576 Counter
"Retreat into the groove and wait for the command to attack!" Immortal Knight's booming voice resounded through the surroundings.
His hawk eyes flicked left and right, observing the movement of his Soldiers as they finished the last preparations for the 'surprise' attack of the council.
Since Michael forwarded the details of the surprise attack, it was possible to turn the tide and use the surprise attack to execute a deadly counterattack.
A little bit more than half a day passed since Michael forwarded the details of the surprise attack, leaving mere minutes before the surprise attack was supposed to happen.
The Immortal Knight, his Soldiers and the Awakened were hiding in a large grove with a camouflage net spread out above them. It should be impossible to pinpoint their hiding spot. There was no reason to believe that the camouflage net didn't work. The Super Elite Unit of the Valyrians and the forces of the Trilance were well hidden underneath camouflage nets as well, after all.
It hadn't been easy for the Immortal Knight to convince the Trilance to move their armies and deploy the Super Elite Valyrians near the Laprix Lord's head settlement. There were no signs indicating an attack from the Council of Xylon was about to happen. The Immortal Knight had to use his trump card to convince the Lords that he was right.
He told the Trilance that Michael had interrogated the Awakened who'd invaded the Untamed Jungle to strike the Zynur Lord's border settlement from the back before killing them. That left a few questions unanswered, such as the reason why Michael didn't tell them about the surprise attack earlier, but Siegfried Dracoon couldn't be bothered to answer.
The Trilance chose to believe him – or his Lord, to be precise –, and deployed their Elite forces near the Laprix Lord's main settlement.
Time passed slowly, but there was no sign of enemy forces. Almost 20 minutes of silence passed, yet there was nothing. The ground didn't tremor due to the arrival of the tens of thousands of enemies that had been prophesied to charge at them. There was nobody!
The forces of the Trilance grew restless. They had a premonition, a bad feeling that the Council of Xylon was about to attack the Zynur Lord's main headquarters instead. However, just as the forces of the Zynur Lord were about to jump up to rush back to their territory, something changed.
The fabric of space twisted and distorted. Vibrant sparks manifested in the middle of nowhere. There were hundreds of thousands of them. They revolved around each other and interlinked. The sparks transformed into a vibrant swirl of energy. It expanded and kept on expanding until it was dozens of meters in range. Only then did the mass of energy stabilize.
Everyone held their breath underneath the camouflage nets. Nobody dared to breathe, their eyes locked onto the mass of energy.
The following seconds felt like an eternity. Dark outlines appeared in the mass of energy and it didn't take long before the first beings emerged from the mass of energy.
At first, only a few emerged. However, the number skyrocketed quickly. The few turned into dozens, hundreds…and it was only a matter of 30 seconds before the number reached a thousand. But that was not all. That was just the beginning.
Soldiers, Archers, Mages, Priests, Beast Tamers, Cavalry Riders, Tamed Monsters, Knights, Champions, and countless more types of highly qualified Combat-type Summons appeared from the mass of energy. Their numbers crossed ten thousand in less than five minutes, and the number of newcomers didn't seem to decrease. If anything, they kept pouring out of the mass of energy like a never-ending waterfall.
The first Awakened riding on monstrosities that looked like a cross between an elephant and a rhinoceros emerged from the portal, followed by prehistoric animals such as house-sized Basilodons that had three large-scale catapults strapped onto their backs.
The Awakened stepped ahead of the humongous army once more than 50,000 Summons crossed the portal. The mass of energy flickered once but it didn't close just yet. More Summons, Awakened, and monsters emerged from the portal.
There were easily more than a thousand Awakened, most clustered together, moving in unison. They were led by a few individuals riding on the Rhinoceros-Elephant monsters. On the other hand, the number of Soldiers kept increasing. It wouldn't take more than 15 minutes before their numbers crossed 100,000.
100,000 Soldiers led by 1,000 Elite Awakened were the numbers Michael had forwarded to Siegfried Dracoon. He informed Immortal Knight that he couldn't promise that the numbers were correct, but he feared that it would be the case. Michael could come to help them but the situation at the border to the Zentika Empire was growing dire as well. He would have to travel on Icarus to reach the battlefield in time before instilling chaos in the surroundings just to leave to aid Sun Demos, Tatjana, and the rest on the other side of his territory soon after.
