The command tent buzzed with a frantic energy as John stormed in, his eyes locking on choi before giving out strict orders on what he wanted them to do.
"We need earth mages to begin sinking its feet, ice mages to try and freeze it, we need to do all we can to try and slow it down." he demanded to Choi, his voice carrying the weight of command with a slight tremor of urgency. "You're the head necromancer, right?"
He asked upon seeing the cloaked figure whose bone facemask made him an unsettling enigma who gave a slow, deliberate nod. John continued, his gaze unwavering. "Get as many of your own who are proficient with necrotic magic together as possible to begin targeting that thing around its waist and legs." he barked before turning back to his strategist, already giving orders well managing the entire battlefield with his aids. "Have the dark mages spare what members they can to begin firing at its chest with whatever destructive spells they have. Have the alchemists do the same, deploying every corrosive and acid-like potion they possess. Order Angel and Aria to send in two of our titans and two gun beasts along with a slime to see if they can help slow it at the very least. Have the slime try and eat its way into that thing, the closer to its head the better. We need to disrupt its control center and that's where its getting its orders and commands from." His words, a rapid-fire volley of tactical commands, the urgency painting a terrifying picture of the enemy attacking them.
Choi, his face a mask of concentrated effort as he relayed the myriad commands, finally caught a glimpse of the monstrous entity through a flap in the tent. Its sheer scale and grotesque form made him falter for a moment. "My lord," he interjected, his voice tight with a mixture of horror and disbelief, "what is that thing? It's like some unholy nightmare cast out from the great beasts of my homeland, a perversion of life itself."
John, running a hand through his hair, let out a weary sigh. "From what I've managed to read when I appraised it, it's a living weapon gifted by a few disparate gods working together to give the enemy a bigger advantage, one forged through mass sacrifice. It has a few barely conscious controllers spread throughout its body with the main ones in its head. I'd compare it to a horrid, organic and hell-like version of Voltron or a Megazord, but I doubt you'd understand those terms. So just consider it a monster of flesh that's been woven together through extreme agony, with barely conscious people controlling it through different parts being used like a macabre puppet with living strings." A shiver ran down John's spine as he explained, a cold dread that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. "Also, have someone get me a gun please. Preferably something strong and the longer the range the better. I'm going to see what I can do to hit some of its weak points myself; I can't just let everyone act and do nothing against something like this." With that he turned away, his grim resolve fixed as he walked to the tent flap, his gaze fixed on the nightmarish creature as it ever so slowly made its way forward across the battlefield, smiling ever so slightly as he heard Choi relay the final urgent requests and continue planning and relaying orders with his aids as he slowly walked out the tent.
Outside the command tent the ground trembled with the monster's every slow step as it forced itself further through the shield and across the ground. Its colossal form now slightly clearer showed it even had a horrifying amalgamation of chitin, bone-like protrusions mixed in with its pulsating and festering flesh. It truly was a testament to the gods' depravity to even allow such a thing to exist let alone create it. As he commanded the defending forces had begun to surge forward. The earth mages with faces strained with effort, began to weave intricate sigils into the ground before with a collective roar, the very earth beneath the creature's forward foot liquefied, turning into a treacherous quicksand well thick roots and vines fired up trying to entangle the foot. The monstrosity, caught off guard stumbled, its massive foot sinking deep into the earth as the roots and vines tried to creep higher and hold onto it, attempting to take advantage of its lack of balance. It roared in response, a sound that tore through the air and vibrated in the very bones of those nearby, destroying several outer defenses as it struggled to maintain its footing, instead bracing itself with its two enormous, barbed stingers that jutted from its back.
