Violet Snow brought away the ratman traitor, accompanying her was Big 5 and his hellhound unit, the dusas and Elena.
Under her command were nearly 2000 harpies. Having gone through a period of training, this air force of mine should mostly be ready: the bone javelins were all stocked up and ready and everything was basically ready for a field test.
In actuality, Elena wasnt the only harpy witch in this air squadron, Numila and Eugenia were as well. Numilas and Eugenias main job however was to support Habona in her battle against the lizardn. As for what this entailed, their main goal was actually just to aid Westley in his bid for power. In other words, they were there as deterrents rather than as combatants.
If I wanted to gain so real numbers on my air force, the place to observe was still Elenas. The Abaddon Rodents werent known for their combat strength and usually relied on vast numbers to overco this fact. However, the dusas were basically the natural-born neses of such tactics with their fearso long range attacks. With these snake ladies supporting the contingent, I have no doubt that their morale would suffer a huge blow right from the get go.
Manasha and Majosha were both four-stars while Harlow was at least a three-star. In terms of elites, this contingent shouldnt be in any way inferior to the ratn they were challenging.
While the total contingent size was less than 3000, I wasnt that worried. With that many aerial assets, we simply had to toss our javelins into the enemy throng without ever coming into lee range.
Even so, I made sure to leave Violet Snow a reminder before she left. A reminder to be cautious and to retreat imdiately should anything seem amiss. According to reports, those rodents number at least 5000. Given how much ti has passed since those reports, I wouldnt be surprised if that number had grown significantly, these rats were a fecund bunch after all. It would be wiser not to underestimate their reproductive rate given that we still didnt know their exact numbers.
Having sent off Violet Snow and the others, I summoned my personal guards and started a new round of research.
While I was in the Western Human Realms, Fertinier had transferred an enormous amount of energy into , allowing to directly advance into three-stars. Back then, the Grimoire of the Dead had gained a few new skills in response to my growth. However, I didnt have much ti to test them out at least, not till now. With nothing much to do now, I guess a round of testing is in order.
Summon Skeletal Horsen, Summon Skeletal Javelineers and Weakness.
With No.3 and Big 4 in tow, I first began summoning the horsen in a deserted corner.
As the mana rushed into the spell, the skeletal figure of a horseman ard with a small bone buckler on his left and a bone blade on his right began surfacing from the ground, bones rippling apart as if they were a body of water.
Seems like a human skeleton, that horse seems like an ordinary horses skeleton too.
With regards to horses, I wasnt too familiar with the subject in general let alone a skeletal one. However, there was no doubt that these horsen had an impressive charging speed. While they werent that heavy and belonged to the category of light cavalry, mounted units had a natural advantage in charges so its fine.
Summoning a horseman took up 80 units of mana, if I were to go all out, I could summon a total of three in one sitting. Having said that, this was rely a test so one was enough.
Big 4, go fight with that skeleton over there and test out its sturdiness.
Understood, Master.
I had both of them stand 20 ters apart and after waiting for Big 4 to take up his stance, commanded the skeletal horseman to charge.
Its fine if you break the skeleton, just use all of your strength.
Got it, Master.
Big 4 was already a three-star demon child so taking on a two-star horseman should be easy. Giving the horse a nudge, the horseman broke into a blistering charge that seed that much faster probably because it had lost all of his flesh. In just the blink of an eye, that 20 ter gap was closed and with bone scimitar raised high, the horseman swung down, winds screaming behind it as the force of the its charge propelled the blade towards Big 4s neck.
Big 4 was currently equipped with the usual set of gear I crafted for him a while ago, a bone shield and a bone mace. In the face of this furious charge, his first instinct wasnt to counter attack but rather to raise his shield in defense and take the charge head onhe actually wanted to use his body to take on a charge horseman!
In the very next instant, both sides collided into each other with a thunderous bang. Unlike what its frail appearance suggested, the horseman didnt shatter on impact instead, it was Big 4, the one who tried to stand his ground, who got pushed back a couple of paces instead.
Thankfully, a demon childs strength was a lot stronger than a horseman so even in the face of the horsemans swing, Big 4 still had the ability to block with his mace after which he gave the skeleton a heavy swing of his mace, sending half of the horsemans right shoulder flying away in the process.
With that, their fight was basically over after just one round. Using his superior innate strength, Big 4 blocked the horsemans charge and despite his disadvantaged position, managed to get a serious hit in. However, I could vaguely see his hands trembling from my distant location looks like they were numb from taking on that charge.
