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“What do you see, Jenis?”

The coast drew nearer. Jeongjae stood on the deck gazing toward the shore with a bewildered chuckle. Jenis couldn’t hide her incredulity on her face either.

“I see a mountain.”

“That’s wrong, it’s a mountain fortress.”

“It’s the same thing from our perspective, really.”

“True. You were right, and I was wrong.”

There was a reason why the two Grand Mages were babbling nonsensically. Both Jenis and Jeongjae were resolutely preparing for this battle. However, even their maximum expected defenses were just a ‘very sturdy mountain fortress.’ Therefore, their fundamental strategy revolved around unleashing a barrage of magical artillery to land their soldiers on the empty shore.

Yet, it seemed that the Demon King’s Army had prepared a huge earthen hill right behind them, surpassing their imaginations. The length of the earthen ramp stretched several kilometers north and south, and its endpoint was indeterminable. It appeared as if the enemies had been preparing for an invasion here for several years.

The bigger problem was the fortress resting atop that hill. As soon as Jeongjae saw it, he immediately thought of the Great Wall. This was no slapdash fortification. It was a meticulously constructed defense line, made with the deliberate intention of holding this ground against all odds.

Jeongjae and Jenis simultaneously sighed deeply and turned the ship to slowly aim the cannons at the fortress. After all, the most effective weapon in their current situation was this ‘Dragon Killer’ siege cannon. Although it didn’t seem powerful enough to topple that fortress, sending soldiers in without any prior preparation would likely lead to a repeat of their encounter with the orcs in the Harriet Territory.

“Was coming via Febria Bay a mistake?”

“I’m not sure. I can’t even gauge how far that fortress stretches. Such information was beyond what my staff could detect. I didn’t think I’d be saying this so soon… I miss our friend Kraken.”

“I completely agree with you on that.”

“Prepare the cannons!”

Jenis shouted as she drew her sword. Following Jenis’s orders, the soldiers on the first deck efficiently loaded shells into the cannon.

“Fire!”

With an earth-shattering boom, four projectiles soared toward the fortress. Given the 600mm diameter of the shells, their destructive power could not be underestimated. Moreover, the shells brought by Jenis were magically enhanced, close to magical projectiles.

If they had been unenchanted iron balls, they wouldn’t have inflicted significant damage on infantry shields, but properly enchanted shells could penetrate enemy defensive magic and deal devastating damage. However, the shells that flew in a parabolic arc barely managed to reach the fortress beyond the coastline before bouncing off the wall with a light thud and rolling away.

Jenis wiped the cold sweat from her forehead and shook her head.

“Wrong. It didn’t work.”

“It seems like eight cannons are far too few. Ideally, we should have brought hundreds for a ship of this kind.”

“Excuse me, Professor, but this was designed to carry ten cannons originally, and two had to be removed due to design issues. Do you think I wanted to come here with such a shortage of weapons?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I just meant that the firepower appears insufficient.”

At Jenis’s complaints, Jeongjae shrugged. At that moment, a sudden counterattack came from the fortress. Giant catapults set up behind the fortress began hurling flaming boulders toward Jenis’s fleet.

Looking up at the meteor-like rocks coming at them, Jenis hurriedly instructed the follow-up fleet.

“Retreat! Retreat! Pull the ships back and fall back, now!”

One of the boulders hit the armored deck of HMS Victory precisely and fell into the sea. Thanks to its strong armor, the ironclad only suffered minor rocking and remained safe, but one ship wasn’t fast enough to evade the enemy’s attack and was struck by a rock, slowly beginning to sink. Jenis and Jeongjae exchanged glances as soldiers jumped off the sinking ship.

“There’s no way out of this, Jenis.”

“Let’s attack.”

“Damn it, a lot of people will die.”

“We didn’t bring ten thousand people all the way to the far north with the expectation that everyone would come back alive. We must acknowledge the truth.”