As it fell forward the ice mages began to conjure blizzards, attempting to freeze its massive limbs, a desperate effort that caused frost to spiderweb across its putrid hide, in response to the icy attacks it seemed to warm its body, near visible heat radiating from its body that quickly melted the frost and ice it into steam. A few of the magically animated stone golem both created by magus and magicians along with a few of his own acted with surprise grace despite their bulk, attempting to to climb the horrid monstrosity, some of there hands and feet cracking against its tough exterior as they attempted to create footholds. Some melted into slug rapidly, the putrid puss that oozed from various orifices swallowing them whole, others let out a horrible wail in their final moments as their stone forms melted slightly slower than the others. The more fortunate and more resilient ones seemed to manage to dig into its body to escape such a fate thanks to the necromancers and mages weakening its flesh enough for them to tear into it, their stony forms now carving tunnels into the hulking form even as some met a melting demise, all sharing a determination to disrupt it from the inside, following the commands given to them.
Far to his side John watched a group of the dark mages preform there magic, their faces illuminated by crackling spells as thick shadows seemed to develop around them as they unleashed torrents of black magic, aiming for the monsters chest as directed well corrosive acid potions flung by the alchemists hissed and bubbled on impact, there aim and ability to throw such a distance proving to him that well they where human they had far better strength than the ones he knew, each of the potions seemed to leave small pock marks at first before slowly spread into small but more visible marks similar to the black mages magic. The massive Titan's lumbered forward, their roars joining the cacophony of noise as they picked up speed, falling into a rapid charge with all they had while the gun beasts, mounted with powerful arcane artillery, began to pepper its knees with blasts of raw energy from all their weapons.
The creature, enraged by the combined assault finally retaliated. It spat out more of its putrid puss from its maw, a corrosive, vile stream that melted several warriors along with a large group of dragon orks who had gotten too close, their screams echoing as their flesh dissolved. The less fortunate ones were left writhing on the ground, half-melted and their agony a chilling testament to the monster's destructive power. It soon leaned forward, using its arms to hold itself as it crawled forward, its stingers moving with a surprising speed as they pulled themselves from the ground before firing streams of deep green acid that hissed and ate through everything it touched, even causing the ground to smoke with barren scars in its wake.
This was when a ranger came over and handed him what seemed like a long-barreled sniper rifle made of metal and stone with various markings layering its form before swiftly retreating back to there post, his gaze was pulled from his new weapon by the sound of the goblin shield tower activating. It's numerous guns firing volleys of stone and sand shards towards the monstrosity as it got a close enough range, having dragged itself closer without him truly realizing it. he couldn't help but laugh happily though at the damage they caused, when compared to its massive size the projectiles where tiny but the sheer, relentless number began to slowly cut deeper and deeper into its form similar to a high-pressure stream of water slicing through stone.
Taking a moment to feel the weight of the sniper and to align his breathing he brought it to his shoulder, the cold feeling it seemed to give of brought him an odd sense of ease as he used his chains to anchor himself and steady the new weapon. His eyes narrowed in intense focus as he sought out the weak point he'd observed earlier, a bone-like crown atop its head. 'There it is,' he thought, 'That's where the main puppeteer pulls the strings and it gets all its signals and control from.' Shot after shot soon rang out, Slowly it began to grow more precise and measured, less rapid and more accurate as each bullet, empowered by a subtle arcane enhancement slowly chipped away at the resilient crown, each one becoming more accurate than the last as they hit the same spot over and over creating a nearly unseen crack that spread out further with each impact. Finally, with a resounding crack, a chunk of the crown shattered to reveal a grotesque sight to all. It looked like a person without a face and only a mouth partially melted and fused into a nest of veins, It let out an almost animalistic scream of terror and pain as a majority of those pulsing veins began lashing out against the air around it like ribbons in a breeze.
The monstrosity soon began to convulse and spit even more of putrid puss in every direction, seemingly more panicked and desperate than before, its stingers lashing out and firing a stronger acid that ate deeper groves into the ground, destroying more buildings and defenses. All the while, the defensive shield surrounding their base began to shimmer more violently behind it, more flames now blooming across its surface as unseen outside forces seemed to increase long-range attacks, no doubt hoping to wear it down or shatter it.
"Damn it, we need to stop that thing before it does more damage!" John muttered to himself, his finger tightening on the trigger. A final, precise shot ripped through the air, finding its mark in the exposed head of the human figure. The monster shuddered violently as a guttural groan ripping from its core.
