Within the dense and lush green southern jungle was a city, the city was crude and primitive with poorly constructed wooden walls and watchtowers. The buildings within it were also behind the times, resembling huts and blocks of wood with no architectural design. Within the streets of the city, people were hurriedly scurrying around, trying to reach safety.
Outside the city walls, there was a sea of people dressed in Imperial uniform. Their silver-colored armor glistened in the sunlight, almost blinding the men stationed upon the city walls.
The Imperial army traditionally gave out two sets of armor for their troops. One was a plated leather gear which the troops used while scouting and marching. It was flexible and easy to move in and a lot lighter than its counterpart, which was a full set of heavy armor. The metal armor completely covered the soldiers from head to toe and required someone to help strap it on, it was not possible for the soldiers to get it on by themselves. Upon the heavy armor, the soldiers donned a tabard upon which the army's insignia was displayed.
Primigenia's insignia was that of a man reaching out to grab the sun. It symbolized the fact that no matter how hard humanity tried, it would forever be unable to reach the heavens.
The irony of this insignia lay in the fact that it had been designed by Saint Claudius von Imvidra, the founder of the Divine Empire Sargon, and the only known man to reach godhood and ascending to a higher world, leaving Alleria behind. He was also the god that the Holy Church worshipped. Before reaching godhood he had been a Saint rank mage with a light affinity, which was the reason the Holy Church restricted all of its upper-echelon members to being light affinity mages.
Upon looking at the insignia on his tabard, Mago couldn't hide his disgust. Founder of the Empire or not, the man was a hypocrite. Mago strongly believed that in order to discourage competition and make himself stand out Claudius had attempted to make everyone believe that Saint rank and white-core cultivation were the pinnacles of humanity. The man was a living example that this was indeed not true. Besides, why would he have tried so hard to improve himself if he truly believed it to be true?
Not that it was easy to reach the realm above them. No one ever since Claudius had done so, at least on the western continent.
Sighing to himself, Mago pushed down these useless thoughts and focused on the task before him. Today was the day that Primigenia would launch its first attack on the jungle city T'cammen. Mago and his 5th Brigade wouldn't be able to operate independently during this siege. They were part of the 2nd Division of the 1st Corps of Primigenia, under the direct command of Colonel Portus. The Commander of the 1st Corps was Gauder, the right-hand man of High Commander Andremes.
The siege would start with the constant firing of the ballistas and catapults that the army had spent the last few days assembling. These siege weapons had been stored within storage rings, unassembled, in order to not take too much of the space within them. The army had a limited amount of these siege weapons, so during their construction, they had been heavily guarded. Even now, hundreds of soldiers surrounded them, not letting anyone unauthorized come close to the precious weapons.
After the siege weapons managed to tear down the city walls, shabby as they were, it would be the turn for the soldiers to charge in. The 1st Corps would lead the charge, Mago's Brigade being among those spearheading the charge. He had instructed his soldiers to always stick together, watching each other's backs. But he knew that in the midst of the fighting it would be hard to pay attention to the safety of others.
'It should start soon.' Mago thought while shifting his attention from the taut men around him to the siege weapons lying a few hundred meters away.
As if answering his thoughts, the siege weapons launched their first volley. They launched bolts infused with magic as well as bombs containing pure mana upon the city. The bombs were a product of magical engineering. They were basically containers filled to the brim with mana. Depending upon the effect they wanted to display, they could be filled for example with fire mana for explosive effect or ice mana to freeze and slow down the enemy.
The surroundings were completely quiet, except for the whistling sound caused by the projectiles as they edged closer and closer to the city walls. Before they reached the walls, figures resembling those of beasts appeared upon the walls, directly intercepting the launched projectiles.
Upon impact with these figures, which naturally were the Beast tribe's shamans, the bombs went off, flinging the shamans through the air like rag dolls. Some of them were completely unharmed, while others were bleeding out of every orifice on their body and suffered serious burns.
None of the launched projectiles managed to hit the city walls. However, no cheering could be heard from the tribesmen on the city walls. They were completely stunned. Some of the renowned shamans that they practically worshipped had been injured while intercepting the first volley. Who knew how many of these the enemy could launch?
As these thoughts were flashing through the minds of the tribesmen, the Imperial army launched the second volley.
