Lucian and Alex went together with the scouts to take a look at Bloodedge’s army camp, but as usual, there was nothing new. The scouts confirmed that Bloodedge had heard about the report in his large, fancy tent from some of the more intelligent-based evolved black pigmen. Those were rare, and it was even rarer for them to join the battlefield with others.
Seeing the enormous camp filled with black pigmen standing mindlessly in lines like dolls sent shivers down Lucian’s back. When they were released for battle, they acted like uncaged monsters starved for months, but until it was their turn, they stood motionlessly, waiting for their chance to duel other black ones and grow stronger. There was nothing left in them from their old lives.
The pigmen warrior army had long concluded that even for a transcendent human like Bloodedge, it was not easy to control so many black pigmen in battle at once. It was another reason why Bloodedge was probably thinning the numbers and only keeping the strong ones under his control.
Lucian also got a look at Bloodedge himself when he came out of his tent once. He had changed a lot — black swirling circles and lines going all over his face and the exposed skin on his forearms. Lucian assumed the guy’s whole body must have that cursed mark. His eyes seemed to glow a little — an eerie yellow. Was that the work of the Demon Lord? Did it change his powers somehow?
Lucian was using a long-ranged wormhole to take a look, and still, suddenly, Bloodedge’s head turned in her wormhole opening’s direction, probably sensing the anomaly. She quickly canceled the spell and opened another wormhole to change the location of the scouts.
She took another look from close by, but Bloodedge had simply gone back into his tent, ignoring them. He knew his camp was being spied on, and still, the guy did nothing except occasionally sending some flying emperor-ranked black ones in their direction.
Lucian used a portion of her liquid mana activating her sword and used a wormhole to get back to the army. They had already started the aggressive approach, and there was no option of stopping it now.
The next attack of the black army came, and once again, Lucian, along with everyone, obliterated the whole army, leaving not a single black one behind using the laser cannons. The steel cannons could not keep it up for more than three attacks. The continuous use of the laser spell had left cracks in the thick metal.
At night, they had to go back to the city to get more cannons. This time, even the oldest on-duty 5,000 pigmen soldiers needed to be relieved of duty too, so Einar and Evrin escorted them back using their containers of liquid mana and Einar’s sword’s wormhole to travel faster. The return from the city was easier than going back.
They kept using the same method to obliterate hordes and hordes of the black pigmen army. It went like that for four days straight, with continuous use of cannons and going back to get more each night. The runesmiths were working overnight to make more and more laser cannons for them.
Back on Damian’s planet, They all were in charge of refining and producing steel since Damian had given them the freedom to take a bit from every batch they delivered to him. All their spatial storages were full to the brim with the purest steel.
They shared half of it with Pigmen City. It was more like an exchange, with them receiving expensive gifts from the king in return — things like gold, silver, and rare and unique jewels and dungeon materials. They did not ask for it, but when the proud pigmen gave it to them, neither did they refuse it.
To the last city of pigmen, it wasn’t much use, but to humans like them, if they went back, these little fortunes could be used in many ways.
On the morning of the fifth day, when they were ready for another charge.. The black army finally broke their routine and did not come to fight. Till now, they had probably killed over four hundred thousand black pigmen with their laser cannons. The pigmen warriors were really happy to see so many of their enemies die so ruthlessly, but still, there were a lot of them remaining.
At last, it had ended. Bloodedge was finally being forced to make some changes.
Now.. Would the changes be anything similar to what they expect? That needed to be seen.
At noon, fifth day, Lucian waited with Sam, Maelor, Alex, and Evrin, along with all the high-leveled pigmen officials. Minutes later, a wormhole materialized a bit far from the camp, and Einar leapt out of it. She was the one accompanying the scouts this time.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked.
“It worked. They are coming!” Einar said, breathing heavily — she had just run from far on the snow. “Bloodedge is sending his elites..”
“How many?” Maelor asked.
“Around 200,000.. Can’t be sure,” replied Einar. “All emperor-ranked ones. Some 20,000 flying ones behind them, all the rest land-based.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” Sam said, looking far into the empty valley.
“It’s more than we expected..” Rurik said, Lyska beside him also looked a bit pale. “Are you kids sure this will work?”
