Zectas Volume IV: The Salubrious City of Centzo (29 page)

Smoke smiled after he read the window. He unequipped his twin lightning rods and looked around their camp.
The Avendre Mercenaries were still busy unloading the emergency rations that they brought for the starving people of Centzo into Laernea's and Gandiva's carriages.
Smoke walked over to inspect the rations. He saw that they were packed to the brim with wheat bread and preserved meat, but he knew that it was far from enough to feed all of the hungry residents. 
He walked away from them to get some fresh air. It had been some time since he dwelt on this issue, but he still had not come up with a solution.
Looking around the crowded forest patch, he saw that everyone was busy with their preparations for battle. They were still waiting for Thyrsus and Vijaya's return on their reconnaissance mission.
Without finding a place to hear his thoughts, he equipped his Claws of Chiropterra and scaled one of the sycamore trees nearby. He found a strong branch to sit on, and watched the busy people below him.
Amidst the crowd, he easily spotted a red-haired beauty among them. Sharur was standing next to her, assisting her with the ingredients.
Smoke was blankly staring at her, completely mesmerized by her HighElf form. With her curly hair, she looked exactly like her real self except for the long pointed ears.
From the ingredients she had prepared, it looked like Sierra was busy cooking various Zectian dishes. He knew that it was an aspect of the game that eluded her for a while, and he understood why she loved serving everyone her meals.
He worriedly glanced over to their own food rations and thought that they would have a little left, but was surprised when he saw that it was practically untouched.
With his Telefax Vision, he zoomed in on the meals that she was serving. From the small bowls that Sierra was giving out, he thought that she was giving them seasoned blood pheasants or ancient bison steaks. Instead, he saw an ordinary looking soup. 
He quickly jumped down from the tree and went over to her. He was alarmed by the meal that she was serving them. He knew that their food supply was limited, but this was unacceptable. Soups were great for medicinal meals because it quickly spread throughout the body, but it barely made any impact on the satiety bars. She would have needed four times the serving she was giving out.
'How can she expect the men in top fighting form with an empty stomach?' he thought to himself and stormed towards her.
"Oh, just in time," said Sierra with a smile and offered him a the same small bowl.
After looking at her face, he calmed down a bit. He didn't want to upset her by saying that her cooking was wrong. He already heard about what her uncle did to her when she tried cooking Zectian dishes in the real world.
So, he decided to try the soup first and gauge how much it filled his satiety bar.
An explosion of flavors filled his mouth after the first sip of the soup. He quickly wolfed down the bowl in a matter of seconds. To his amazement the small bowl filled his satiety bar completely.
"What did you put in this thing?" asked Smoke as he tried to decipher the ingredients from the taste.
"Wouldn't you like to know," she happily replied but had no intention of revealing her recipe.
"Sharur, don't tell Smoke what we put in the soup," she said half threateningly and jokingly at the OrkElf beside her.
"Of course, Sierra, this soup will be our little secret," answered Sharur happily. "How about you name this, Mystery Soup Number One?"
"That's not a bad idea," said Sierra while nodding her head at him. "Let's go with that."
Smoke put down the bowl and grabbed her shoulders. "Seriously, you barely even touched our supplies. How did you do this?"
Sierra honestly answered him after she saw how serious he was. "I pureed the main ingredients for a while and added cornstarch. Then had Sharur chop the beef into thin slices."
She than slapped Sharur's chest. "The big guy here didn't even know about this technique, and he says that he's my teacher in cooking. Using this method, I think we could extend our food supply by ten times the normal serving. Why were you asking?"
"I think your cooking talent may have just saved an entire city," replied Smoke proudly.
Before he could say anything else, Thyrsus and Vijaya came bustling in, mounted on their aardwolves.
"We have to go now!" shouted Thyrsus. "Prosjak's estimate on the Brandals attack was wrong. The bandits have already made their move towards the city."

* * * * * * 

Accompanied by Ledur, Smoke took to the skies. The two of them flew towards Centzo as fast as the tailwinds carried them. As Smoke looked on the horizon, he found the familiar city with its golden luster. The city's capital sat on top of a low mountain.
He hoped that the plant life had regrown outside the city walls, but the Brandals' wanton trail of devastation remained true. From his vantage point, he could see nothing but barren land on the mountainside surrounding the capital.
   
"Ledur, look at that," said Smoke to the winged Tikbalang as he pointed to the three groups of Brandals simultaneously marching towards the city.