This time the wails of the injured shamans accompanied the whistling of the projectiles, breaking the previous peaceful atmosphere.
Before reaching the city walls, the projectiles were once again intercepted. This time though, the ones that intercepted them were dark-skinned men with white markings all around their bodies, and they didn't jump out to intercept them, instead opting to hit them with spells. Explosions like fiery flowers blossomed in the sky above the city walls. It would have been a truly breathtaking sight, had it not been so dangerous and deadly.
This pattern continued for three more volleys. When the Imperial army launched the sixth volley, had the tribesmen evacuated the walls of the city. With no one to defend them, the missile-like projectiles pierced the wooden walls, exploding and destroying everything within a forty-meter radius.
The northern part of the city walls, which the Imperial army was facing, was completely demolished. Soon a piercing sound of a horn could be heard through the air. It was the signal for the 1st Corps to launch its attack.
"Charge!", shouted Colonel Portus, before dashing forward covered in a cyan hue. Thousands of men followed the lead of their Colonel, charging forward while keeping up their formation.
While the men were charging towards the crumbled walls of the city, the siege weapons launched one last volley, preventing the tribesmen from coming near the wall in order to block the charging Imperial army from entering the city.
While charging towards the city, Mago actively scanned his surroundings, trying to figure out where the enemy shamans were stationed. They were the only ones that could disturb the momentum of the Imperial army.
He was especially wary of the shamans of the Poison tribe. They were capable of rendering the soldiers useless with their magical mist that could easily cover the whole city. Of course, the Imperial army had mages that could counter them, but it would take some time before they could react.
Upon entering the city, Mago saw few hundred tribesmen trying to hastily form a blockade to slow down the assault of the Imperial army, but to no avail. Mago and the other Warriors easily pierced through, killing several men with every slash of their weapons.
Soon enough, Mago was covered in blood. Next to him, Bismark leisurely strolled into the city. He was dressed in a silver-colored mage robe with three golden stripes decorating the shoulder pads of the robe, indicating his rank as an Archmage. Not a speck of blood or dust could be seen on him. Only his dagger was slowly dripping some blood on the ground. The scent of burnt flesh came from behind Mago and when he turned around to take a look, he saw Ragan standing before five charred corpses. He as well was dressed in a mage robe, a blue one, with two stripes on the shoulders, marking him as a High Mage.
After clearing the enemies near the wall, the 1st Corps was split into two, with the 1st Division securing the area around the wall and the 2nd Division moving further into the city.
The 2nd Division met some ambushes along the way, tribesmen would assault them from the roofs with darts and arrows, while some of them sneaked behind them from the alleys, slitting the throats of a couple of soldiers before retreating.
While the casualties were not high, the soldiers grew frustrated when they weren't able to strike back at the enemy and their own numbers kept dwindling.
"Colonel, how far are we planning to go? The enemy has been avoiding a direct confrontation with us, letting us go deeper into the city nearly unhindered. There will surely be a trap if we continue to move forward.", Mago expressed his concerns while constantly keeping a lookout on the surrounding buildings.
"I know, but Commander Gauder said that until he signals us otherwise, we shall keep moving forward.", Colonel Portus replied. He didn't know what the Commander was planning but after years of serving under him, Portus had complete faith in Gauder.
'Just what are they thinking? We have only 15,000 men with us while the enemy has four times the number of soldiers. If we get trapped, they will easily annihilate us.' Mago frowned. He felt like a pig being led to slaughter, uneasiness filling him.
The Division reached an open square that was used as a marketplace. The square had multiple narrow entrances all around it, with only two major exits, the one they had entered from, and another one right on the other side of the square.
"This place screams of a trap...", Bismark muttered, while vigilantly checking his surroundings. His muttering earned a few nods of approval from the men.
"Keep moving forward.", Colonel Portus commanded with a strained expression on his face. Only an idiot wouldn't realize that this was a trap, but under his Commander's orders, he had no choice but to step right into it.
As soon as the men reached the center of the square, the alleys surrounding the marketplace started to fill with tribesmen and they rushed into the square. They blocked every entrance in the square, including the one the soldiers had just come from.
"Great. Just great. Who could have seen this coming?", Bismark sarcastically commented. Thousands of tribesmen surrounded them, and they had no way of escape.