TBATE Duality

Chapter 68

Jade Leywin POV

| 6 months later |

"How many troops are we talking about?" Alea asked me while staring at the control panel displaying the border of the Elshire forest

We were currently in the throne room of the elven royal castle in Zestier which has been repurposed as a command center for us since most of the castle has been used to host the refugees coming from the regions at the border of Elenoir

"Around 80000 men a good 60% of them should be mages, they're a week from the outermost border of the Elshire forest and they're led by Lyra" I replied as I touched the olopanel to show her the recordings made by my spy-golems

"Damn, any chance we can get reinforcements?"

"Highly unlikely, I've seen a force equally strong marching towards The Wall too"

"Should we ask for Aya to be deployed?"

"Even if she'll be deployed the Council would most likely send her at The Wall since there's only Varay there, I'm afraid we'll have to make it do with the troops we have" I declared grim

"We have little more than 20000 men and only about 10% of them are mages, how are we supposed to stop a force like that?"

"I don't know, if Lyra wasn't among them we could have gone all out with large scale spells and it would have been doable but either you or I will be busy dealing with her"

' Jade I can handle Lyra if you're worried about that ' Yozora spoke up

' You sure? she might not be nearly as strong as Uto but she's not weak either '

' Yeah, with my current strength I should be able to defeat a retainer like her, worst case scenario I'll just hold her off until you two finish dealing with the army by then she would either retreat or you can come and help me '

' Alright, let's go with this, not like we have any other options '

"I have some good news, more or less" I told Alea

"What?"

"According to my bond she should be strong enough to at least hold off Lyra so we can focus on supporting our army" I explained

"You sure? We're talking about a retainer here" Alea questioned a little skeptical

"Well it's not like we have a better option right?"

"*Sigh* unfortunately you're right"

"Now for the actual battle plan, I'll focus on large scale spells and mow down their numbers, after this you'll lead the troops on the frontline, with your plant magic you're perfect for dealing with large numbers without collateral damage to our troops" I proposed

"Hmm, yeah that should work for starters but even if you manage to annihilate a quarter of their army on your own they would still outnumber us in a ratio of 3 to 1, this alone won't be enough" she noted

"Then we have two options, we either make them scatter throughout the forest and take them down with guerrilla warfare tactics or we make them stick in one point leaving a single access point they can exploit so they can't use their numbers" I illustrated

"I choose option two, this way we would be able to watch over the whole battle and move where we are needed the most also with everyone focused in one point it'll make it easier for you to cast your most powerful spells"

"I agree, now the problem is how do we do that? the Elshire forest doesn't have any canyon or gorge we can take advantage of"

"Unfortunately the entire forest is pretty much flat and the part of the beast glades bordering it is flat too"