"What's the status report?"
The king's grim sounding voice asked while looking into the fire place with all the chiefs behind him.
"Fifty wall guards down. Nearly a hundred are severely injured and won't be able to fight. They crippled the eastern wall by more than half in a single blow."
The chief of the wall answered. He himself had lost all his hair after attempting to fight against the dragon youngling.
"And the blessed one?"
At this question, the room tensed up. So far, everything they had all heard was baseless rumours, but in this place where only facts were being reported, they could finally satiate their hunger for the truth.
"The dragon youngling, swallowed him whole then left."
The chief of the wall could see it quite vividly. The absurd heat that came with the dragon's breath, the intense force that their opponents came with. Cyclopes were very confident in their ability to fight on the ground, but the same could be said of the giants who were easily twice as large as the average cyclops.
The cyclopes were at a disadvantage receiving a bombardment from both above and below with zero reinforcements. They really were on the verge of losing their wall, but the Blessed One dropped in once more and begun his massacre.
As much as the cyclopes didn't like him, they had to admit that he was always there in their time of need. Maybe, it was because of this characteristic of him that out of everyone in the village, he was the one to be blessed.
This gave them hope. And the cyclopes fought back with their hardest, having this lone hope in their hearts and eyes. That is, till the dragon youngling swallowed the Blessed One whole and left. After that, the enemies retreated as well. It was an odd sight, but it made it very clear what their objective was this entire time.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that the reason they hadn't directly invaded the city from above and were constantly attacking one particular area of the wall was so they could create a big enough distraction to summon forth the Blessed One. The Wall was a large circular barrier protecting the village, and because of this, guards were stationed at every part.
When one portion is being attacked, there still exists the possibility of another portion being attacked, so from the very get go, the cyclopes had been stretched thing. Their rationality in this situation was what caused their loss. And in the end, it caused the blessed one to be swallowed by a dragon youngling.
"Normally, we'd have all charged at the enemy."
The chief of military grumbled and everyone looked at him with glares, knowing what he was implying. The king's secretary growled and walked up to him, but the king grabbed the secretary by the hand and pulled him back.
"So you suggest we simply charge at the enemy with all cyclopes?"
The king asked calmly, no hint of a threat in his tone. This caused the chief of military to feel like he had the upper hand here. In his mind, the king's strategy had failed and he just lost face, giving him a chance to rise to take the top spot.
"Of course…"
He confidently stated, but now he could feel anguished auras bearing down on him. He didn't understand his mistake, but clearly no one in the room was pleased with his idea.
"… Not. Ahem."
Switching gears, the chief of military cleared his throat.
"Then think before you decide to waste any more of our time."
The chief of construction said, clearly agitated by the fact that his precious wall had been greatly damaged. The infuriating part was that he couldn't even blame it on the chief of the wall guard. The real culprit behind its destruction was…
"That shitty blessed one. Good riddance to such a pest."
He scoffed, and the others were confused.
"Do not insult the deceased. It's unbecoming of one of my chiefs."
The king growled. Everyone knew that the king was very respectful to the dead. A habit he picked up on his travels around the continent.
"Fine. But we can't follow your plans anymore. Our supposed allies still haven't made an appearance."
He pointed out another issue on everyone's minds.
"The rat men may travel fast, but it isn't like the other races can move as fast as they do."
"Tch."
"I've seen that some rat men evolve to become tunnelers. They may be huge, but they sure are fast. If this ally isn't smart enough to use them as a means of transportation, are you sure we can even rely on them?"
The chief of mining explained. Seeing tunnelers wasn't something new for those who mined in the mountains. And their speed wasn't something to be ignored either. They could practically disappear with the blink of an eye.
"You make a valid point. However, do you think a single tunneler could carry an army in one night?"
"I saw the new tunnels they've built in the North on some of my excursions. The West can access this place with ease at any point in time."
After hearing this, the king hit a realisation. The reason the West still wasn't here now seemed all too obvious. But the problem was his idea could also be a misunderstanding. Having travelled, he understood that things weren't always as they seemed. Either way, the only way to win this was to enact his own plan.
'Hehe, I guess the West really is a smart ally then.'
His secretary noticed this subtle change, but also decided to keep quiet.
"Smithy, I believe we finally have enough armour and weapons?"
The king spoke. For the first time since the meetings had begun, the smithy added to the conversations.
"Yes. We can equip all the warriors and even some of the children now."
"Good."
He stood up and stabbed a dagger into the eastern gate. Everyone was confused by his sudden action, but kept any ideas to themselves once they saw the scowl on his face.
"Chief of military and the walls, we're going with the chief of military's plans. Summon all our soldiers to the eastern wall and have them ready."
"Huh?"