The Immortal Knight did his best to reassure his Lord that there was no need to worry. He would take care of the counterattack and ensure an overwhelming victory.
He raised his hand slowly and Zeroa appeared next to him. The tension in the air increased the moment the Elemental Empress moved next to Siegfried. She glanced at him in anticipation, sincerely hoping that the battle would start soon. However, Immortal Knight didn't signal them to charge just yet.
He observed the armies through a small hole in the camouflage and watched them as they approached the Laprix's main settlement. The forces of the Trilance tensed up as the flanks brushed past the grooves they were hiding, but none of them moved. They overwhelmed their instincts and didn't run away. They waited until more than 50,000 foes passed by their location.
The moment his eyes fell onto the most crowded area within the army of the enemies, Immortal Knight gave the final signal. Zeroa exclaimed and her mythical flames erupted. She pulled back to Tiara while observing the chain reaction she'd caused with a simple release of her mythical flames.
As Zeroa pulled back, crackling noises filled the surroundings. The sounds were the loudest near the center of the council's forces. Some Awakened and more perceptive Mages looked down, their eyes narrowing as they perceived something particular. Their eyes widened in shock in the next second and they screamed aloud, warning their allies about the danger from below.
But it was already too late.
By the time the warnings resounded, the ground underfoot the council's army burst apart. Mythical flames exploded all over the battlefield, tearing apart the ground and the people overhead simultaneously. The smell of burned flesh filled the air alongside desperate, pained screams.
Humongous pillars of azure mythical flames, dozens of them, erupted all over the region that was about to turn into a terrifying battlefield. Hundreds of people died instantly and several thousand Soldiers were still burning. Most of them wouldn't make it through the next few minutes, let alone an hour.
"Wohooo!" Zeroa exclaimed at the top of her elemental lungs, while Siegfried, Tiara, and the others could only smile wryly.
It became not honorable to fight like this, but fighting honorably was only something fools and heroes would do. Siegfried and the others were neither. They were not foolish enough to charge at their enemies with a disadvantageous numerical ratio of 1:50. The Berserkers and Warlock Centaurs cursed the Immortal Knight for his deceiving tactic, but they had to acknowledge that many wars were fought with trickery.
Overcharging Elemental Crystals with the Elemental Empress' mythical flames to give the low-grade elemental crystals some more destructive power once triggered wasn't the worst that would have happened. Furthermore, it was not like the blazing pillars killed everyone. All they performed was kill close to a thousand enemies, injuring a few thousand more, and pulling a tight hit on the enemies' faces for being overly confident.
Initially, the Immortal Knight wanted to use the overcharged elemental crystals against the settlement that had been constructed near the main settlement of the Laprix and Zynur Lords, but he changed his mind after listening to the information he had been given by his Lord. Overcharged elemental crystals were a bit complicated to produce, but Michael had Extraction and Insert. This was enough to turn the complicated process into child's play.
The blazing pillars destroyed the orderly formation of the council's forces entirely. Even the well-disciplined Awakened and the Commanders felt a seed of uncertainty and fear blossom in their hearts. Their eyes flicked left and right, only to be pushed on the verge of death right after the pillar of azure mythical flames erupted. The tamed monsters began running around, resulting in a stampede. Their instincts destroyed all means of control, and they charged in every possible direction haphazardly, bulldozing the Soldiers and Awakened around them.
Many died in the aftereffect of the overcharged elemental crystals' eruption, and more would die shortly. Sensing the opportunity, the Trilance's forces moved out in unison. Their timing became impeccable. They removed the camouflage nets at once and charged at the enemy forces from all sides, their morale at the peak.
Watching the chaos in the rows of the council's army and the battle cries and shouts of the Trilance's forces that surrounded them, Siegfried Dracoon would only snicker.
The first step of his plan succeeded.
The Immortal Knight recalled his Lord's words distinctly as the humongous pillars of azure fire died down slowly.
[I know that you're tired of staying back, but it's okay to let loose a little bit. Go wild!]
And that became exactly what Siegfried Dracoon did. He let loose for the first time in what felt like an eternity.
"Charge!!!"
