Battle of Reido

‘What did I get myself into!?’ Synthara looked down at the massive port city by looking down from a ridge hidden by trees. Its walls were thick, recently stained with blood, and filled with Ougonian soldiers. The Ventorum looked like massive Zeppelins with a lion’s head with a mane of burning swords, resembling a sun. The Heraldry of the Ougon dynasty.

Before she left, Morgan told her where the safehouse that leads to the underground basement where all of the undead are stored along with a map of the city. According to Morgan, the entire city has been slaughtered to a man, allowing Synthara to not have to worry about friendly fire. She was free to unleash her full might on the city. All Synthara had to do was somehow get inside the city, find the passage, revive all of the undead, and kill every last enemy here. All while leaving the Ventorum floating above the city intact. Typical rulers, always asking the world from their followers, even if one of them is an actual god.

She complains yet she’s still here about to storm the city by her lonesome, excited at the prospect even. She just had to be wary of her mana levels and make sure she destroys the entire garrison before she runs out. She began casting her magical defense spells, three fireballs that floated around her as well as some strings swirling around her almost imperceptively, ready to intercept any attack thrown at her.

“Well, time is of the essence, let the slaughter begin!”

Synthara decided to start off her attack with a bang by blowing up the gates, causing alarm among the guards. She then summoned two flame dragon familiars to wreak havoc on the walls. She elegantly walked in the air using her strings as footholds as she pelt the walls with exploding fireballs, easily clearing the enemies off of them and lighting them aflame.

She then started launching fireballs directly into the city themselves to force the garrison out of hiding rather than get caught up in trying to hunt them down. The city was soon in flames.

“We’re under attack!”

“By whom!?”

“There’s the attacker, fire!”

Synthara daintily skipped across the sky as motes of light and crossbow bolts were launched towards her. Being a singular figure in the sky slowly being overtaken by smoke made it hard to hit her with any projectiles, the few that were on the way to hit her were cut down or burnt to ash by her magical defenses.

Torrents of flame rained down from the sky and tore through the streets, scattered groups of men were ragdolled by explosions and consumed by flames, able to do nothing but fall to the ground and writhe in agony. The sound of crackling wood, screaming men, and roaring fire consumed the town. These men have clearly massacred the entire city, there were huge piles of freshly burnt corpses. In some places they haven't even bothered gathering them in a pile and left them to rot. She was willing to bet a majority of the victims worshipped the Ultimatum but seeing her people get mass slaughtered like this made her feel a twinge of anger. It was odd, feeling this way about a bunch of people she had never met, but she could not help but feel glad knowing that she will at least avenge her people’s deaths.

By the time Synthara reached the building where the underground passageway is, she noticed that she had spent more mana than she thought. She still had enough for the mass revival spell but it was still worrying. After the mass revival spell she won't have much left to defend herself. She will need to rest soon. ‘Looks like I had a little too much fun.’ she thought sheepishly. But it will all be worth it once all these soldiers are dead because they’ll become her soldiers too. They can pay for their sins with service in her army.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man in resplendent white-gold plate armor run out of the corner of a street. In the blink of an eye, his sword was inches from Synthara’s neck, barely stopped by her defensive spells who blew him back with an explosion.

‘This must be one of those paladins Morgan mentioned.’ The ability to attack at lightspeed is irksome, her defensive buffs have nearly run out from that one attack.

The Paladin easily recovered from his fall and ran across the street, trying to dodge Synthara’s barrage of fireballs. Soldiers went to assist their commander, emboldened by his presence.

Synthara fended off the peons while continuing her attack on the paladin. One of the fireballs had strings inside the fire which hinder his movements and cut into his armor. As he tensed and emanated mana to do his godspeed attack once again, Synthara smiled as she had managed to put a sharpened string near where his neck was.

The paladin silently decapitated himself as his own momentum sent him hurtling in the air and crashed into the Ventorum, leaving a bloody stain on the lion’s head.

