The flying stone projectiles finally stopped, and the magical barrier that enveloped the entire castle flickered a few times before disappearing. No matter how rich Martin is, it is impossible for him to maintain this barrier twenty-four hours a day, the number of magic crystals in his hand is limited, and no one can provide him with supplies at this time, so he must save these precious materials as much as possible.

The Second Legion of the Kingdom of Virgil can be said to be the main force second only to the Guards Legion, and the reason why it is called the Second Legion instead of the First Legion is simply to not irritate the Guards Legion.

Due to the small offensive surface, the commander of the 2nd Legion, Sethra, did not commit all the forces of the Legion in one go, and the two phalanxes took the lead in attacking under his orders. Five thousand soldiers approached the city wall step by step, in orderly steps.

"Raise your shield!"

Because it was a siege battle, the phalanx of 50 men in both horizontal and vertical directions quickly turned into a flat formation of 250 men in a horizontal column and 10 people in a vertical column during the march, which could reduce the impact area of the long-range weapons projected on the city wall as much as possible, and disperse the attack force of the defender as much as possible.

Walking in the front is the first-order Praetorian Guard, this class Yu Bin had been in contact with in the Hero's Cemetery, and the most headache is the shield in his hand, in the state of raising the shield, the Praetorian Guard can provide very good protection for the fragile companions behind him, and ordinary arrows can't even break through the heavy shield in the hands of the Praetorian Guard.

The wealthy finances of the Kingdom of Virgil made the guards even better equipped, especially the oak-clad iron shield, which kept the weight as low as possible while still maintaining a good enough defense.

The ranged forces that Maltan placed on the walls to defend were mainly archers, most of whom were archers from the 70,000 Menus soldiers, and a small number of skeleton archers. As for the more precious necromancers and corpse witches, Maltan was not willing to waste them in such a place.

Due to the different domestic resources and the enemies faced, there are also obvious differences in the composition of the armies of various human countries. The Kingdom of Virgil was known for being well-equipped, and the abundant treasury meant that the Virgil family did not have to worry about not being able to afford to manufacture the equipment. Due to the barren land, the treasury of the Minas Kingdom cannot support the soldiers to change into better equipment, and at the same time, the kingdom needs to guard against the annual barbarian invasion, and the number of troops cannot be reduced, which makes the army of the Minas Kingdom mainly based on close combat, with the largest proportion of first-order militia and fourth-order sentinels in the army, as well as the corresponding promotion form soldiers, supplemented by a small number of cavalry and archers.

Therefore, in this wave of attacks of the Second Legion, the arrows flying down from the city walls were not dense, and there were almost no high-damage things like bursting arrows. This allowed the two phalanxes to enter the distance of the counterattack without taking much losses.

"Good! That's great! Seeing that the situation was better than he expected, Mante, who was watching the battle from the lookout, couldn't help but smile, and even thought that the commander of the legion, Sethra, had invested too little force, if not two, but four phalanxes, maybe this first wave of attacks would be able to take down the city wall.

Dorman, on the other hand, frowned, and although there was nothing wrong with Sethra's orders, he always felt that the Lich of Maltan would not be so stupid.

The height of the walls always gives the defender a better attacking advantage, especially with a bow and arrow. When the Praetorian guards protected the archers and crossbowmen behind them and rushed to the distance where they could counterattack, the two phalanxes had already been baptized by three waves of arrows, and even if they were well protected, at least hundreds of people fell along the way, most of them were halberdiers and spearmen who were located in the back row of the phalanx, without shield cover, and they could not provide themselves with adequate protection because they carried siege ladders to climb the city walls.

As for those bulky siege arrow towers, Dorman did not use them in this attack, firstly, these siege arrow towers moved slowly and could not keep up with the advance speed of the two phalanxes, and secondly, the defensive strength in the castle was not significantly consumed.

"Stop! Praetorian Guards, archers counterattack! The officers who attacked with the phalanx shouted loudly, and after the baptism of the rain of arrows just now, these soldiers also showed a sense of courage, thinking that those undead were nothing more than that, and it was not that they had rushed to the distance of the counterattack so easily. The archers did not hesitate to draw the arrows from their quivers and shoot them towards the city walls.

