Ebolden Offensive and Defence, Day 20.

The city is broken.

After repelling the enemy's attacks many times, Loren finally ordered the city walls to be abandoned, and the whole army withdrew through the underground passages into the fortress inside the city, while the hussar army continued to roam outside the city, contacting reinforcements on the one hand, and continuing to sneak up on the enemy's rear line troops on the other.

Although it was a tactical arrangement that had been planned for a long time, it was even more forced to be helpless; in the face of an opponent with more than twice the strength and completely crushing level, the defenders of Eboden should not say that they would go out of the city to fight, even if they could not do it by sticking to the city walls!

In the bloody battle of the city wall in front of the port, not only did the defenders suffer heavy losses, but even the wizard tower suffered more than a third of the casualties, and many wizards were slashed to death by the swords of the elven warriors who swarmed up the fortress and stronghold before they had time to retreat when they were breached.

The projectile weapon position under the city wall was even more tragic - because it was not protected by the ice barrier, the elven warship that broke through the chain of the sea barrier directly crossed the city wall and fired indiscriminately at the rear.

In the midst of the flames, the alchemists who stayed behind in the rear, the pharmacists who were responsible for treating the wounded, the women and children who were forcibly recruited... Everyone, along with the trebuchet and the mountain of cans of oil and ignition agent, became a sea of fire.

In a sea of fire and smoke, Ebolden's projection army was wiped out.

The fire destroyed Ebolden's last means of counterattack, but it also created a natural barrier that temporarily prevented the elven army from attacking the inner city from the harbor, giving the defenders a short break and retreat.

It took a day and a night for the fire to be extinguished, and after the fire and the incessant bombardment of the elven fleet, the crumbling walls of the harbor finally crumbled, crumbling into ruins.

The elves, who did not anticipate this, had more than a thousand sentinels buried alive by the collapsed wall, while the "embarrassed" little prince could only send troops to rescue while bypassing the port wall and attacking from three other sides.

On the other hand, all warships were ordered to set up launchers and bombard the city of Eboden indiscriminately before attacking on all fronts.

However, the defenders who retreated to the fortresses in the city, especially the Nine-Pointed Star Wizard Tower, reduced the protective area, and the remaining wizards were enough to hold up a powerful ice barrier to protect the fortress strongholds from destruction.

In the icy cold wind, the elven warriors wielding Azorean long knives rushed into the fire of Ebolden, and with the nine-pointed star wizard tower as the core stronghold, the defenders who occupied the nine fortresses spread out their defenses along the streets and squares, forming a phalanx to intercept the elves' attack momentum.

Tragic white-knuckle battles are staged in every street and corner of the city!

Blades strike, shields crack, spears pierce, swords slash...... Stumps and severed arms soaked in the blood of the boots flowed wildly in the light of the burning fire, and the screams were accompanied by the roars of elves and humans.

Although the defenders of Eboden were almost no match for the well-trained elven warriors when fought alone, fighting in a phalanx in confined spaces was always a strong point for the Imperial Legions.

Especially after the reinforcements of Lothair and Elems joined, the advantage of "multi-arm cooperation" on a small-scale battlefield was vividly displayed.

The Ebolden defenders and mercenaries were responsible for holding off the enemy with shield walls and gun arrays, and the Lothair archers were responsible for constant harassment.

When the enemy decided to retreat, the Elemish light infantry, wielding two weapons – usually a tomahawk and a machete, and the Ellemont knights preferred to use a short sword – burst out of the shield walls and street rooftops, slashing and slashing before the elves could react.

Eberton is a port city, a free city with a "commercial atmosphere", which means that although it has wide streets and beautiful houses, it is more often a maze of alleys and narrow buildings built haphazardly to save money.

The intricate streets and reckless bombardment of the elven fleet turned Ebolden into a vast labyrinth, and the elven warriors fought as if they were exploring the dense forest, and in the process, they repeatedly ran into the traps set by the defenders, and repeatedly hit their heads and broke their heads.

The defenders can use the sewers of Ebuden to "maneuver quickly" in every corner of the city, constantly harasing the advancing speed of the elves who are blocking them, and concentrating their local superior forces to annihilate the enemy, while the wounded soldiers can immediately retreat to various fortresses and fortresses to rest and recuperate, and then continue the battle.

