Mountain of the Immortals

I climbed up the stairs to the top of the walls, the others close behind me, eager to see the enemies that were finally arriving. Once we reached the top, we saw hundreds of warriors, mostly archers and spellcasters, standing atop the walls, looking out. Flames illuminated their backs and the sides of their faces but the sun had not yet risen, so the only light on the mountainsides was that of the almost-full moon.

My people parted so we could stand between them and take a look for ourselves. Several hundred feet away, and some distance below us, the first signs of our enemies could be seen—torches and creatures that seemed to be emitting a shine themselves, humanoids whose weapons glowed.

They were moving slowly but steadily forward and upward. Up to their deaths. As I looked closer at them, it became obvious that they had already sustained some damage. Their formation was broken in certain places, a sign that they’d lost some of their troops to the traps we had set on their way up.

Knowing that the flying enemies would soon be reaching us as well, I looked up at our sky harbor, where a significant portion of our archers had been placed. As ordered, the harbormaster had already activated the harbor’s special ability and a cloud began forming around the floating platforms.

We might not have had the chance to get ourselves any flying ships yet but the master of the sky harbor had let me know that even though the whole place was hidden inside an inconspicuous-looking cloud, people already inside of it could see out without any hindrances.

In other words, whatever glamour was hiding the harbor could also be utilized to hide a lot of ranged-attack specialists, who would be able to take down enemies that got close enough with their defenses down. This might not have made a huge difference if we were attacked by hundreds of small enemies, but if a monster of Typhon's proportions got close to them, and was attacked by literally hundreds of surprise strikes at once, it might be just enough to render them useless for the rest of the fight—if not outright kill them.

"The plan is moving along nicely," Ares said.

I nodded. "Send word to the ships waiting by the Aegean portal," I said to one of the messengers who were following us around, waiting to relay orders. "Tell them to flank the enemy vessels now."

Another tactical advantage that we had created through our preparations, was putting as many fighters with experience in nautical battles in the best prepared warships we had available. And because most of them were merchant vessels, with only light weaponry that was normally only used to protect them from pirates, we outfitted them with magical cannons of our own.

Having them all in our lake at the top of Olympus was to protect them to a certain extent, but it also allowed us to give a nasty surprise to the enemy ships bringing the last of the troops to Dion. Cronus definitely wouldn’t be expecting any kind of battle at sea, and even if he’d sent a few ships with offensive capabilities in case Dion offered resistance, they would have docked in the town long before now.

There was no way they would have expected warships to appear out of nowhere from behind them, much less warships filled with warriors that could surround their troops and could also retreat back through the portal in case things got too hard. And these were only a couple of the tricks we’d prepared as a welcome to our enemies.

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash above our heads. A flaming boulder smashed into the mana dome surrounding the town, and glowing shards slowly rolled down and away from us as it broke up. I bet Cronus's troops weren’t expecting anything like this kind of resistance.

I opened up the general overview of our guild core, just to ease my mind with the sight of the stored MP we still had.

* * *

Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm

Name: Mount Olympus

Level: 6 (Maximum)

State: Besieged

MP: 281,678,557,957

MP Generation: 1,006,000 MP/minute

Population: 36,518

Lumber: 2,958

Iron: 1,333

Food Rations: 84,810

* * *

I had spent quite a lot on upgrades, but still had billions that would last a long while. A second boulder crashed into the dome while I was still looking at the MP, and could see that each of the strikes used up just a bit over one million MP from our total pool.

That meant we could take more than 280,000 of those as well as regenerating more MP in the meantime. I was sure that these were just their long-range siege weapons, but it was still a comforting thought. After all, I was planning on ending this long before we got that far.

One thing that stood out to me was the word besieged in the guildhall's state field. I hadn’t seen that before and wondered if there were any special options that came with it, so I focused on the word.

* * *

Do you want to switch to siege overview?

Yes No

* * *

I mentally selected “Yes” and felt as if my mind was immediately taken out of my body and pinned several hundred feet above our town. I could see our walls, our defenses and structures, and our troops, as well as the forests surrounding us and the incoming enemies. In fact, it looked exactly like the time I’d had to command those armies as a test to take control of the place of power that later became our guild core.

