Eldritch Creature's Guide

When they arrived at the main tent of the orks, Samiel noted that there were another five orks aside from Dharzug, but all of them scrambled away the second Juulius entered with Samiel and Yvraine, with Yvraine looking at the orks menacingly, but didn't say anything.

"So what is the situation?"

Samiel asked the second he entered the tent and saw that the orks left the tent and Dharzud replied back in some broken Cosmos Common language as he started explaining the situation they faced against the vampires in this part of the Bone Mountains.

"Right now, we are spearheading towards the core of the bat territory in the Bone Mountains and within next week, we should arrive at the man fortresses that they have constructed in the depths of the Bone Mountains."

Juulius explained as they made good progress on the conquest.

"And what of their powers?"

Samiel knew that they had already managed to kill a few of the powerhouses of the vampires, as they had several Kindreds among them; it was clear that they were supported by the real powers of the Congregation.

"We have noted that they have at least ten more Silver-Tier Professionals among their ranks... from which at least four are the peak of the Silver-Tier and are Kindreds. From the prisoners captured, we have found out that these are not just ordinary worshippers of the Andruil, but there is Great Aristocratic Family supporting their efforts because they are searching for something in the Bone Mountains... If I had to guess, they are probably trying to excavate some remains of the Holy Legendary Level Arrakian sandworm that was killed here a long time ago."

It still didn't make sense for a bunch of Silver-Tier Professionals trying to excavate remains of the Holy Legendary Level being, but whatever... probably the bats that were ordering this operation had their reasons for this... maybe they had.

Or perhaps it was a suicide mission from the start and it was just a political move to kill off the potential opposition in the younger generation among the same Family... who knew, but that would be certainly adhering to the vampire style of solving the inter-family competition.

"And the level of the ordinary troops?"

It was clear that the level of the average ork was really below that of an ordinary Vampire... that was something pretty understandable because of the fundamental difference between the two species had between each other.

While the orks usually went for quantity, Vampires went for quality; thus an individual ork was much stronger than an individual ork. Not to mention the Kindreds that could take tens of orks of the same Tier without a problem.

"At least two thousand in their fort... and we have something little above four thousand orks, so I have preliminarily opted out for direct attack as that would be essentially impossible, but with the addition of the Undead Army, we have better chances."

Juulius stated as Samiel nodded, but he didn't agree with the direct attack on the vampires, because even with the addition of the Undead Army of his, it would be still too dangerous and losses would be high and Samiel always went for the method with the least casualties and best effect.

"We will not be attacked directly, but we will try to bring as many of them out of their hiding place and weaken them at first. Are there any notable places which they would be forced to defend at any cost?"

Samiel asked as he observed the map; it was evident that Juulus did a good job at mapping the area and highly the major points of interest for them. There were at least three places highlighted with the red color for the utmost importance for Vampires from what Samiel could read off from the map.

"Yes, there are... we have noted down three sanctuaries across the territory of the Bone Mountains; apparently in those sanctuaries they have altars for the Great God Andruil and at the same time, they are also digging up somewhere there. So in a situation of attack, they would be forced to defend the place with everything they got."

Juulius answered as Samiel grinned ferally while Dharzug observed two of them as it suddenly started making sense of him, especially what they were planning.

"We will attack all three of them at the same time; each one will be attacked in two waves. One wave would consist of four hundred orks, while another wave would consist of a thousand orks and my Undead. Through this, we should be able to lure out something in between 750 to 1,000 vampires out of their hiding place."

Samiel proposed the plan as it was a good one. With the two-wave tactics, he was aware that bats would send out maximally three hundred of their own towards each place because they needed to hold their fort, something that the orks didn't need because the aim of orks was to destroy their enemies altogether.

So, they didn't need to leave their soldiers behind, while vampires needed to leave at least 50% of their entire numbers behind to guard their lines, while orkish forces bolstered by those of the Undead Army could move unhindered towards their victory.