Halt! Before Big 4s mace could shatter the horsemans skull, I yelled for the match to stop. Hearing that, Big 4 imdiately lowered his arm while the horseman sat there stock still like a statue.
Big 4, is your left arm alright?
Its okay, Master. That skeletons power was really strong. I shouldve been stronger than him but I ended up losing that initial clash. My arms was slightly numb just now but its mostly alright now. As he said that, he waved his arms around as if to prove to that it wasnt injured. If there were more horsen, I wouldve been in a lot of trouble.
In that short clash, the difference between a two-star and three-star was prominently brought to bear once more. Simply put, there was almost no way for a lower tiered warrior to win against a higher tiered one without any external aid.
Even so, once you allowed the horseman to break into a charge, they could still give a three-star a run for his money even if it couldnt win. Given sufficient numbers, I could see these horsen killing off a three-star without much lossestoo bad these horsen cost too much mana and coincidentally, what I lacked was weapons, not soldiers.
Next up was the curse, Weakness. Of all the spells I gained, this was the more troubleso one. Chanting this curse takes at least 10 seconds though that was probably because I still wasnt familiar with it. Once Ive completely mastered this curse, the casting ti should decrease dramatically.
I cast the curse on No.3 and rely a second later, I began to notice so changes within him. Noting down his oral account, I gained a test sample to work with.
Curses were a branch of undead magic or necromancy, that specifically targeted living creatures. It was able to reduce the physical constitution of its target while simultaneously dampening the persons power and psyche. Perhaps it was my lack of experience at work again but, having gone through the curse himself, No.3 only reported an approximate 15% decrease in attributes.
At that magnitude, it would at most cause the opponent to slip up from ti to ti. Strictly speaking, this spell was a dud that fell short of my expectations. However, 15% was still a rather useful result especially when fighting against a stronger opponent.
Even so, it was a curse filled with weaknesses. (TL: No pun intended) Not only was it slow but it only targeted living creatures. Without a doubt, these were the two biggest problems it had considering that I was in the Prison of the DEAD and that I was assaulting an exit point full of the DEADin other words, this really was a dud.
With nothing noteworthy happening, the ti passed by in an instant. Before I knew it, half a moon had passed.
Habona had sent word that Westley had basically taken control of half of the lizardn clan. With Habonas help, the previous head was killed in front of his subjects leaving only a few pockets of resistance left in the clan. Unfortunately for them, what they were facing was a 4000 strong werewolf and harpy army that had air superiority. With no way of overturning this situation, all that remained was for us to subjugate the other neutral parties. This however, was a matter of ti and couldnt be rushed.
With the lizardn basically in the bag, my air squadron wasnt really needed there anymore. Instead, what was important now was Westleys own efforts. Thus, Numila led her 2000 harpies away, leaving behind Eugenia as support for this puppet ruler of ours.
Coincidentally, barely two days after Numila returned, Violet Snow sent word from her side as well. According to it, the ratns population had ballooned from 5000 plus to nearly 9000those rodents were basically the overlords of a 1000 Li (500km) territory.
With numbers vastly superior than what was reported, Violet Snow quickly realized that confronting them head-on was a mistake after two clashes. Thus, she decided to switch up her strategy.
Before leaving, I emphasized to her the need to be flexible in her strategy, looks like she took it to heart after all. In order to avoid any unnecessary losses, she made use of the harpies maneuverability and the dusas ability to fire while slithering about to engage in multiple guerilla attacks against the ratn horde.
With no way to catch up to them, it was a massacre. In just one day, her army was able to cross from the eastern side to the western side
Yet, their numbers superiority wasnt sothing that could be overco so easily. Having learnt their lesson about Violet Snows superior mobility, the rats imdiately hunkered down together and held their ground no matter how much Violet Snow prodded at them.
My final goal was to capture a large number of rodents to be our fodder, in other words, a atshield that so happened to be edible. Thus, while she could technically chip away at the rodents till they finally died off, that defeated the purpose of this whole mission. In order to break this stalemate, there was no other choice but to use force to wipe out all the rodents who potentially could lead the pack and enslave the rest.
In that case, the purpose of this missive was clear: she wanted to make a decision. If I still wanted to enslave these ratn, I had to take to the frontlines myself. If I ignored this ssage, she would probably continue chipping away at the rodents till there was basically no one left to resist. By that ti however, there would probably be less than 10% of the rodents left to enslave.
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