"AHHH!"

"ROOOOARR!"

"SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

"HELP!"

"WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OTHER PLAN?!"

"WHERE'S THE GENERAL?"

Outside the wall claws ripped through armor and flesh, blades slashed and spells cracked, and soldiers and adventurers cried out for help as they battled the horde of mutated mana beasts. To buy more time for the needed preparations to enact Arthur's plan, he and Sylvie left to intercept the horde and do as much damage as they could. Senior Captain Flamesworth took advantage of Arthur's absence and fell back to his original plan, sending wave after wave of soldiers and adventurers to fight the beasts.

His excuse, he claimed that Arthur didn't fully grasp the importance of the Wall, and the harm it would cause to the war to sacrifice even a portion of it. In actuality he was working with a group of nobles to essentially abandon Dicathen and wall themselves off from the war, and sacrificing most of the soldiers was needed for this plan. Knowing there was a plan that wouldn't have sacrificed so many lives was being abandoned left the other captains furious, but without Arthur, the only one who not only held the authority but the backbone to stand up to him, they just grit their teeth and followed their orders.

They had hoped Arthur would have returned to stop the madness, but that wasn't going to happen. While battling the horde Arthur felt a sudden surge of mana coming from Elenoir. When he and Sylvie flew up to investigate they could see some kind of mana trail leading through the forest to the wall that protected the kingdom. Knowing he had bought enough time and that his plan would save thousands of lives, he left to aid in Elenoir's defense.

Currently outside the wall, Lilia was being surrounded by three rotating twisters, each powerful enough to rip even a B ranked beast to shreds. The spell was a perfect balance of offense and defense, with little drain on her core. All she needed to do was maintain her concentration, and occasionally cast another spell to either deal with stronger beasts or send one into a twister if it managed to get past them.

Her heart raced with fear as she saw so many dying around her. Having lost sight of the Twin Horns long ago, she prayed that they were alright. As she focused on a larger beast that was fighting against her twisters, a stray spell managed to make it through and collide with the ground by her feet. Lilia was sent flying through the air, slamming into a mountain elephant before falling to the ground. Suffering from the shock of the blast, Lilia rolled to her back, the whole world spinning around her, leaving her unable to move even as she saw the elephant's massive foot coming down towards her.

Before the foot could crush her though it suddenly moved away as its trunk trumpeted, followed by the ground shaking with a loud thud.

"Lilia!" A voice rang out.

A royal blue bird flying relatively close to the ground flew over her, as a person jumped off. Seconds later a cold hand touched her forehead and everything stopped spinning.

"Lilia are you ok?" Kathyln asked in a panic as her face came into view.

"Kathyln?" Lilia questioned as she started to push herself back up. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving you. We need to get you out of here now!" She said urgently.

Lilia got to her feet, only to nearly fall back down as her head began to throb.

"It looks like you hit your head pretty hard, we need to go," Kathyln said as she hooked Lilia's arm around her neck and began to help her walk back to the wall.

Lilia looked over at the mountain elephant, and saw it impaled by five ice spears. Lilia heard the roars of mana beasts behind them, and spun around ready to cast a spell to fight. But instead saw a pack of deer wolves bleeding out on the ground. Llyr cried out and flapped his wings, sending down a storm of ice shards that ripped through another group of beasts.

"Lilia come on," Kathyln urged as she grabbed Lilia's arm.

"Why aren't you on the wall? Why did you come here," Lilia asked as she stumbled beside her heading to the wall.

"The Captain lost his mind or something. It's like he's trying to get everyone killed. I saw the carnage, and knowing you were out here I couldn't leave you to die," Kathyln replied as she cast several ice spells, trying to make the area safe enough for Llyr to land.

"What about Arthur? Where is he?" Lilia asked as she started casting spells as well.

"I don't know. I was able to reach him through his communication scroll, but it sounded like he was fighting."

"They must have sent a retainer," Lilia commented.

"That's the only reason I could think of why he didn't come back," Kathyln said as she and Lilia combined their tornado spells, creating a vortex of razor sharp wind and ice around them. "Llyr!" Kathyln yelled, summoning her bond. "I told him about the massacre, so I'm sure Arthur's coming."

Llyr was coming down for a landing, he was only a few feet from the ground when a large bipedal feline mana beast burst through the vortex and tackled Llyr to the ground.

"LLYR!" Kathyln screamed as the beast sank its teeth into her ice falcon. All restraint on her emotion swept aside in an instant as she felt her bond die.

Getting its attention, the beast set its sights on the girls. Both began casting their best and most powerful spells, but it was too fast and was able to dodge. It jumped into the air to pounce on them, but Lilia pushed Kathyln away. Lilia was tackled to the ground, the beast's long claws piercing her chest.

"NO!" Kathyln screamed as she swiped her wand and sent a collection of ice bullets toward the beast as she ran to Lilia.

