The Runic Alchemist

'Are you really so eager to die that you have to test my patience with each of your sentences?'

'Does it even matter? You guys will doom us all anyway with this wall that any third-ranker can break through with one attack.'

'That was your genius idea...'

'I wanted you to do it with your abundance of spells, not them.'

'That is the only way. Who knows? This is exactly what they planned, making me their target.'

'Ahh... That makes sense. You think there are spies among your supposed close council?'

'There are spies everywhere, boy.'

She was really dooming them all in fear of betrayal. What a f*cknuts of a situation. She was leaving all these men's fates to such a flimsy plan while just sitting on the sidelines doing nothing. If Ashenvale came waltzing in, 60% of these people would die a horrible death, trying to defend.

The second-rankers could fight and maybe survive, or Ashenvale might take them captive and ask for ransom if they were important enough, so even if they lost, they still had hope. The first-rankers and the mundanes...? They would be just waiting here, ready to be slaughtered in a monstrous third-ranker's battle. And Him..?

They would capture him like a little research project for their mages as buy one get one gift with the pretty elf.

'You can do it,' Damian reiterate his thoughts. 'Without spending any mana... Use mana threads to control 20-30 first-rankers at once and use up all their mana, guiding their spells. You will be safe then.'

'Mana threads? 20-30? What backwards cave did you learn your spells in? Mastery over five threads with consistency is already breaking one's limit. No one can sense so much ma... No, you with your weird ability that can sense mana with such accuracy...

You can do this.'

'Why do I have to work for you even though I am your prisoner? Maybe Ashenvale will treat me better.'

'Hah! I would like to see that conversation take place with Threadripper.

'How good are the runic defense mechanisms?'

'Not good enough to buy us a month.'

'Come on, you are the commander here. You have to do something.'

'Why do you care? I thought you hated all of us.'

'Not enough to see thousands getting slaughtered...'

'...'

Getting no response, Damian blocked the link again and continued listening to the mage's plan. Even though a simple dirt wall was nothing to a third-ranker, perhaps they could use the wall strategically to build a trap or create one target to grab their attention so the fight would be focused on preventing the Ashenvale people from reaching near the blockage at all.

Then again, they did not know the extent of their waygate relic, so everything was just a big old if.

Lord Tristan and Lord Ashford made plans with the old mage to have the first-rankers work in continuously rotating shifts so they could build the wall night and day, spreading all the way into the Wraith's Passage. In a few hours, they even started implementing it with the first batch prepared.

Damian had to give it to them; these people were pretty efficient and well-trained to implement such a large-scale project in hours.

Standing outside the tent, looking into the vast passage, Damian finally understood why it was called the Wraith's Passage. The fast, cold winds blowing from the gap, getting blocked from two sides, made a howling noise so nasty it sounded like someone was grunting their last breath, at the end of their life.

What in the hell could have cut the two mountains with such an equal rectangle path, even creating such a long one that covered the whole mountain range stretching far into Ashenvale's side? It was man-made, though—no natural mountains looked like these, that Damian was sure of.

The oldest records in history only mentioned the elves' rule over the land; no one knew what had happened here before that.

Damian heard footsteps behind him, but even before that, he knew someone was coming towards him from the spellsword groups standing a bit farther from the tent that was still learning and understanding how they were going to follow their shifts and other stuff. The one coming was a familiar face, though, which was why Damian did not turn around.

She stood beside him, also looking at the passage, hearing its demonic screeches in peace.

It was Makayla.

"Why are you even here?" she asked—a question most of the nobles and knights were very curious to know but too afraid to ask.

"I am her good luck charm..." Damian replied and heard her chuckle.

"A giant wall, huh? Who the hell thought up this crap?"

Damian chose better not to answer. He was well aware of how crap his random ideas were, he needed no feedbacks.

"Valoris spoke very highly of you... Even after seeing your... well, thing."

"He is good. One of the very few nobles I would rarely trust," Damian replied.

"Lord Aramis is not like his brother. Things will be different now in Pyron, if we return safely that is."

"My advice? Find an escape path before fighting, once they breach the blockage. And when they break into the camp, turn around and run like hell back to Pyron..." Damian offered his two cents.

"Wow, you have no faith in us, do you? Well, not that I blame you. Ashenvale thinks they have more numbers so they can do as they please, but we have people who know what a true battlefield is. We may not have the most efficient plan or great numbers, but no one knows better how to defend against unwanted invaders than us."

Damian hoped for her sake and for his that she was right. Indeed, Eldoris knew battle and had many veterans. Ashenvale, no matter how prepared, had yet to wet their blades properly. Killing in a duel and killing while surrounded by enemies are two very separate things. The chaos alone could scare a man and make him hopeless for his chances to make it back alive.

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