Tear A Path 283 Vertical Battle

"Do you smell that?" He whispered in his ear.

Ode was in a state of aggression, but he wasn't looking at him at all. He was looking up.

In the next moment Ode, picked him up in his trunk like arms and threw him aside while he jumped the other way, just seconds before a flurry of bullets had embedded themselves into the ground where they were just seconds ago.

Ode looked up once he landed, straining his eyes to find his attacker. His pupils constricting once he figured out what was going on.

Half the city had it's back against a cliff face of a mountain. In their world, something like that was always considered something of a natural barrier.

Getting too used to their ways of war, they had forgotten that though their opponents were human, their weapons and strategies were far different to their own. There on that steep face were dozens of men, all equipped to the teeth with guns, a wire of sorts tied t each of them, allowing them to maintain their positions there.

With gravity on their side, all those men needed to do was to shoot their weapons, while their own archers had to do the opposite when their arrows were already losing in terms of range. This was literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

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"Mr. Carr, why do I hear shooting, I don't remember giving out an order to attack. Over" Mototsune spoke from his command.

"I apologize sir, we were actually just trying clean one of theirs who spotted us somehow. But these other humans are much more troublesome than the ones my men are used to shooting. Over." A voice from his telecom responded.

'd.a.m.n!' Mototsune thought to himself. They weren't supposed to attack now, their point of attack was after the main army had drawn theirs out of the city. Those men on the cliff weren't even supposed to fight, at most, they were a threatening presence, meant to capture non-hostiles left in the city for ransom, so they could end the war quickly and without many casualties.

How did they even get spotted. Though the other worlders were super human in comparison to them in terms of their five senses, he had made measures to cloak those men up top. Something wasn't right.

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All the captains met together quite quickly after jumping around town avoiding the shots.

"What are we going to do!?" Jeral voiced in panic. Out of all the captains who arrived at this meet, he looked the worst off despite not receiving any injuries, the thick armor he always wore now found itself half an inch thicker with metal bullets now coating it's surface.

"Y'know, for a big guy and a captain, you're surprisingly whiny." Grendolyn complained.

Tess stepped in between them. "Hey don't talk to him that way!... He's not whiny, he'd delicate." She said while hugging his huge helmeted head."

*Bang!*

The loud sound drew their attention to see Alos slamming his sword on the ground. "This is not the time for those kinds of discussions."

"I concur." Travis followed up. "But what's the plan?"

"Tess, can you shoot them down?" Alos asked, his tone urgent.

Instantly her face changed from the precocious side she usually showed to a more serious one. "I can try, but at that height I'm not sure my shots will be effective. For one thing the winds up there are way stronger, even if it's me I doubt I can have more than 30% accuracy, not to mention that my shots would probably get weaker the higher it has to travel, that's unless I use up alot of my chi per shot, but doing that would only let me shoot about tens of them or so."

"That's a.s.suming I can stand long enough to aim steadily and those guys up there aren't very mobile. I doubt any of my men could do better, if we pit them head to head, with their position and the speed of their shots, my whole squad would be annihilated before we can do any damage." It was a clear explanation, despite her not wanting to show any limits especially in front of an outsider and another woman like Grendolyn, she had a job as a captain. Sending her men to their deaths just to look good was not something she was willing to do.

"Mrs. Grendolyn what about you? Can we do anything to those guys with the mage squad?" Alos turned to her next.

"They probably could, but I don't recommend using our firepower to combat those guys up there." Grendolyn answered.

"Why's that?" Alos felt like there was little hope with the first three words before it was denied by the next sentence.

Grendolyn sighed, she really wasn't used to being in these kind of things. "Firstly, compared to the archers, your mages casting time and aiming is slower, though with the training so far it should have more fire power, I doubt they'll even be able to finish their chant before they're turned into a beehive."

"The heavy armored infantry can protect you while you chant, would that work?" Jeal asked.

"Probably, but the front liners have other places to be right now." Grendoly answered, making everyone look at her confusion. "I have a golem outside the city overlooking this place. It appears that their main attack force is already at our gates and preparing to tear it down."

The faces of all who were there blanched. The enemy was closing in on two fronts, either of which were difficult enough to combat with their whole army due to those guns, and now they had to consider splitting them up?

No matter how they thought about it, it seems they had to sacrifice one side or risk losing on both fronts. The problem was whether or not they could finish the fight fast enough before the other side came to pincer them in the center of a hail of bullets.

"Can't you take care of those guys up there alone?" Tess suddenly blurted after being deep in thought.