'What is happening here?' Keith wondered after witnessing the large commotion at the New Dawn campement. He came here to deliver another couple of ammunitions such as cannon balls and ballista bolts as well as bullets and a few extra rifles. However, he did not expect things to have degenerated that quickly. Everyone was running around the base, preparing their last minute defenses for an incoming battle.
'Well, looks like the Pioneers went on the offensive earlier than expected.' Keith realized. 'So, where is Alan anyways?'
After searching around for a while, he finally found the man barking out orders to his subordinates. Keith waited for the man to be finished with his instructions until the guild master of New Dawn noticed him.
- "Ah, Keith, here you are. So, did you bring those ammunitions we did order?"
- "Yup, sure thing." The young man replied before empting his inventory. "Are the Pioneers finally making their move?" He could not help but inquire while looking around him.
- "Yeah, they got rid of the New World Soldiers, a pretty powerful guild, and are currently making their way over there." Alan explained.
- "How many are they?"
The man's complexion darkened as he breathed out : "Over twenty thousand."
Keith fell into silence after hearing this surprising piece of news. Of course, the Pioneers had grown quite a bit since the start of this game, but he had not expected them to be sending almost half of their forces before even knowing about their enemy's defenses.
Even if the New Dawn guild only had about a thousand players within their ranks, they could clearly be hidding a few tricks up their sleves. The fact they had established on top of a hill did give them an edge in a battle, and Keith could not fathom a way that the Pioneers would not have been notified about this.
That was why, either they had become overconfident after getting rid of so many guilds beforehand, or they wanted be done with it and strike the New Dawn as hard as they could. In any case, Keith only viewed this situation as an misread on the Pioneers' part.
Not that he was concerned about this situation, anyways. He did make sure he would never get involved in the guild's whereabouts, so he had no reason to stay there and help them around with this battle.
During the past few days, he had also been preparing his leave and packed up his most important resources in case this war would end up in the Pioneers' favor. In the end, though, Keith decided to climb on top of a nearby mountain so he could be watching the battlefield from a safe place.
He was not concerned about the results of this battle. At this point in time, the firearms and the other ranged weapons he had been producing were unparalleled. Moreover, Alan seemed a really foreseeing leader and made several battle plans in case of the worse. The New Dawn had been preparing defenses on their own, ranging from boiling oil cauldrons to the large stone wall they had spent so much time on erecting.
Overall, Keith had to admit that his benefactors were, in fact, quite prepared about this whole situation. Though, the Pioneers might really have a chance at successfully invading New Dawn's territory, especially if they managed to get their rams close to the walls to break them apart. It would be requiring a lot of time and effort, but they could eventually be passing through.
In any case the wall was not as tall as it could have been, so they might as well try and climb on top of it using a few ladders and the corpses of their fallen comrades.
The thing was, they were unrivaled up until now and the probability they came up with several plans was very slim. Keith even pondered whether the Pioneers actually came up with the slightest hint of a strategy when preparing for this battle.
'Well, I guess they wouldn't have been able to destroy four large guilds if they weren't prepared for war. Anyways, let's see how my weapons fare in a medieval battle!' Keith concluded before seeing the large dust cloud produced from the march of the large Pioneers' army.
Keith was really eager to witness the outcome of this war. His future was, in fact, tied to it. Even if the Pioneers lost this battle like he had predicted, it would certainly not be the end of the war. Experiencing defeat, they might start developing siege weapons in mass as well as a few rifles of their own.
The New Dawn's members, realizing their victory did not mean the end of the conflict, would certainly try and fortify their position even more. In any case, History proved it the last few millennia, war made Humanity progress a lot in their weapons' technology, maybe even leading to side technologies being developed. Rockets have, in fact, initially been invented as a weapons during one of Humanity's largest conflict before being used to explore space.
Upon getting closer to the New Dawn's campement position, Keith finally witnessed the full extent of the Pioneers' arsenal. He had to admit, it was a really intimidating sight to behold, with their shiny metal armors and weapons. However, they did not seem to possess any siege weapons other than the rams everyone knew about. Several thousands of them were also equipped with bows and arrows, getting ready for a ranged kind of fight.
And, in fact, on the other side of the battlefield, New Dawn members were getting ready on top of their stone wall, readying arrows and loading their guns with gunpowder. Only a third of the whole squad was equipped with firearms, but it should be sufficient regarding the range advantage this weapons procured. Moreover, they were hidden behind large stone wall so it would be a lot harder for the Pioneers to hit them from afar.
Across the couple of towers they had erected on top of their wall, Keith also noticed the few ballistas and cannons he had been furnishing to the New Dawn guild. Those would certainly be the most important weapons in the upcoming battle, and he was really eager to seeing them activated.
Only a few miles of distance away froim the wall, the large army of the Pioneers guild stopped in their tracks as a few officers seemed to be giving orders to their soldiers. Suddenly, their leader uttered a warcry and the whole army started yelling in response. Afterwards, the war officially started and the Pioneers started charging towards the large stone wall.
Keith chuckled from his position as he positioned himself more comfortably. Arrows started raining from the side of the New Dawn base, slowing down the enemy warriors a bit. However, the riposte did not last long and arrows were fired in the direction of the fortified place.
From the thousands of flying objects initially launched, only a few hundreds actually reached the wall since the army was so far away. It did not seem like any of the New Dawn members died from this attack, but Alan seemed to have been aiming for this opportunity. The archers of the enemy did reveal their positions after firing their bows, so the New Dawn gunslingers promply responded by firing a barrage of bullets. On top of that, the few ballistas and the three cannons were fired at the same time, leaving the battlefield in utter chaos.
A whopping ten percent of the enemy's archers died from this single attack and before they could even recover from this, another barrage of bullets was fired in their direction. Some arrows were shot from the Pioneers' side, but they could not find a lot of targets in the confusion of the battlefield.
The difference in range was, in fact, a much stronger obstacle than they had initially planned. Some causalities appeared on the New Dawn's side, but they also had the homeland advantage of being able to respawn there under a dozen of minutes.
If this battle was to be elongated, the New Dawn certainly would be gaining the advantage. However, even before ten minutes had passed, the Pioneers only had a few hundreds archers left on their side. The defensive weapons of the New Dawn made a short work of them and the warriors were left with the only option to bring out rams to try and destroy their wall.
Unfortunatly, just like the archers had initially been focused by the rifles' fire, the ram holders were eliminated in seconds and the remaining seventeen thousand members of the Pioneers were left hesitating on what to do next.
After a large heroic charge that their leader initiated, who ended up being depleted by a cannon shot, the rest of the New Dawn defensive measures were used to fend off the attack. Boiling oil was dispersed everywhere while cannon kept on killing dozen of players with each shot.
The war lasted for over an hour, but the Pioneers made no progress at all, apart from a few rocks of the wall being crannied. In fact, since most of their officers have been eliminated, the remaining members of the Pioneers guild started running for their lives.
As for the New Dawn, they had lost several hundreds players on their parts, that had been able to respawn since then. In fact, they were as good as new and the Pioneers could not do anything about this.
'They had no chance whatsoever. They even tried shielding off their own archers but the rifle bullets were penetrating their armor like butter. In any case, the cannon did a great job at dispersing the masses.' Keith meditated. He then rose up from his spot, getting a last glance of the battlefield before going down the mountain.
'Let's go, I have some constructions to finish and several projects waiting to be developed. I shouldn't be wasting any more time around here.' He decided before going back home.