The beast effortlessly jumped up and back to avoid the spell. Kathyln arrived at Lilia, her body lying motionless as the look of panic was frozen in her eyes. Seeing her best friend die broke Kathyln on the inside, and a frozen wave of ice magic erupted from her body in every direction. Everything turned to ice, from the ground, Lilia's body, even the beast was frozen solid from the unavoidable spell. Kathyln collapsed as tears poured from her eyes while pressing her head onto Lilia.

Several sword legged spiders rushed toward Kathyln, seeing her as easy prey. Before they could reach her however, they were met by a serpentine-like dragon made of fire. The spiders appeared to have been eaten by the flaming dragon as it formed a perimeter around Kathyln.

"Kathyln!" Hester called out as she descended, using a fire spell that allowed her to control her landing.

Kathyln however didn't respond as she held onto Lilia while still crying. Not having time to waste Hester grabbed Kathyln by the shoulder and jerked her off.

"Kathyln get ahold of yourself!"

"She's dead."

"I know, and I'm sorry. But if you don't get it together you'll die too."

Kathyln nodded as she repressed her emotions till she could morn properly.

"Good, now stay by me. With this hell around us I don't know if I can do it all on my own, so I'll need you ready to fight."

Kathyln then formed ice armor over her body.

"Good," Hester replied in approval as her fiery perimeter began to die. "Just don't forget. You are a silver core mage, and most of these beasts are fodder to you now."

The fire then had extinguished enough that several beasts started to rush them, but Kathyln and Hester started casting spells quickly, as they started running back to the wall.

—————————————————————

Tess stood tall atop an abandoned wagon on the outer edge of an elven town, the first town that ultimately led to the heart of Elenoir. In front of her, roughly two hundred soldiers pulled from nearby divisions, the individuals from the trailblazers unit, and the small number of civilians that chose to stay behind to protect their homes. Behind her, nearly one thousand Alacryan soldiers.

The village had been evacuated several hours ago, but they were mostly the elderly and children, meaning they were slow and needed as much time as possible to escape. Their current job was to buy those civilians the time they needed, and also hold out until General Aya arrived in addition to one thousand elven troops.

"Don't worry, we can do this," Feyrith said to Tess after explaining her plan to the heads.

Feyrith came with eighty troops from the two companies from the seventh Division, pulling from his and the next closest company operating in the area.

"Thank you. I just hope nothing goes wrong," she replied, her face laced with concern.

"Of course something will go wrong, this is war," Pasta Bloom commented, announcing his presence.

"Master!" Lunaris said, upon seeing him.

"General?!" Tess and the others stood at attention and saluted. "I had no idea you were going to be here," Tess stated.

"Shhh, nobody did. After I heard about the Alacryan troops marching on Elenoir, I just decided to come and offer my services."

"In that case, are you taking over?" Tess asked.

"No, that would require me officially being here. Better to ask forgiveness than permission I always say," he said with a defiant smirk. "Besides I overheard your plan, it has a chance as long as everyone sticks to their positions. The only thing you could really use is some more power, so where do you want me?"

Everyone instantly looked more confident learning he would be supporting them.

"In that case I'd like you to support us from the rear," Tess replied.

Everyone looked at her with a deadpan expression.

"You seriously want to put one of our most powerful mages at the rear?" Darvus commented.

"I've heard from both Arthur and my grandfather, the lances are pretty much only good for fighting opponents at their own power level. That they are weapons of mass destruction that could easily harm their own troops in large scale battles and destroy the entire area."

"While that is true for most of the lances, that doesn't apply to me. With the exception of Arthur, all of the other Lances are technically conjurers, so most of their large scale spells are tremendously too powerful. I however trained and developed spells and strategies to handle large areas of troops without dealing too much damage to the land." Pasta shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "That's the problem with those kids, they don't know how to think outside the box."

"In that case, how about you take point and soften them up for us," Tess replied with an amused smile.

"Now we're talking," Pasta then turned and headed to the stone and root wall Feyrith's soldiers conjured. "Pay close attention, you'll see guile can beat superior numbers any day."

A little while later, after Tess gave an inspiring speech, everyone was in position as the thunderous marching of the Alacryan soldiers came to a halt, signalling they had arrived at the wall. Now the only noise they heard was from Alacryan spells crashing on the wall.

Pasta positioned himself right where he felt the wall would be breached and stood facing the wall with his spear in hand, a conjured wind blew causing his green cape to wave, making him seem more like an epic hero awaiting battle. It wasn't clear if he did this to be funny or to boost morale, but none could argue that he looked nothing less than inspirational.

The spells continued to wear down on the wall. Due to its design most spells didn't do very much, leaving earth and wind spells being the most effective. Once it seemed the wall could break at any minute, archers and conjurers rained spells and arrows down on the Alacryans, but there were no screams and the assault didn't let up for long, showing their defensive forces did their job.

Once Pasta saw the wall beginning to buckle and collapse on their end, he quickly raised his spear and spun it dramatically, before pointing the tip at the wall and unleashing a tornado that ripped apart what remained of the wall and threw it at the Alacryans. Of course barrier spells were cast and tanks raised their shields, but this spell came from a white core mage. So even though some of the barriers held up, many more were ripped to shreds, as were the troops behind them.

