310 Chapter 256: The Large Town Subjugation from a different Perspective Part 2

Bryan was awestruck as he watched the fighting going on around him. During many of his tag along journeys with other groups that tried take on small towns he had seen a lot of things. He had seen a group move in quick in small numbers while avoiding grabbing any attention before going directly for the haze boss. It was a weak small scale town, but they were efficient and able to clear the town without losing a single person. He had seen a group go in with large numbers and lose dozens of members before eventually having to give up do to the fact things weren't going their way. He had even seen a group literally bombard the entire town with so many spells and explosions that there wasn't a single building left by the time they had cleared the town.

Even after seeing so many different types of expeditions this was the first time he had seen one that was so well organized against such horrible odds. Small towns just didn't have the number of zombies and haze creatures to deal with as this large one had. That allowed other groups to use all sorts of tactics to get around that fact, but when there was a literal hoard of creatures ten times the size of the ones found in small towns it was impossible to do things the easy way.

There was more than one sub-boss in the town to deal with so it was impossible to go in as a small group and clear out the town easily. The town had way too many empowered zombies in it to try to go in with numbers without dealing with a large amount of casualties. Lastly the town was far too big to try to burn it all down to the ground before the boss and sub-boss level haze creatures gathered together to destroy the invading group.

That's why it took such a well-trained group to try to take on the larger town, and the alliance seemed to be perfect for the job. They had the high level explorers that can go in as a small group and take out all of the sub-boss and boss level haze creatures on their own, while also having a large support group that could deal with the massive hoards. From the occasional loud roars of pain Bryan was certain that the main group was doing well taking down the sub-boss class monster even though he wasn't there to see what was going on. What he did witness was how well the support group was handling the onslaught of the haze filled hoard that was trying to overwhelm them.

From the very start of the battle the support group had kept things well paced as they held off the hoard. The tanks up front held a firm line the entire time while allowing the ranged mages and archers to rain death from above onto the hoard. The closed ranged fighters on the other hand were busy killing any zombies or haze creatures that managed to get around the barricade of shield walls that the tanks had set up. The formation held true for a long time and Bryan was able to figure out why fairly quickly.

Outside of the fact that all of the members of the support group were extremely skilled and used to working together from prior expeditions there was one thing that stood out to Bryan as he filmed the well-orchestrated chaos take place. He noticed that the equipment that the members of the alliance were using was of higher grade to what he was used to seeing. The tanks all had armor that was extremely sturdy with the ability to fix itself when damaged. This shocked him when he saw one tank take a heavy blow from a strength empowered zombie right to the shoulder. The attack had fractured his armor, but within seconds it had fixed itself.

Bryan also noticed that the knights all had shields that seemed to allow them to create earthen walls to help slow down the hoard even more. Whenever their shield walls ran out of energy Bryan would see a wall made of earth take its place for a short amount of time. Then when he watched how all of the mages were able to relentlessly keep casting spells over and over he noticed that they seemed to have a lot more leeway in their mana usage than most mages. Everywhere Bryan looked on the battlefield he could see that the gear that the members of the alliance had was helping them in so many ways.

Even with all of the well thought out plans the support group was still taking on far more than he thought possible. Eventually the number of haze creatures and zombies would overwhelm them. After an hour of constant battle it started to become harder and harder for them to be able to hold off the hoard. The haze itself was making things even more difficult as Bryan caught scenes on film of the haze forming new haze creatures nearby to replace the ones that had been killed. This had made the haze thinner and made it easier for Bryan to film what was going on, but eventually it made it hard for the tanks to hold the line.

If it weren't for the large amount of healers in the center of the formation keeping the tanks alive even with all the damage they were taking they would have been overrun already. They were lucky that it was no longer the first phase otherwise getting bitten or scratched up by the zombies and haze creatures could end up infecting them. Now the healers had spells to take care of the infections before they could spread. Even so the more damage the tanks took the harder it became for the front line to hold. The worst possible situation would have been for the front line to collapse giving free reign for the hoard to pour over the rest of the group.