It was a painful truth that could only be expressed between Jeongjae and Jenis in their personal conversation. Jeongjae acknowledged that what Jenis said was indeed heartbreaking. This was a battlefield. No matter how brilliant a general, it was impossible to save every soldier who had made it this far. Jenis looked back at the ship carrying Koesernis and pointed to the coast. Koesernis understood Jenis’s signal.

“All troops! Prepare to disembark! We will land in the sea and storm that fortress! Let’s show them that our Southern Allied Army is not here just for sightseeing!”

Jenis adjusted the ship’s angle by 90 degrees to allow the other ships to pass. Koesernis’s fleet advanced ahead of Jenis’s flagship toward the bay. Another barrage of catapults rained down, but this time Jeongjae formed a massive magic barrier with all his strength, successfully blocking the burning boulders before they could hit the ships.

“Jenis, once the soldiers complete their disembarkation, turn this ship back to firing mode and retrieve your staff.”

“What do you mean all of a sudden?”

“The cannon itself is still operational. I plan to use coordinate magic with it. So, cast defense magic on the soldiers to protect them.”

For a moment, Jenis blinked, unable to comprehend Jeongjae’s words. But the next moment, upon seeing the faintly visible catapults beyond the fortress, she clapped her hands and nodded.

“Sniping the cannon? That should be effective!”

“Exactly, let’s get ready. We may not be able to save everyone, but it’s our duty to save as many as we can!”

In the meantime, Koesernis’s Southern Army hurriedly docked their ships at the coast to disembark soldiers, with hundreds disembarking at once and thousands swarming ashore like an army of ants.

The first to touch land, Baron, drew his cavalry sword and shouted.

“Don’t mind formations! Our backs are protected by the mightiest of beings in the world. Our only focus is reaching that fortress faster than anyone else! All draw your weapons and charge!”

The Southern Army was not uniform in their armament. Although they were reformed into a regular army, they were essentially a collection of private soldiers serving various lords. Pikemen, axe-wielding infantry, swordsmen, and archers with bows and arrows all began to charge forward, each in a disparate manner without forming ranks. Jenis, following Jeongjae’s orders, turned the ship sideways before heading down to retrieve her staff.

Jeongjae gazed with a tense expression at the Southern Army, numbering in the thousands, all charging toward the fortress.

Seeing that the Dragon Killer cannon was ineffective, Koesernis opted to attempt taking the fortress directly without any siege engines or strategies. Jeongjae believed it to be a simple yet sensible approach. As the Baron said, as long as Jenis and Jeongjae covered them, there was no safer shield.

Moreover, the closer the soldiers got, the less the fort’s catapults could hit them. Eventually, orcs began to reveal themselves over the walls from the fortress and started firing arrows directly. Many arrows ricocheted off the Southern Army’s sturdy armor, but a significant number found their marks in the gaps of that armor, taking down Empire soldiers.

“Not just any rabble. These are the orc regulars.”

After witnessing the orcs’ accurate marksmanship, Jeongjae voiced his thoughts. Although humans were similar, orcs were notorious for having a vast disparity in combat power between their elite and conscripted forces.

The units that the Demon King’s Army could mobilize for offensive operations were mostly elite forces directly under the Demon King’s command. In contrast, the orcs that had been pulled together in the tens or hundreds of thousands for this defensive war were mostly irregular troops fighting to protect their home.

Irregular troops could be terrifying, but the enemies guarding this fortress were evidently regular troops. After Jenis retrieved the Great Sage’s staff from the storage, she climbed up to the deck and shouted.

“I’ve got the staff! I’ll take care of the barrier magic, so you do what you were planning!”

“Uh, I’m counting on you for now!”

As if passing the baton, Jeongjae went below deck while Jenis went atop. Jeongjae headed straight to the first deck, where he grabbed one of the Dragon Killer cannons facing the shore and asked a soldier for permission.