It was at this critical moment that the slime, having insidiously burrowed itself higher and higher through the monster, having forced itself in through one of the holes dug by a golem seemed to begin its final, desperate act as it worked its way higher, using its own corrosive slime to melt and burn its way up and counter the yellow puss. The monstrosity started to convulse with increasing ferocity as the slime entered its chest. The titans, their hides badly burnt and scarred from the corrosive puss continued to cling to the creature, there claws tearing at its flesh with wild abandon well ever so slightly seeming to manage in pushing it back slightly. The gun beasts increasing their own relentless assault, blasting at its knees to try to keep it from trying to stand. The acidic potions and black magic combined with the necrotic energies of the necromancers continued to eat through its chest, creating vast, festering wounds that ran like channels down its massive form and even windows in its body from which they could see the slime wrap itself around the core buried in the creature.
Then, faintly at first, a pale, glow became visible through the monster's sickly skin and through the various potion and spell holes. The slime, having made its way through the corrosive organic labyrinth, was now rapidly expanding, melting its way toward the creature's core. It began to swell further, growing larger and larger as it fully digested and dissolved the creature's core into itself, its many eye cores cycling through a range of colors until, with a deafening and sickening burst, the monstrosity exploded in a shower of putrid puss, gore, mangled flesh and limbs, some catching those who where unfortunately to close.
Where the colossal beast once stood, a new, much smaller, yet no less terrifying entity now existed. The slime, having absorbed the essence of its host, had undergone a chilling metamorphosis by acting as a parasite that took all it could form a host. It was now a tenth of the size the original creature once was, but it pulsed with a malevolent intelligence. A ring of white, bone-like skulls sat on top of its now sickly yellow body like a gruesome crown. Its former spine-like tentacles had transformed into the same type of razor-sharp scorpion stingers the creature once possessed each dripping with a slightly lighter shade of the putrid yellow puss, a sickening trophy of its conquest. The silence that followed the explosion was almost as terrifying as the roar of the monster had been as all its eye cores slowly swirled around, upon noticing its crown it seemed to send a few to settle into it before letting out a strange, happy gurgling noise.
With a sigh that carried the weight the current battle, things for the most part seemed to have returned to a relative calm but the air felt thick and heavy with the smell of ozone and fear well his body felt heavy, something he figured was probably due to an adrenaline rush wearing off. Upon entering the tent his gaze drifted to Choi, his face seemed to be etched with the same level of exhaustion and worry "How many dead and injured? And how are the mages doing on mana reserves?" John demanded, his voice hoarse, betraying the immense toll this battle had taken on him.
Choi's face was grim; his eyes clouded with a profound sadness. "From that creature of horror, we have lost forty people, my lord, and forty-two injured beyond current recovery capabilities, with less than half expected to pull through. Of those, twenty-nine were melee fighters, twelve ranged, and the remaining forty-one were mages and healers who were unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time or tried to help where they could, exposing themselves to the monster's corrosive attacks well rescuing and helping as many others as possible before meeting their end. From other attackers we have twenty-two dead, fifteen injured and eight of them being beyond recovery taking our total losses to sixty-two dead, fifty beyond recovery and both numbers are expected to rise, the deaths more so due to those who will no doubt pass due to injury."
"Fuck!" John cursed, slamming his fist on a nearby table, the sound echoing through the suddenly silent tent. The loss felt personal, a heavy burden on his soul. "And damage to the base?"
"Surprisingly minimal, my lord," Choi replied, a flicker of relief crossing his features. "While we did lose a lot of buildings and defenses along with a clear open path we will convert into a kill box most of the damage wase primarily on the outer edge within the shields, it was designed to be a kind of outer barrier to slow large attackers and fitted with traps and explosives to harm them upon breaching the shield. We also had the important buildings sunk underground including various facilities upon hearing the new time limit we were under, quickly leaving shells and traps in their place. Our core area is secure, at least for now and our important buildings such as the armories and labs are all secured and still protected."
