"The Magecraft bombardment is coming!"
As the world darkened, Samael sharply sensed surging, vibrating Ether gathering overhead from every direction and immediately shouted a warning.
"Tortoise Shell Formation! Quickly!"
Pompey bared his teeth and made the hard call in the face of imminent danger.
Using the terrain of the ravine, the more than thirty thousand men hurriedly pressed themselves against both sides, raising shields around them and overhead to build a tightly sealed wall of shields. The divine patterns on them linked and resonated, forming a faintly glowing defensive barrier.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Spell projectiles, dense as a meteor shower, shrieked through the air and slammed into the ground one after another. Thunderous blasts rolled without pause, the earth shook violently, and great clouds of dust burst up through the ravine.
Crash!
As one section of rock collapsed, Pompey lost his footing and nearly stumbled out of the defensive barrier formed by several Magi accompanying the army.
Smack!
Samael reacted instantly, catching the commander with a sweep of his arm and pulling him back. A faint furrow appeared between his brows.
Pompey's eyes flashed with gratitude. He thumped his chest heavily, then respectfully stepped back into position and resumed commanding the troops.
As the dust from the explosions gradually settled, the commander took in the state of the ravine. Looking at the several formations that had been blasted into patchy gaps, his eyes filled with gloom.
The Tortoise Shell Formation was the strongest defensive formation in mass combat. If the army was still at full strength, then aside from large-scale ritual spells, high-tier divine arts, and catapult bombardment, it could withstand almost anything. It could even hold against a full volley from the Meteor Legion.
But after battle after battle, the legion's combat power had plummeted. Now they were already struggling just to withstand spell projectiles from secret Magi. They truly had reached the end of their strength.
For a Roman general seasoned by war, a static Tortoise Shell Formation was not a good choice.
Because more often than not, it meant they had already lost the initiative and had completely given up mobility just to delay the collapse of the legion.
So according to experience passed down in the army, once a battle had reached the point of deploying a Tortoise Shell Formation, there was an eighty percent chance it had already been lost.
"Your Highness, I will cover the rear and do everything I can to hold back the Persians. Please lead the best of the legion and withdraw inland to rest and reorganize the line!"
After a moment's thought, Pompey made the request in a heavy voice.
"It's meaningless now. Hold the line."
"How can it be? Even if we lose the Ninth and Tenth Legions, we still have the three provinces guarding the capital. We still have the City of Seven Hills! War is not decided by the gain or loss of one city or one piece of land. As long as this core remains, we still have a chance, and Rome's legacy will not be cut off!"
"Carry it out. That is an order."
"As... as you command..."
Samael flatly rejected Pompey's proposal. His serpent eyes looked down coldly, and the chill in his voice sent a shiver through the commander, making his body stiffen.
Before that overwhelming divine might, Commander Pompey lowered his once impassioned head and answered hoarsely.
After seven or eight days together, he had almost forgotten that the one before him was not a colleague he could speak to freely as an equal, but a god standing high above all others.
In such a desperate situation, the commander's expression froze, his heart weighed down, and he turned to look at the god beside him.
Samael gazed toward the massing Persian army. His fingers tightened around the Spear of Nation Building, then slowly loosened again.
From the start of the war until now, he had repeated that motion many times.
So we were only bait...
Like a thunderbolt through his mind, Pompey suddenly understood. He cast a self-mocking glance at himself and the thirty thousand battered soldiers in the ravine.
Before this, the ones playing that role had been the Ninth and Tenth Legions, along with the two defensive lines they held.
Now this lofty fisherman needed a new bait, one with even more weight.
Pompey closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, all the tangled emotion had been washed away, leaving only efficiency, cold resolve, and a trace of distance.
"Your Highness, please allow me to stand with my soldiers!"
"Do your best to survive. For yourselves, and for your Rome..."
Samael narrowed his eyes and studied him for a moment. Then a murmur, carried off by the wind, reached the commander's ears.
Pompey paused briefly, then picked up his sword, shield, and spear, stepped out of the safe barrier covered by divine might, straightened his back, and strode toward the battlefield.
Indeed, defending Rome was the Romans' duty, not this god's obligation. They should never have expected more from him.
Standing alone on the gentle slope, the god glanced at the Spear of Nation Building in his hand, and a trace of bleak helplessness crossed his face.
Tsk. There goes another decent conversation partner.
That's why I hate people who are too sharp...
At that moment, thousands of armored Persian elephant troops lumbered forward and charged into the ravine. After only a few impacts, the front ranks of the Roman Tortoise Shell Formation shattered, its glowing patterns breaking apart as hundreds were trampled into pulp or flung into the air.
These heavy beasts advanced like tanks, while more troops continuously poured in from the rear and both flanks of the ravine. Mixed units of Undead and secret Magi pressed in directly, steadily eating away at the Roman legion's room to maneuver.
The Roman legions, throwing everything they had into the defense, fought with astonishing tenacity. Like a blood-soaked millstone of flesh, they ground down the Persian troops pushing into the ravine, crushing them alive one by one.
Darius III kept pulling in more forces and throwing them into this blood-drenched ravine, prying open the hard shell of the Tortoise Shell Formation layer by layer and devouring the elite flesh within.
Samael's gaze swept across the stalemated battlefield where blood and flesh flew everywhere, then drifted toward the tens of thousands of Persian troops still standing motionless in reserve. His brow tightened further.
A pity. The two Persian defensive lines he had planned to drain had collapsed too early. Even though this Roman legion under his hand had already done everything to the utmost, it still was not enough to force out the enemy's hidden card.
In the end, he simply had too few cards to play.
Tsk. I really am not suited to fishing. Too much patience. A game like chess suits me better.
Forget it. In the end, I was one move short. There's no point dragging this out any longer. I may as well leave as many pieces on the board as I can.
A shadow passed through Samael's eyes. His fingers, which had loosened slightly, tightened around the shaft of the spear one by one. His cross-star eyes opened and narrowed, and the glowing patterns along the spear gradually lit up inch by inch.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Just as the currents of Ether began to surge around the Ancient Serpent, a sharp tearing sound suddenly came from the dusky southeastern sky. In the next instant, a dense swarm of black points plunged straight down from above.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
In a flash, heavy arrows a meter and a half long, their heads gleaming with divine markings, fell like a meteor shower into the Persian ranks, pinning thousands of soldiers, shields, and armor alike to the ground.
And when they looked into the distance, those archers were still nearly a thousand meters from where the arrows had landed. Even their most elite Undead could not match that kind of draw strength and range. The Persians were instantly shaken.
"Amazon!"
Then came a ringing battle cry, sharp as shattered jade. A short silver-haired woman on horseback swung a whistling chain hammer, and like a falling meteor it smashed seven or eight Persian soldiers at the impact point into bloody pulp.
As blood sprayed into the air, the horn of attack finally sounded.