But it was completely pointless. It was literally like an anthill trying to fight an armored elephant. The tiny ants could take a thousand little bites. But their mandibles were never going to pierce the thick and leathery hide.
So before Vekar even actually realized it, the frontline of the enemy army had already reached the absolute base of the stone wall.
He opened his mouth to order his heavy infantry to open the gates and charge right out into the slaughter.
But he saw something massive in the distance that made him immediately choke on his own words.
A massive and colossal stone boulder had suddenly appeared out of completely nowhere. It was just sitting right on the ground almost a full kilometer away. Right behind the enemy lines.
But Vekar wasn’t stupid. He knew for a fact that a massive rock that size didn’t just naturally spawn right out of nowhere. There had to be a mage nearby somewhere.
And looking right at the massive scale of the rock, he just knew it. There was literally no way his men could hold this stone wall today.
Because the only reason he had been able to successfully defend this territory until now was because of his archers. They usually managed to heavily thin the enemy ranks before the foot soldiers even reached the wall.
But this time, his archers were completely useless against the magic armor. They were trying their absolute best right now. But their kill count was currently sitting at exactly zero.
And the Avarice Kingdom didn’t wait long to launch their real attack.
The heavily armored foot soldiers just stood completely still right at the base of the wall for ten straight minutes. And they just patiently waited while the archers rained totally useless arrows right down on their heads.
But during those ten agonizing minutes, the massive boulder slowly moved forward. It rolled right across the grassy ground and slowly closed a massive nine hundred meter gap.
The terrified archers on the wall desperately tried to shoot the rock. They really hoped to somehow disrupt the magic. But the steel arrows just bounced off or broke into pieces the exact moment they hit the stone.
And once the massive boulder finally reached the hundred meter mark, it completely stopped rolling.
It slowly began to levitate up into the air.
And that was exactly when Vekar finally saw what was actively moving it.
It wasn’t just one high tier mage magically holding the boulder. Because there were exactly fifty different mages standing in a tight formation right behind the floating rock.
Every single one of them was gripping a thick and totally bizarre looking wooden staff. None of the staffs looked exactly the same. But they all shared one specific feature. Because a massive, glowing sphere was mounted directly onto the top of every single staff. And every single sphere was glowing with a heavy and pulsating brown light.
The massive boulder floated high up into the air.
And then it shot straight forward.
It slammed right into the stone wall and the massive impact was devastating. Thick and jagged cracks instantly ripped right across the stone wall.
But the enemy mages didn’t stop at all.
They pushed the boulder forward again and forcefully rammed it right through the cracked wall. So the thick stone completely gave way and collapsed inward. It instantly buried hundreds of screaming soldiers right under tons of heavy rubble.
And that was more than enough for Vekar to make up his mind.
He didn’t even hesitate for a single second. He immediately spun right around to face the surviving soldiers standing near him on the wall.
"Retreat!" Vekar screamed at the top of his lungs. "Run away from this territory! Abandon the wall right now! Find shelter and relay this message to the rest of the empire! Tell them the Crestwall borders have been breached!"
But he didn’t even wait to see if they actually listened to him.
Vekar immediately jumped right off the high wall.
He hit the ground really hard. But he tucked his shoulder and rolled to break the heavy impact before he scrambled right back to his feet. He grabbed the reins of a waiting horse and launched himself right into the saddle.
Then he aggressively spurred the animal forward and rode frantically toward the massive mansion sitting right in the center of the town.
He didn’t even bother knocking on the front door. He just violently kicked the heavy wooden doors wide open and rushed right inside.
But he completely froze when he saw Vaneira.
She was just sitting there on her expensive living room couch and looking completely comfortable. And she was casually sipping from a massive glass of dark red wine.
He could tell that she was completely drunk.
This had become her daily routine for the past few months. Ever since Padrig had been brutally killed by Adrian, she had completely lost her grip on reality. She had been drinking from morning till night while completely abandoning all of her duties as a Lord.
She even abandoned the politics that she actually loved. She stopped hosting or joining the fancy social parties she used to pride herself on. Vaneira basically just withdrew from the real world and lived inside her own head now.
So Vekar rushed right up to her velvet couch while panting heavily.
"Lady Vaneira!" Vekar reported frantically. "The wall has been completely breached! And there is no way we can win against an army like that."
He took a sharp breath of air.
"The best option for us right now is to immediately retreat and seek reinforcements from the neighboring territories." Vekar told her. "We need you to go straight to the capital and request the Emperor for help!"
He aggressively grabbed the edge of her wooden table.
"This is not a local border dispute anymore!" Vekar pleaded loudly. "This is an empire level threat! We cannot deal with this alone!"
But Vaneira just giggled. She took a slow and sloppy sip of her wine.
"Hey, Vekar." Vaneira slurred as she looked right up at him with a hazy smile. "Why don’t you just become my man instead? You are a B rank knight. And I am pretty sure you would be a really great husband to me. We... can have a lot of fun, darling~"
And Vekar just stared at her.
He looked down at the empty wine bottles scattered across the expensive rugs. Then he looked right back at her blurry and drunk eyes.
In the end, he just let out a very soft and totally tired sigh.
He didn’t bother to argue with her. And he didn’t even yell.
He just reached right down and scooped the drunk Marchioness straight up over his armored shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And he ran right back out of the mansion.
He dumped her right onto the front of his leather saddle. Then he jumped up behind her and spurred the horse into a sprint totally away from the territory that would soon fall into enemies hands.
He had officially given up the land to the invading enemy.
But by calling the retreat early, a massive amount of his soldiers’ lives had actually been spared.