After half an hour of the stalemate, with the mages and Hill Giants exchanging ranged attacks, it was becoming clear that this battle was not going to end any time soon, and all that the Hill Giants needed was one section with mages who were less capable at ranged attacks to make a breach.
“Professor, should we go cause a bit of chaos on the flank? It will get them moving before our mages get exhausted.” Karl suggested.
“I seem to recall that you have done that here once before. How did that work out for you?” The Professor asked.
“Well enough. The target ran away before we made it to him, but we managed to clear out the majority of the Commander Rank threats on this flank, and it effectively ended the battle for the day.” Karl replied with a shrug.
“I will run it by the battle leaders and see what they think. If your team really can break the stalemate, or even get them motivated to move, it should be worth it.” The warrior class professor agreed.
It only took a few seconds before the answer came back to them.
[Ten person volunteer strike forces are approved to charge the lines in ten minutes. Last rites should be prepared before departure.]
Karl looked at the teacher in shock. “It sounds like they’re not as optimistic about this mission as I am.”
Karl paused a second before raising his voice. “But with that in mind, I will need nine volunteers to go with me. Teams don’t matter, but Command says the odds are you’re not coming back.”
It only took a second before Karl’s whole team was standing beside him, followed by Morgana, Colonel Wilkes and Tank.
But then the influx stopped.
Everyone heard the radio message. This was likely to be the end of the line for the volunteers who went to break the balance and stop the Hill Giants from exhausting their mages before launching an assault.
Karl was about to say something when two more men came jogging into the camp.
“Good, we made it on time. We didn’t think that Karl would wait the whole ten minutes before leaving with a team.”
Doug Mackenzie’s smile was contagious, though Bob’s look was grim as he ran beside his brother.
“Well, that makes ten. Time to go, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s show the Hill Giants how it’s done.” Karl announced.
The slower moving team members loaded themselves on Thor, Rae and the Spider Golems, while the others moved to the front of the line.
The section commander called after them. “But it hasn’t been ten minutes!”
Doug gave him a thumbs up. “Clearly. Tell the others to wait an extra two, just to throw off the Hill Giants. Nobody expects a twelve-minute timer.”
The teacher didn’t know what to say as the group charged at the Hill Giants, he just motioned for the mages to keep a barrier over them for as long as they could, to save the group a bit of energy on the way in.
“Are we really going to lose a high Cleric and so many Commanders just like that?” One of the students asked.
Though the others weren’t as well known, Tank was a beloved figure at the school, despite his insistence that he was only a part-time teacher.
Mick gave his classmates a sad smile. “Don’t underestimate them. They’re all batshit crazy, but every person in that group is a monster in combat. Just watch what happens when they get close, it’s going to be an enlightening experience for us all.”
The other students looked at him like he was crazy. The last thing they wanted was to watch what happened when that group reached the Hill Giants’ defensive fortification.
As they ran, Karl moved to the front and took out his Maul. Thor would be right behind him, so as long as the Maul shattered the stone, they were good to go.
When he was two steps from the wall, the Spider Golems vanished, leaving their riders in the dirt, while Lotus and Dana hopped down from Thor’s back.
Karl’s hammer smashed into the wall, and the stone exploded as the effects of [Shatter] sent a shockwave through the construct, breaking a five-metre section of the barrier into small pieces.
Then the resummoned Spider Golems were flying over his head at the Hill Giants, while Karl aimed at the knees, intending to cripple the nearest targets to establish a beachhead.
But the majority of the Giants in the area were Ascended, and the Golems were tearing them apart even before Thor and Tessa made it through the wall with a shockwave of [Earthquake] that split around Karl and knocked a dozen Giants from their feet.
Ophelia and Bob went right, with Morgana and Remi behind them.
A massive [Thunderstorm] was forming over the area, punctuated by streaks of lightning and fireballs as Hawk attacked, surrounded in his often neglected [Wind Barrier] to keep his feathers dry.
Remi was placing totems on the wall to attack the Giants from above, and spitting [Chain Lightning] into the crowd as she slithered along beside the Witch Doctor, who was surrounded in a dark cloud of magic that sent beams into the Hill Giants which seemed to corrupt and rot their flesh.
Dana advanced away from the wall with Thor, flanked by her Golems and aiming for the faces with her [Magic Missiles] to distract them, while the War Cleric and the Lightning Cerro stabbed and crushed.
A stacked [Flaming Body] attack sent a Commander Rank Hill Giant flying as Karl moved to the left, blocking the reinforcements while his team dealt with the right side of the line.
He switched to his bow as he advanced, shooting point-blank into the Hill Giants and impaling them with flame coated arrows that made their bodies ripple as if they had been hit with the Maul and not a small arrowhead.
[Shatter] didn’t care how large the physical impact was, only that it happened, and the effect on Ascended Rank Giants was devastating.
Karl heard the whistle behind him that said they had cleared the last few Giants at this end of the line, and he began to push faster, using the erratic movements of Rae and the Spider Golems to his advantage, taking out Giants who turned away from him to defend themselves.
The Fire Elementals raced past him, engulfing their targets and burning them to ash in seconds, even with the Earth Shields that the Hill Giants tried to establish.
They were a surprisingly brutal attack force, and nearly impossible to defend against, as they had no real physical form.
Ophelia and Tank were raging alongside Thor, who didn’t seem to attract their ire the way that human teammates often did in battle, but Bob had come over to join Karl as they began the sweep.
Dana retreated from the insanity that was two Berserkers and a rampaging Thor, bringing her Golems to flank Bob and protect the clerics from attacks.
But Lotus and Doug weren’t slacking either.
Spiked vines shot up from the ground, tripping and entangling the Giants, as Karl shot them full of arrows and Bob hacked them apart.
The strike force was moving at a walking pace through the Hill Giants for now, but more of the defenders were turning their way, realizing that the first group hadn’t stopped the attack.
That was the primary goal of the Academy’s attack, to cause the Hill Giants to stop their attack and change tactics.
But so far, the team was only attracting attention from those near them behind the wall, and none of the Giants was charging at the rest of the defenders where the students could more easily hack them apart.
There were thirty kilometres of line in total under the purview of the Academy if you included the artillery section. There was no way that Karl’s team alone could shake up that much distance, but in a few more minutes, the other teams would charge as well, and the that might be enough to get the Giants moving.
But in the immediate area, they had more than done their job. There was a huge breach in the wall, the end of the Hill Giant defence was obliterated, and the Elites were rapidly making their way across the line.
At this rate, they might actually make it to the next team’s location before they even attacked.
But Karl knew that was wishful thinking, there was no way that this force would be made up so heavily of Ascended Rank Giants.
Not when they routinely reached Commander by the time they were in their prime.
