Chapter 673: Defense
Sam looked at the image of those people in the tent and could guess how tense they are now. He just smirked and moved his vision to the remaining places. He looked at the battle formations and the number of people that are coming.
Currently, they are outnumbered by around thirty times. There are too many enemy soldiers.
But Sam is so relaxed that he started looking for the Minotaurs with elemental affinity to finish his chess set.
He is also searching for the ghouls and other Pre-transcendent stage cultivators' positions so that he can consider adding them to his collection.
The Wights started moving along with the rest of the people in the tent as they spread among their troops.
Sam is currently surrounded from all three sides and they are making their way towards that large water ring. That is actually the first line of defense into the town. The walls are completely gone and the town looked bare and open, but he is confident in defending the town.
While the troops are led by the water element users and ice element users so that they can provide a way for them over the water ring, they didn't realize that the water ring is not the first thing they have to worry about.
Sam placed his finger on the table and traced it along with the image of a road and led it to one of the new war machines.
The machine is a large rectangular wooden box. There are a lot of circular holes on its surface. There is a large metal rectangular plate attached to it at the bottom, perpendicular to it and also to its rear.
The rectangular plate has small protrusions with holes in it. The dwarves standing there loaded the small holes with wooden bolts that looked like crossbow bolts with metal tips and took a step back. They loaded more than a hundred of them in one frame and took a step back.
By the time, Sam stopped his tracing in the mansion over the holographic image, the inscriptions that are leading to it activated and there is a faint glow over the wooden frame of the machine.
At the same time, the rectangular plate moved upwards and clashed to the rear of the wooden box.
The wooden bolts moved into the wooden box and passed through the holes of the wooden box as they shot towards the enemy troops.
But the dwarves noticed that when the bolts were shot out, they are burning with a grey flame.
The bolts moved towards the enemy troops and before they could defend they impaled into the frontliners. The water and ice element users.
The twenty war machines did the same.
The bolts engulfed in the grey flames impaled themselves into the enemies particularly the front liners and the enemies caught the grey flame and started burning.
The troops that are moving orderly and confidently are in utter chaos within a matter of seconds.
Sam made another adjustment and once again shot another round and this time, the trajectory changed and the targets are the people behind the frontliners.
A large number of enemy troops are suddenly being carpeted by the grey flames.
They are in tight-knit formations which made it easier for the grey flame to spread.
The leader of wights, who is also the commander of the troops was dumbfounded. Not just him, every person from undead who knew about this undying flame couldn't help but feel panic.
They knew the consequences of this, their troops will be crippled in no time.
Before they could react and take action, the troops are already turning undead and started attacking their former comrades.
The worst damage was done by the flying beasts. There are many bat-type beasts and the vulture-type beasts and when they caught the grey flame, they ran rampant. The riders on their backs suffered and then both of them just crashed into the troops before spreading the flame even more.
The troops that are charging forward suddenly came to a halt because of this and they are trying their best to control the situation.
"Kill everyone who caught the grey flame. Hurry up."
The commander gave out the order coldly. At least thirty percent of his troops are gone at this moment and the number is increasing rapidly.
"Change the formation. Formation three." He continued with the orders and the troops started going defensive, but it is not easy. No matter how hard they tried to defend the wooden bolts it is hard for them to do so.
All it takes is a small whiff of the flame and the people started burning and turning into the undead.
They retreated a bit and changed into a new formation. They stayed put for now out of their range.
The commander of the wights is feeling pressured. He lost a lot of troops and now he has to figure out way to enter the town. He sent his orders to the remaining sides and told them to stay put for now.
He started drawing the layout of the town and tried to find the blind spot of those war machines. If they could find that spot, they would be able to get into the town. In his opinion, the water rings and other traps can be overcome with numbers, but not these wooden bolts. The numbers would only prove more troublesome.
For the next few days, he sent smaller teams in various spots to avoid these bolts, but the machines are able to target them. After thinking long and hard, they finally found a way. But this time, they didn't try to avoid them, the plan is about dodging.
The bolts themselves are not so much of a threat to begin with, the grey flame is the only threat to them and the Wight commander thought about the drawbacks of the grey flame and his own abilities that could counter the grey flame.
Then he sent his troops for a hunt to capture some beasts from the wild. He has only a few requirements for the beasts. They have to be bird type and they have to be large. He didn't care about their level of cultivation. All he needed was size.
After capturing the birds, the wights turned them into their servants. The grey flame is dangerous, but it only works its magic on the living beings, the undead are an exemption, the most it would do is make the corpse a rotten mess.
But all he needs is a certain time gap and the corpses to last a good enough time.
The next day, the beasts started forming a curtain over the heads of the troops as they moved forward. Even the front line is guarded by the undead servants too. They took the brunt of the bolts and grey flame as they led the troops forward.
When they reached the water ring, the wight commander finally heaved a sigh of relief.
The undead soldiers switched with the ice element users as they started creating a path of ice over the water.
They were about to cross the water ring, but at this exact moment, the wight commander heard another voice from Sam.
"You really are as good as the Vampires said, but dp you really think that it would be that easy. You might want to make your people stand on better grounds."
As soon as the words ended, the soldiers in the front all felt the earth quaking, and before they could think what happened, a few tens of meters of earth collapsed around the water ring. The troops standing in that range all fell into the water.
The actual size of the water ring was revealed and the wight commander faced another huge loss of troops.
He almost went crazy when he looked at the scene.
To his relief, some soldiers managed to react in time and came back. He decided to proceed forward once again since this is a one-time surprise attack.
They froze the water ring and managed to cross it. But their plight didn't stop there and it only just began.
The thin water jets at the bank of the water ring. The enemies knew about this from the Minotaur troops. But what they don't know is Sam increased the water jets not only on the ground but also in the surrounding houses.
This time, the water jets are not just mixed with toxins, but also the indigo water.
The Wight commander just grits his teeth and let them move forward. No matter the price, he needs the town. When the Vampires failed, the situation fell into the hands of Wights and they are in no place to lose it.
They are the leaders of the operation for a reason and if they lose this town, that might change, it would affect the things beyond his own imagination.
So, he made his troops march forward as he saw the recap of what happened to the troops led by the Vampires.
The only difference is the wight commander led more troops and suffered more losses compared to the Vampires.