Synthara chuckled at her handiwork as she mopped up the stragglers before they could regroup with their friends. As she prepared to enter the house, she felt a familiar presence appear behind her, what is it with people trying to sneak up on her?

As she turned around she saw Perfection right behind her. Just as she appeared back in the old world, only she seemed less…present? Her imperious blue eyes were far away. She also had a bright halo above her and wings of light.

There were also two of them.

“Heathen spell detected. Destroying source of impurity.” The being said monotonously.

“Hell no!” Synthara lashed out with as much fire as she could, quickly dodging all of their light ray attacks as they pursued her. She needed to leave, she was in no state to take on Aeturnus right now, how did they find her so fast!?

As she was struck by one of the light bolts, she felt herself tripping to the ground as she turned around, seeing the two Aeturnus look down on her with palms raised. The men around them jeered as they were saved by literal angels from their god. More men were pouring into the square by the second as the confusion and chaos died down.

“Praise the Ultimatum!”

“They sent us angels in our time of need!”

“Kill that mage!”

‘I refuse to lose, not to you!’ Synthare thought angrily. She then smiled as they advanced closer.

The angels fired their light beams into Synthara’s chest, who then disappeared like a mirage.

Meanwhile Synthara found the secret stairs leading into the catacombs and was halfway down the corridor where the undead were stored. When she felt the angel’s presence she had casted a heat mirage spell that made her invisible while creating an illusion of herself to escape. She could even see through the eyes of her mirage through her mind.

Judging from the angel’s strength, they were far from being the real Aeturnus. They were clones or familiars of them. She could take on both of them but not with their army as well, she needed to awaken the undead to even the odds.

Synthara opened the door to the open underground catacombs where all the corpses were stored, armed with uniforms and the new muskets and bayonets she had the orcs mass produce.

“Wake up darlings, it's time for war!”

Synthara beckoned mana to flow out from within her and into the thousands of corpses, who all stood up and began to form up into columns. It was made easier from special runes throughout the catacombs that Morgan had set up to make the process faster and more efficient; the entire army of 100,000 skeletons clad in black and red uniforms, each with six arms, was ready to march in a minute. Morgan had also modified the spell so that they would have immediate knowledge on how to hold, reload, and fire a musket. Knowledge gained from Synthara who had to act out the entire process.

Her father was a former Napoleonic history nerd before his wife crushed any passion or independent thought of his skull. Synthara read through his old books when they weren't home when she had nothing else to read, even playing pretend with a fake musket. It was mildly fascinating, there was something satisfying about groups of men in colorful uniforms standing in perfect formation and reloading and firing their muskets in unison. Perhaps it was just the greater quantity of explosions, which medieval armies lacked in comparison.

As the undead clad in black and red uniforms marched behind her out of the catacombs, she ran out and used her shield spells to give time for the undead to make their formations to take the street.

“Armes!”

The skeletons that have climbed out of the stairs began taking their positions and stood while preparing their muskets to fire. Their six arms were a blur as they held the gun horizontally, opened the pan, took out their cartridges from their cartridge sacks, poured the powder down the pan, poured the rest of the powder down the barrel along with the bullet, used the ram rod to ram the bullet and powder tightly into the barrel, bring the musket up, pulled the hammer to full cock, and aimed down towards the enemy, blissfully unaware of the power of these strange weapons. All in the span of four seconds.

The angels, realizing their light blasts were not sufficient, manifested their light swords and tried to batter down the shields. Synthara’s mana was depleting at an alarming rate.

Synthara let down the shield and yelled out the command to attack. “Feuer!”

The angels were thrown off balance expecting their sword to impact against a hard barrier but found air instead. They were unprepared as a volley of lead balls tore through them. The ones that didn't hit the angels hit the soldiers' frontline behind them, straight their armor and shields.