John nodded slowly, the grim statistics still weighing heavily on his mind, but he knew he couldn't focus on that, not with the next threat on the horizon, now when the war hadn't even gotten into full gear yet and he already suffered losses and damage to his side. He turned to the cloaked figure. "Necromancer leader, no, what's your name? I don't want to just call you that the whole time, especially after what you and your mages helped us do out there and the bigger task, I have for you and them."
The necromancer, his voice a low, gravelly whisper from behind the bone mask, replied, "Samuel, my lord. That is the name this one goes by."
"A good name, Samuel," John affirmed, a rare half-smile touching his lips, quickly replaced by a somber expression. "I originally called you over to ask about that undead wave approaching but then that thing came. I wanted to know if you and your other necromancers could turn them and impose your own control over them. Or would I need to take my own steps to try and counter them?" He was already picturing various scenarios, plans forming and running through his mind with lightning speed regardless of his tiredness.
Samuel seemed to pause and think about his question. "We can attempt to turn them, my lord, but it would depend entirely on the strength and magical prowess of the one who created them and amassed such a wave of undead. Admittedly, and good for us at the very least they seem to have taken the poor way of handling and creating them, from what I can gather by looking at them they made a small, initial group and had them spread out and turn anything in there path creating that wave through necromantic infection and no real control, just giving them a direction to head in and letting them lose to turn and swarm all in there path. If they left them to just march on there on and I believe that to indeed be the case, it won't be too hard to counter, though it will probably be messy my lord. If, however, the creator has a firm and direct hold over them and is blended in along with them, or if many powerful necromancers are working together to control that horde, we won't be able to do much in regards to turning them and instead our efforts would be largely futile and at most we will manage to cause some destruction to their number but nothing t truly effective." He spoke with a detached, clinical air, the chilling reality of his profession evident.
"See if you can turn them even if it means things get messy, use enemy bodies if you need to but don't sacrifice any of our own, do whatever it is you need to do." John ordered, his mind already formulating a fallback strategy should they fail to turn the wave. "If that doesn't work, do you know any type of spells or the sort to blow up corpses? We can't let them overrun us or get to close; we will need to do something."
Samuel seemed to think it over for a long moment, then slowly nodded, a grim sense of relief washed over John when he nodded. "Then that's the plan. If you can't turn them, have a few ranged fighters ready to kill a few of the leading undead and then your boys and girls will blow those bodies to thin them out, tossing enemy bodies or even our own turned undead into the mix if we can't detonate those we kill, then its just rinse and repeat till there numbers become far more manageable for our own forces to finish off. "John stated before turning back to Choi, his gaze hardening once more, the relentless demands of command pulling him forward without pause. "Choi, have sixty of our available fighters gathered immediately. I want them split into three groups of twenty. Each group is to be a balanced unit of our best in each field: close-range fighters for the front, long-range support, two healers, one necromancer to maximize their effects, were going to send them to the smaller groups that want to attack us, there to thin out and strike those wanting to fish in muddied waters, there goal is to demoralize the enemy by turning their own against them and then using the undead that survive as fodder to attack the coming enemy army, also two spellcasters for offensive and defensive utility are to be added to the groups before then attacking the main enemy forces who stray a bit too far from the main group along with preforming small, focused strikes wherever they can. They'll also serve as forward scouts, providing crucial intelligence on what we will be expected to deal with. The necromancers will also be used to create some chaos, using the turned undead as bombs to help sow more chaos and fear." Choi, already nodding as he heard John's idea began relaying these new orders, making sure to state they needed to be proficient in each field.
"And finally," John added, his voice dropping slightly, "get the five people who are the best with stealth. I want them to head out deep behind the various enemy lines, I want them to not only try and find where the enemy artillery and magic strikes are coming from but to also try and eliminate them, even just to breaking their chain of command would be extremely effective. If elimination isn't possible then they are to only observe and report what they can, take detailed notes of the positions, force compositions and any other critical factors they can before returning to base if the radio crystals don't work. No taking unnecessary risks though. I don't want to lose any more good people needlessly."