could.
Like Liz, Emily was a tyrant, ruling the area around her. Just like during her time defending the berms and fallback points, she started with a [Cracked Mana Bolt]. Then, she rotated through [Water Bullet], [Fireball], and finished up with a truly massive [Bolt]. The electric spell jumped from person to person, devastating the enemy numbers. It also made her an obvious target, but she had six melee fighters as guards. They were hard at work keeping ranged attacks and other melee fighters off her.
It was an impressive sight.
Everyone on the kingdom side was fighting with everything they had. Matt saw abilities he had no record of, along with flying and weapon skills he had no choice but to envy.
But he had his mana cannon. Shot after shot raced out while he refilled the mana cannon as fast as it would cycle. People vanished with each shot.
As Matt attacked, more and more people started to target him. His carriers and defenders tried to help, but they were a long line trying to avoid being cut off and encircled. Firing backward to help the rear most kingdom fighters helped, but it wasn’t enough. They were still slowing down.
- Writer
