Several tens kilometers away from the Capital City of the Human Brotherhood Selangrad, Central Areal of the Human Continent, 8th Floor of the Tower.
From the far distance, Samiel could see the fabled capital of the Human Brotherhood on the 8th Floor of the Tower and at first glance, he could tell that this was something that was built by one of the 13 Gates of the Tower.
Even from a distance of several tens of kilometers, Selangrad looked magnificent as it reminded Samiel of the imagination about the fantasy cities when he was still an average person on Earth, unaware of the supernatural or anything.
Selangrad had enormously tall black walls, probably weighing more than 50 meters, while being at least 10 meters wide at a minimum. Across the entirety of the Black Walls, there were countless guard towers built on them.
The material from which the walls were made was an interesting thing because several things came into Samiel's mind when he looked at the black walls until he was woken up from his thought process by Yvraine.
"The Black Walls are typically special concrete made from a combination of Obsidian Power, Molten Rock, Volcano Ash, Magically Enhanced Water and various types of very dense stones."
Yvraine said as the Black Walls made from the Volcanic Concrete were relatively common across the Tower and in many High Worlds and Principal Worlds, though some may be found in the Middle World if it was under the control of some powerful faction that decided to invest a lot of resources into the World with the intention of holding it indefinitely.
Volcanic Concrete was one of the strongest and most durably types of concrete and was made from resources primarily obtained from active volcanoes; the permanent resources that were the same with every type of concrete were naturally Obsidian Powder, Volcanic Ashes and Obsidian Powder which could be sometimes replaced with real crystalized obsidian when someone wanted to have stronger Volcanic Concrete.
On the other side, the Black Walls were basically the Walls made from Volcanic Concrete and etched together through some magic runes and spells, together creating really sturdy and strong walls, which would require a Legendary Level Professional to break it in a short time. Even the lowest grade of the Black Walls could resist the power of some weaker Legendary Level Professionals.
"It looks like the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe has brought some nifty siege equipment together with them... they are indeed hoping to break through the Walls sooner than the Star-Moon Coalition could arrive... really a short-sighted idiot."
Everyone who heard Juulius's commentary about the situation could agree with him. Even from a distance, the siege of the Capital of the Human Brotherhood Selangrad could be seen, as hundreds of Artillery Batteries were shooting salvo after salvo at the Black Walls, while other types of siege equipment were focusing on the various gates that were leading to the city.
"The only thing that the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe could do to save their face and not be shamed by the spectacular failure of something that could be as easy as a walk through the pink garden is if they take the Selangrad and obtain the resources that the Avalon Kingdom left there, naturally, killing the Leaders of the Human Brotherhood."
Samiel commented because he could see the situation from the angle of the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe. Initially, the entire "theatre play" on the 8th Floor should handle easily without any effort by the Demon Army. Unfortunately, due to a rather bad combination of luck, greed and arrogance of the 7th Prince of the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe Kisrith, it ended badly for the Demons, and what originally should be an easy and just means of easily obtaining merit has been turned into a debacle of century.
Depending on the end of the siege of the Selangrad, it may or may not become a debacle of millennia for the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe. Samiel really wondered how the siege would end because if the Golden-Horned Demons failed to capture the city with few casualties, kill the higher-ups of the Human Brotherhood and obtain at least half or so of the resources from the Vaults of the Human Brotherhood, then it would be automatically considered as failure.
"My Lord, to which gate should we be going?"
Juulius asked about the precise location where they should be going because Selangrad had several gates that led to the city, with each of them under heavy attacks from the Demons and was bombarded by the siege equipment.
Naturally, right now, no soldiers were attacking the city because that would be outright suicidal and apparently, even though the 5th Prince of the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe wasn't the sharpest sword in sheath, even he wasn't that idiotic to launch a full-scale invasion of the Selangrad.
The only choice that the Demon Army currently had was to starve the defenders of the city while also slowly breaking through the defenses one by one, damaging the city and doing other various activities which would weaken the defenses and defenders of the Selangrad to the point, in which the full-scale invasion became possible.
"To the White-Blue Gate... that one is strongest and most defended from all gates, meaning it should have most members of the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe. It could be an opportunity to kill some of those bastards when they are not looking at their backs."
Samiel grinned viciously as he thought over the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe... maybe he would be lucky to come across severely injured Gold-Tier Professionals from the said Tribe and then he would need to finish him... or during the combat, rightly used Spell could change the outcome of almost every battle.
Out of all gates that were leading to the Selangrad, the White-Blue Gate was the so-called "primary gate" and thus, it was best defended as it could, there were most soldiers stationed at the White-Blue Gate, aside from several more defensive measures and even a few Gold-Tier Professionals.
