In reality, Emery had never even once planned to leave his side of battle to the so-called chance. The stake placed on the table was simply too big to leave things on the probability that the enemy would or wouldn't attack them.
Hence, from the very beginning, he had prepared the strategies and the surroundings used to its best, to boost his prospect of winning to the utmost capacity. He decided not to explain his tactic in detail so that both Arthur and Gwen would not be worried.
In addition, there was still the possibility of spies within their ranks. Therefore, only his closest confidant and related personnel knew about the plan.
Before they arrived at the eastern battlefield, Emery told Galahad and his fifteen hundred archers to bring as many arrows as they could possibly bring. Thus, one could blatantly see the hundreds of piles of arrows lying in the camp. Moreover, he was the one who directed when and where the Demetea archers shoot their arrows.
When the enemy came approaching for the second time, which he knew they would, the Demetea archers were instructed to just send a volley of arrows at them relentlessly.
There were two goals Emery wanted to achieve from the archers' barrage.
First, to make each group of enemies gather together within their respective group, which in turn made a wider gap between them . Second, to get them to focus their attention on the sky. After all, Emery had prepared a sumptuous gift for them; the pit trap.
Coupled with the white smoke that limited visibility, each group of enemies basically acted independently and couldn't provide each other with immediate assistance.
The pit traps prepared throughout the forest were, in fact, not that hard to prepare courtesy to the existence of magic. Thanks to Emery's [Soften Earth] spell and the three hundred people under him, he was able to set hundreds of traps in a short amount of time. He also didn't have a difficult time concealing the traps, as his plant spells easily took care of it.
With spirit reading, Emery could tell that the traps managed to make about three dozen of their one hundred groups fall victim to them. But, even though the result the pit traps displayed was satisfactory, they were not the main thing in the strategy that Emery concocted.
Now that the enemy had arrived at the middle of the plains, it was time to serve the main dish.
With the smoke still obscuring their vision, multiple screams of their comrades who fell victim to the pit traps, and the volley of arrows that kept raining down on them, the Danes fell into chaos and their thoughts were tossed around by the circumstances.
Unexpectedly, this was the effect of something Emery had prepared. It was a kind of dried leaves that he found in the North Africa region. It had an effect of mildly affecting minds when added within the burning woods.
[Blue Poppy]
When a person breathed in the smoke, the blue poppy that came with it would give their mind a shake. The effects would be greater to a weakened mind, but Emery believed that even the greatest warrior would be slightly affected by it.
In such conditions, Emery used his spirit reading and tried to find a group that was perfect to be targeted. When he found the ideal one, he quickly prepared to open his [Spatial Gate] to their location.
With his current spirit force, he was strong enough to open a short-distance gate for fifty people. Hence, he formed two assault groups. One led by Cavvi the Akavi Warrior, while the other was led by Kastan the Quintins' head guard. Each group consisted of the fifty strongest fighters as well as two of the Fey sisters.
When they were ready, Emery quickly opened the [Spatial Gate] in the area near where the targeted Danes group was. Immediately after, the first assault group entered the gate and clashed with the latter.
Even though he wasn't at the scene, Emery could still tell what had happened. This was thanks to his new ability, [One Mind], which allowed him to connect himself with the two Fey sisters in the group.
Then, he would open another [Spatial Gate] for the second attack group just behind the Danes group. This ingenious maneuver that was only possible thanks to magic would make the latter fall into a precarious situation, where they were pinched and attacked from both front and back.
With the Akavi warriors' strength and the Fey girls, especially the latter who transformed and wreaked havoc upon the Danes; the blue poppy within the cloud could achieve its maximum effect.
The enemy who had lost their morale was one that would be easily beaten.
Meanwhile, Emery chose to stay on the hill, focusing his attention on his spirit reading and [One Mind] ability to open and close his [Spatial Gate], sending the two assault groups into different Danish groups in a short span of time.
These were what Emery had been planning and doing for the last hour. If he saw the Akavi warrior suffer injuries, he immediately switched them with the reserve unit. After all, he still had two hundred Akavi warriors on his side.
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The five Jarl of Danes were furious - extremely so. It had been almost an hour, but they could tell that none of his warriors managed to climb the hill in front of them where the other party was.
Instead, they could only hear multiple screams from inside the white smoke.
Their brows tightly furrowed and anger reached up to their face when they saw their warriors coming out at the wrong end of the smoke, retreating.
The five Jarl quickly caught the leader of one of the retreating groups, only to find that color had drained from the person's face, as if he saw the horror of his life.
Veins appeared on Jarl's face when they saw how trembling the other party's body was. "You are the warriors of the mighty Danes!!" He shouted. "Get a grip and tell us what happened!!"
"M-My Lord.." said the leader stutteringly. "W-We are attacked by ghosts.. There.. There are also... the beast! It's Fenrir , the wolf god himself! It has come to kill us all!!" The man gradually became hysterical as he reached the end of his words.
The Danes were definitely not cowards, which was why the Jarls grew anxious as they wondered what kind of existence could turn their men into such cowards. Things instantly turned to worst when they saw dozens of retreating Danes became hundreds.
"What is exactly going on?!!"
The Iceni Prince himself was unable to speak as proud as he was before because he could clearly see how terrified those people were. Heck, he saw his men were also part of the same groups who ran away. There was even an Iceni warrior whose lower body was drenched in terror.
It didn't take long for him to turn toward his famous wizard. "Freyne, what is the meaning of this?!" He shouted. "You have to give an explanation to me, otherwise..." The last part of his words was laced with an obvious tone.
The wizard himself was actually dumbfounded by the situation. He couldn't believe what he was seeing either. He knew for a fact that the enemy troops had not descended from the hill, but if that was the case, then what was the explanation for the scene that lay before him?
He actually perceived some irregularities in the forest, but he couldn't tell what they were. Then, he suddenly thought of a possible answer.
"My lord! The enemy must have used poison!!" He said confidently, "it was mixed in the smoke, and thus made them see something."
The Jarl as well as the Iceni Prince who heard his words nodded after they thought about it. This explanation did make a lot of sense, after all. That must be it!' They thought.
"What should we do then?!" said one of the Jarls.
There was silence for a while before someone opened their mouth. "My Lord... There is no other way but to pull our troops back."
They looked at each other and understood this was the best possible choice. Therefore, the five Jarls and the Iceni Prince quickly sent the order to call their warrior back by using the horn.
Tooooootttt!!
Following the roar of the horn was the sight of the warriors coming out of the forest en masse. After a while, no more people were seen exiting the forest, which meant those were the survivors.
The Jarls and the Iceni Prince were devastated when they saw the pitiful sight of their men and that only about half of their men returned alive from the forest. Roughly five thousand warriors were lost within an hour.
This wasn't a battle.
This was a one-sided massacre.
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Written and Directed by Avans, Published by W.e.b.n.o.v..e.l,