The Crazor lost effectiveness the further it traveled, so the Bands knew not to fire them until they approached the city. The Crazor was easy to stop if you were prepared, so he wanted to surprise the enemy with it.
Ruwen’s counter read nineteen minutes when his army stopped. The enemy lined the battlements and the city looked wrong without the tall spire of the temple piercing the sky. Spirt and Energy filled the air as magic shields were raised just in case an attack reached them.
“Breach team,” Ruwen shouted, and fifty people sprinted toward him.
The breach team consisted of Ruwen and his team, along with eight other Bands who had a Harden level of five. Twenty Mages would protect them from elemental and physical attacks, while five Healers would heal damage and cleanse any crowd control. Ten Fighters, most Specializing in varying forms of Protection, surrounded them all. He had rearranged the groups to make sure these fifty were all in one of his five layers of command so they could benefit from his buffs.
Three additional people joined the breach team, surprising Ruwen.
Phoenix, Willow, and Thistle stepped up to Ruwen. He bowed to them. “Are you here to wish us luck?”
Thistle spoke. “You have proved yourself honorable and have given us a home. You have demanded nothing from us.” She bowed to Ruwen. “As leaders of our Clans, and to ensure the future of our people, we will risk the most precious thing we own. Our one life.”
Ruwen bowed, humbled by their demonstration of leadership.
Phoenix returned the bow. “We will help protect your team but will only take a life in self-defense.”
Willow looked nervous but stood up straight. Even though all three were Gem level Cultivators, they could still die, and like Sift, there was no coming back. It displayed an extraordinary level of commitment.
The Cultivators who inhabited Uru’s lands walked the True God’s path of peace. Ruwen followed his own path, but if he had to pick one of the True God’s paths, it would be conflict, not peace.
“May the True God light our paths,” Ruwen said. “You honor your Clans.”
Phoenix nodded, rubbed his left shoulder, and stared intently at Ruwen. “I recently fought a nameless man who showed great honor. He told me he wished to protect the harvest. Perhaps this is what he meant.”
Ruwen’s breath caught. He had told Phoenix those things when fighting him as the Scarecrow in the Spirit Realm. He had refrained from destroying Phoenix’s Air Meridian and even healed him during the battle. When Ruwen had clasped arms with Phoenix after making their deal here at New Eiru, the Cultivator must have sensed something familiar about Ruwen.
Ruwen nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Phoenix knew or suspected that Ruwen was the Scarecrow, but had kept it to himself. For now, what mattered was his help.
Three empty slots remained in the War Council party, and Ruwen added the Cultivators. He faced New Eiru with seventeen minutes remaining on his counter. “On me!”
Ruwen and his breach team sprinted toward the gate, drawing the attention of thousands of enemies. As they entered spell range, his skin tingled from the hundreds of crowd control spells that struck him. One or more of the spells succeeded against him and everyone else in the breach team.
Ruwen immediately channeled Energy into the level twenty Warlord spell Warcry of Freedom, cleansing the crowd control and increasing everyone’s Mind Resistance by fifty percent. He continued to channel Energy to the spell to keep the Mind Resistance active. The added Resistance would be critical in helping them withstand all the crowd control aimed at them. A five-minute counter started, letting him know when the cleanse would become available again.
The combination of Ruwen’s buffed Energy Regeneration and the fifty percent reduction in spell cost from Quartermaster’s Yell, made many of his previous ideas possible. And he used one of them now.
The breach team bunched up behind Ruwen and he increased the size of his Void Band to thirty feet, holding it up like a giant shield. His buffs reduced the cost to under ninety Energy per second, and his Gold Fortified body and increased Dexterity allowed him to keep running safely. The Overlord kept thoughts of tripping and falling into the portal away.
To protect from ground attacks, Ruwen channeled Harden into the soil as they advanced. The immense Void Band opening, Bodyguard, Fresh Air, and Warcry of Freedom, even with the fifty percent reduction, consumed one hundred eight Energy per second. That meant maxing out Harden caused his Energy pool of three thousand two hundred twenty-six to drop by twenty-one per second.
The combination of the two shields, one above and one below, worked amazingly well, reducing the strain on the Mages and allowing them to focus on protecting the group’s flanks. The benefits justified the small cost to Ruwen’s Energy pool.
They reached the gate as the counter fell to fifteen. One of the Workers had a level five Shed, and they created a thirty-by-thirty-by-thirty-foot cube. The other Workers with maxed Harden, immediately strengthened every surface except the one that faced the portcullis. The Glow from all the Workers made the inside of the cube bright.
Ruwen closed his Void Band and stopped channeling Harden. The structure shook from the massive bombardment of spells and missiles that Ruwen no longer absorbed with his Void Band shield. His Inventory had suffered a huge reduction in space. Even with the stacking of similar spells, arrows, and crossbow bolts, he’d still used over six hundred slots in their short run to the gate.
Ruwen and Bliz stood in the middle of the wall facing the gate, with four Workers on each side of them. Ruwen used his level one Melt to remove a small portion of wall and expose a piece of the portcullis. Grabbing the terium alloy bar, nothing appeared to happen. Bliz, who had five levels of Melt, did the same, and the bar softened under his