That was also because it was the biggest Gate that was leading to the city; if that one was breached, then the entire outer layer of the Selangrad was practically speaking lost, and one would need to retreat fully to the inner layer of the city to defend against the invaders.
Juulius nodded hearing this, knowing that his liege wished to kill some of the prominent members of the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe in secrecy, while Yvraine and Dharzug didn't really care where they were going; on the contrary, the orkish warrior looked delighted that their "leader" chose the White-Blue Gate because they were going to place where biggest fights would be taking place.
The closer they were nearing to the Selangrad, they were encountering more and more demon soldiers on their journey. Not only them but there were also a lot of high-end mercenaries, including those of The Guild, whom the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe hired because there were relatively lot of high-tiered Professionals.
For several hours they walked through the deserts of the outskirts of Selangrad. The previous lush green grasslands around the Selangrad were turned into desert, scorched by ammunition of the magetek weaponry or spells that were released by Magic Users on both sides, completely devastating the previously beautiful enviroment.
It would take decades at best to turn this place into its previous state. Soon enough, they arrived at the siege lines of the demon army under the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe. They were in front of the White-Blue Gate, the main gate leading to the Selangrad.
All of them could see there thousands upon thousands of demon soldiers running here and there, with hundreds of Magicians, most commonly Sorcerers and Warlocks, who were either maintaining some types of Wards or were casting some spells directed at the defenders of the Selangrad.
All around the city, one could see tens of Artillery Batteries that were firing at gates or bombarding the city, while there were also some more primitive weaponry, mainly trebuchets and so, which were throwing explosives on the city and at the barrier, which was protecting the city.
Naturally, from the side of the Selangrad, countless spells were being thrown at the attack together with their own Artillery Batteries were shooting at the position of invaders. Naturally, the firepower of the Selangrad was nothing compared to that of the demon army under the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe, so their targets were carefully chosen, as they were shooting mainly at the siege equipment of the demon army or similar targets or the unprotected ones, which were the most suitable targets.
It was understandable that the Human Brotherhood won't have the same technological capabilities as the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe, which was one of the richest demon tribes and species in the existence of the Material Plane of the Cosmos.
Due to their wealth, they were able to buy all of their equipment directly from the Solheim, which was extremely pricy because the tech that was directly from the Solheim was even more expensive than the one which was sold by the Scientia Hierarchy.
Naturally, the weapons from the Solheim were a bit more sophisticated and packed more punch compared to those of the Scientia Hierarchy. Also, the biggest difference between the two of them, from what Samiel knew, was that each of the Artillery Batteries or any kind of Magetek Weapon that was built by the Solheim came with in-built Genie A.I., so it was ideal for the demons who often didn't even know how to read and write.
For the demons, this was ideal because normally, when someone was using something like Mana Batteries or other types of Artillery, they would need some people who would be using the weapon, meaning loading ammo, aiming, firing and so on... naturally no educated demons won't be doing anything like that, because it was far beneath them. The common demons were more stupid and unsuitable for such tasks.
"They have brought with them shitton of equipment these days... it seems that the coffers of the Goldne-Horned Demon Tribe are running deeper than we initially predicted."
Yvraine commented on this because, contrary to Samiel, she spent her whole life in the Tower and was better acquainted with the situation here. She knew that even Nesser Dynasty had paid a considerable amount of money for similar kinds of equipment from both Solheim Civilization and Scientia Hierarchy, as those things were extremely, but extremely costly.
Single Mana Battery that had the firepower of a 6th-Tier Spell would cost about hundreds of thousands of Credits, depending on the modifications that were installed into the weapon itself. That was not counting the operating costs, like ammunition or other things, which would too be very costly.
"Golden-Horned Demon Tribe has been thriving for the past several hundreds of thousands of years. Especially in the area of slavery, they have been one of the great procurers of slaves, only after Orks and Mind Flyers, not to mention they have conquered thousands of Worlds all around the Cosmos and plundered their resources while essentially destroying the majority of those worlds.
So in the cube, they are very, very rich, probably richer than some of the 13 Gates because of all that lucrative business they are engaging in, so a few tens of billions of Credits for military equipment is hardly an investment for them."
Juulius stated as Samiel had to agree with his summarization of the situation. The only reason why the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe was not included among the 13 Gates was the fact that they were fighting too many people at the same time, and this, technically speaking, greatly lowered their capability to act as one, not to mention this would aggravate the other Demon Tribes, who would not take it as something good and it would probably lead to another kind of armed conflict.