Their original target of thirty-thousand bandits were coming in from the north, while another thirty-thousand Brandals were coming in from the west, but only ten-thousand bandits accompanied by ten-thousand Zectian Cavalry Knights and two-thousand Sonstwelters were led by Macher towards the main gate on the southern side of the capital.
Each Brandal group brought along thirty catapults, while the one with Macher leading them had four more trebuchets. They hauled along several carts filled with big boulders, he surmised that those were for the siege devices.
Smoke wondered whether they were going to immediately launch an all out attack on the city, but as the three divisions got closer to Centzo, they all stopped when they reached two-hundred meters from the foot of the mountain.
With his Telefax Vision, he saw Incitant on top of the western gate, Smoke estimated that about five-thousand Sonstwelters were with him. Whereas, Espion joined the other Zectians on the main gate as they served under Prosjak's command.
Shortly after, a volley of arrows attacked the western and southern Brandal groups, but none of the bandits were hurt as not a single arrow reached them.
Prosjak and Incitant instantly ceased their ranged attacks and waited for the enemy to be within their sights.
"I have seen enough," said Smoke and motioned for Ledur to head back with him.
Some distance behind the Brandals on the north, Smoke could already see the dust cloud created by his forces heading for the city. He then focused on the Vigilantez running towards the capital, but they were still at least two kilometers away.
"Ledur, wait. On second thought, we better stall the bandits until our friends arrive," said Smoke and pointed to the mountainside outside the capital's small northern gate.
The two flying Vigilantez landed safely. However, they were spotted by the bandits below them. The Brandals proceeded to load all thirty of their catapults with flaming boulders.
Centzo's skyline was filled with an auburn glow as multiple flaming boulders simultaneously came at the capital from three directions.
Smoke and Ledur immediately put up tall earth pillars that took most of the damage from the boulders. Despite their efforts, four big cracks appeared on the city walls on the northern side of the capital.
Although, the wall itself was still intact, Smoke wasn't sure how many more flaming boulders it could take before it will finally break.
After seeing the damage that the catapults did to the city walls and their earth pillars, Smoke was concerned about the other two locations.
Yet, he had no time to worry about them. His army was the last line of defense on this side of the capital. All of Centzo's military force was already distributed to the western gate and main gate.
Smoke quickly created more pillars after the ones they made were destroyed, while Ledur began repairing and reinforcing the walls.
Suddenly, they heard a loud battle cry as two-thousand bandits started climbing up the mountainside. They were shortly followed by five-hundred mounted Brandals on black ctenosaurs.
Despite the numerous Brandals headed their way, there were still more of them left guarding the catapults.
While thinking of what to do against the incoming bandits, the Brandals on the foot of the mountain fired another round of flaming boulders at the capital.
Smoke focused his Earth Manipulation on six pillars and reinforced them with thicker earth. The other pillars easily crumbled against the flaming projectiles, but these ones did not. The flaming boulders stopped in mid-air and fell down to the ground. Due to the inclined mountainside, these three boulders then rolled downwards towards the charging enemies.
The climbing bandits were taken by surprise from the attack of their own weapon. Several Brandals were rolled over by the fiery boulders and received the 'Burned Status.'
Smoke smiled at his small victory, but it instantly vanished as he turned around and faced the wall. A small crack, big enough for a person to fit through, appeared.
Ledur hurriedly closed it up with his Earth Manipulation, but several more boulders were coming their way. At the same time, the Brandals climbing up towards the capital were closing in on the two of them.
Smoke caught three more boulders and sent them back down to the bandits, while Ledur created random blockades with his earth manipulation.
The two of them were quickly running out of time. After the fourth volley of flaming boulders came, the northern city walls finally gave way. A wide crack appeared on it, and it was big enough to allow ten black ctenosaurs to pass through side-by-side.
Ledur quickly began to cover it up with his Earth Manipulation, but another round of fiery boulders immediately came crashing down. This time, it destroyed the small northern gate, adjacent to the wall that the winged Tikbalang was fixing.
Smoke knew that many of the residents of Centzo will be slaughtered if the Brandals would get past the two of them.
Fortunately, he saw two stag moose blitzing their way through the bandits up the hill. They were joined by four durcules beetles. As Bilis' and Tulin's antlers had not yet regrown, the large flying insects took the lead and used their sharp black horns to stab the bandits out of the way.