The Alacryan soldiers tried to charge, but Pasta wasn't done yet. With a wave of his right hand he pulled four javelins from his dimensional ring, as he cast wind spells on them to not only hold them in the air, but to also cause them to begin spinning. With the last javelin out he began striking the butt of each with a sound magic infused open palm, sending each javelin rocketing toward the enemy forces with a thump.

As expected shields were raised and barrier spells were cast, but Pasta wasn't worried. He learned long ago that the best way to beat a barrier was not to smash it with overwhelming force, but to instead pierce it with a focused strike. As the javelins closed in they began to break apart into dozens of razor sharp shards each. However six inch sections that included the tips remained intact, and stuck the barrier. The barrier spells shattered as the tips were deflected, but the shards continued on in a wide shotgun pattern. Thinking the attack was stopped the soldiers behind shields began to move them before moving forward, only to be struck by the shards. Even their armor wasn't enough to completely stop the attack, and the shards became embedded in their flesh, while they ripped through any exposed flesh. Many crashed to the ground dead from this, leaving the survivors taking notice that he was not just some old man.

A portion of the soldiers focused on Pasta, sending arrows and spells, as augmenters and regular soldiers charged him. Pasta pulled his spear from the ground, and with a swipe completely blew the arrows off to harmlessly hit the ground. He then thrust his spear forward towards the spells, sending forward a counter clockwise spinning cone of wind that dispersed every wind spell while blocking all the others.

The augmenters were close to reaching him, so he started swinging his spear and sending concentrated blades of wind that began severing limbs and heads of everyone in their path, without leaving a single drop of blood.

"He's just an old man! Kill him!" An Alacryan officer yelled.

"Ha! Beware of us old people mother fuckers! Because this old man's about to ruin your career!" Pasta yelled back, striking the tip of his spear on the ground and sending a wind spell along the ground that burst out from under the officer and throwing him over twenty feet into the air as the wind cut up his body.

Other sections of the wall began to collapse from the Alacryan assault, them just trying to get through without having to face Pasta. Eventually several exceptionally powerful Alacryan soldiers made it to Pasta, but they still were struck down by his spear without landing a single hit. Seeing that he was losing control of the battle, he started sending his javelins towards the Alacryans breaching the wall further down.

Pasta had done well holding the Alacryans back as long as he did, so well that many were beginning to wonder if they were actually going to be needed. But once the Alacryans made additional breaches in the wall, they were ready, inspired by seeing Pasta battle, making them feel more energized and confident than they ever had.

A majority of the Alacryans were focused on Pasta, appearing to be doing all they could just to keep him pinned down. The remainder clashed with the remaining forces, hoping to defeat them so they could surround Pasta and attack him from all sides.

Tess' plant magic was being pushed to its limits, roots ripping from the ground only to pull the Alacryans to their graves, as carnivorous plants popped up like traps and took hold of any soldiers unlucky enough to get close to them and worked to devour them. The carnivorous plants were only traps set up by Tess before the wall was breached, so many of them had already been used and were now useless. Tess bore the entire weight of this battle on her shoulders, every ally's blood was her own. She was supposed to be focused on defending only her area with her team, but she ended up using her plant magic to help the entire front line.

As she did this she saw an Alacryan soldier mounted atop a large wolf like mana beast cut through her roots then throw a spear, impaling a civilian mage. She tried to attack as he rode through their ranks, dodging attacks while throwing spears and killing the civilians. He was working to make a hole in their line by targeting their weakest. She desperately wanted to stop him before he could kill more, but she held her position with her team. He killed another, then seemed to go out of his way to pass by Tess again, almost as if he was taunting her, trying to lure her away, and it worked.

Tess spun around on her heel and was about to take off running after him, but stopped as a pike came out of nowhere and impaled both him and his beast. Instinctively she looked to Pasta who was still fighting, but suddenly cast a series of wind blades around him, killing everyone within ten feet. He turned back locked eyes on Tess, glaring at her as if scolding, before diverting his back to his own battle. Tess realized the mistake she had made and ran back to her position before it was too late. She was reminded of a conversation she had with her late Captain shortly after she was promoted to Head. He told her how she carried the weight of every battle on her shoulders, which was an admirable trait for a leader, but that she also needed to remember that she needed to have faith in her team, her subordinates, to do their job and carry their own weight too.

The battle continued to rage, until a powerful pressure bore down on everyone from above. Everyone, even Pasta stopped fighting as they all looked up. Close by, an aerial battle was ensuing between two powerful foes. Many wondered if it was General Aya in combat with a retainer. It made sense that the Alacryans would have one of their strongest close by in case a lance showed up, but then the defending elves wondered about their reinforcements, if they were even still coming.

Suddenly one of those powerful mages crashed through the forest canopy with tremendous force, as if thrown from the sky, and crashed down on the middle of the battlefield. A dust cloud hid the mage from view as everyone waited with anticipation as to who would be revealed.