Synthara quickly hopped over the skeletons into safety as the first rank retreated so that they were in the 4th rank and started the process of reloading. The 2nd rank, having already loaded their guns, fired their volley only a second after the first. The angels staggered backwards as they were hit again along with the soldiers behind them. The angels were fast to dodge the third volley by flying into the air and prepared to shoot at the undead but Synthara intercepted them.

“You think I'm going to lose to pale imitations of your god!?”

As Synthara engaged the angels in a sky by hopping across her strings and launching fireballs at them, the undead continued their continuous volley. Their six arms allowed them to reload a musket in minimal time which was four seconds. With this the line slowly advanced forward in perfect lockstep, fire, retreat, reload, fire. Unleashing volleys at the rate of one per second. The Ougonian soldiers did not stand a chance and they began to retreat.

“Fix Bayonets and run them down!” Synthara said in the middle of fighting the angels.

The undead did as they were ordered and charged down the streets, after the soldiers. As the battle continued, more and more undead poured out of the passageway, filling the streets with undead. Some Ougonian soldiers formed up and tried to resist but they were mowed down by a hail of bullets. Synthara even saw a few more paladins try to stem the tide of undead, charging in and scattering them. They managed to destroy the frontlines but they were always replaced with more undead who had loaded guns. Each paladin shuddered as their bodies were ripped apart by bullets, tearing through their armor.

Synthara tied the weakened two angels with string and threw their now broken bodies at the only gate out of the city where the retreating soldiers were. They stopped and watched in horror as a mage with a murderous grin descended from the sky in front of their only chance for escape, at their backs was a horde of skeletons with bloodied bayonets. The soldiers immediately got on their knees with their hands up and surrendered, begging for mercy.

Synthara’s grin widened as she gestured for the skeletons to halt right in front of them.

“Mercy you say? Did the people of Reido receive the same grace from you?”

The last remaining paladin went pale, an admission of his sins.

“Then, why do you expect the same from your enemies? You could have at least died as warriors, now you will be executed like common criminals. Either path is the same, you can pay these people back by joining the ranks of my army.”

“Wait!” A soldier screamed out as they were shot by another volley of bullets, some tried to make for the gate but they could not escape the reach of a musket.

Synthara clapped as the last Ougonian soldier fell. “Very good darlings!”

Synthara noticed the airships were trying to escape, with her last mana reserves she caught up both airships, wiped their entire crew and revived them. She then used her strings on one of the ship’s controls, channeling her will into them to land on the outskirts of the city. The other one required her to kill and revive the crew with their memories intact with the last of her mana and had them land the ship. She then ordered her men to gather up the rest of the corpses so she can do mass revival over the next few days. But for now she needed to rest.

The harbor contained Ougonite ships, whose crews were easily disposed of, as well as ships of her own country. It was fortunate that Morgan and Wilhelm specified how to allocate her new troops when she got them, otherwise she would've been completely lost.

Out of the 100,000 undead she has. 20,000 will act as a garrison for the town.

10,000 will be packed onto the two airships, each with 5,000. Since skeletons were much lighter and required minimal amenities compared to a mortal, Synthara could fit more soldiers onto the vessel safely.

60,000 will march up to Rok to either provide Wilhelm reinforcements or otherwise start concentrating forces to relieve Mann and Ort.

Another 10,000 will remain at the town to act as her reinforcements should they have time for the airships to make a 2nd trip. Her next part in the plan was to block off the black gates to prevent Ougonian reinforcements from reaching Ort. It would put her right in the middle of enemy territory but it would provide the Orcs more time to hold, and she can escape if need be. It was incredibly risky but as she can easily mow down entire armies by herself. If it was to take down Aeturnus she would do anything.

With her armies properly organized, she went back to where the angels fell. They could command themselves after they were assigned vampire commanders, who were made among particularly strong corpses. The angels were still there but were slowly fading away into the light. She had her strings insert themselves into their remains to see what they were exactly, and she heard an unsettling final message.

“Sufficient data acquired, sending data back to mastermind.”