One month later:
POV ???:
A massive crystal chandelier brightly glowed, illuminating a chamber under it.
The chamber was large with rising lines upon lines of richly decorated chairs, each with a different emblem engraved in its dark polished wood surface.
They were forming a massive tribune. The more forward the chair was, the more decorated and opulent it was. All the chairs faced a large silver throne on a podium before the tribune.
The throne was unoccupied, and only a single old man in a robe woven of a silver thread stood by its side. He was old, but there was no sign of tiredness, nor a weakness in his posture and his eyes looked like crystals of ice.
Richly dressed people filled every chair except for a few absent ones. Their shouting resounded through the chamber, accompanied by fists banging against desks.
"I am telling you, this is an open declaration of war against our kingdom!"
"Nonsense. Before creating a diplomatic incident, we need to investigate the actions of general Draifush and why the forces under his command were present in that region."
"All of you, stop spitting such nonsense. We don't even know what this Vesuvian kingdom is. Why have we never heard of it? Is it even a real country? These are the questions that we need to ask at first!"
Suddenly the temperature dropped, and everyone's breath turned chilly as the man by the silver throne spoke, "Silence, you are all nobles of Alvamora kingdom, so behave like that! The king might be absent, but that doesn't mean you can behave like a bunch of mongrels!"
The silence fell upon the whole chamber. It was so silent that one could even hear a pin fall on the ground.
"You are all forgetting one thing. From the messages sent by the destroyed force, it is obviously a country of monsters and inhumans. From the very beginning, there was no place for any negotiation."
The old man kept speaking, his words becoming more hateful with each of his words, the freezing cold intensifying.
"Every time that monster tribes band together and form their barbaric society, they will not be content for long before they start raiding our territory, raping our women and eating our children."
Murmurs of approval came from multiple corners of the chamber as the old man kept speaking.
"We have no choice but to strike them before they grow and become bigger threats. We will attack them and destroy them."
Suddenly, a blond-haired man in the foremost line stood up, his aura of fire pushing back against the cold and ice of the speaker. "Excuse me, your grace, but even as an archduke, you have no right to declare war in the absence of the king."
"You may have recently inherited a duchy, but you are too young and unproven. You don't know the cruelty and brutality of monsters. And this is not a declaration of war. We are just cleansing our borders. We will prepare for the wa... cleansing and send our army across the mountains."
One year later:
POV Tanya:
A crystal brightly glowed in the centre of the dark, round room. The light formed images in the air that kept moving and changing.
Bright blue lights flashed in the sky, followed by large blue bolts of pure energy descending from clouds like meteors towards the canyon underneath, falling so fast that they left a trail in the air.
The two blue orbs hit the ground with two powerful shockwaves sweeping through the whole canyon, everything in their path vanishing.
The sounds of boots followed after it, columns upon columns of soldiers marching through the devasted landscape of ash. Their spears and halberds glinted in the rays of sun baking in their back.
The image vanished, dissipating into specks of light.
The people in black robes and masks sat on the chairs put in a ring facing the crystal.
Tanya stood up, her face hidden behind her shiny mask, "I won't be lying to you. The war is going badly. Our infantry is stronger and has better morale. We have terrain advantages, and our supply lines are much better in harsh terrain." she sighed and continued, "But it is all in vain, as our enemies have an advantage in magic and heavy weaponry. We had no time to train enough battle mages trained in legion warfare to counter them. We can only slowly fight a partisan war using the terrain."
She sat back in her chair, and an uncomfortable silence filled the room.
It went for seconds until finally, someone spoke, with a voice muffled by their mask, "How long till they reach the city?"
"Months, possibly a year if we are lucky."
One year later:
POV Alesia:
Even taller than before, the young elf stood on the roof of a tall tower of a citadel in the centre of the large sprawling city that was still mostly empty. The wind played with her long blonde hair as she kept looking into the distance, her soft face wrenched in a frown.
Tents like mushrooms littered the plain outside the city. Countless pillars of smoke rose from the campfires, and two large skyships levitated in the air above the camp, throwing their looming shadows over the landscape.
Hastily made barriers made by earth magic were spread outside the city, forming walls and trenches.
A cold voice came from a large kobold that dwarfed her standing by her side, "We are ready for a long siege. We have an advantage in mana supply, and our food stockpiles are full."
Suddenly a wave of magic passed through their bodies, and both looked towards the sky.
Bright blue lights flashed on the bottoms of the ships, and two massive bolts of energy launched towards the city walls, brightly glowing like falling stars.
A tremendous amount of mana moved through the whole city, its pulse passing through everyone's bodies, causing a slight tingle on their skins and scales. The circuits embedded within the walls and the roads flashed, overflowing with mana as a large energy dome rose around the city.
The two bolts smashed against it, deafening bangs and blinding light spreading through the streets. The barrier vanished right after it, the residual mana after the bolts quickly dissipating.
'We can't keep the barrier active for a long period. The circuits would burn down. We can only use it to block heavy weaponry.'
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