Sam looked at Lucian. She simply nodded without saying any words. Sam turned towards the two transcendents and replied, “It will work. We have to take this risk. Everyone knows what to do if it becomes overwhelming, right?”
Everyone nodded. Their contingency plan was just a fancy retreat using the traps near the valley entrance and their three Sacrium swords’ wormholes to cover the distance. Even back in the city, the main force was on standby in case they failed here. This was the first time in two years the Pigmen warriors were doing something that could be called offensive instead of constantly defending.
They were going to use the narrow valley to the full extent and deal a significant blow to the insane numbers of the black army. The best conclusion would be for Bloodedge to stop sending any more troops of his and second-guess his plan, buying enough time for the highswords and Damian to come back. They were this civilization’s last hope.
The sound of the charge this time came much earlier than any other before it. They couldn’t even see them yet — there were, after all, over 200,000 emperor-ranked monsters charging straight towards them. The valley was narrow though, and could only fit around 10,000 emperor-ranked black ones at a time. That was if they stood in the middle to stop them. Lucian, along with Sam, Einar, and the two transcendents, had remained at the entrance of the valley — not going further. The full valley could fit over 20,000 giant emperor-ranked black ones.
With bated breath, all of them waited patiently for the giant black army to come closer and closer to the entrance of the valley.
“Now!” commanded Rurik.
Instantly, Lucian, Sam, and Einar activated the wormhole runic circles on their swords — which they had been powering constantly and holding still — all three at once. This was the first of the two wormhole runic circles on their swords, the one which could be modified completely by them. Each one of them opened a wormhole in a rectangular shape over 1,500 meters wide and over 3,000 meters in length, covering the entrance of the full valley, which stretched for 4,200 meters wide.
The length of the narrow valley was only 3,500 to 3,600 meters. The whole black army — full of emperor-ranked giant black ones holding axes and giant wooden clubs made of tree trunks — fell inside the enormous black void and disappeared like they never existed to begin with. Lucian had strategically kept the length of the wormhole 3 km so the black pigmen army would charge mindlessly inside the valley, not really being able to see what was going on ahead of them, and with the push from behind, continue to fall inside the giant wormhole.
It was just slightly less than their very limit of using this spell, with this scale, with the help of their swords. They wouldn’t have been able to do it if the end point wasn’t right behind them. If there was any more distance between the entrance and the end point, they would have to lower the wormhole’s scale significantly.
They had separated their end points into three. The end points opened right above a hole they had dug using laser cannons in the snow covered land. It was shaped the same as their wormholes but had a depth of over 2,000 meters. The end point of the wormhole hovered 10 meters above this giant hole they had dug with quite an effort. The sides of the hole were spiked by Evrin using her spell, so the falling black ones couldn’t grab the side to break their fall. The ones who fell from the sides were instantly impaled. The bottom was filled with 10 meters high of monster oil from the dungeons — highly flammable.
The 30,000 pigmen soldiers were also divided into three groups, surrounding each dug hole with 10,000 pigmen warriors. All either rolled the giant boulders kept ready on the edge of the hole to throw down and crush the injured black ones, or threw wooden buckets full of monster oil inside, then used flaming arrows to set the targets on fire.
Evrin, Maelor, and Alex were each standing near one hole; Alex using his massive sharp water structures to kill the falling dense group of black, helpless pigmen. While Evrin was using her earth spike spell again and again to impale as many at the floor and sides as possible. Maelor was using his fire-twisting tornado spell again and again to use the thrown oil to light the whole hole filled with black emperor-ranked pigmen on fire, boiling all of them alive.
The plan was working. Already, over 50,000 pigmen had entered their wormholes, charging mindlessly and being burned or impaled to death. More were falling each second. Lucian finally heaved a sigh of relief seeing her wild plan working. Now, they just had to hold on to this wormhole spell, at the limit of their focus, till it was over.
However.. It wouldn’t be life if everything went according to plan.
A few minutes later, Lucian sensed the mana signature she did not wish to see this early in their plan.
Bloodedge had finally entered the battlefield — along with 20,000 flying emperor-ranked evolved black pigmen.
