Chapter 102 - The Trojan Horse Tactic

As I got such a firm grip over the situation here against the illusionist, it was time to drive my mighty chariot up to that damned castle and world gate and shut the two down!

Of course I didn't know how to shut a world gate down, but it was time for me to learn how to do so.

Or to be more precise, I wanted to control that gate.

Yes, I wanted to take it under my wing. I came here not to control the city but to complete the heroic mission and control one world's gate.

And right now in front of my eyes, one gate stood erect, waiting for me to take it.

The gate was in the form of a ring of fire, a massive ring of fire that spanned almost over three hundred metre in radius. The thickness of the ring was at least twenty metres thick.

It hovered one hundred metres above the castle that wasn't like any normal castle I conquered so far. The castle had thick big walls that covered a space of a kilometre in radius.

There weren't just three towers, but at least dozens of them! I spotted even a couple of small ballistae that would pose a threat over my forces, not to mention that big catapult that I only saw the upper arm of it high in the air, situated almost in the centre of that castle.

It was a real fortress of an activated high grade castle, suitable to protect such a world gate.

And from that world gate, rays of bright silver light extended to cover almost all the castle area. That was why the jumper and others mistook it for a defensive shield.

"The intermediate form of my chariot isn't enough," I muttered while reaching the front side again.

The jumper was protecting the others using some sort of a protective gadget that wasn't even enough to stop the clashes of the many illusionists who targeted them.

But that was over now. Once I arrived, I saw many dead bodies all around, killed by my soulers.

"Good boys," I commended in honest praise, "now it's time for our assault."

"Are we going to hammer those bastards now?" The jumper seemed to be enraged by what just happened now.

I looked at the castle and the army standing around it before I turned my eyes to the area surrounding my chariot.

And there I finally spotted my own soulers gushing out from my chariot, killing every single illusionist standing in their way.

"Yes, we will go there," I slowly said before turning my gaze towards the castle and added in a cold tone, "but it will be a hell of a fight."

"We have your warriors," Angelica seemed to get over her fear at this moment, "we can crush them all!"

I didn't comment on her optimistic words. In fact the deadliest form of the illusionists wasn't in such a sneaky pattern of attack they did here.

I knew they wanted to exterminate us, fearing my chariot. But their deadliest advantage came when they were surrounded with other forces, like the big army standing in front of us right now.

They would stealth, wait and see chances to attack us unprepared. It wasn't a good thing to attack while having your guards raised against such sneaky bastards.

I knew many of my warriors would fall here, and if my group decided to follow the heat of the battle, they might get overwhelmed as well.

So how could I turn such a hard battle tide towards me? Towards more security?

"What are you thinking about?" the jumper, who was the only one with a slightly cool head here, asked when he noticed my sudden silence.

"We can't risk frontal battle," I said while narrowing my eyes in determination, "we will use the trojan horse tactic."

"What?" The spearhead seemed to not recognize such a tactic, but the rest did.

"Isn't that an ancient tactic used in old times?" Isabella asked before adding in disbelief, "I mean it was before Christ time! Hell, how can we use such obsolete things here?"

"What do you have in mind?" The jumper didn't refuse my words in the same way Isabella did. After all, he was very experienced and knew I must have a reason to think so.

And of course I did!

If we risked an open out war with those forces, then it would be like setting up the perfect stage for the illusionists to show their true might and terror.

So the wise thing to do was to not give them such a chance at all. How come I would do that? It was simple; I'd use my chariot and move it and penetrate the entire castle, turning it into a trojan horse.

And that was the reason why I discarded the intermediate form of my chariot. To be able to crush such defensive abilities of that advanced castle, I needed a force higher, much higher than my current chariot had.

"Be ready to use any far ranged attacks from here," I said while taking out all my warriors and then I gave them the order:

"Part of you go down below and use the defensive platforms to rain down the enemies. Use bows, use spears, even throw axes and swords. Use anything to kill…"

"Will that be enough?" Angelica looked a little unconfident in my plan, "we have thousands of enemies plus those stealthed guys down there. If we went directly inside, we would be crushed! We need to get out and kill them."

"No, we have a chance," I instantly waved my hand and in the middle of my chariot roof, my gigantic ballista appeared.

"What the heck is that?!!" the jumper jumped in fright before looking at me in obvious doubt, "did you steal a dragon race treasure vault or something when I was away?"

"You can say that," I didn't comment or ask him how he guessed it. After all, my chariot had everything that pointed towards the dragons of course.

"Go and operate the ballista," I said to my Gollems before leaning over the edge of my chariot and shouted, "surround the chariot, kill anyone we meet. Get ready!"

As everything was settled, my group reluctantly took back their weapons and took out bows and arrows. In such a high place, arrows were the only deadly weapon we could use.

[Do you want to operate the chariot in fully powered mode?]

