Chapter 415 - Explosive Bolts

Boom!

An explosion echoed throughout Gaster Kingdom, and the location of its source is near the main gate.

After covering his eyes, King Michael could see bodies drop to the ground. Hilariously, these bodies were mostly belonging to the opposing army. Whatever they are doing, they are doing it clumsily.

King Michael has already made his way inside the Kingdom along with the rest of the Fire Controllers, and thankfully is just about 20 meters near the Gate so the explosion didn't touch them.

Regardless of their distance near it, the Gate has been blown to bits and a large plank almost hit the King's head! Risky, but it's a bit riskier that any [enemy] Soldier can barge in now and spread around the Kingdom!

At the moment, there are 10-20 Soldiers running in. This is only a small portion, nothing the four Fire Blasters couldn't handle, so they started taking the enemies victim with the enslaving raging Fireballs.

After those 10 were shot down, about 50 more entered as if they were running away from the Army outside. These could be another bit of Soldiers who managed to slip through the Zamerian Guards, or maybe their own explosives spooked them?!

With amounts like this bursting in, eventually the Fire Controllers will be outnumbered since they can't run away in the Kingdom and risk a civilian being hurt in the process.

Something has to be done about this, and fast. The situation was enough of a handful without the Gate being blown, but now since this beautiful Domain has been breached basically anyone can run in!

Looking at the small road near the main gate, surrounded by houses on the left and on the right, King Michael thought of an idea in the midst of the heating battle.

He crouched down to a sumo squat, clapped his hands and a Fire Shield started surrounding him! He tried to extend it as big as possible before tightening his fists to make it firm and strong because at this case, the bigger the better.

The Fire shield stretched about 6 meters long, obviously enough to cover the road and he almost even started touching houses which would be bad since the Houses would slowly catch on fire and possibly burn innocent civilians to death.

Walking towards the enemies, he started blocking the road. They tried to swing Swords against the fire shield, but only embarrassed theirselves since they had no chance of penetration against it. 

Although wide in size, King Michael even managed to make the shield 3 inches thick! Which proved the most useful, Lava would take a while to break a 3 inch thick Fire shield, Iron is useless against it!

Seeing that they are practically hitting an unbreakable wall, the enemy Soldiers were smart enough this time to back off, after several shouts of commands from their own kind.

10 Guards with Crossbows on their hands appeared in the scene, and they were all aiming towards the Fire Shield with hopes of breaking it open. If the Fire Shield breaks, this disaster of a battle will finally start working for the better [again] for the attempting invaders. 

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The bolts exploded amongst the shield, shaking the stone wall close to it a tad bit. The smoke that came after the bolts exploded, started disintegrating in mid air as seconds passed, making what progress they made against the Shield, clear.

Once the Crossbow men saw that the shield is well intact, and the cracks they managed to cause are actually regenerating, they [Crossbowmen] took a deep breath in shocking fear and afterwards let out a loudish sigh signifying more fear.

A split second later, they felt their foreheads getting hotter and afterwards didn't feel them at all. Well at least 3 of the 10 Crossbowmen didn't feel their foreheads anymore, mostly because they lost them!

At the top of the wall, on the right they saw a little kid hurling one Fireball after the other. They didn't get to see this sight for long because just two seconds later they were either split in half by a Fireball or got their heads blown up into bits!

You would think Eric would fear explosive bolts, last time he faced one he ended up in Lava back at the huge Volcano in the old Lan Zhe. He does have fear a little bit, those things are obviously dangerous.

But he has enough power to contribute in this battle, so why hide behind the King and let him do all the work?

Seeing that their chances of survival are tough, the enemies [That aren't Crossbowmen] focused on their main target again, which is to break the Fire Shield with what little force they have left.

Morale is low for the enemy, their numbers have been forced to be even lower! And to make it worse the three other teams finished off slaughtering what portion of the enemy Army was fighting them, and so they focused their forces towards the 40-60 enemy Soldiers who are around the main entrance.

The Zamerian Guards stood aside for this one, as the best solution now is to have two teams shooting everyone down instead of the Zamerians getting in front and blocking the shots of the two other teams.

A bit complex, but hey at least the Forces of Gaster Kingdom know what they are doing after the main men shout a few commands. And just in case the [enemy] Army fights back, the Zamerian Guards will return to shove a Sword up their asses and inevitably protect the ranged combat teams.

Spears, arrows and Fireballs started flying against the enemy Guards. Mogranius and Dilli joined Eric, attacking from the sides. This time they don't have to worry about hitting an Ally, because the Spearfishers and Archers are keeping a good distance.

A minute later, one man after the other started dropping down in this enemy Army. As you can see, when strategy is strong, quantity is nothing! Of course in half the cases it didn't take just a second to shoot an enemy down, but Gaster Kingdom still managed to progress swiftly towards this battle!

