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The hard bones of the minotaurs easily withstood these simple attacks. Even spells cast by a second-tier mage would have a hard time hurting their bones, ordinary arrows wouldn’t stand a chance.

Other demihumans who were also on the wall like goblins and kobolds still needed to protect themselves.

“How are we...doing?” Vanilla asked as she climbed onto the ramparts and looked at the approaching soldiers.

The minotaurs didn’t respond, but launched the giant arrows even faster, as if they wanted to impress her. Unfortunately for the minotaurs, the arrows they brought with them weren’t infinite and soon the excited minotaurs ran out of them.

Of course, they still caused hundreds of deaths in the human army, but that didn’t seem to be enough to satisfy them. The ground in front of the gates was a mess, with corpses torn to pieces as survivors desperately tried to push forward.

A second hail of arrows rained down on them, but the minotaurs remained unmoved. They grabbed their axes and tried to go down to kill the humans, but Vanilla stopped them.

“If we kill too many humans before they reach the gates, they’ll get scared and end up running for their lives. Let them get a little closer while the goblins and kobolds bring you more arrows.” Vanilla ordered the blood-hungry minotaurs.

“The enemy arrows are gone! Take the opportunity and advance! We have to take the gate before they reload!” The commander ordered desperately, making the army break their own formation to run as fast as possible at the gate.

.....

The cavalry were the first to reach the gates, arrows raining down the walls to ensure the skeletons did not impale the knights. The infantry arrived a few minutes later while carrying the enchanted rams.

“See? Just...let them get close...and then we’ll attack.” Vanilla said proudly of herself, as if letting enemies near the gates was an achievement. “Orcs, it’s your turn to work.”

The orcs were waiting behind the gate and they nodded excitedly, drawing their swords. Treevor prepared greatswords for the orcs and axes for the minotaurs suited to their sizes at the request of the demihumans themselves.

Vanilla watched in amusement as battering rams hit the gates and immediately breached them, much to the humans’ surprise.

There were no locks or skeletons trying to push the gate back. Instead, what awaited them were blades of black aura that sliced through the cavalry, infantry, and rams they passed.

Normally, an aura blade would have as much power as an ordinary skill and could hardly slice through enemies that way. Even Treevor had a hard time cutting down more than one soldier at a time.

The orcs’ racial ability allowed them to overcome these limitations. Every time the orcs swung their swords, the aura blades fired ripped the soldiers in half along with everything behind them.

Ordinary soldiers unable to use mana were useless in front of these orcs and could only die horribly. Even though there were only 15 orcs and thousands of enemy soldiers, the space of the gate was limited and only two carriages could fit side by side. The orcs occupied this area in a semicircle killing anything that managed to break through.

“Shit, I’m not going to die like this! Damn this war-” A spearman screamed desperately and tried to turn to flee, but a sword caught him in the back and slashed him from shoulder to waist.

The soldier who screamed was just a low-ranking soldier, but his scream spread among the surrounding soldiers who were already in panic and started to retreat desperately for their lives.

The unit commander and captains shouted to keep moving forward, but the soldiers didn’t listen to them anymore. The orcs were about to give chase, but Vanilla stopped them.

“You orcs never change, do you? You always rush forward without thinking and only realize you’ve run out of mana when your cores are totally empty. Back off a bit and let the minotaurs kill the fleeing soldiers.” Vanilla scolded her bad habits.

Just like she said, the goblins and kobolds had already brought more giant arrows and the minotaurs were happily launching the arrows at the fleeing archers. They were angered by the stings they felt from the arrows and returned the favor.

With no other choice, the commander began to sound the withdrawal to avoid further losses.

‘Vanilla, what do you think you’re doing?’ Athos yelled angrily in Vanilla’s mind.

‘P-patriarch, what’s the matter? I defended the gate and managed to drive off the invaders as you commanded! At least a thousand of them went dead and we didn’t lose any of ours. Did I fail somewhere?’ Vanilla asked in a panic, dropping to the ground on her knees to a beehive hawk that was watching the gate, assuming that Athos was watching her from her eyes.

