General Ulric Stone didn't hesitate. With a sharp drop of his hand, the catapults fired.
The heavy siege engines thumped in unison. Massive boulders arced across the chasm—not toward the Elven army, but straight down into the fragile, jagged lip of the canyon opposite them.
Explosions gouged the cliff face. The stone beneath the Elven vanguard shuddered.
Why is he firing at the dirt? Lord Commander Carric watched the impacts, calculating the distance. They have the exact same range as our ballistas. Why!?
The ground groaned.
"Take fifty paces back!" Carric roared.
He was a second too late. The edge of the chasm sheared off, taking a massive chunk of the frontline with it. Three hundred elite Shadowraths plummeted toward the abyss.
"Root-Singers, now!"
The surviving nature mages slammed their staffs into the earth, funneling mana directly into the crumbling cliff. Thick, muscular tree roots burst from the stone, weaving a makeshift net. They caught two hundred and eighty-six falling soldiers just before the flames below could claim them.
From across the chasm, Ulric watched the roots arrest the fall. He countered a terrain collapse in seconds, even after losing his high-mages, Ulric thought, begrudgingly impressed.
Carric was bleeding momentum. His high-mages were dead, thousands of elite fighters were gone, and his archers were useless at this range. He needed a devastating counter-stroke.
"Grow the bridge!" Carric ordered. "Advance the siege engines!"
The Elven mages pushed their limits. Immense, ancient roots tore out of the cliffside, braiding together to form a massive, living bridge across the smoking chasm. It spanned nearly a kilometer, dense enough to support a hundred thousand men. Behind the mages, heavy golden ballistas rolled onto raised magical platforms for covering fire.
Ulric blinked. Well. Didn't anticipate that. Realizing his frontline was now entirely exposed to Elven artillery, Ulric ordered a tactical retreat.
The board shifted. Carric still commanded roughly 127,900 units. Ulric was down to exactly 60,400: 20,400 infantry, 20,000 heavy cavalry, and 20,000 crossbowmen.
Carric initiated the assault. He sent 15,000 infantry and 10,000 archers to flank along the jagged side-ledges of the canyon. Down the center of the new root bridge, a massive vanguard of 10,000 elite Unicorn Cavalry charged.
Ulric's counter-deployment defied logic. He split his entire remaining force perfectly down the middle. To the far left flank went 10,000 cavalry, 10,200 heavy infantry, and 10,000 crossbowmen. To the far right, he mirrored it perfectly: 10,000 cavalry, 10,200 infantry, and 10,000 crossbowmen.
He left the center of his formation:directly in front of the massive root bridge completely empty.
Carric frowned. Even the human soldiers looked unnerved.
But the human cavalry didn't engage the Elven flanks. On Ulric's mark, the 20,000 warhorses on the edges began to gallop in tight, violent circles. Riders funneled white mana down into the horses' hooves, kicking up a localized, suffocating sandstorm. An impenetrable wall of dust swallowed the human side of the battlefield.
"Fire the ballistas into the dust!" Carric yelled. "Break their lines!"
The golden siege engines fired blindly. Even Elven eyesight couldn't pierce magically dense sand. They pumped shot after shot into the haze.
Hidden inside the storm, Ulric had already pulled his catapults back.
The Elven Unicorn Cavalry thundered across the root bridge, closing the gap to 900 meters.
"Release the chains," Ulric ordered.
The catapults fired again. They bypassed the bridge entirely, targeting the Elven infantry maneuvering along the narrow canyon ledges. Boulders soared through the air, bound together by thick iron chains lined with poisoned spikes.
The iron clotheslined the Elven flanks.
The sweeping chains tore thousands of soldiers off the ledges. Those who survived the crushing impact were lacerated by poison or thrown screaming into the chasm.
"Hold your ground!" an Elven Cavalry Commander roared from the center of the root bridge, spotting another volley of chained boulders arcing toward them. "Channel mana into your blades! Slash the iron!"
A brilliant aura of green Elven mana ignited across the vanguard. As the chains descended toward the bridge, the Elven swordsmen swung in perfect unison, their enchanted blades slicing cleanly through the iron links.
But Ulric hadn't just thrown iron.
The chains were tightly wrapped in highly volatile magic scrolls from his supply wagons. The moment dense, green Elven mana cleaved into the unstable human scrolls, the reaction was immediate.
The sky above the root bridge bruised a toxic purple. A deafening crack split the air as a massive, burning meteor of pure arcane energy manifested. It struck the bridge, unleashing a roaring tornado of fire and a blinding web of white lightning that surged through the living wood.
The cataclysm shattered the kilometer-wide span. The Unicorn Cavalry was pulverized, swept into the abyss, and electrocuted. Not a single rider made it across.
"Sir! We only have a few ballista shots left!" an Elven artillerist screamed.
"Fire it all!" Carric shouted, his composure shattering.
The Elves emptied their remaining bolts into the dust storm. But as the magical fire tornado sucked the ambient dust away, the air finally cleared.
Carric gripped the edge of his command table.
Every single ballista bolt had hit wood. Hidden by the dust storm, Ulric had lined up his empty supply wagons in the vacant center of his formation, reinforced them with dense human mana, and let them absorb the Elven artillery.
The Elves had fought countless wars against humans. They had faced brilliant strategists. But the scarred, unblinking man standing across the chasm weaponized their own magic and turned the earth into a trap.
Lord Commander Carric stood speechless, staring at the burning stump of the root bridge and the ash drifting where his elite cavalry had been.
Down below, on the surviving ledges, the fighting simply ceased. Weapons hung loosely in hands as human and Elven infantry alike stood frozen, staring in absolute, terrifying awe at the smoking ruin in the center of the battlefield.