The chief of the wall let out an unconscious "huh" sound after hearing something odd. He had to blink several times to make sure he was seeing right. He slapped his ears a couple of times too.
"Did I hit my head?"
He asked, still finding it hard to believe that the king actually said this. Upon hearing this, the king couldn't help but laugh. He then put his arm on the chief of wall's shoulder.
"Go take a short rest. We have a long day tomorrow."
The king excused him, then faced the others.
"Same goes for all of you. Please take a short rest before tomorrow. Now, off with you."
He shooed everyone out of the tent. They were all a bit anxious, but they were also happy that they could get some rest out of this. Before leaving the tent, the chief of wall took a glance at the king and his secretary. Both were whispering, but he could have sworn he heard something along the likes of
"Tell the chief of food, smith, mining and construction to…"
Before it became too inaudible. He decided not to think too much about it.
He had some rest that night, as did most of the cyclopes. The next day started with all cyclops warriors standing behind the eastern gate in full armour. Over 300 warriors stood on the ground with over a hundred on the walls for aerial support.
The chief of military stood ahead of the army giving orders, whereas the chief of wall was on the wall and checking with everyone's equipment. Today as well, the king hadn't shown up and support from their supposed allies still hadn't come and neither was there a response from them.
At this point, some of the cyclopes had completely disregarded the idea of aid coming in and were rather excited that they got to deal with the opponent themselves.
While all this was happening, most of the women and children were organised into the centre of the village and were given armour and weapons to protect themselves in case the army at the eastern gate failed.
Back to the eastern gate, the cyclopes scouts that had been sent to gather information on the enemy numbers came with shaken expressions. Confused, the chief of wall jumped down to ask what had happened.
"Oi, what is it?"
"Captain. There's a lot of em."
He explained in the simplest way imaginable. The chief of wall held back the urge to smack him good in the head.
"How many?"
"A lot."
'… maybe I shouldn't have even sent a scout.'
Unfortunately, a great majority of the cyclopes race weren't smart. There were few exceptions and those became chiefs of their respective villages, but other than that, most of the cyclopes were not the brightest race out there.
"Get back in line you idiots."
They nodded then ran into the walls. The chief of wall sighed then looked out into the forest. Still, there was no sign of the enemy even after the scouts claimed to have seen a lot.
He went back and made sure everyone was ready for the upcoming waves of enemies. Especially, the dragon youngling who could very well be their end. After checking that everyone was in position, he went to his quarters and sat down.
On his desk, there was a scroll, with a quill and bottle of ink next to it. He dabbed the quill into the ink and started to scribble on the scroll.
It wasn't really anything significant. Just him writing the letters of the demon language down as it was taught to him by the cyclopes king. Being a species that general didn't interact with others, the cyclopes never really needed to learn written language or any external language for that matter.
The king was trying to change this though. Still, ever since becoming king, none of the adult cyclopes had tried learning this and so it fell on the younger generation. Even then, the chief of wall was interested enough to start learning. So, in moments like these when he had no immediate job, he would always be scribbling, learning rigorously, like this.
"Captain! Incoming!"
A loud cry came from outside the chief's quarters. He donned his helmet and took his bag of spears then bolted out of the room. On the walls, all the cyclopes just stared into the horizon with dumbfounded expressions.
The chief of wall almost dropped his bag of spears when he took a look too. The sky was littered with countless dots flying high above. Like a swarm of bees, but everyone knew that they were larger than the killer bees in the West.
Behind and above them, numerous clouds were gathering striking blue and white lightning. The cloud spirits of the mountains too had been forced into the situation. Seeing the numbers, the cyclopes couldn't see themselves acquiring a victory against the Tyrant as easily as they presumed.
But there was one key thing everyone was searching for and that was the dragon youngling. It was nowhere to be found and that put everyone on edge. However, as if to replace the dragon youngling, 10 wyverns could be seen coming in hot. The largest of which had onyx scales and ivory horns.
One of the wyvern kings.
"Ha. So the wyverns betrayed us, huh?"
Upon seeing this, the chief of wall stretched and dropped his bag of spears to the ground.
"Water spear!"
He commanded and the closest soldier searched through the bag till he brought out a spear that had a blue rock embedded in it. This blue rock was a Water Elemental Rock. It gave the water attribute to anything it was put on.
After taking in a heavy breath, the chief of wall planted his left foot forward and right food back. He twisted his body at a perfect 120-degree angle, then flung it as head as he could. The spear shot through the sky like a bolt of lightning, but as it went, streams of water encased the spear making it appear as some sort of water cannon.
This spear hit one of the wyvern kings faster than they could think, causing the wyvern king to simply plummet and die. This marked the start of the war for the cyclopes.
