Chapter 762 762 Prepared To Negotiate
”I will make those as soon as we have enough ammunition made to finish the first engagement. That will tell us if we have a chance of holding our home, or if we will need to retreat and regroup outside the encirclement.” Wolfe agreed.
“You are considering running away?” One of the Wrath Demons asked.
“I am considering moving all the noncombatants away. The Bunnies aren’t exactly up for a frontline battle, even if we give them rifles. They’re too sweet natured to cut down attacking soldiers without hesitation. They will do it, but that reluctance could cost lives, and I would hate to be responsible for that.
There is an underground road system that leads out of town. If it looks like we are going to lose, I will order all the villages in the Forest to evacuate outside the humans lines and prepare for a winter battle against a new human army.
They won’t be happy that it was humans two winters in a row, but they’ll adapt, they always do.
Now, I will have to do the creation without the help of the Pentacles or the witches who have Servant Bonds to me. They are casting spells to bolster the defence, and I don’t want to interrupt that. So, it’s just us few Saints and Overlords to empower these cartridges.” Wolfe explained.
He quickly altered the arrays to create the more powerful munitions and started the creation process, turning out ten thousand rounds of rifle ammunition at once for the group to enchant.
“Just focus on working together, and I will guide the spell, since I’ve done it plenty of times before. We can do them all at once, it will just take time.” He added.
Wolfe maximized the mana in the area, which would certainly imbalance the mana levels outside the city, as so much was pulled into one spot, but it still took them over five minutes to finish the spells. Then, the staff rolled in a cart full of belts of heavy machine gun ammunition, and Wolfe started the process again, but with different spells.
They could all sense the armies setting up around the forest, setting barriers and creating magical defences in preparation for the conflict with the residents. It didn’t give the others much hope that the Elf would actually manage to get anyone to talk to him, but he was determined to try, and while they were channelling, he had even managed to locate the leader of the invasion force, who also called himself the Emperor of all that he sees.
“I think that this new one is the younger brother of the old one. He’s Rank Seven, but only barely. Nepotism doesn’t always lead to the strongest rulers in situations like this.” The Elf explained.
“That’s alright. Let the staff distribute the ammunition and we will go to meet the enemy.
Wrathbringers, I have created some oversized heavy machine guns for your hands. They mount a full belt in a box on the side, and the mechanism could be a bit fiddly with your thick fingers, but the actual rifle is sized for you to use one-handed.” Wolfe added, raising a cheer from the largest of the Demons.
Wolfe hurried to make his words true, creating oversized rifles with a brace that would sit under the wrist, so that the Wrathbringers could use them like a pistol. It was ridiculous, given that the weapons were currently set up for anti-armour purposes, but it made them happy, and Happy Wrathbringers were destructive Wrathbringers.
Then he made a set of Mana Dispersion arrays, to reduce the mana in an area to two percent of its original value, and had the Saints pass them out to the group leaders who were going to the other points along the perimeter.
The Demons were recruiting anyone who wanted to take a rifle and go to the front lines, so the offensive force actually contained a lot of beastkin and lower ranked witches when Wolfe and the others came back out, but the Rank Six Fae were already taking care of it, and making them armour amulets that would hold for a while when the enemy counterattacked.
It would also give them the appearance of having a much stronger standing army than they actually did, as they were arming civilians in uniform appearances. That might help chase away the humans without having to deal with a winter long siege battle.
Once the weapons were evenly distributed, each fighter had three magazines of the high output ammunition, along with three more of the new standard Rank Three sorts. That was determined to be enough to get them through a short engagement before retreating, and the priority targets would be the enemy leadership so that they didn’t have to restock the rare Saint Rank ammunition to continue the battle.
“Alright, we are good to go. Who are we going to send to negotiate with the humans alongside me and our benevolent Elven Prince?” Wolfe asked.
They were joined by one old Rank Eight Demon who looked nearly human, except for the horns, and an equally ancient Rank Eight Nymph, who still outwardly looked the same as always, but gave off an air of being tired of everyone’s nonsense that immediately gave Wolfe the impression that she had seen far more years than he could fathom.
“That should be enough. If they don’t get the message now, they are not going to get it. Ask them what they think they’re doing here, and then tell them to go back home and not make trouble for others.” The Nymph instructed the Prince, who smiled at her in an indulgent way that said they were quite familiar with each other.
“Of course, Nanny. They will surely see sense now that they know we’re not going to run away.” The Prince replied confidently, while the old Demon gave Wolfe a look that said he was greatly looking forward to how miserably that attempt was going to fail.
Not because he wanted to fight. Just because he was looking forward to seeing the attempt to negotiate blow up in the Elven Prince’s face.
Risa and the twins fell in behind Wolfe, watching his back with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders, and grenade launchers slung across their backs, in case there was a need for artillery later.
They had adapted quite well to the role of special forces bodyguards instead of medieval ones, and Risa was revelling in the fact she was around Wolfe and a bunch of Witches all day, which made her the tallest one in the room for the first time in her life.