The Drant forest—as Mike chose to still call the part of the now far-reaching, proliferating forest where he made his last stand with Chromo—lay just outside the South Moe pass after the crossing of the Aldom Banks and was a very defensible position, militarily speaking. Mike was not an expert in such matters, but given the fact that the place had only one safe entrance, the South Moe pass (relatively speaking, that is, as even the pass itself was filled with horrors that could end a creature's life in seconds), with the other entrances into the place being literal zones of death. That left the only other entrances to the place to be the very steep sloped mountains that were filled with their own assortment of very deadly creatures, making it unthinkable and even impossible to use as a means of passage to all but the most desperate armies in dire need of even a pyrrhic victory to cling unto….
…that, or an army with an inexhaustible supply of very loyal and very coordinated soldiers without the fear of death.
The armies of Helen of Tyros had set up a defense-oriented battle formation around the South Moe pass in an attempt to hold on to the bitter end, but their opponent, the Manifestation of Fear, had proven to be more sentient than they accounted for, not just taking the South Moe pass but also scaling the steep mountains that formed it. This forced the army of Tyros to change their strategy, making their stand on the banks of the Aldom River over against the South Moe Pass from both of the ends where the river appeared and disappeared into rock formations. There were four lines to their formation, though:
The first line stood before the Aldom River and was comprised of non-elt beasts that radiated power at various levels and showed varying degrees of sentience; these were their aspect and pet beasts, which formed the first line of defense.
Across the first line was the second line of defense, on this side of the river. It was comprised of people who seemed to not be alien to conflicts of this nature. Some of them, who were armed with melee weapons, stood at the front, while those who were able to attack from a distance stood behind, some armed with ranged weapons and others armed with potent, long-range abilities, but unarmed weapon-wise, stood at the back.
The last line of defense served as support for the whole army and consisted of women, children, and those who did not have a martial-related ability and had not seen conflict in its fullness before. These ones were to make arrows for the rangers, retrieve the wounded from the front lines, and make sure they were well treated, or at least treated enough to return to the lines. Helen herself took to the air in a bid to take care of any aerial threat that may be beyond the capabilities of her people. Between the first line of defense and the second line stood a lady who would resume command of that line if Helen became too busy dealing with enemies to do so. That same lady had laid down glyphs before the first, second, and third lines.
Just as all the lines were barely formed, their enemies crashed into them; enemies came crashing down into them.
They wore well-fitting plate armor with almost no gaps; except for their lack of helmets that exposed their skeletal heads, they looked like an average Elt in armor. They held up a reflecting flag, which seemed to be their battle standard flag, as they ran forward. The aspect and pet beasts held the line, not moving while the soldiers of the Manifestation of Fear came running and crashed into them.
Then all things fell into chaos.
The humanoid pet beasts and aspect beasts who were at the forefront returned the favor, swiftly bringing to death those manifested troops that had made the mistake of coming running towards them. The next set of manifested troops learned from the mistake of their predecessors, engaging the first defense line of the troops of Helen with so much care that it betrayed their intelligence level. In doing so, they locked the humanoids in a fierce duel with them. Some of the pet beasts, aspect beasts, and manifested troops were so powerful that they could fight up to six opponents on their own, while others were so weak that they were crushed and sent to the arms of death at the first strike from their opponents, only to be replaced on both sides by more of their number or a more capable one. Overall though, the pet beasts and aspect beasts turned out to have a bit of an advantage in power against the Manifested troops.
That could have guaranteed their victory if not for the fact that what they were fighting was an endless horde. For every one manifested troop that fell, two took their place, and those seemed to be of a higher level than the previous ones. Furthermore, the Manifested troops grew their power with every enemy they killed or any of their kind or the enemy they ate. Worse still was the fact that the energies of the aspect beasts were dwindling, visibly affecting their output, while the manifested troops seemed to be running on inexhaustible energy. Since pet beasts, unlike aspect beasts, ran on the energies of their owners, who were in the third line, they did not face the same problem. Overall though, given that the armies of Tyros were on the defensive, the advantage of the Manifested troops began to stack.
