Pov The Commander of the 5th Sector

  I had special stairs so I could look out of my command bunker. It was a bit unfortunate to be a dwarf, but other than our height problem, we were quite built for defensive battles. I watched as the surprise army rushed ever closer. I wanted to yell at our information department, but I could not do that at this current moment, as I had a job to do.

  One of the reasons I was a commander was because I was able to use multiple spells at the same time—not for attacking, but to dictate the flow of battle. I had already activated many communications, all of them connecting me to the different lieutenants, who would then relay their commands to their subordinates. We had practiced this for quite a while, but this would be the very first real use of our command structure.

  “It’s confirmed that an army of nearly a million is approaching. All platinum. They have monstrosities that could cause damage to our defenses. Everyone assigned as long-range attackers, get to your positions, and when the command is given attack.”

  I watched the approaching army about to reach the first line. Time seemed to slow down as I waited for the right moment to order the long-ranged attacks. I waited a bit longer for more of them to cross that imaginary line before I yelled out loud and through all of my communication spells, "Attack!"

  There was a moment of pause before I felt the concentration of mana spike. Then spells and projectiles shot out at incredible speeds. Even before they reached their target, the second wave was also launched—thousands upon thousands of attacks.

  Defensive spells sprang up in the attacking army, blocking the first few attacks that reached them with ease. The monstrosities among them—monsters I had never seen before—projected their own defensive skills, seemingly the most effective. Already with the first wave of attacks, some of the defenses wavered, except around those monsters.

  We didn't stop attacking. Wave after wave of destruction rained down on the enemy, but they still kept coming. It was basically impossible to see what was happening, but every so often, I caught glimpses when an explosion blew away and cleared some areas of smoke and debris. There were dead do we were doing damage, but they seemed to disappear soon afterwards. So we were fighting dungeon monsters.

  I was expecting Father to comment or send his own monsters, but he hasn’t communicated with us, so perhaps he means for us to take this attack on. No matter the case, I will do my best, although I will want answers afterwards. The lines of enemies continued to approach, and it was unfortunate that we couldn’t use their dead as a way to stop them from moving forward.

  "Concentrate your attacks on the second line!" I yelled out once again and watched as the attacks shifted closer to our defensive walls.

  Even if the bodies weren’t blocking their approach, the constant bombardment slowed them down. We didn’t want the ones who survived the first line to rush forward and interrupt our attacks. We needed to move the attacking line closer. This seemed to be the best line to hold. We were basically constantly bombarding it, slowing the enemy’s approach to a crawl. Yet they still continued to advance.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Close range, switch to the third line! Long range, switch back to the first line!" I yelled once again.

  Unfortunately, we needed to switch focus, as the long-ranged attacks had too large of an area of attack damage and could actually interrupt our defenses if they went off near the third line. Immediately, the enemies started to move forward faster.

  "Defensive barriers!" I yelled, and immediately I felt mana barriers flare up and more mana being supplied to the walls. Attacks started to hit almost immediately after. That had been too close, but now I knew. Our defenses were magnificent, and while I could feel the vibrations in the wall from all the attacks, we were holding.

  They tried to approach a few times, but they hadn’t cracked our defenses yet, as every attempt was pushed back. We had started to rotate our attackers as they were getting tired and running out of mana, even if they could pull from the mana lines, no one could do that forever. Fortunately, the other sectors were sending their reserves, but it was clear that we all needed more reserves for a more sustainable defense.

  It took quite a while. I looked at my clock to see that we had battled for nearly three hours now. The enemy had started to concentrate on one section, and I watched as one of the monstrosities—it had six legs and looked like a mix between a rhino and a lizard—charged forward. On its back, many humanoids defended it against spells.

  Lieutenants took charge of local changes like that, and I was glad to see that they were acting correctly, even though this time it didn’t seem to work. More and more of that area focused only on that one target, yet it continued to accelerate and rush forward. It activated some sort of charge skill, and I knew that a breach was inevitable.

  “Area 776, prepare for a breach!” I sent out the command and watched as people started to act appropriately. I was still amazed at all these devices allowing me such good details about the battle. I couldn’t even imagine how good our defenses would be in 100 years of constant development. It was going to be magnificent.

  As I suspected, the wall was breached. The attack crumbled around a 12-meter area, leaving an entrance. The monstrosity did die, but I would have liked for it to remain alive a bit longer to block the attacking army. Before we could cover that hole with defenders to keep anyone from getting in, some of our detectors reported hidden enemies rushing in, trying to advance deeper into our defensive structures.

  “Keep the mana lines safe! Anti-stealth units to Area 776 and all surrounding areas—find and destroy all intruders!”

  If needed, we had the capability of restoring the wall, but it would never be as good as before, and the approaching army had used our distraction with the charging monstrosity to get closer. This meant we couldn’t reinforce a quickly built wall, which meant we needed to use a wall of people.

  The attacking army rushed into the breach and met our defenders. This would be the last effort of the attacking army. Our ranged attacks had decimated their numbers. Yet, if this was an army made by a dungeon, there would be many more to follow.

  Then, all of a sudden, they all disappeared, and I heard Father’s voice.

  "Do not worry, this was a test. It was my army that attacked. We now have an idea of what our defenses can do and what we need to improve. I thank you for your diligence—everyone did excellent."

  I was mad—not because what he did, but because this section wasn’t fully run by monsters. We had so many others here. I looked around and saw others feeling the same way. I asked something I didn’t want to ask.

  "How many did we lose?"

  There was a brief silence before I saw the surprise on the faces of those gathering the information.

  "None?" was their answer, and I was dumbfounded. How was that even possible? So I asked the exact question again.

  "A lot of monsters did die, but none of the others… I don’t know how to—"

  He was about to continue, but he was cut off. I guessed Father was speaking to him as well as to me.

  "This was a test. I made sure no one who was not replaceable died. You would have held the breach, but I stopped the fighting before anyone could actually die."

  I let out a tired sigh. My anger washed away, leaving only exhaustion from the whole situation. We made many mistakes, and after a few days, I was certain I would be happy about this test, but right now, I just wanted to get our defenses back in order and then sleep for quite a while.