As everyone was ready, I turned my attention to the control of the chariot. I agreed and that central pillar shone in a brighter light before its central little star of fire started to circulate around itself in crazy fashion.

"Did you…" the attentive jumper didn't miss this, and I stopped him by waving my hand in a casual way.

Who cared? We needed to penetrate the defensive shield and crush anyone inside.

"Hang tight!"

I knew this would hurt. But without any hesitation, I pushed my chariot to the front alongside a loud shout: "Attack!"

It was given to my soulers. As expected, they matched the frightening speed of my chariot.

Once I gave the order, the chariot dragorses roared while their bodies seemed to ignite with immense power. Their muscles expanded slightly and their scales even got brighter than before.

Then they brought my chariot to the front at a speed that is least to be described as flashy!

*Boom!*

Such a clash was destined to cause such an explosive sound. Yet the remarkable thing was that I never felt the aftermath of such shock.

Not even a hair of mine twitched under such fierce impact!

Yet it wasn't enough.

"Roar!"

"Roar!"

"Kill them all!"

Many angry roars echoed alongside shouts from the races and traitors stationed here. But I didn't give them a damn. I simply made my dragorses pull the chariot back for a hundred metres before they slammed again against the shield.

"Fire!"

And at this moment, and when I made sure no matter what happened we wouldn't get affected by the shock, I gave the order for my gollems.

*Fwoosh!*

A deadly long black arrow made entirely from thin air once the huge string was pulled was released like a bolt towards the shield.

The shield was already trembling under the immense battering of my chariot. It wasn't acting as a warring chariot at this moment, but simply a gigantic battering ram, a damn heavy battering ram!

"Again!"

As I made my dragorses retreat the chariot for another hundred metres, I tried to synchronise the next attack with the massive arrow from the ballista.

And after the tenth attempt, my synchronising try succeeded!

I didn't aim to make the two meet at the same time, but to make the arrow arrive first then the chariot. My only problem was the frightening speed of both, something even my eyes couldn't follow least to control!

Yet I got lucky at my tenth attempt and with that, a loud cracking sound appeared from the shield.

All this time the enemies were trying to swarm us! Yet the chariot was enough to kill and smash anything that stood in its way.

After a few failures, and many losses, the enemies changed their tactics and started to target the door to the chariot itself.

But such attempts were stopped valiantly by my brave soulers.

"Attack!"

As the shield cracked open, the inside of the castle was open wide for us. I didn't hesitate to push my chariot forward, crushing the big walls of the castle using my chariot's immense force.

The wall looked like it was made out of clay, not sturdy stone! The walls fortified by the system and didn't get any effects from my dragons before were now crushed by my chariot!

That told me a lot about how deadly and advanced my chariot was.

"Your turn," at this delicate moment, I turned towards the sky. There were three dragons hovering silently over my head. Once they got the signal, they rained the enemies at the centre of the castle with their deadly breaths.

Those must be the leaders of this force, and also the place with the highest concentration of illusionists coming through the world's gate.

As the fire ate away many hidden silhouettes, revealing their bodies, I waved my arm around in a motion for my dragons to break free and attack as they saw fit.

Then I pushed my trojan horse inside the castle, reaching all the way to the centre of the castle in a few breaths.

"Now what?" Isabella asked in impatience. Just watching all these enemies and such fierce clashes that happened between my soulers and them made her blood boil for battle.

"Keep attacking," I simply gave this order. This ancient tactic didn't require my forces to embark and attack. The strongest point here was in my well protected chariots with my soulers plus all the far ranged attacks coming from the defensive platforms and the rest of my forces from within.

As for my soulers, I finally managed to see how they were attacking. Against the previous clashes with the illusionists, I didn't see how they killed them.

But when they were met with normal races and monsters, I started to grow an understanding of their abilities.

They simply twisted and shifted their places to appear like passing through the bodies of their enemies. Their fire would engulf the enemy's entire body in a blink of an eye, looking like it penetrated their bodies without any hindrance.

In my eyes, I saw it like they were made out of rays of deadly light and the bodies of their enemies were made out of transparent glass!

The moment they passed through any body, that body would lose any sign of life instantly after and would fall in a muffled thud to the ground.

Brutal! Scary! Deadly! And pretty much OP!

Damn! I got lucky to have them here! I was lucky in the first place to get such an OP class to support their deadliest weak point.

As the battle raged on, something unexpected happened!

We were inside the castle, just in the centre of that place. The giant world gate was flashing all the time, shimmering light all around.

Just after a few minutes, I noticed something that made me feel threatened!

That damn previous annoying feeling and that vague sense of danger came up again without warning! The source of this was just a few metres away from me, from my group, from my warriors, inside the rooftop of my chariot!

How the hell did they manage to climb their way up to here? Was it because we were stationed still and not moving?

Dammit! Those illusionists were so much like a pain in the ass to fight against! Even as hard as fighting against those deadly Selvators!!