บท 171: First Contact
*Btooooooooom!*
A formless almost see-through shield suddenly manifests from atop the Academy's highest tower as the invasion is about to begin. The shield ripples for a moment before rapidly expanding outwards, covering the top of the academy until it reaches the borders of the walls.
Osmond glances at it and nods in satisfaction, half the Academy faculty were put to work on powering it. So it should prevent most projectiles and spells from getting through... Unfortunately, it wouldn't stop anything living from getting through, in imparticular, the dragon knights currently flying towards them.
The army had finally left their camp and was carrying large makeshift battering rams that'd undoubtedly be used on the gate, but they wouldn't get anywhere close to it if Osmond had any say.
The first group of dragon knights approach, the riders launching a litany of spells at the Academy shield to little effect. Osmond raises his staff and taps it on the ground, which seemingly creates a visible shockwave despite the apparent weakness of the action.
All of a sudden however, the approaching dragon knights begin dropping out of the sky, the riders screaming as they flail around as they and their familiars plummet to the ground below. It's only after a few seconds that people begin to realise what the cause of this was...
Osmond's spell had manifested large heavy shackles around the legs, neck, and wings of each of the dragons, both massively increasing their weight and preventing any movement from the shackled limbs... Which just so happened to include their wings.
The next group of dragon knights decide to be far more cautious than their predecessors, spreading out and attempting to attack the opposite side of the Academy...
"Jean, go to them." Osmond commands and he continues to stand in place like a moveable object.
"Got it." Colbert says as he rushes off to deal with the flank.
The regular army had almost arrived at the gate and was getting perilously close to using their battering rams... Arrows fly and bounce off of the Academy's shield uselessly, but the soldiers don't seem to be deterred and continue to waste their ammunition despite the obvious futility of it.
"Hmm, let's see them get past this then." Osmond mutters to himself as he draws a horizontal line with his staff and quietly begins chanting. Suddenly, in front of the army, a huge, long trail of blue fire erupts from the ground, stopping their march completely, unless they wished to try and bear the heat.
A few sorry souls were inadvertently pushed into the flames by their fellows behind them who'd continued marching without seeing the flames, but the generals quickly got control of them and shouted for their Water Mages to extinguish the fire.
Osmond's flames were far more difficult to get rid of than the enemy expected, especially with his own interference. Another tap of his staff reignites the extinguished areas of his spell, causing them to explode outwards and cover everyone nearby with sticky napalm-like flames.
Obviously, the first people affected by this were the 'ever-so-hardworking' Water Mages, who screams in agony as their bodies burst into fire. Many soldiers are also affected and begin running around at random, causing their friends and colleagues to quickly start backing up in order to evade the same fate.
The enemy Generals frantically try to get the army back under control as the soldiers flee from the flames, but even as they succeed, all their progress had been lost, delaying the siege by hours at least, as they'd need to rebuild their battering rams after the previous ones were burned to ashes.
Indeed, stopping the army from routing was the hardest thing of all, as most of the soldiers didn't even want to be there in the first place... Only around a quarter of them was actually loyal to King Gramont.
Osmond stops fueling the fires with his magic and rests his weight on his staff as he watches the army back away and ready themselves for another assault. "Has all gone well?" he asks Colbert as the man comes back from dealing with the flanking dragon knights.
Colbert nods as he looks over the wall at the many charred corpses below, "The same as this side I suppose. They will be coming from all sides this time." he remarks, observing the army cutting down trees and creating make-shift ladders instead of risking it all on attacking the gate.
Osmond hums, "I do wonder when they'll realise that taking the Academy will hurt them more than us? They will still need this entire army even if they succeed in taking hostages."
Colbert shrugs, "I doubt they are thinking so far, Headmaster."
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After an hour and a half, the army was ready again, though this time the enemy Generals had the sense to split up their forces and have them flank different sides of the Academy to avoid the two powerful obstacles known as Old Osmond and Professor Colbert.
Around a thousand men in each group will attack one side of the Academy, North, East, South, and West will all be under assault. And while King Gramont refuses to send any more dragon knights to die uselessly against such powerful enemies, sending commoners to die was a tried and tested tactic of many wars. While it didn't always succeed, there wasn't really much of a loss if it failed either.
And with that, the second phase of the invasion begins, this time with much, much less reluctant soldiers taking part. Many were actually cursing the fact they couldn't use proper siege equipment due to their goal of taking hostages... You couldn't blackmail families if their children were red stains attached to the remnants of catapult projectiles...
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Niggross
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