Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Back in Forest Grove, Wolfe had thrown himself fully into his research, trying to get as advanced as he could through what the ancient Magi had viewed as the essentials of magic, for the good of his people, while around him, everyone was only getting more busy.

All the new witches were getting settled in, but every morning there were more boatloads of refugees coming in from the villages on the Eastern Front, where the battle was only increasing in intensity as the United World Army slowly turned their so-called War Memorial back into an active war zone.

Both sides were entrenched, and the shelling was continuous. They were no longer sending out large patrols, or even groups of witches trying to herd the monsters, as they couldn't get past their own lines with the artillery fire, which would only lead to the monsters breaking the mind control and turning on them.

But further west, the monster problem was beginning to get out of hand.

The number of Cursed Talismans that the scouts from the outlying villages were finding was dropping, but the number of enhanced monsters they were finding was increasing. It seemed that many of them had hidden while they advanced, so that other monsters didn't take advantage before they were strong, and as a result, the villages had greatly underestimated the number of affected monsters.

In Forest Grove and the Fae Forest, the [Kind Intentions] spell was impregnable. But further out into the converted grasslands, it was much weaker, and the monsters were still as much of a threat as ever, but now they were stronger.

Past what the spells had affected, it was a gamble every time that the scouts stepped outside the village, and a few had already been lost to swarms led by an enhanced beast.

That was feeding the refugee influx to Forest Grove, and the Frozen Wastes were covered in the signs of slaughter, both of and by the monsters.

The villages were taking the chance to load up on as much meat as they could, stockpiling it in the expectation that once the enraged monsters were gone, the total number of food species would be devastated by their rampage.

The planes were headed out every day, and the pilots were doing their best to find the more dangerous monsters, but there was only so much ground they could cover.

The Faeries had volunteered to send a few of their own with the flights so that they could help locate and destroy the Cursed Talismans, but they didn't care as much about the monsters, since their own home was much safer than these wild lands.

Production of ammunition had really ramped up after Wolfe had put the Inscription on the wall by the main assembly line. Kira was right, and it did take multiple witches to power the spell the way that he did, to enhance multiple crates at a time, but the effort was worth it in their minds, and they were preparing to add more powerful weapons to their arsenal than just the two sorts of rifles.

They didn't want to do something that would escalate the conflict so far that the Saints got involved immediately, as all reports from the deserters said that they were close to Rank Eight already, and that was a level of power that nobody else in the world could contend with. 

Even if the entire village worked together with Wolfe, they would be lucky to hold out for a matter of hours against the two Saints, and their attacks wouldn't do much against the duo, even if they could spare the mana.

So, trying to redevelop nuclear weapons was out, but they had some familiarity with artillery, and they had some plans for how to make it. Even a handful of big guns on each side of the forest would be enough to discourage the enemy from getting close enough to try to tamper with the spells on Forest Grove.

By the reports that they had received, the United World Army had already lost two senior officers, which they took to mean Rank Four or Five witches. With so few of them available, and mostly being elderly and in positions of great power, that would be a huge blow to them, but the number of mundane military weapons they were bringing out were more than enough to make up for the lack.

It was only a few days after the escalation that the scouts reporting began to notice the difference between these units and regular military units. The vehicles mostly weren't tracked, and they had assumed it was just a preference, but as the scouts got more time to examine the gear, it became clear that these weren't Army units as they knew them. 

The army was spread along the trenches, and in a number of large camps, while the units that were spread out further back and attempting to circle the lines to get at the Grand Dutchies cities were actually police. Their gear wasn't made for long range military engagements, it was all designed for short range urban combat.

There was no telling how many more army units were in reserve, or how many were actually deployed inside the Grand Dutchies, but the Grand Dutchies of Wild and Rencland, whose radio communications they could sometimes intercept, were both reporting fierce fighting within their borders.

They had to be greatly outnumbered, but the locals of the Frozen Wastes knew that the United World Government had underestimated their opponents.

The people of the Grand Dutchies were desperate. They were running out of everything from food to fuel, and they were in the foothills of the mountains, where it got intolerably cold through the winter. Cutting them off from their resources was not just an act of war, it was an act of genocide, and they had been fighting for survival for a while already with the sanctions put on them.

As a result, there weren't many civilians left in the Grand Dutchies. Everyone who was capable had taken up arms to drive these invaders away and save enough of their land that they could survive the winter.

They didn't trust the empty promises that if they would submit to the United World Government, their needs would be met. Nobody ever believes that the invading enemy is going to take care of them after winning the war. 

Especially not now that the word had spread that the Saints and the United World government had ordered them all killed after the war.