Eric turned around, glanced at King Michael and shouted. "We won!"

What was left of Gaster Kingdom's forces started howling, shouting "Victory" either in Ignite, ill.u.s.tratian or Zamerian!

The pride here feels even more wholesome when you consider that everyone here comes from a poor background, yet their ranks have reached high enough to face against the ill.u.s.tratian Army of [Country] Meridionali Ignis!

One particular fact that raises pride, is that there are also ill.u.s.tratios in the Gaster Kingdom Army! They don't mind killing people of their own race, they have been enlightened enough to understand the wrong doing of which the ill.u.s.tratian Alliance brought!

Prideful and cheering, they have won the battle. Now all that's left is to clear up the mess, that's where Fire Controllers can come in handy!

Well that and... there are actually some enemies who have surrendered! Their Numbers count to 7, they ran to the sides with their hands up facing either the Archers or the Spearfishers.

Tapping out in battle is a disgrace, but the odds weren't to their favour. If King Michael spares them, Grand King Talato likely won't.

...

"What do you think we should do with these who surrendered? They aren't just a couple of people, they are seven!" King Michael asked, debating with himself the most instead of anything else.

"Maybe turn them into slaves? They did it to Ignites for 200 years!" Mogranius recommended, obviously the most drastic here.

"Plus it would ease up on the Budget a little bit, you are already paying hundreds of people." You would think that a rougher soul would recommend this, but no. Woldemir did.

This army was sent here at a thirst for territorial dominance, while their overlord wants more Gold. Due to these couple of facts, a portion of the Guards Woldemir himself trained, have died. His vengeful thoughts at this case are acceptable.

"Gaster Kingdom is being built up by the hard work my Civilians are putting in, I don't need demonic money in it." King Michael expressed his thoughts to this situation, and added. "Slavery is nothing but a Demonic act."

Coming in with Arem, Saleem over heard the topic and spoke. "Just write a message 7 times and shove it up their arsses, we will put shackles on them so they won't be able to remove them for a while. Which should be funnier!"

"Yes, that's a worthy punishment. And even if they don't make it back to the Capital in their Country I couldn't care less really." King Michael expressed, and started walking towards the Castle for some parchment and a quill.

Mogranius started following him, turned his head towards Saleem and spoke. "In the meanwhile put shackles on them and get their asses out."

It's Arem's time to speak, he approached Woldemir and explained. "Guard Commander Sir, there are only 40 Guards left from the Zamerain Platoon."

"60 of them died?" Woldemir asked, rubbing his forehead and letting out a sigh signifying stress.

"Yes, unfortunately. What are your thoughts on it?" Arem asked, since Woldemir is the most experienced.

"They definitely will need to become a part of the first Platoon of 30 men, all together they don't even make a Platoon." Thinking it through, considering Arem's future as well. Woldemir added, "For now you will be an ordinary Guard until we establish a new Platoon."

...

Meanwhile in the Gaster Castle, King Michael started writing that little Parchment of a message. You might be the most curious of what that letter contains, nothing complex really. Read it for yourself, your eyes only hehe.

"Oh the Great King Talato, your Army is torched. Next time, don't bluff about your number when you don't know who you are dealing with. You will never get this Domain's 30%, we haven't reached to the point where someone like you can command us. I hope you find these Parchments smelling like shit, the smell defines your plan. Launch your whole forces against us, we can handle it. And as for who the King is, remember the name well. I am King Michael, a proud Kastarian Ignite!"

As he finished that doc.u.ment, Woldemir walked in explaining the losses today. He explained how 60 people are dead, and how the best idea is to give compensation bonuses to keep the overall morale high and fend off a possible riot.

After some quick thought, King Michael found it best to hand out 1,600 Gold Coins to the families per each man or women who died in battle today.

When we pile them up together this necessarily equals to 96,000 Gold Coins! Large indeed but these people entered the battlefield knowing that they are outnumbered and can die, only the strongest can do that.

96,000 Gold Coins is nothing for this case although for a Zamerian living here it will feel like 16 salaries!

King Michael's appreciation doesn't stop there, he will also grant salary raises for everyone who was in the battle field today. The 40 Zamerian Guards that survived this battle for example, are getting the biggest salary raise since they faced the biggest danger.

Before this battle they used to earn 80 Gold Coins, and now they will earn 120! It will increase the monthly expenses by 1k but that won't do damage to the overall profit!

The group of 30 Guards have gotten salary raises as well, now they earn 180 Gold Coins a month while before they used to earn 150! The two teams of Spearfishermen and women have gotten salary raises too, but it's taking too long to put everything to detail.

Overall, today a lot of expenses have been established and it's fair to say that's for the better. These men and women offered a large contribute today, a pat on the back referring Congratulations isn't enough.