“Mind if I borrow this cannon for a bit?”

“Uh, yes? Of course. Use it as long as you’d like, even for a lifetime.”

The soldier, stunned by the sudden appearance of the Grand Mage, stepped back awkwardly. Jeongjae opened the cannon’s breach, pushed in a massive iron ball, and peered through the cannon port while softly whispering a spell.

“I know best where my desired target is located. Show me where I should fire!”

At that moment, several blue magic circles appeared beyond the fortress, brightly illuminating the catapults. Confirming that the coordinate magic was correctly applied, Jeongjae clenched his fist in triumph.

“Let’s fire one shot for starters.”

With a resounding bang, the cannon fired. The shell Jeongjae launched traced an exquisitely calculated parabolic arc, completely shattering one of the catapults. At this point, the soldiers began to catch on, promptly bringing another shell to load into his cannon as soon as he fired.

Jeongjae redirected the cannon to aim for another catapult.

Bang, two. Crack, three. Thwack, and then four. Within moments, Jeongjae had destroyed four catapults, wearing a satisfied grin.

“With this, even if we retreat, we can at least feel a bit safer on the ship.”

Of course, Jeongjae had no intention of resting here. He pulled out coordinate magic once more to assist the rushing soldiers, aiming forward.

“The enemy’s arrows are fierce. But where are the fiercest among them?”

At that moment, blue coordinate magic circles expanded above the orc soldiers who had been firing arrows at the allied troops from the fortress wall.

Having just witnessed the catapults being obliterated, the orcs intuitively grasped what the glow signified. Although Jeongjae hadn’t fired this time, he could nonetheless enjoy the effect as if he had.

The orcs hiding from the fear of cannonballs coming their way retreated behind the fortress, drastically reducing their attack momentum against the allied army.

On the deck, Jenis noticed Jeongjae’s intent and chuckled softly, murmuring.

“That’s rather clever, Professor.”

A moment later, Jeongjae withdrew the coordinate magic he had cast above the archers and began to search for his next target beyond the cannon port. At that moment, Jenis, who was protecting the soldiers with defense magic, saw the anticipated disaster approaching.

“Oh, it’s here! It’s here! The Gargoyle Queen has arrived!”

The greatest martial artist of the Demon King’s Army. The Gargoyle Queen, often referred to as a rival of Rose Caprice, finally revealed herself over Febria Bay, having crossed the fortress.

As soon as the Gargoyle Queen appeared on the battlefield, she demonstrated her prowess by smashing the heads of three Southern Army soldiers who had approached almost right in front of the fortress. With her shimmering diamond-like radiance, she crushed the helmets of allied soldiers as if they were mere paper, causing even the soldiers bravely advancing at the forefront to flee in terror.

Of course, turning one’s back to a demon general was one of the most foolish things one could do.

Seeing the Gargoyle Queen appear, Koesernis started to stealthily fall back, preparing to issue commands for reorganization of the formation. His hope was to capture the fortress and turn it into a defensive base before the Demon King’s troops could arrive. However, the Demon King’s Army was not merciful enough to allow the Southern Army such a convenient response.

Jeongjae aimed at the Gargoyle Queen with coordinate magic and fired a shot from the Dragon Killer, but the Gargoyle Queen simply sneered at the incoming cannon fire and showcased her skill by catching the massive projectile with her hands, flipping it back.

The cannon fire deflected by the Gargoyle Queen killed three Southern Army soldiers in one go. Jeongjae regretted hastily firing before thinking and dashed up to the deck.

“Jenis, I’m going to disembark. You hold the fort up here.”

“No, Professor. I should be the one to confront her…”

“Jenis, I melted half of her face not long ago. She’ll be more afraid of me than of you.”

At Jeongjae’s words, even Jenis conceded. The Great Sage nodded and pointed toward Febria Bay with the end of her staff.

“Then let’s hurry. Before that beast turns this battle upside down!”

 

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