Chapter 309: Imbalance Of Force

On the far western side of the battlefield, the combined force of Hill Giants and Stone Giants had met with the might of the Marimgar heroes, and the remnants of their force, those who had managed to make it past the artillery bombardment, were now locked in close combat while being bombarded with magic.

Their immense height advantage was no longer an advantage here, it only made them easier targets.

Meanwhile the human warriors were exceptionally adept at blocking attack skills, and keeping them from eliminating the ranged threats. However, both groups were Earth Element aligned, and more skilled with defensive magic than offensive.

That turned the battle into a war of attrition, where both sides were slugging it out without dealing significant casualties, despite the power difference.

The Giants were mostly between level fifteen and twenty, naturally powerful magical beings. But the humans had fielded warriors that were close to their level in the front lines, and they had numbers to make up for their lack of power.

Plus, they had far more healers.

They also had energy weapons, which made even the lower level ranged fighters incredibly deadly, though they would have dealt twice as much if they had higher level skills to buff their attacks.

The battle looked incredibly impressive, Kalli would give it that much. But against Earth Element defensive fighters, looking impressive and being effective were not always the same thing.

What really mattered was that nobody was being sent back to the resurrection pods.

As long as the healers were holding up the lines, and they weren’t losing anyone, then they were winning by default, because the Giants had already taken heavy losses.

But more importantly, they were still taking losses, while the humans were not.

It was just a matter of time before they realized it.

On the east side, closest to the ocean, the battle with the Frost Giants was fully underway, and the front line was folding like a house of cards. With their jumbled orders and fighting for influence, nothing was getting done properly, and the lone soldier among those Sanchez had flagged as problematic was looking his way and signalling for a rescue.

Subtly.

He didn’t want to be the one that made things worse by putting his opinion into an already overflowing mix, so he was simply fighting as well as he could and calling for reinforcements.

"Alright, let’s go. They’re about to go into a full run, if we move now, we can surge past them and take the front lines without losing too many," Sanchez ordered.

The group moved as one, with Esmeralda being especially enthusiastic about the situation.

She needed new zombies, as many of hers were old models, and woefully underpowered. They didn’t grow with her, they remained as they were when she called them. So, while she was a Necromancer, her actual combat power wasn’t keeping up with her early standards.

She had upgraded her most basic skeletons to Ogre Skeletons some time ago, and given them Uncommon Grade swords, which were cheap and plentiful when you were doing daily dungeon runs. But her Zombies were a higher tier summon, with smaller numbers, and the last batch she had made were all level eight.

There were Giants among them, but weak ones.

Seeing this army, it was clear that the trials had been somewhat restricted, so that they didn’t have to face the full fury of the world right from the start. But she needed these new Giants to replace her zombie army.

And hopefully, she would get another level today, so that she could summon Ghouls.

The skill had a level restriction on it, and while she had plenty of points, she couldn’t use it yet. Once she did, she was supposed to be able to raise four ravenous undead with more powers than any of her other undead.

After that, she would be into the real power of the Necromancer, which was all level locked behind the Ghoul skill, as she had already taken everything else that she could.

The former city leaders, who had all been shouting orders and talking a big game from behind their subordinates a moment ago all ran past the advancing reinforcements. All but the one lone soldier, who managed to get his troops in order and rejoin the battle.

That was a big win for him in Sanchez’s book, and the Sergeant began to reassess the man’s potential.

Sure, he had issues following orders from new leadership, but he was willing to do what needed to be done, and he wasn’t a coward. Given a bit of time, he would make a proper addition to their leadership group.

As for the others, their reputation wouldn’t survive the day, and he didn’t even have to do anything to help it along.

There were few things worse in the new world worse than being known as a coward, and that was being known as incompetent. Watching them bicker, argue and crumble under the first signs of pressure, while the reserve teams pushed forward and held strong was more than enough to ruin them as leaders in the eyes of those who came with them.

And much more elegantly than any plan to wait for them to take a single strike before sending them to the resurrection pod, or to simply eliminate them and make everyone think they ran.

The fact that the one leading the charge to save them was Esmeralda, skinny to the point of looking gaunt, with her long black hair tied into a hundred tiny braids that bounced with each swaying step of the Crocolisk, only made the fact that they had been routed feel that much worse.

She was losing undead from her army every few seconds, but she was still charging forward to put herself between them and the threat.

The eagerness was not bloodlust, Esmeralda simply needed to get within a metre of the undead that she wanted to raise, so she had to be at the very front, or she wouldn’t be able to get giants to replace the undead that they were killing until the enemy was forced back.

It was a compromise on her part, between safety and combat power.