As Laernea and Gandiva broke out of the Brandals' formation, the two Lioumereans scattered black and silver metallic rocks on the ground. Both of their stag moose slightly shuddered at the sight of the magnetic stones and quickly sped away from them.
Smoke grinned and took out two electro stones out of his backpack. He placed them in his left palm and pointed the Electromagnetic Golem Offering at them. He then used the ring's active ability called Golem Creation.
The electro stones flew out of his hands, flying straight in the direction of the black magnetic rocks. The moment it made contact with the ground, it started pulling in the metallic components near it.
A black and silver monster with 200,000 HP were instantly created amidst the charging Brandals. They were an exact copy of Horrabelle's two-meter tall golems.
He would have wanted to create more of them, but his current mana could only allow him to create two, since he was about to use Aral's Lightning Rods.
Smoke used its ultimate ability, Lightning Strike. A flash of blue light emitted out of his twin rods after he connected them together.
The Lightning Strike flew straight towards the Brandals' direction, but none of the bandits were hit as it only struck one of the metallic golems.  
After the moment of impact, Smoke then quickly used his newly acquired Lightning Manipulation ability. With his twin lightning rods still equipped, he forked the Lightning Strike into three branches. He redirected the two smaller branches of lightning towards the bandits nearby, while the largest one went straight to the other metallic golem.
Smoke was able to repeat the same process three more times until his Lightning Strike completely dissipated. It was a weaker version of Horrabelle's attack, but he killed over eighty bandits in that one attack. He then opened the metallic orb on his chest and let out his dark ember sprite, Igniz.
The small purple flame instantly flew out and looked at the Brandals' direction.
"Time to go old school, bud," said Smoke as he switched to his power chainsaw bow. He thought to do as much damage at the approaching bandits while waiting for his mana bar to recover. He needed less than twenty minutes to have it back to 100%.
Igniz immediately enchanted Smoke's, Laernea's and Gandiva's arrows with fire. Smoke then signaled his symbiote to fly over to the Brandals and assault them with a rain of fireballs.
At once, Igniz flew to the bandits without hesitation. Smoke, Igniz, Laernea and Gandiva assaulted them with their ranged attacks, while his black and silver golems blocked some of the incoming Brandals.
With the Brandals unceasing catapult attacks, Ledur was now the only one left blocking the flaming boulders from destroying the walls.
 

* * * * * * 

The Brandals on the foot of the mountain turned around to see the loud war-cries coming from behind them. The ones directly in front of the three charging war elephants were instantly demoralized. These massive mounts were leading the Vigilantez's wedge formation.
The rest of Smoke's core members all rode on aardwolves while the surviving Arcus had to squeeze themselves as five of them rode on the war chariots supposedly built for three. The mounted units did not run at full speed as the Ranseurs and Avendre Mercenaries could not keep up with them.
Sierra's normal form allowed her to easily ride together with Weise. Whereas, Rasant and Adelige shared a war elephant, while Stark, the largest Maneator, rode alone.
Adder's team of Condortlian Warriors on the back of Centaur Rangers were joined by one thousand of Jeter's Avendre Mercenaries on the right side immediately after Sierra.
Sharur's and Jinggu's teams banded with two more Avendre Commanders. The twin OrkElves were on Sierra's immediate left.
Meanwhile, Ichaival, Sharanga and Guro were spread out to the left wing of their wedge formation. Each of their teams were bolstered with two-thousand Avendre Mercenaries. A total of six-thousand new members altogether.
On the other side, Thyrsus and Vijaya were on the far right wing. Between both their teams, they were only given four-thousand Mercenaries. However, Phen, Rear, Ardu and Vrai were on this division as well as they took command of all the Tikbalangs and Werewolves.
Mamelon's Elemental Knights and Shamans stayed in the middle of their sporadic formation, and acted as backup to any of the teams. She was given only a thousand Avendre Mercenaries. Her unit was the smallest, but it was designed to be the most agile.
With the aid of the war elephants' massive strength, Sierra and the Maneators smashed their way into the throng of bandits.
The mounted Brandal Captains threw their knives at them, but Sierra's tanking prowess drastically improved after she equipped Smoke's Armored Armadillo Shield. She blocked most of the projectile attacks coming their way, but only received 150 damage points on the knives that got past her shield.
Stark, on top of his war elephant, received several of the knife attacks as his war hammer called Gorilla Fist served as a poor shield. He had almost leapt off his mount to face the bandit captains, but Weise noticed this.