As a result, the arrows that streaked across the sky became noticeably denser, and archers were constantly falling to the ground, and the Praetorian guards were unable to provide tight protection for the archers due to the need to leave a clear view when shooting arrows, which made the speed of archers' losses increase significantly.

"Huh? Wrong! Why hasn't there been a noticeable decrease in the number of arrows shot down from the walls! "Theoretically, once you enter the stage of shooting at each other, even if the archers on the walls have a condescending advantage and are protected by the walls, there will always be some losses, and these losses will continue to increase, so that the rain of arrows from the walls will start to decrease until the defenders bring in new archers.

But the officers who followed the phalanx to attack soon discovered that no matter how many arrows were fired from their side, the rain of arrows from the walls showed no sign of abating.

Who would do such a boring thing? With this kind of margin, it is better to place as many archers on the walls as possible at the beginning, and use a large rain of arrows to make them produce a large number of attrition in the march.

Someone risked their lives to look up from behind their shields at the undead defenders on the city walls and finally saw what was wrong.

"Damn! They have become undead, and even if an arrow pierces the heart, it will have no effect on them! The spearmen and halberders attack immediately, don't wait for the results of the fire suppression, and immediately set up the siege ladder for me! ”

At this time, you can see the strength of the military strength of the Virgil Kingdom, whether it is a soldier or an officer, they do not know much about the characteristics of the undead, and they are slow to react and do not know how to improvise. However, this can't be completely blamed on them, after all, the enemies that the kingdom's army usually faces are some beasts or robbers and bandits, and even the so-called rebels have not been encountered, because the civilians of the Virgil Kingdom are generally wealthy, and when they have money, who will engage in any rebellion.

After receiving the warning, the soldiers carrying the siege ladder immediately rushed past their companions who were shooting at the undead on the city wall and rushed towards the city wall not far away.

But it was too late, as the archers under the walls had already suffered heavy losses from the previous long-range suppression, which freed up the archers on the walls to turn their suppression to the soldiers who were climbing up the engineering ladder. At the same time, because they had basically not experienced siege warfare in peacetime, and there was little training in this area, these soldiers climbed very slowly, and the way of erecting siege ladders was very simple, and many of them were destroyed by the rolling logs and stones smashed down from the city wall before they could be erected.

In this way, a large number of soldiers and hedgehogs gathered under the city walls, which became excellent targets. With bows and arrows, rolling logs, stones, and even poison, the entire battlefield seemed to be transformed into a slaughter field, echoing with the wails of the soldiers of the Kingdom of Virgil.

When Sethra realized that something was wrong and told the heralds to immediately blow the horn to retreat, the two attacking phalanxes were on the verge of collapse. Dorman demanded that the battle loss rate should not be retreated if the battle loss rate exceeded 30%, but in fact, the battle loss rate of the two phalanxes had exceeded 50%, and when the horn sounded, all the soldiers who could still move did not hesitate to throw down their weapons, turned around and ran towards the camp where they set out, even completely ignoring the formation required for retreat.

The chaotic rout almost scattered the other two phalanxes, but fortunately, the law enforcement team reacted in time, and after slashing dozens of soldiers in succession, the rout was finally stopped.

After counting the number of surviving soldiers, Cethra stepped onto the lookout.

"How's it going? How much was lost? Dorman didn't blame Sethra for his defeat, because the commander didn't give the wrong orders, and it was the poor military quality and resilience of the soldiers that led to the result.

"Less than 2,000 people have returned, many of them are still wounded, almost all weapons and equipment have been lost, and morale is completely lost, even if the injuries are cured, I am afraid it will not be of much use." Sethra said in frustration, after all, it was his soldiers, and at this time, in front of so many Kingdom soldiers, these fools simply disgraced his face.

Dorman nodded, "I see!" Let the soldiers who escaped return to the camp to heal their wounds, and staying here will only add to the chaos anyway! Will your Second Legion be able to go on? If it doesn't work, I'll let the Third Army of Ningli go up. ”

"No problem!" If he retreats at such a time, even if Dorman does not do anything to him, His Majesty Mantein, who is standing next to him with an uncertain face, will probably label him a waste, and when this war is over, he, the commander of the army, can go home and pick up the child.

"Then go ahead and prepare! Go ahead and send two phalanxes to attack! This time, I want you to put as much pressure on the undead as possible! ”

"Yes!" Sethra tapped heavily on his breastplate and walked quickly off the lookout.