That was when Bryan heard someone out front shout for the rest of the group to move on to the next part of the plan. Bryan knew that this meant they were going to start giving ground to the hoard in order to lead it into a trap that was waiting. They didn't want to give the hoard a chance to overrun them, so moving now was the only chance they were going to have to keep things under control. The issue was the fact that doing so was basically the start of a timer on how long they could hold off the creatures. After their two major traps were used up they would be slowly forced back and out of the haze. When that happened then the main group would be on their own.

Bryan wasn't sure how long the support group was going to be able to hold on, but he was certain that he was going to watch every moment of it. So far he had already got some of the best film that he had ever taken in his career. Now that he knew the group was about to move on to their first trap he made sure he would get it all recorded to the best of his abilities. He turned his attention to the water tower that the group was backing past. The amount of water it could hold would be enough to flood out the surroundings all the way up to the gas station.

When the support group had backed up far enough one of the tanks out front shouted for all the other tanks to once again put up their shield walls to hold off the approaching hoard. As they were backing away they primarily relied on spells and grenades to hold off the hoard, but if they wanted the trap to work they needed to keep the approaching hoard in a certain spot. Once the tanks had set up and were prepared for the upcoming events all the mages stopped bombarding the hoard of creatures approaching them. All except for about seven or so mages that were preparing more powerful spells to use in a moment. All of the mages were ones that seemed to focus on using lightning based spells.

When the hoard started having an easier time rushing forward towards the group do to the letup in spells, they rushed right into the area that the support group wanted. When everything was lined up one of the archers took a shot towards the water tower. The arrow was empowered and tore straight through one of the wooden pillars that was trying to hold the water tower up. Without the support to keep the heavy tower in the proper position it started to collapse in on itself and tilt in the direction of the hoard below. Water was already starting to seep out of it, but the moment a grenade exploded underneath the tower its last bit of support gave out sending it crashing towards the hoard.

The large tower slammed right down into the middle of the hoard killing several of the creatures from the impact alone, but then it was followed up by the surge of water that poured out and flooded the immediate surroundings. The wave of water surged forward and was only stopped by the barricade of shield walls that were already set up. Bryan made sure to record every moment of what was happening without missing a beat. His partner was busy getting a good view of everything that was happening from a bird's eye perspective with their drones.

When the water started to settle down a bit a large portion of the hoard was disoriented from all of the water spreading everywhere. The mages took advantage of this as the ones that had been preparing to fire off a spell let loose. Seven streaks of lightning shot through the air and crashed into the water electrocuting all of the zombies and haze creatures in the area. The ones that were too close to the area died instantly from the electricity frying their bodies while those far enough away were stunned and held back.

The rest of mages and archers took this as a chance to bombard the slowed down creatures from a distance. For a while the trap was able to hold off the hoard and give the group a breather from the rampaging creatures, but eventually the hoard grew strong once more from the haze repopulating it. Bryan noticed that the haze in the area had gotten so thin that it was barely noticeable, but the hoard seemed revitalized as they crashed against the tanks once more. The trap managed to give them about a half hour reprieve from the onslaught, but they were forced to move on to the next trap if they didn't want to start losing members from being overrun.

The group once more backed up until they passed the gas station. They made sure to pass by the area in a way that the hoard would be forced to try to run over it to get to them. Many of the members of the support group left all sorts of traps around the gas station to slow the hoard down in the area so they would take the full brunt of the upcoming trap. When the support group was far enough away the mages let loose. Several fireballs were launched directly towards the gas station which was in the middle of the swarm of creatures at this point.

The moment the first fireball landed the whole place went up in brilliant flames. The explosion was so loud that Bryan was certain that it would attract even more creatures over to the area. Even with the large explosion the mages didn't stop their assault causing more chaos in the hoard. The close ranged fighters helped the tanks clear out any of the zombies or haze creatures that were too close to the front line to be fully affected by the explosion. The trap was able to hold off the hoard for a while longer giving the support group the position to hold on for a while longer, but they all knew that wouldn't last for too long.

Soon enough the support group would be pushed out of the haze by the size of the hoard and they hoped that the main group would be finished by that point. Bryan just smiled as he recorded everything he could. All that he could think of was getting back and showing the world what he had seen.