"Calm down, Stark. Remember our objective," said the gray Maneator. Weise pointed to the numerous catapults still farther ahead of them.
A warm feeling suddenly overcame Stark, and his agitation faded as Sierra's healing ability took the pain of the knives away.
After seeing Sierra in action, Adelige took out her heavy Oxen Edge. With her double-edged axe, she parried all of the attacks aimed at her and Rasant.
"Thanks, Adelige," said Rasant gratefully as he concentrated on driving their war elephant straight for the siege weapons.
Adder's, Jeter's, Sharur's and Jinggu's teams hurriedly followed her lead. They didn't stop to fight the bandits, but made sure to steadily move forward instead.
Yet, the Brandals quickly regrouped and cut off Sierra's leading forces from the rest of the Vigilantez. Only three-thousand Avendre Mercenaries were able to join them in the front.
In exchange for being separated from their main forces, Sierra and her men were now within an arm's reach of the catapults.
Sierra would have wanted to go to where Smoke was, but she knew that he could take care of himself. What they needed to do now was to acquire these catapults.
"Adder, Jeter, we need to make sure that Sharur and Jinggu take command of at least two catapults," Sierra ordered quickly.
Together, all of them rushed for the nearest two catapults. Each siege weapon only had one Brandal Captain guarding it and a handful of bandits operating the siege device.
Adder riding on the back of the Centaur named Tragar, aimed for one of the Captains. Tragar's arrows hit the Captain's torso and distracted him fro them leaping Condortlian overhead. Adder's BlitzSturm cleanly severed off the bandit's dominant hand equipped with a whip. He then sliced his double-bladed sword across the Captain's body.
The other Condortlian Warriors went to face the bandits handling the catapult, while the Avendre Mercenaries protected them from the other bandits who were coming in to stop them.
Jeter's Mercenaries broke off for the catapult next to the one recently captured. On foot, Jeter ordered his men to swarm the Captain.
The Brandal leader lashed out his whip and cracked it at the Avendre Commander. Jeter got hit in the shoulders and his life bar was reduced by 25%. He raised his shield and blocked the next coming attacks as he charged forward.
Steadily, Jeter got closer to the bandit leader. The Brandal Captain switched weapons and took out a short sword. However, Jeter threw his kite shield at him, distracting the bandit from his next move.
The Avendre Mercenary scrambled to climb on top of the black ctenosaur. Holding his saber with both hands, he swiftly knocked the bandit's sword out of his grip.
Many of the surrounding Brandals tried to help their leader, but Jeter's men made sure to allow their leaders' a one-on-one fight.
Jeter rapidly moved to the bandit's back, and with his left hand, he trapped the Brandal Captain in an arm hold. His saber pierced through the side of bandit's leather armor as the Avendre Commander repeatedly stabbed him.
After Jeter finished off the bandit leader, he drove his saber into the black ctenosaur's head and killed it as well. He dismounted from the dead lizard and equipped his kite shield. He looked around and found that his men had did the same to their own opponents.
Then, a bright light engulfed him and his men as a red-haired HighElf began healing them.
"Well done, Jeter," said Sierra promptly while she continued replenishing the life bars of the mercenaries.
"Now, I need you and your men to do it all again," as she pointed to the next catapult.
"Right away," replied Jeter excitedly and headed for their next target.
With two catapults secured, Sierra called for Sharur and Jinggu to come over, but the twin OrkElves had already captured two of their own.
"Can you guys handle two more?" asked Sierra as the catapults were brought closer to them by the Mercenaries.
"No problem. We can handle all thirty of them," boasted Jinggu. "Make that all twenty-eight," he said as he pointed over to the Maneators.
Sierra was confused, and turned around. She found that Stark and Rasant had destroyed two of the siege weapons. She then heard Weise shouting.
"We are not suppose to break them, just clear them from the bandits," reprimanded the gray Maneator.
Sierra turned back to face them when he heard Sharur's voice. "Don't worry, Sierra, I've always got your back," he said meaningfully.
"Thanks, but I think they are the one who needs your help right now," she said as she pointed to the battalion closing in on Smoke, Ledur, Laernea and Gandiva on the mountainside. 
Sharur nodded, and the two OrkElves proceeded to change the calibrations of all four catapults to aim for the Brrandals charging at Smoke instead of the capital's wall.