But the bipedal pet and aspect beasts of Tyros were not alone. Arrows, hail, lances, and spears made of ice, fire, and a wide array of other materials rained on the troops of the Manifestation of Fear with deadly precision, wiping them out from existence and easing the burden placed on the first line of defense as the non-elf-like aspect and pet beasts in the first line began their attacks, sabotaging the Manifested troops and killing them if possible. One that left an impression on Mike disappeared very deep into the ground and began to manipulate the ground, sinking Manifested troops into the ground when they least expected it, destabilizing their stances when they battled other pet and aspect beasts, and even creating tentacles out of soil to drag in Manifested troops that seemed to have a means to resist its power. A few ranged attackers in the second line who scored a hit on the Manifested troops gained levels despite being in the upper limits of the first ten to twenty levels, while most who were responsible for most of the deaths of the Manifested troops failed to score even one level.
One of the most decisive advantages of the first line was that they had a mix of both ranged, semi-ranged, and melee-based abilities, while the abilities of the Manifestation of Fear were more melee-oriented.
Naturally, Mike was able to observe this information about their levels, the growth in power of the contenders, and all with the abilities of the Mirror of Many Reflections. In fact, the mirror of many reflections was more involved in the battle on Mike's orders than was initially apparent, given an opportunity presented by the Manifested troops.
The first line of defense held on for a very long time, even longer than Mike estimated they would. When an aspect beast or a pet beast was near the embrace of final destruction, it would be summoned back to the last line of defense, where the healers there would work on it, bringing it back to full health before redeploying it back to the front lines.
Of course there were some that were not retrieved on time; those ones disappeared upon death, much to the surprise of their wielders….
'Hmmm! So that is how it works!'
As the battle raged on, Mike was busy analyzing and reanalyzing the information he got from his feed of the battle on how personal abilities worked and how they could be efficiently deployed in battle, the best way to coordinate armies in warfare involving the mystical powers prevalent in this reality, as well as what not to do in a battle of such a kind. He learned from the progress, setbacks, strengths, weaknesses, coordination, efficiency, and adaptability of both sides of the conflict. Many of the theories he knew about war from his previous world, which, from the briefings he had with successful war commanders in his previous world, raised the chances of an army's victory, proved totally useless here, and some may even cause the fatal defeat of an entire army. Some of the core fundamentals of warfare still held true even here.
He consumed the information he processed from the feed with such hunger that it betrayed his need for it, since he knew that, in the long run, it would definitely prove useful.
The stalemate continued to drag on as the two armies maintained their positions by continually exploiting their advantages. The Manifested troops continued to pour down on the ranks of the pet beasts and aspect beasts, who valiantly held their positions with the support of the ranged attackers from the second line, with their inexhaustible numbers and energy. When any aspect beast or pet beast ran out of energy, they were immediately dematerialized from the front line and rematerialized at the third line of defense, where they were nursed back to full health before being sent to the front line again. Sometimes though, they could not be pulled out on time. When that happened, the Manifested soldier who defeated them evolved power-wise, putting more pressure on the already strained frontline of the Tyros army's defense, as the bodies of the defeated pet beasts or aspect beasts disappeared from the battlefield. In response, the ranged attackers refocused their attacks on those newly evolved Manifested soldiers until they were bombarded to their deaths. Using the breathing room brought about by the superior ones of their kind, the Manifested troops gained more ground against the front line, only to lose that advantage when the ranged attacks, freed upon the deaths of their former targets, were refocused on them, thus bringing the stalemate circle to its very beginning.
Among the third line were dispatchers who made sure to deliver arrows, spears, and javelins made by others of their number from the wooden materials around them (something that Mike permitted only after draining his [Influence] abilities from them) to the second line. These were the lifeline of the whole defense effort of the Tyros army, at least during this first phase. In fact, from Mike's observation, he could say that the third line of defense was the backbone of the first phase of battle.
The battle became almost so monotonous and repetitive, almost to the point where all the seasoned veterans of war on the Tyros side knew that a change to the pattern of the battle was imminent. Whether the change would come from their side in the form of their empress bringing down the fullness of her firepower to the battlefield or their enemies deploying a new, lethal strategy was what was unknown to them.
Just when the members of the second line of defense were getting uncomfortable with the ensuing stalemate, the tides of the battle shifted negatively for them….