In another side of the forest, almost at the same time that everything with Isabella and Feicui Long begins, on the side of the group led by Mariane something similar happens, but she has a little more luck.
Since she notices that they follow her from the beginning, this gives her plenty of preparation time, even this day she has all the time in the world to prepare and she takes advantage of it, especially because unlike Isabella and Feicui Long she does not have any advantageous terrain.
So using her wide experience in strategy, leadership and troop command, granted by the teaching of the greatest generals of her master's empire, together with the active command of the empire's troops by herself and lastly that she was born with the sovereign's quartet and therefore has many creatures serving her, she then designs an almost perfect strategy.
Using the 21 formations available, 10 from the assigned troops including Lamira's, plus the 5 she contributes, the 6 that Caroline and Freja have together, she organizes them in a specific way, in the core she stacks 4 formations.
While she organizes 2 circles, a large one with 10 formations and a smaller one with 7, which intentionally have gaps between the formations to let people through, but not without giving them trouble first, because she herself uses her knowledge in the mastery of inscriptions and hides the 21 formations.
With this she then draws a few simple trap formations with her energy stones that she carries with her in the gaps, this way the enemy would try to go for the hidden formations and would be gravely weakened.
That of course is not the only thing she arranges, she has them build barricades, summon all the contracted creatures and divides the forces into four teams of 3, together with the 90 contracted creatures that the troops have in total, two of those teams of course are led by Caroline and Freja, while another is led by Lamira, the weakest team would be led by her.
But she also summons all her undead creatures and golems, this time she only brings from the 100 golems she has, 50 golems, 30 of rock, 10 of wood and 10 of earth and all her 450 undead, in addition to the 50 summoned creatures, 50 mystic spirits, beings specialized in long-range and energy attacks, with this small army she distributes them in the four fronts and waits patiently.
…
From the now darkness of night, just like in the other zones first appear from all sides many yellowish and slow skeletons, easily the number of skeletons could reach 3 thousand or 3 thousand five hundred.
While at the back a numerous and much better prepared army emerges, from shield and sword warriors, to shielded lancers or even halberdiers stand at the sides, with a few cavalry behind them, being supported by archers, energy riflemen, mages and elementalists and behind each of the four sides four great figures rise with imposing weapons.
A little farther away stands an arrogant figure sitting on a throne of bones, carried by an elite guard of 20 troops, he points with his skeletal finger: "I want you to kill all these bugs for me, forward servants."
As soon as these words are pronounced some particular undead, among the better prepared army light up their eyes with a red glow and rise fully, revealing their enormous size, each one measures 3 to 3.5 meters, some are skeletons and others putrid corpses, by their size and build, it is obvious they are lesser giants.
But that would not impress anyone by itself, the impressive thing is that each one carries a full set of artifact equipment, including armor and in their hands they have another artifact as a weapon but in the other an artifact that is a banner whose emblem in the center shines every time it is raised or waved.
What makes people raise an eyebrow is that every time they do it the other undead around them increase their speed and strength, at least that is the little that can be perceived.
…
Caroline looks with a somewhat stiff smile at all this and sighs: "Since when this forest for beginners of the triple union becomes a gathering place for undead."
Even so she takes out her beloved energy rifle gifted by her mother and then says: "Alright, everyone get ready we have to kill the leftovers."
Even Freja on the other side who almost never feels fear cannot avoid trembling a little at this number, feeling a bit overwhelmed, but even so she prays to her Supreme Goddess of Order and calms down quickly.
Lamira who is more experienced although she only frowns a little, only grips her halberd more tightly, calms her two subordinates and takes a deep breath, this will be her first test in this new army of this new lord of hers.
Mariane on the other hand, simply looks at them and thinks to herself: "These guys obviously are sent here to specifically hunt someone, it is impossible to find this number of undead by chance in a place that never had them."
Then she looks at the three soldiers behind her and tells them: "Do not worry, this trap will take care of the cannon fodder… and as for the elite forces, you will take care of the weaker ones I will be the one to aim for the strongest."
…
Just as Mariane predicts, the undead first try to avoid the visible formations, thinking they are too obvious traps, but that directly causes literally hundreds to jump into the different formations, which no matter if they are those weak yellow skeletons or undead warriors, all alike are destroyed until absolutely nothing remains.
When that Lich realizes it, he almost breaks the bone grips of his throne and says: "Impossible!, how is it that there are formations that I cannot detect!, more importantly, how the hell could she build so many formations in such little time…"
He does not understand, he cannot process it, but even so, the state of shock does not last long, he quickly orders them to retreat and then go for the obvious formations and everything changes for the better in his eyes…
It is still not perfect, since the killing formations destroy many undead, but they are different from those death zones, so he directs them to those gaps, but when he breathes in relief, the undead enter the inner circle and a similar situation repeats, killing again several hundreds of undead in the blink of an eye.
The Lich can almost feel how his nonexistent chest rises and falls from rage, his precious army, his precious belongings have dropped in only two rounds to just a third of their original size, only 1500 troops remain and even the amalgamations have suffered damage and losses, with 2 of the four he sent dying.
…
Mariane stretches her waist and back, preparing for combat, after the undead army reluctantly walks through the killing formations, they suffer even more losses, falling to 1300.
It is in that moment that the sides finally clash in the core, where resounding blows and powerful attacks disturb the night. All while the sounds of breaking bones are heard, rotten flesh flying in the air and in addition the stench of the undead fills the air.
The amalgamations strike with their artifacts and those mysterious banner bearers wave their banners faster, then the formations begin to tremble slightly, showing the great brute force that these beings hide along with the increase provided by the banners.
Mariane nods at seeing this and immediately jumps in the air, to then strike with all her strength, a strength such that it sends the great mace of the amalgamation backward and even the amalgamation itself retreats a few feet.
If the Lich had eyes this would have made him open them wide, but he can only stay there still like a post unable to process this information.
Meanwhile the others who have become accustomed in this journey to this monstrous strength, can only let out an awkward smile.
But instead Mariane only smiles and says: "I hope you can make me warm up a little, I thought my joints were going to stick from waiting so much, it is a pity that your leader is so stupid as to lose so many troops in such a foolish way."
The Lich upon hearing this bursts with rage and breaks his throne, quickly with his elite guard and with those four spheres in his hand he says: "This bitch I will kill myself, come servants."
He raises an ice shield covering them all and they enter through the killing formations, curiously the killing formations although almost destroy this shield several times, the artifact he has in one of his hands makes it constantly recover.
…
The Lich walks with slow but firm steps, it shows that his style is very different from the other Liches that are causing havoc at this moment in the forest, but Mariane does not have fear, she will never have it, perhaps her only fear would be losing her master again and less from an enemy that is not stronger than her, so she is ready to face him.