Soon, two more phalanxes began to advance towards the city walls. This time, Sethra completely abandoned the idea of using archers to suppress the city walls, the characteristics of the undead made it difficult for them to be killed by arrows, not to mention those skeleton archers, even those human soldiers of the Minas Kingdom had begun to transform into the undead due to the long-term ingestion of food that had been fed by Maltan. Although it is not yet to the level of complete undeadness, just being shot in a secondary part of the body can no longer affect their actions and combat effectiveness. Unless the arrow hits their head, heart, or throat.

Without archers, the two phalanxes increased the number of Praetorian guards and doubled the number of siege ladders. Sithra thinks that since it is impossible for these soldiers to climb on the siege ladder like monkeys in a short time, they have to find a way to increase the number of people who climb at the same time, and doubling the siege ladder means doubling the number of people climbing, and naturally there will not be so many soldiers who can only stand under the city wall to withstand the attack unilaterally because they have nothing to do.

Coupled with the fact that more Janissaries were providing them with protection, Cethra thought that even if they would still fail this time, at least they would not be as embarrassed as they had just been.

But he still underestimated the undead's abilities, or rather, including Dorman, he didn't know how to fight the undead. Nearly a hundred years have passed since the last faction war, and apart from some old generals, the younger generals in the various kingdoms of mankind have no experience in large-scale wars with the undead at all. Not to mention a landlocked country like Virgil.

The arrows that came down from the walls were still the same, not too much or too little, and they looked exactly like they were dealing with an errand. The officers who followed the phalanx in the attack could not help but rejoice in this, and relying on the protection provided by more Praetorian guards, they rushed to the foot of the city wall without danger.

Siege ladders were erected, and although there were still siege ladders that failed to be erected or were smashed by rolling logs and stones pushed down from the city walls, most of them were successfully fixed at the head of the city.

"Rush! Rush up! Kill all the evil undead! "I have to say that these soldiers of the Virgil Kingdom still have courage, especially those officers, they are generally from large and small aristocratic families all over the kingdom, and the families have been infested by the undead in the manors or mines in the kingdom, which makes them very eager to destroy these damn skeletons and let the Virgil Kingdom return to the peaceful situation it had before, so that they can be safe and secure and make money happily.

Officers taking the lead in charging have always been a great weapon to boost morale. You don't see that in the real world, in the world war, a certain polar bear country took the lead in the big cap, and the servants gathered, and they were stunned to beat the well-armed fascist devils with a long live charge. Although after the war, according to statistics, this is often done by killing 1,000 enemies and losing 3,000 yourself, but you can't bear the thick foundation of others. I can't blow up the equipment if I can't blow you up, so I'll blow up the population! Three for you and one are all earned.

"Humph! A bunch of idiots! "As one of Martan's lieutenants, the Bone Knight Steyr was on the city wall from the very beginning. Seeing these soldiers of the Virgil Kingdom as if they had eaten hormones, following those officers along the siege ladder towards the top of the city, he couldn't help but show a look of contempt. "It's your turn! Do it! ”

A group of necromancers walked up to the walls and began to chant incantations, and as the necromancy was completed, the corpses that remained under the walls stood up trembling under the force of death, and then rushed towards the siege ladders.

Shocked, Cethra hurriedly asked the herald to blow the horn for retreat. Because when these corpses turned into undead and stood up again, the two phalanxes he sent out were equivalent to being attacked on their backs, with the undead on top of their heads relying on the city walls for defense, and behind them were the enemies who blocked the way of retreat and were bent on destroying the siege ladder.

"It's too late!" Dorman on the lookout shook his head bitterly, telling the final fate of the soldiers.

As he said, even if the horn of retreat sounded immediately, most of the soldiers who had already stepped on the siege ladder would not be able to get out of this desperate situation. As a result, the losses suffered by these two phalanxes were even greater than the previous two, and less than 500 of the 5,000 men managed to escape, and the rest were all killed.

To make matters worse, the two failed attacks resulted in the loss of more than 8,000 soldiers to Dorman, whose corpses would definitely be resurrected by the evil undead, and the same amount of money that Maltan paid a very small price to increase his troops by 8,000 out of thin air.

Dorman felt that perhaps the week he had promised in front of His Majesty Mantein would be difficult to fulfill.