Looking at the battlefield from above they could see the gathering shadows near the paladin's form into beasts behind them. They must have been stuck there for a while now.
In front of them were second rank hobgoblins and beasts halting their advance and just behind that line was a group of rank three goblin knights. The knights were just standing there pointing and laughing as the paladins struggled.
Behind the knights was the dark lord. It hadn't moved at all, it still had Chronos' spear stuck in its right eye too, but he couldn't see his sword or axes.
No wait, one of the goblin knights had his axes, that was mildly annoying.
The dark lord was moving now but it wasn't moving forward, was it going to do something with the crystal...and now it was lying down to take a nap. It just didn't want to bother with weaklings from the looks of it.
When the Second Commander saw that he was greatly insulted and used an item to boost his strength and break through the hobgoblins to fight it.
"Uh, can anyone tell me why rank three paladins are struggling to kill hobgoblins?"
Gregory's worry was well-founded, in order for someone to fight a higher rank they needed specialized techniques or a unique body type neither of which these goblins had, or at least hundreds of them would not have had it at the same time.
But the battlefield in front of them said otherwise, every hobgoblin was able to fight above their rank.
Sariah cast [Magic Sight] causing her eyes to glow before she spoke, "It's not a form of shamanistic magic, rather it seems to be tied to the crystal. I can see strings of power flowing from the crystal into them."
"Then the crystal is boosting their power, it must be a defense mechanism, and it is probably limited in range, or we would have seen it sooner."
Lyla suspected there was more to this power boost as well, it couldn't be that easy to boost an entire army. Unfortunately, they weren't able to find any more clues in the short time they had.
The Second Commander had made it past the hobgoblins and was now facing off with the goblin knights. Despite being much stronger than them, he was outnumbered and separated from his troops, it would be sometime before he could advance again.
"How do we help them?" Gregory asked.
Looking at the situation, nobody had a good answer.
Without some powerful magic or items that could kill hundreds when used, four people wouldn't make much difference in a battle of this size. Even if they tried to rescue them most of the paladins would be crippled or worse until they had more high priests to treat their injuries.
Adding more burdens to the camp wouldn't help anyone.
At this time a message came from the whisper bird asking for a report. Just after sending their report back a string of expletives came from the other side.
Vice-Commander Adam and High priest Morgan were leading an army to assist them, but since the Second Commander had removed the islands that could transfer an army, help wouldn't arrive for at least 2 hours, maybe longer.
By then most of the paladins of the second order would be dead.
Some of them dying wouldn't be an issue, as they had signed up to be paladins, but if all of them died their noble parents would hold the church accountable.
They might even try to use this to take charge of Dracon Fen. They would fail since the naga and lizardfolk would never trust a noble but that wouldn't stop many of them from trying.
Chronos' team needed to stall for as much time as possible for reinforcements to arrive, even though there wasn't a lot they could do.
Looking around Chronos noticed several islands passing by that would travel right over top of the central island, that gave him an idea.
"Greg, do you still have that silken rope you always used to carry with you?"
"I do."
He flipped over one of the belts on his chest revealing a compartment on the underside that ran the length of the belt.
"It's only 10 meters long but it is resistant to fire and water. What's the plan?"
"They aren't in immediate danger, I think we have about an hour before most of them start dying. For now, gather vines and tie them together. When we make our move, we'll need to cause a commotion within the battle, any ideas?"
"I learned a new spell that could help. It will cause misfortune to my enemies, but I need time to expand it to cover the whole battlefield, within 30 minutes I could cover half of it at best." Sariah said.
"That's good enough, we just need a moment to enact our plan. Me, Sariah, and Lyla will sneak onto the island and make preparations, Greg once you have enough rope get on top of one of those floating islands. It will take nearly 40 minutes for them to be above the far side of the central island, when they are in place we make our move."
Looking at the islands Gregory understood what Chronos was planning.
"Are you sure you can do it?"
"Reasonably sure. Besides, we don't have much choice; if we leave them to die it will come back to bite us later. See you in 40."
"Right." Gregory sighed as he got to work.
Chronos, Sariah, and Lyla moved swiftly, circling the island to find a small path across the void. After a few minutes they succeeded and crossed over, upon arriving they split up with Sariah and Lyla going towards the battlefield and Chronos going to the far side of the island.
When Sariah was close enough to the battle she sat down and began casting [Lingering Misfortune]. This spell was a curse that caused enemies to move slower and could give them misfortune, while the explanation of the spell's effects were not clear when she read it even a small misfortunate accident could mean the difference between life and death for many soldiers.
"Keep me safe while I cast, I need my full concentration and won't be able to defend myself since this isn't how this spell is meant to be used at this rank."
"Don't worry, nothing will get close before I die." Lyla said with determination.
Luckily no enemies had seen them arrive but that wouldn't last for long as a black mist started to spread from Sariah towards the battle.
It had taken nearly fifteen minutes to prepare. The spell wouldn't reach as many hobgoblins as they'd wanted, but when you're busy saving fools from themselves, compromises are inevitable.
As Lyla watched she was impressed with how the spell subtly slowed the hobgoblins and then caused them to miss attacks, or a sword slipped past their guard when it shouldn't have.
With the hobgoblins becoming slower it became easier for the paladins to fight back, ensuring that most of them would survive as long as they didn't try to push forward.
The Second Commander thought the mist was just dust being kicked up from the battle and chose to ignore it.
Meanwhile Chronos was sneaking around trying to not be noticed by the dark lord or his goblin knights that weren't engaged in combat.
He had to duck into a building and wait for a few minutes when one of them became suspicious, but he managed to sneak past them coming to a halt behind a collapsed house. In front of him were several boulders from the wreckage of the house, sizing up one of them he took out echoforge and waited for the floating islands to move into position.
Watching them draw closer Chronos could see Gregory moving about on the edge of the largest one tying multiple vines to the trees. Then he tied them to his silken rope and made a large loop on the other end.
With everything set up they now needed to wait as the minutes ticked by.
The paladin lines, who had been putting up a good fight, started to falter. It looked like some of their will was breaking when they realized they wouldn't survive without reinforcements and they had moved the islands to stop reinforcements from coming after them.
It wasn't supposed to go this way for them; they were meant to be the victorious and glorious Dragon Paladins.
The military force that was rarely defeated even within the entire world.
To be dying to mere hobgoblins was an insult to them and their families.
"35 minutes have passed, almost time." Chronos counted as he hefted echoforge.
However, a few of the more skilled paladins rallied those around them to hold the line. Taking note of them Chronos decided to suggest them for the first order when he got back.
Watching the islands Chronos counted down the time for Gregory to act, "7..6..5..4..3..2..1..Now!"
He began charging echoforge as Gregory made his move!