Defending the jungle city 2

Bismark had his hands full. The brigade he was leading was facing over three times the numbers he had. What made the situation even worse was the fact that the enemies had ambushed them from behind. They had suddenly heard stones fooling upon the ground, and turned back to look what had caused the sound. There they had seen thousands of tribesmen rushing through a small, newly made tunnel.

The enemies had instantly rushed worth, easily penetrating through the ranks of the unprepared imperial soldiers.

The battle had become a completely disorganized melee; the tribesmen were simply using their superior numbers to pressure the imperial soldiers, who, amongst the chaotic battle, couldn't manage to reform their torn formation.

Bismark was weaving through the enemy ranks, and wherever he went, fountains of blood followed him. He was boosting his speed through his wind magic as well as accelerating his movements with his time magic. Against regular soldiers, he was like a grim reaper. Some of the weaker shamans attempted to stop him, but a similar fate fell upon them, their lifeless corpses quickly dropped to the ground.

While Bismark certainly halted the brunt of the enemy forces, was he alone not enough to turn around the disadvantageous situation.

Dozens of men fell every minute, the imperial forces being constantly pushed back. The only reason they hadn't been completely overrun was that the tunnels were too narrow for the enemies to gain complete advantage of their numbers. The tunnel was barely wide enough to allow ten men at best to stand side by side.

'Shit. Things can continue like this. Otherwise, it will be only a matter of time before we are wiped out.' Bismark thought, desperately trying to figure out a way to remedy the situation.

He could try to aim for the enemy leaders, but the tribesmen were not relying on any kind of coordination, simply just mindlessly attacking the enemies in front of them, so it would make little difference.

He could try to block the tribesmen from getting to the soldiers, buying them time to regroup, but he would be targeted by all of the enemy shamans if he did that. Even if he managed to pull it off, it would leave him completely exhausted, and no one within the Brigade would be strong enough to pin down the stronger shamans once they made their move.

As Bismark was slowly falling into despair, a single mage had made his way to the intersection. He was the messenger that Mago had sent. Seeing the situation, the messenger instantly dashed back to the tunnel he had come from. He had to report this to the Colonel.

It took the messenger slightly over ten minutes to return, and he hastily told Mago the current situation. He ordered the messenger to report the situation to Claude and Ragan, and ask them to come and assist as well. Since all of the enemies ten thousand men were attacking Bismark, they didn't have to worry about the other intersections anymore.

He also told another messenger to report to Commander Gauder that the missing ten thousand troops were indeed within the tunnels.

After shouting out his orders in rapid succession, he led his men towards Bismark's intersection, hoping they would make it in time to save most of the Brigade.

While Mago and his men were sprinting towards Bismark's location, Bismark was locked in a duel with an enemy shaman. One that was considerably stronger than himself.

The shaman was a member of the Spirit tribe, and he had a contract with a fire spirit. It was extremely deadly within the narrow tunnel where the imperial soldiers didn't have any room to avoid the massive balls of fire that he launched towards them. Each fireball had burned several soldiers, only leaving charred corpses behind, and before Bismark managed to get to the shaman, nearly a hundred men had died at his hands.

Bismark was barely managing to hold his own against the shaman that was at the Sage rank. With his time manipulation, he froze the balls of fire within the air while accelerating the strings of mana that were used to form the core of the spell, causing the fireballs to burn out before they made their way towards the imperial soldiers.

But this was extremely taxing to do, and if things continued like this, the Sage rank shaman who had more mana would win. A Sage rank mage had typically five times more mana than the Archmages. Especially since Bismark had just broken through and was still a fledgling in his new rank. The amount of mana he had was on the lower end of all of the Archmages out there.

The only way Bismark could win was to get close enough to the shaman to quickly activate his time-domain and slit the shaman's throat.

But every time Bismark tried to get closer to the shaman, a wall of fire appeared between them, barring him from advancing. The shaman clearly saw through Bismark's plan and had no intention of letting the young mage near him.

'Shit! This is all that bastard's fault for forcibly drafting us to the army! I could have been living a happy and lazy life in the capital if it wasn't for him!' Bismark cursed while extinguishing another fireball.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Just as Bismark finished cursing Mago in his mind, a commotion rang out from the rear of the tribal army.