However, no matter how it is reversed, the overall strength disadvantage is still irreparable, and the elite troops of the defenders are gradually exhausted in the repeated "rapid maneuvers", or they are exhausted to the point that they can no longer fight.

By the time the sun rose on the twentieth day, all the surviving witchers had already collapsed from their burdens, except for Lusen, who was still gritting his teeth—exhaustion was still secondary, and the main thing was the erosion of the power of the void and the mental load.

According to Isaac - "If these stinky boys continue like this, they will have to consider whether to kill them first before they become monsters".

The rest of the defenders were overwhelmed, with the Lothair archers running out of arrows, the Elemon swordsmen cutting down their weapons, and by the end almost all the survivors of the city had been issued weapons and gathered in the fortresses and strongholds for final preparations.

The reserves had bottomed out, and the exhausted defenders had nothing but morale, and even the last of their morale was gradually lost to despair as the city was abandoned one by one.

Holding the city to the death can be described as the worst outcome, and it is also the result of no choice - it means that the enemy can attack from any direction, and the defenders can no longer even fight out of the city.

The fortified fortress and stone walls were no longer an umbrella for the defenders, but a tomb, and the only thing they could do was to bury them alive the moment the enemy broke through the tomb gates.

By the early morning of the twentieth day, most of the city of Ebuden had been lost, the streets burned by fire, and the squares soaked in blood had been erected with the banner of the Eagle King in the shape of a triangular triangle, and the Ebolden defenders could only defend the Nine-Pointed Star Wizard Tower and the only three remaining outlying fortresses.

As the city gradually fell, the elves finally found the entrance to the sewers and attacked the wizarding tower and fortress along the few passages.

Regardless of whether it was the little prince's decision or not, the red-eyed elven warriors obviously had no idea of letting go of the last remnant of the enemy.

In the early morning of the twentieth day, the trumpet sounded like the long roar of an eagle, as bloodthirsty and ruthless as ever.

To hold on is to postpone the day of the breaking of the city by one day;

If you can't keep it, it's Ebolden's death.

..........................................

"Boom ——————!!!!"

With the roar of the explosion, the entire Nine-Pointed Star Wizard Tower could feel a violent tremor, and the mournful roar of the fortress could be clearly heard between the rubble and dust falling.

In the center of the nine-pointed star magic circle in front of the hall of the wizard's tower, an old man with a bandage on his head and staggering steps was standing proudly with a magic wand.

The ornate wizard's robes had turned into strips of rags, a finger was missing from both left and right hands, and on the cheeks, without a trace of blood, were a pair of dark and deep-set eye sockets.

The only surviving patriarch of the Nine-Pointed Star Wizard Tower, the leader of the history department, Raymond Bandelke, the standard "Ivory Tower Wizard", a kind elder who has never even touched a sword, has become a leading figure in the attack and defense of Ebolden, and has repeatedly shouldered the heavy responsibility of maintaining the ice barrier and ensuring that the defense line is not lost.

After retreating to the Wizard Tower, because of the heavy casualties of the mentor-level wizards, he took the initiative to ask Ying to shoulder the ice barrier of the Wizard Tower, and insisted on it alone for twenty days, never allowing any apprentice to come to help him.

Of course, at this moment, anyone can see that this old man is already at the end of his power, and even if he falls in the next second, no one will be surprised.

Master Corona had tried to replace him more than once, but each time he had refused for the same reason.

"Both my Bandelk school and the history department of the Wizard's Tower are the smallest of the system, and it has been in danger of extinction since the day I succeeded my father. ”

"So I beg you, Corona, to leave me this opportunity to dedicate yourself—you know your ambitions for the future of wizards, but I only hope that my school and the Department of History will continue in this future. ”

"Even if it dies because of me, it will be remembered for my death, and it will be inherited by some inspired wizard one day in the future. ”

After several attempts of persuasion were all to no avail, Corona had no choice but to acquiesce to this result.