‘The plan was to inflict as many casualties as possible while retreating! That’s why I put the demihumans at the gate. You are an elite unit that could deal a lot of damage while retreating, further attracting enemy soldiers.’ Athos screamed inside his mind.

‘I wanted as many humans as possible inside the fortress to kill as many as possible at once. The only thing we’ve been waiting for is the kingdom’s army to invade and you’ve ruined that! Have you forgotten the plan?’ Athos asked after he stopped complaining.

Athos had ordered the bone abominations to hide in places close to the inner wall, such as the forges and garrisons so that the invading forces would take time to detect them, but the crusaders would reach them soon and he needed to act before that.

‘Of course not! I planned to retreat after the orcs ran out of mana or the arrows ran out, but the humans started to flee before that.’ Vanilla tried to justify herself in a panic, but the damage was already done.

‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll need to push the plan forward and launch a counterattack once we’ve eliminated the church forces and the infantry that came in support. It’s a pity, we could have easily ended the battle-‘ Before Athos could finish speaking, two different horns sounded, interrupting their telepathic conversation.

Athos took a few seconds to respond again, checking the movements of the kingdom army with another hive hawk.

‘Good news. It seems that the human army didn’t give up on this gate and sent the elite units as reinforcements. They won’t be as easy as the troops you just faced, so just pretend to fight as they invaded.’ Athos ordered with a smile, internally thanking the stupid commander for helping him.

The enemy commander should have been shocked at the crushing defeat of the soldiers, as he sent in both elite cavalry and infantry, leaving only a few odd mages that Astrus recognized as tamers and a small unit of elite knights.

‘I will not fail again, Patriarch.’ Vanilla spoke hurriedly, but Athos was already focused on something else.

‘It will take some time for the reinforcements to get around the fortress. Crusaders will definitely discover bone abominations before then. I need to buy time. Treevor?’ Athos thought, realizing that the only way to buy time was to give the enemy what they wanted.

‘Is it finally my turn?’ Treevor asked looking forward to a fight.

‘Yes, but be careful. The enemy’s objective is definitely to kill you, so they’ll go into a frenzy when you show up. I’ll order the mages to start casting a large-scale spell, so wait for them to finish casting before teleporting.’ Athos spoke and gave the signal to the skeleton mages.

They were all gathered inside the fortress in a room of meeting rooms, just waiting for Athos’ order to start conjuring.

‘It’ll take at least two minutes for me to finish loading the crystal, so just let me know when they’re ready. My hive falcon is already with me.’ Treevor spoke and stroked the hawk’s beak on his shoulder.

Minutes passed as Athos watched the crusaders slowly advancing. His holy field was glowing dimly now compared to before, most of his energy spent on weakening the skeletons’ explosions and healing the crusaders who survived them.

The crusaders had destroyed nearly 3000 undead as they advanced, losing less than 400 in the process. It was incredible that a holy field could have withstood so much darkness, but after Athos thought about it, it made sense.

Many of the skeletons that exploded were not mana users when they were alive and had underdeveloped cores, while all paladins had a lifetime of discipline, training from the day they awakened their cores.

A mage at the first tier had dozens of times more mana than an ordinary person and it was likely that more than one paladin, if not all, had at the second layer of life. It was more than believable that the sacred field had more energy than a few thousand skeletons.

‘We are ready and awaiting your command, master.’ Emília answered from inside the meeting room. She had taken charge of the spell from large and since she had the biggest core, she naturally took control.

‘Treevor?’ Athos asked.

‘I’m feeding the crystal slowly. Just give the order and I’ll give the final push.’ Treevor responded in the affirmative, his claws slightly extended in anticipation of the fight.

‘When you want.’ With those words, Treevor was enveloped in a purplish-black orb and disappeared.

***********