"But even then, breaching the fortress that the vampires managed to build would be hard... yeh the bats would have only around one thousand soldiers if everything goes right, but we need to come up with a strategy on how to breach their defenses in the shortest time possible. If not, we will sustain considerable losses on our side, even if I use my Undead as cannon fodder."

It was actually pretty surprising, but blood races were pretty good at building the fortifications because they were experts at building fortifications filled with the most deadly traps and easily defendable buildings.

They were not master-crafts on the level of dwarves or other species that were proficient in this, but none could compare against vampires in terms of creativity when it came to traps that were always filling the entire place and were basically deathtrap.

They needed to find a way how to deal with this, because if not, then they would be skewered by the vampiric traps. In a certain twisted sense of irony, their cruelty and love for torture have proved themselves exceptionally suitable for trap crafting and creating highly effective traps.

"There is still the possibility of using Undead to clear the traps... at least those for one use."

Yvraine said after some consideration, but this solved only one-third of the problem. Many of the traps that vampires like to build in their buildings, were for more than one use, some were permanent and some were actually magitek weaponry in-built into the structure.

"What about the infiltration and getting into the control room and getting hands on the controls of the defense system? Vampires are keeping with the time and for more than three Eras they are keeping everything automated."

Samiel stated even though he himself had a low opinion of this possibility. Even though some of the stuffy aristocrats of the blood races didn't like technology and preferred to live by something Samiel called medieval standards, it was interesting to see, that when it came to combat or military, they always used everything possible in their capabilities.

"That seems... possible, though we are running into two problems. One would be the location of the person holding the command code over the automated defense and the second would be finding who is the person in question because I seriously for that doubt that they are stupid enough to give it to the commander, as he would be the most obvious choice."

Juulius analyzed the proposition that Samiel brought to the table as it had two most visible problems. Naturally, there would be a need for someone to enter the place and unfortunately for them, they didn't have anyone who could enter.

Samiel tended to make a huge mess out of everything, Dharzug didn't even know that the word "subtlety" existed, Juulius was Holy Knight and Yvraine wasn't that adept in stealth to actually sneaking into a fortress filled with masters in this aspect and perform the mission.

"Then a distraction would be in place..."

Samiel said with a mischievous gleam in his eyes as he used his Level 4 Transcendental Ability Architect to calculate his possible new approach toward the situation.

"I have the highest firepower among us and with enough preparations, I could create some warded place from where I could start bombardment of their fortress with my most powerful spell. Among the chaos, Yvraine could sneak into the fortress together with Nefertari and perform the assassination. The connection with her is getting stronger, so she should be here with Tytos within three days to four maximally."

This was something that seemed pretty much plausible because if he could create enough chaos, then it would be possible for Yvraine to sneak into the fortress and search for the person holding the command over the automated defenses and disable them.

This was the most probable scenario that they could implement and achieve their goals without sustaining too many losses. In the end, everyone agreed to go with this plan because it was the one that had the highest probability of success.

"Then it is decided."

Samiel stated with the tone of finality, as the next strategy on the things was decided and everyone moved towards their own things. Dharzug went to organize the ork boyz to start doing something more productive, while Yvraine and Samiel went to spend some time together while Juulius went to the outskirts of the Bone Mountains as he felt that their familiars were getting closer and closer so he would be there to wait for them.

"I will also need to prepare for the casting of the spells... if we want to achieve the best result, I will need to construct Maan Field around me..."

Samiel said as he considered his options on the things, as he came to the conclusion that the construction of the Mana Field was the best one to increase both potency of his spells and also the quantity he could release.

With the Mana Field in play, Samiel could obtain heightened Mana Regeneration capabilities an cast far more spells and also cast spells at tremendous speed. For the creation of the Mana Field, he would need to make some preparations because creating Mana Field was not an easy task and often required a lot of hard work to build.

"It appears that this time we are going against the vampires... it was a long time since I fought against some."

Yvraine said as they found a nice spot, which was overseeing the orkish campsite and they were watching the orks working in the camp as they were preparing for the upcoming attacks on the three points of interest of the vampires.