Twenty days of perseverance made the old man a banner for all the wizards in the defenders, and under his encouragement, the "Ivory Tower Wizards", who had already collapsed, stepped forward one by one to bandage the wounds of the wounded soldiers in the explosion and collapsed rubble.

Looking at the back of Master Banderk, who was still gritting his teeth, the black-haired wizard silently glanced at the parchment book in his hand - "On the Inevitable Connection between the Reform of the Handicraft Industry and Alchemy in the Sakran Empire".

After a night of chatting with the "master historian", Isaac put the book in his luggage.

Shaking his head and shivering slightly, Loren calmed his breathing and stared at the hourglass on the book.

The bombardment of the elves had gradually stopped, which meant that they were about to attack, and they had at most a quarter of an hour to rest.

Calculating the time, the black-haired wizard stretched out his right hand to the "Dawn" greatsword to the side.

Just before touching it, it was stopped by another rough palm.

"Something?"

Turning his head, Loren, who raised his gaze, calmly looked at the Corona master behind him.

Extremely tired, he has begun to be too lazy to speak.

Corona bowed his head and his expression was solemn.

"Twenty days, Loren, twenty days. ”

"His Majesty Connault's reinforcements, there is still no sign of it. ”

Looking at the old man's serious appearance, Loren chuckled absently.

"Of course, I know that at the beginning it was said that it was good to hold for thirty days—but the total number of Emperor Conod's legions was 200,000, and it was normal for such a large army to march on the march, and it was normal for the jet lag to occur for ten days and twenty days, so it was natural that it should be dispatched in advance. ”

Corona couldn't suppress the emotion in his tone: "But until now, we still haven't seen a single reinforcement, let alone news from His Majesty, and ...... go on like this."

"Master Corona, what exactly do you want to say?"

Glancing at the hourglass, Loren asked impatiently.

"What I'm trying to say is... If reinforcements don't come, there will be no point in continuing to hold on. ”

The moment he said this, Corona's expression trembled slightly.

The black-haired wizard's expression was stunned.

How much courage and determination does it take for a person who is determined to open up the future for the wizarding world to voluntarily abandon the Nine-Pointed Star Wizard Tower and the base camp of the wizarding world?

"It was a very difficult decision, but it wasn't as difficult as it could have been. In the blink of an eye, Master Corona regained his former composure and composure:

"Because the future of the wizarding world is not a city or an academy at all, let alone a pile of books—but the environment, the atmosphere, and the acceptance of wizards throughout the empire. ”

"The future of the wizarding world is not in the remote seaside city of Eberden, but in the land of prosperous knights. Corona silently stared at the black-haired wizard:

"Even if it takes all the people in this city to get your safety back, I'm willing—we can only have a future if you take a generation or two to reverse the world's perception of wizards and make Byrne a paradise for wizards. ”

"Emperor Conod... While I admit that he would be a good emperor, he has too many preconceptions about wizards, and it is hard for me not to doubt that he did so because he wanted to weaken the power of wizards, so ......"

Corona, who wanted to continue, was stopped by Loren with a smile and raised his hand, and his complicated expression stopped talking.

"I see what you mean, Master Corona, don't worry. The black-haired wizard pursed his lips, barely squeezing out a smile on his tired face;

"But from the day I came, I knew what Conod was thinking. ”

"So the reinforcements I'm waiting for — I mean the ones who really decide the outcome of this attack — wasn't him. ”

Boom ——————!!!!

There was another loud bang, and the converging wizard tower barely blocked a round of bombardment from the elves, but Master Bandek, who was exhausted of the lamp, completely exhausted the last shred of reason, and the spiritual hall collapsed directly, and the seven orifices bled straight down in the center of the magic array.

Exclamations rang out from the hall, and the scrambled wizard apprentices swarmed up, their cries accompanied by the sound of the trumpets of the elves marching outside the gates.

Watching his old friend for many years fall, Master Corona couldn't help but close his eyes, and his eyebrows trembled.

The bombardment is over, and the enemy is about to attack.

"The whole army is ready—"

Clapping his hands, the black-haired wizard with a flat expression stood up and turned to look at the pair of eyes staring at him:

"Avenge Master Bandelk and send them back!"