"Are we the only ones left?" Lady Arnea asked as she inspected everyone else. They may have finished their mission, but they were not in any way free. They were right on the path of the enemy's match.
"Come on, we got to get out of here," Manga was not one to sit around and wait for his death. He was all about moving. He grabbed 2 guns and threw one at the lady.
"Where are we going?" She asked as she ran after him.
"Getting back to the city, we have to warn the men. That is an entire army marching to the city gates."
***
"Maybe it wasn't a good idea to send him away," Lady Maara said to the Arch-Mage.
"My Queen, the decision was made and no turning around. We are ready, trust the plan," The Arch-Mage answered with as much sincerity as he could.
The new queen did not trust herself in command. Up till now, Tristan had been more than ready to move on to Reuze, but she refused to give the order. She was waiting for him to come back.
The problem was, by giving the enemy time to recuperate, they could easily seize the upper hand in the war, undoing the work they had put in.
Once they got word that Gumina was on the move, they too got airborne.
Under her command, she had 300 pegasi guard riders, 12,000 ships in a honeycomb formation, 100,000 chariots, 300,000 horsemen, and 1,200,000 footsoldiers on the march.
It was a spectacular army with the Queen in the lead ship. This time, she decided she would be at the front. Without their Lord Commander, the soldiers would need their Commander in Chief.
On her ship, there included the Arch-Mage, General Morio, Commander Greer, and a fine selection of guards put in place for her protection. Yet even then she still didn't feel safe, not quite. Had he been here ...
***
"My Prince, the Tristanites are walking right into the ambush," The woman spoke with her eyes closed.
The prince of Gumina did not say anything. He had prepared quite the welcome party for the Tristan army. Any other time, this would have been a certain victory. This time, he was not so sure. All because of that guy, the man he considered his nemesis.
Reports indicated that Barda was not with the army. Furthermore, he had not been seen for quite a while. All this did was make the prince nervous. He would rather have his enemies where he could see them, not in his blindside, especially not this man.
He still had quite a lot in store for the Army. Gumina was no joke and he was going to show them that. He just wished he could see the enemy's cards.
***
"I gotta tell you, man, she is into you!" Huna was an expert at guiding a chariot. As a daughter to a chariot rider, she had spent a better part of her life on a chariot. She was an excellent rider, making it look as though she was in sync with the horses.
"Yeah right, then when I won't hear the end of it make a fool of myself," Merian replied as he checked his ammo.
The idea of putting heavy weaponry on a vehicle was not entirely new. With extremely power anti-aircraft machine guns, Barda had designed a way to deal with those annoying wyverns.
Since they were too heavy to carry on one's shoulder, they were placed on chariots. The horses were quite freaked during training, to the point Barda had to invent noise-canceling headphones for the horses.
"When have I ever lied to you?" Huna insisted. It was a long ride. These 2 were partners, one the rider, the other holding the guns. For the moment, they were discussing a certain goddess that just so happened to be Huna's acquaintance.
Suddenly, the sky darkened and heavy clouds formed. The next moment, a massive tornado tore through the treeline, followed but 3 others.
The lax atmosphere went quiet very fast. As they watched the winds approach, a deep-seated fear crept in their hearts. They were sure that they had no answer to that. They could fret around with swords and guns, but that was the endgame.
Just as the storm was about to hit the ships, a massive magic barrier with a light grey hue and glow materialized in front of the army, preventing the storm from going any further.
Seeing the attack stopped so effortlessly, the entire army let out a shout of celebration. Just as Gumina had its mages, so did Tristan, and they were showing their value.
The celebrations had barely begun when another wave of tornadoes penetrated the treeline. Much to the soldiers' relief, the shield seemed to hold, but given the power of the winds, it did not seem as though it would last very long.
That's where things got bizarre. The barrier seemed to push the winds away from the path of the enemy. Instead of dealing with the winds, the mages were deflecting the tornadoes away from their path.
Looking at the hull of her ship, the Queen saw Lord Abu's extended arms as he countered the storm. She breathed a sigh of relief.
As this was happening, the ground started quaking. From up top in the ships, they could make out rhino-like beasts running towards the marching forces on the ground.
The next moment, 300 wyverns flew at the army. At the same time, more than 100 magical beasts were digging up from the ground. Some were the size of a train. The smallest of the tunneling worms was more than a meter in diameter, the biggest extending up to 5 meters in diameter. Their length was unknown as they were still on the ground.
Facing such a massive attack, Tristan was not caught off-guard this time. The skies lit up with tracer rounds as the airships fought against the wyverns in a hard battle.
The wyverns were fast and agile in the air. Extremely high maneuverability. They could make insane turns that would live a pilot disoriented due to hitting high Gs. They could dodge and carve their way through the ships.
However, the ships were well-armed with .50 caliber machine guns mounted on the bow and stern of the ships. They made up for their low accuracy by excessive firepower.
With the rounds being shot per minute, the wyverns had nowhere to go. They couldn't even get close. One by one, they fell to the ground.
On the ground, the situation was vastly different. The worms had burrowed right in the middle of the army. This was to optimize the amount of damage they could do to the army.
Unfortunately, while the hard exoskeletons were almost unbreakable anywhere else, in front of the RDX-tipped .50 caliber bullets with tungsten penetrators fired from the heavy machine guns placed on the chariots, they were nothing more than a hot knife through butter.
The monsters were ripped to shreds, letting out gut-wrenching cries. They didn't even get a chance to attack. Those that sprung further away from the chariots were met with heavy sub-machine gunfire.
As for the charging beasts, their hard outer skin was meant to repel all manner of attacks. As they charged, they gained momentum, making their way closer and closer to the ground forces.
However, the ships wouldn't let them. At the signal from Commander Greer, hundreds f ballistae bolts were fired, each was Ordinance-tipped.
When they made contact, the ensuing explosion engulfed the entire front line of the charging beasts, disrupting their formation.
It had to be said, the hides of these beasts were indeed spectacular since only those that took direct hits got wounded. However, the ships had plenty of bolts to spare.
Even if they did not hurt the beasts, disrupting the formation was just as effective. For one, it protected their brethren, and secondly, it was a good way of getting the beasts to attack themselves.
Within minutes of the attack, the extremely powerful attack was squashed. The wyverns were either gunned down or sent running. No worm got a chance to run away.
The beasts that were left standing were too disoriented to run away. When the chariots got close enough, they too unleashed their firepower, lighting up the beasts. The combined attack from the ships and chariots did short work of the remaining beasts.
Seeing such a victory without taking much damage, Tristanites were overjoyed, shouting in celebration. Even the Queen allowed herself to smile briefly.
"Is that all you got?" Lady Gwendolynn asked the Prince of Gumina.
"Excuse me?" On his side, the Prince was cursing. His welcoming party had not been so effective, but never had he been challenged so curtly.
"They have barely scratched the might of Gumina!" He declared.
"Then how about you throw some of that might over to them, we bet on you, remember?"