Chapter 516: Chapter 500 – Overconfidence

“Inflexibility is a fatal sin for those in command. Only those who could adapt would survive the rigors of war.” - Liang Shi-Zu, famed strategist from the Huan Confederation.

“A little more! Push harder, in the name of Vitalis! Eradicate these foul undead and their masters in the name of the Goddess!” yelled Connor Slovak, Crown Prince of Vitalica, as he exhorted his crusaders to fight harder against the reeling necromancers from Antemeia. The fighting was mostly happening near the second wall of the city, as the defenders of Gor-Seinnon had been pushed hard by the invaders.

 

As the Crown Prince and next in line to the throne, it wasn’t the norm for him to personally lead the crusade like this, but he had always been militaristic since young, and raised as he was with tales of how their people used to be oppressed by the necromancers, he bore a strong hatred against them. As such, when he refused to be dissuaded from leading the crusade in person, his father could only give in.

 

Besides, Vitalica had planned for decades just so they could eliminate the thorn on their side, and they happened to strike right when the enemy was weak and complacent too. The blessed oils proved extremely effective against the corpses that the necromancers used as their puppets, and more than evened out the numerical discrepancy between the two sides.

 

Gor-Seinnon only had two layers of walls, and Connor’s crusaders had broken through the first wall after two days of siege battle. Now they had pushed their enemies out of the outer city – though to their disappointment the city itself was empty save for the necromancer and their zombies – and towards the second and final wall.

 

Once they had taken it over, then all that the cursed necromancers would have left would be the citadel in the center of the city, where their filthy so-called council meet. Connor was looking forward to entering the inner city, where he swore he would put every single one of the blasphemers, old or young, male or female, to the sword once he got his hands on them. The fighting that day was proceeding well in their favor, at least until a messenger rushed to him with a panicked look on his face.

 

“Your Highness! Enemy forces from the south! Skeletons! In the tens of thousands!” reported the messenger even while he struggled to catch his breath. 

 

“Preposterous!” yelled Connor impatiently when he heard of the messenger’s report. “We still have men at the camp and a stock of the blessed oil, no!? Have them resist as best they can. We will take over this city by dusk today, so they only need to hold on for a bit. Surely I do not ask too much of devout men and women loyal to the teachings of Vitalis?”

 

“As you command, Your Highness!” replied the messenger. Connor allowed the man to rest a bit and instead sent a fresh one to relay his words to the people at the camp, before sending the man off once he had recovered. His triumph was almost at hand, and he wouldn’t be denied it even if more infidels came to stop him.

 

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Yet not even two hours after he received the report, he received a second report from the troops at the backlines that there were enemies entering Gor-Seinnon through all four gates, in massive quantities, and that some of them were already clashing with his crusaders as they were speaking.

 

From his position atop one of the taller towers of the outer city’s north-eastern side, Connor took a look around the battlefield with his spyglass. He could directly see three of the city’s four gates from his location, with only the western gate covered from sight by the second wall. He saw how skeletons poured in – led by infantrymen clad in heavy armor – from all the gates in his sight.

 

Even worse, from the northern gate – where his crusaders were closest to successfully breaching the second wall – came thousands of cavalrymen mounted on steeds of bone, wearing armor as dark as the night itself with skeletal wings on their backs. They cut through his crusaders with ease, breaking through their formation along the main road while another horde of skeletal undead poured in behind them.

 

The situation at the eastern and southern gate were no better. The heavy infantry that led the enemy forces easily shattered the hastily made defensive formations that his men formed to counter the attack, while enemy archers had climbed atop the first wall and rained arrows down on his troops that were unengaged with the enemy.

 

On top of that a tidal wave of skeletons threatened to overwhelm his crusaders simply with sheer numbers. Connor saw the telltale flash of the blessed oil being used, but unlike with the zombies, they failed to exert much effect against the skeletons, each blow only defeating maybe a dozen of them, instead of the hundred or so they could expect normally.

 

To the south, he also saw four particularly large undead constructs that wreaked havoc amongst his troops, each of them grotesque and terrible in form, slaughtering their way mercilessly through his crusaders. He guessed that the few people who were present near or on those monsters were their masters, but he had no solution for the issue, as the constructs were far too fierce for anyone to threaten those people.

 

Then Connor saw something, or rather, someone on the east gate that he recognized from tales that his nannies told him when he was young. A tall woman with pale skin and silver hair, one that matched the description of the last princess of the nation from where the current Vitalicans took their name. A princess who had gone over to the accursed undead many centuries ago.

 

With a roar of anger and hatred, he called upon his personal guards to his side, rallied a troop from the nearby crusaders, and led a force towards the traitor princess personally.

 

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