Part 24
“The Hilian forces had good success fighting in open void in their last bout.” Grakonexikaldoron pointed out. “They used three hundred and twelve attack wizards in the initial stage of it, and that seemed close to an optimum number to deal with the magnitude of the enemy they faced. It gave them more than enough eyes on the scene, and enough variety of attacks to keep the demons scrambling, while being few enough that their support corps could keep their Shields almost impregnable.
“It was a higher concentration of power than we used in the joint Xervian exercise yesterday, and it was measurably more effective.
“However, in both of those cases the magnitude of the enemy was known. All we were told today was that we would face ‘a force of demons’. Those operating the recent large-scale exercises have tended to try to make the exercises almost impossible, according to their most recent evaluations of us. And since they have fresh evaluations of both our forces from the exercises we’ve fought within the last three days, we can’t expect them to underestimate us again.
“Today, we can expect the exercise to truly be almost impossible.”
“Look, the whole thing is a fool’s errand.” Six stated as he Translocated into the center of the clearing. “It was worth it for the demons to defend their base on Dehrla in our exercise because they’d dug warrens for more than six billion of them. They’d invested a lot to build them, and they were extensive enough and deep enough to provide effective cover for almost their entire force.
“In this situation, some of us or all of us are going to get trapped on the surface with insufficient cover, and a big force of demons are going to have the high ground against us. The demons are often sneaky in how they attack, according to the Triax battle records that I’ve reviewed, but they’ve got no need to be sneaky now, and I very much doubt they’ll hold anything in reserve today. They’ll throw everything they’ve got into it in hopes of a quick, overwhelming victory.
“I say we fill the bases with as many of us as we can send as Simulacrums in the time we have. They’ll be bait, but they’re just Simulacrums. As long as those in them are protected against backlash when the Simulacrums are destroyed, none of us get hurt, and we can just re-cast them whenever they get overwhelmed. We’ll also put one or a few real Strike wizards in each base to channel all our power through. Their task will be to put up a convincing fight and kill a lot of demons while drawing all of the demons in as close to the bases as possible without being completely overwhelmed. Then we plant hidden destructive measures, enough to destroy the entire area, and abandon the bases, taking everything of value. We let the demons occupy them and get packed in tight around them, then blow the bases and attack from without with everything we’ve got to mop up, while we’ve got the high ground and they’ll be trapped against the surface. Even if they abandon the surface and fight us in the void, that’s still better than having them above us. If the rest of it goes well we’ll only be mopping up anyway, and it should be no problem to kill them all.
“If we can accomplish that much in seven hours, with the amount of help we have available today, we’ll have enough time in the exercise’s remaining hour to rebuild the twelve bases and restore the surface of the moon.
“Then we win.”
that.” Povon announced after a short
will I.”
“And I.” Mark nodded.
have
Simulacrums, we’re getting pretty good at it.”
will be our Strike Wizards at these three most critical of the forts.” Somonik decided as he indicated the three spots on the map. “If your sister
in the plan was decided, and
of them most carefully with all his concentrated awareness, and magically augmenting
Kragorram asked in the final expectant seconds, as Mark took up
some insurance.” Mark chuckled
valuable precaution. Almost every member of the Xervian forces were extremely formidable, and while there were only about a billion of them they were bolstered
their previous war game. Worse, the greater demons were almost half the enemy force, rather than a tenth as they’d been the last time, and there were hundreds of DemonLords, rather than dozens. In total, they wielded eight times
as they could, killing demons by the tens of millions, and with the occupation of the forts by the demons and their subsequent destruction, only half the demon force survived. In the final minutes of the exercise they’d lost only twenty-seven Strike Wizards as well as innumerable Simulacrums, but there were still over three billion greater and lesser demons
the very final minute Mark cast his ‘insurance’. He expanded his collection field to thousands of kilometers wide and cast a simple but supremely powerful Restore spell on the destroyed forts. There was just enough time to occupy them with