Each battalion, each squadron, appeared with a different name and status. Some of them were standing by, others were scouting for enemies, while a few who were equipped with longbows were already engaged in battle. I could even see how many of them were alive compared to their initial total, their classes, weapons, buffs, and if they had a healer among them. A smile instantly spread across my face when I saw the percentile increase they got from training in the barracks and academies. This twenty-percent increase would absolutely make a difference in such large numbers.

Most importantly, however, I could also see the enemies once they crossed a certain threshold around our town. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t see beyond that certain limit. There was nothing except for a black fog. And the information I got about the enemies was much less than for my own troops, but still pretty useful. Dark Energy notifications told me their average level and numbers of troops, but what I could see with my own eyes was equally valuable. For example, I could see the number of catapults and other types of siege weaponry that were being pushed up the mountain.

"Take notes of what I say," I said out loud, as I looked at the incoming enemies. "Ares, you start sending troops according to what makes sense."

"Will do," he replied.

I relayed their numbers and levels but also went into greater detail about what I was seeing. The type of armor they were wearing would make it easier to decide which of our troops would be best to attack them. Knowing the positions and directions the siege weaponry was taking meant that we could turn our own mana cannons toward them and take them out before they were able to cause more damage to our protective mana field.

"What the hell is that thing?" Artemis said.

"What thing?" I asked.

"What are you talking about? It's impossible to miss!" she replied.

"I switched to a top-down view to get more information about the siege," I explained, "so I can only see a portion of... Oh, I see it now."

* * *

Unit Name: Siege Construct A

Fighters: 1/1

Average Level: 60

Morale: Neutral

* * *

Even looking at it from above, I could see its massive scale compared to the troops around it. But knowing the numbers and its size wasn’t enough for me. I needed to know what our warriors were seeing, so I switched off siege mode and laid eyes on the massive chunk of destruction coming our way.

I couldn’t get its Dark Energy signature from here but I could see almost everything I needed. It was vaguely humanoid, only instead of flesh it was an amalgam of rocks, metal, and even some crops. I couldn’t tell exactly what kind of magic or skill it would take to make something like this move, but it looked like random pieces of land had been animated to create a large golem.

Its shoulders were a large green pasture, with some very confused sheep still roaming around and grazing on it. Despite its humanoid appearance, the colossal golem lacked any kind of sensory parts. Instead of eyes and ears, it was filled with platforms and crannies that were populated with more foot soldiers. If I had to guess, these would be the ones that would make the first move against us. I bet that Cronus's generals thought having such a large construct to carry soldiers over the walls was the solution to our impenetrable defenses.

I also bet that they had no idea about the dome that wouldn’t even let them pass through it. Still, I couldn't help but feel a sliver of worry at the fact that the siege construct had the letter A after its name. In other words, there could be more than one of these things.

"What's happening back there?" Ares asked, and jumped onto one of the palisades to look at the other side of the wall.

With a pretty good idea of the source of the commotion, I switched to siege mode again. I moved to the edges of what was visible to me and ran around the perimeter of our walls. As I had suspected, there was another construct the same size as this first one approaching us from that side.

And not just that side. In fact, there were now four constructs moving toward us, climbing Olympus from all cardinal directions. And at that point, I understood that the letters weren’t just a way to number them. They were named that way because they were controlled by my father's four generals.

When my father's armies grew, he needed able and experienced mortals or demigods to run them and use them efficiently. He tracked down the four most powerful and respected generals in all of Greece and offered them the honor of commanding his armies.

But, of course, he ended up tricking them.

My father was always worried about entrusting this much power to an individual and feared that the generals would grow strong enough to challenge him. In order to avoid them becoming strong enough to acquire followers of their own, he forced them to change their names to letters. As my father wished, their real names were lost in time and the generals are known only as A, B, Γ, Δ. It was a fate crueler than dying on the battlefield, for that would have meant that people would remember them and their heritage would live on forever.

Just to be a hundred percent sure, I checked another one of them using the siege overview.

* * *

Unit Name: Siege Construct Γ

Fighters: 1/1

Average Level: 60

Morale: Neutral

* * *

It was a damn shame that I would have to be the end of these generals who had their pride stripped away from them by my father. But in another sense, perhaps it was for the best, as it was no secret that in time they had come to hate their positions and had to be magically forced to continue serving Cronus.

"Ares, those large constructs are the key," I said. "They are controlled by my father's four generals. If we defeat them, the armies will have no heads and disperse."

"That's easy to say, but how do we do such a thing?" Ares asked.

At that exact moment, a new notification flashed on the edge of my view.