Page 198

For the following half month, I accompanied the barbarian forces on five missions to break through the orc encirclement. Among these, we successfully rescued refugees from the barbarian tribes and brought them into Hurricane Fortress on four occasions. This success rate was several times better than the results achieved when they operated independently, mainly due to the White Dragon Winter Night's exceptional long-range early warning capabilities and formidable battlefield deterrence. The only time we failed was when we encountered the Orc Alliance's national war beasts—the War Beasts, and not just one but two of them at mid-tier level 10. We had no choice but to abandon the mission and break out as a whole army. These battles deepened my understanding of the impact super magical beasts had on war and further strengthened my resolve to destroy the "Berserk Sword - Dragon Slayer" and completely eradicate the "Dragon Knight" class in the future.

However, my true objective was to find the Fontainebleau Legion on the battlefield and deliver the message I intended to send. After all, this wasn't the human world that the orcs had been cultivating for years, where an information network could be utilized. Even if there was, I wouldn't know how to make contact, so I had to figure it out on my own. Fortunately, on my third sortie, I luckily encountered the active Fontainebleau Legion. Using the White Dragon's flight speed, I shook off the pursuing Griffin and Pegasus Knights, and intercepted the Golden Eagle youth Siegfried in the air. During our brief skirmish, I managed to hand over the prepared message and the solution I had devised.

The battles that followed became increasingly difficult. The Orc Alliance's army gradually completed the encirclement, while the barbarians, despite having physiques comparable to the orcs and an innate ice-attribute bloodline that allowed them to adapt to the snowy world, lacked the orcs' terrifying survival instincts. The number of people who eventually gathered at Hurricane Fortress was less than 300,000. Fortunately, most of those who survived were capable fighters. After sending back those who were truly unfit for battle and those necessary personnel whose bloodlines needed to be preserved to the frozen soil base, Hurricane Fortress managed to muster an army of 200,000. By this time, the Orc Alliance had gathered over 500,000 troops outside the Crystal Grand Canyon. With the aid of the vast forests of the ice plains, siege weapons were continuously being manufactured and transported to the frontlines.

The siege began in earnest at the end of May. The orcs aimed to completely eliminate the barbarian threat and retake Hurricane Fortress, while the barbarians hoped to buy time by relying on the fortress's defenses. If they could hold out until the long winter of August and September, the bitter cold might force the orcs to retreat. If not, they would at least need to buy enough time to allow their clans in the frozen soil to establish a stronghold and resist the continuous sweeps by the orcs after they occupied the fortress.

However, the overall situation was tilting in favor of the Orc Alliance. In the early stages, the orcs deliberately aimed to exhaust the fortress's defensive supplies by sending large numbers of auxiliary races, such as the dog, sheep, rat, and deer tribes—races with large populations but mediocre combat effectiveness. They even included many half-orc slaves who were originally assigned to rear area logistics. Although these auxiliaries had strength only slightly above ordinary humans and were far inferior to the barbarians, they still possessed orc bloodlines. Lacking great power, they were incredibly resilient and had strong survival instincts. Despite being hacked at with axes, smashed with logs and rocks, and doused with boiling water and oil, they would fall in droves during each siege, yet post-battle casualty counts often showed only a tenth lost, and they would return the next day with renewed morale. The barbarians, on the other hand, began to show signs of fatigue from the high-intensity defense, and their supplies were heavily depleted.

What truly gave the orcs pause, however, was the garrison of Temple Mages and the Priest Corps inside the fortress. This elite and impressive team consisted of four level 9, twelve level 8, and twenty-three level 7 mages, along with over 300 senior priests. With support personnel numbering ten times this amount at lower and intermediate levels, their combined power was equivalent to that of four level 10 mages working together. They were capable of independently annihilating a large city, and even with the orcs' numerous Shamans, they could not be taken lightly.

To counter this team, the Orc Alliance employed a tactic that would become widely known and criticized in later generations—"Earth Smoke Signals." This tactic was first proposed and gradually perfected by my Fontainebleau Legion.

When I first took command of Fontainebleau and established Green Hill Fortress, we conducted extensive explorations of the Devouring Swamp adjacent to the fortress. This cursed, vast swamp, born from the combined forbidden spells of the Twelve Sages, was home to many highly toxic mutated creatures. Among them was a mutated poisonous wolf, similar in size to the wolf mounts of wolf knights but possessing greater combat power and potent venom. We initially attempted to tame these mutated wolves as mounts, but these mutated creatures were far too feral to be domesticated. So, our experienced beast trainers resorted to crossbreeding, resulting in a new breed of giant wolves. Although these new wolves were fiercer and could be tamed, they lacked the poisonous fangs and claws of the mutated wolves, which was quite regrettable.

After I left Fontainebleau, a chance discovery by the wolf knights revealed that the feces of these new giant wolves produced large amounts of toxic smoke when burned, and the smoke was heavy and slow to dissipate. Katherine, upon hearing this news, immediately recognized it as an extremely ruthless siege weapon and urged the wolf knights to switch to these new giant wolves en masse. Calculations showed that 8,000 giant wolves would provide enough material to initiate the "Earth Smoke Signals" attack. By adding dry grass and firewood to the burning wolf dung and having Shamans summon the "Wind Totem" on the opposite side to blow the smoke toward the enemy, this simple method could generate a toxic fog covering an entire city.

The weather in the Northern Country during May and June was unusually pleasant, but now the barbarians and human reinforcements could only curse it. As long as there was no heavy rain or strong winds, the smoke would linger. The only defense was to use advanced Light God spells to construct a "Purification Field" barrier to withstand the toxic smoke. While wind magic could disperse the fog and water magic could isolate air currents, or even the rising vortex of fire magic could temporarily block it, the fundamental difference between magic and divine arts left the mages powerless. In terms of instant lethality and range, divine arts were far inferior to magic, but a totem could last for hours, and a high-level War God Shaman could maintain ten "Wind Totems" for 24 hours. Even a level 9 mage could not continuously use magic for more than half an hour. As a result, the priests of the Radiant Temple engaged in a war of attrition with the low-level divine arts of the Shamans, and if they couldn't hold out, the mages would have to step in, using magic meant to overturn warships to disperse the endless stream of thick smoke.