Mago and his men had arrived. Weaving his way through the tribesmen with his two shortswords, Mago quickly penetrated into the midst of the tribal forces. Covered in a cyan hue, with each swing of his sword, heads flew high up in the air as bodies fell lifelessly to the ground.

Mago was extremely worried about the state of Bismark and his men. He didn't know how long they could hold on, so he decided to pressure the enemies as much as possible from the rear, forcing them to shift their attention towards him and the newly arrived reinforcements.

Soon, the tribesmen were pincered between Mago's and Bismark's forces. This caused the pressure on Bismark's side to lessen, and while he still had his hands full with the shaman, his men managed to take on a defensive formation, finally allowing the superior battle tactics of the Empire to show.

The battle raged on, and the tribal army was losing its momentum. Since they had only relied on their superior numbers, they were no match against the two imperial forces that were attacking them from both sides.

While they did now hold the advantage, the troops on Bismark's side were getting tired. While they had constantly rotated the troops at the front, the prolonged battle against an enemy that outnumbered them had taken its toll. Casualties started to increase on Bismark's side as time went on. Out of his 3000 strong Brigade, only 1 200 soldiers remained. They had truly received a devastating blow.

Bismark himself was running low on mana. Only a fourth of his mana remained and the enemy shaman was still going strong, constantly conjuring fireballs, one after another.

On Mago's side, things were going much better. His fresh and energetic troops were making quick work out of the enemy soldiers. Mago was close to reaching the center of the tribal forces, with the higher-ranked Warriors closely following behind him, spearheading the advance.

Just as Mago reached the center of the tribal army, a massive ball of fire flew towards him. Mago didn't have any time to dodge it. Not that he intended to. He simply circulated the mana within him at full force and took the giant fireball head-on. He could feel the burning heat envelop him but and felt a slight tingling on his skin. But other than that, he was completely fine. Except for one thing. His hair was completely charred.

'SHIT! MY HAIR! I FORGOT TO PROTECT MY BEAUTIFUL BLACK HAIR!' Mago panicked as the charred strands of his hair fell off his head, revealing a smooth and glistening scalp.

'I... I've become bald...' Mago thought while tearing up. He was too young to become bald. He was supposed to have a brilliant life ahead of him, with his head covered by luscious and smooth black hair.

While lamenting this tragic loss, Mago started to scan the surroundings, looking for the evil mastermind behind this vicious attack. He had realized that the attacker was someone who was most likely equally strong as the shaman he had previously battled during the siege, but Mago wasn't worried. This time he held the advantage. Warriors were extremely resilient towards magical attacks thanks to the tempering they did with mana in order to grow stronger and better withstand the powerful force coursing through their bodies. That, combined with the fact they could use the mana to protect themselves, made them hard targets for mages.

Looking around, Mago saw a flustered elderly tribesman staring at him with his eyes almost popping out of his head.

'Found you.' Mago smirked as he dashed forth.

He easily made his way through the tribal soldiers and arrived before the shaman in less than ten seconds.

Still shocked, the shaman hastily conjured a wall of fire, but Mago simply walked through it, completely unharmed.

Seeing the terrified look that the shaman gave him, Mago let out a wolfish grin. Yes, this is how it was supposed to be. This was the feeling he had when usually facing opponents. He was the predator, and the other party was the prey.

Not giving the shaman a chance to attempt anything else, Mago pierced the shaman's heart with one of his swords.

After killing the shaman that had previously kept Bismark pinned and rendered him close to helpless, the battle started to shift completely to the imperial force's favor.

After an hour, the last of the tribesmen were killed, but no one was cheering or feeling happy. They had suffered heavy losses.

Bismark had only 800 men remaining, while Mago had slightly above 2000. Within the two Brigades of the Division, they barely had enough men for one fully manned one.

'Hang on. I sent word for Claude and Ragan ages ago. Why didn't they arrive here?' Mago suddenly remembered as his uneasiness started to grow. Even if they walked at a slow pace, they should have arrived ages ago. On that note, the messenger never came back either.

"Something is definitely wrong here.", Mago uttered.