[Current location: Cross city Holy Castle – Privat Chamber]

"Thank you all for gathering as soon as possible….. And you may have already realized why I did it." – said Victor as he and several high ranking officers of the holy empire, alongside Iron Will and Daughter Of Justice who were also present in the room.

"As you may know, the vampires are currently fucking with us."

"They have stationed their army near the Cross city and are not moving one bit."

"We all knew they are planning the siege the city, but by the looks of things they either changed their plan or we had fallen right into their trap."

"Since by the looks of things, they are just waiting, not doing anything."

"Why are they not doing anything?"

"Simple, the dragons."

"They are planning on keeping our main forces here, forcing us to lift off the pressure we had been giving the dragons in order to have them try and get deeper into the empire."

"If we were to send back half our forces there, the vampires will come and attack when we are weakened."

"In a sense, we are at the losing situation where there organization will win no matter what we will do."

"We would either let them have chance at conquering the Cross city, one of our most important cities."

"Or we would end up losing a huge chunk of our territory."

"So yea, a losing situation."

"But they are mistaken."

"We are not in situation where we will lose no matter which decision we would go with."

"Docks."

"The vampires may have means of transporting their soldiers via flying machines called 'planes', but there is a limit of how many soldiers they can transport this way."

"Not only that, but transporting a heavy war machines or those 'tanks' isn't also a easy task according to our informations."

"They need to use ships to transport both their soldiers and weapons via sea route."

"Their main weapon maybe already here, but not their entire army."

"They are making room."

"But what would happened if we destroy their ships and make them lose control over docks?"

"The vampires no matter how strong they are will have no choice but to go after docks in order to reclaim us."

"And it is not question 'IF', they will have no choice but to completely abandon their siege on Cross city."

"And while they will be heading straight for the docks to reclaim them, we will go after dragons and quickly eliminate their forces in one quick swoop."

"Obviously this plan has downsides of the Cross city being under siege and the dragons continuing their rampage."

"But out of all 3 options we had, this is currently the best option where we would suffer the least amount of causalities and damage while our enemies would take few critical hits in a row, allowing us to gain some edge over the enemy."

"So, with that said."

"There won't be any discussion regarding which path we will be taking."

"Since this is the one I've decided we would take."

The Son Of Loyalty plan was meant to not only break and destroy vampire forces march, forcing them to retreat, but also deal a huge blow to the organization forces.

Without hesitation or delay, the holy empire began their preparations as soon as possible.

And once they were completed, the holy empire moved out, sending their forces not to face off the dragons, but instead going after the docks.

And as expected, the vampires instantly starting moving, heading straight towards the Cross city.

"Just as planned." – said Victor in his office.

(Even if they discovered our army moving in a different directions than they had expected, they would still willingly go after the city.)

(They think they have enough forces to destroy us before Jeann and her forces come back…. But they are wrong.)

(They will come way sooner than they expect.)

(And before they realize it, they will suffer heavy casualties while she regroups with our forces here.)

(All we have to do is play the long game.)

(The Great Barrier defending the entire city is far stronger than regular Great Barrier AND we have also Maryia strengthening the barrier with her own powers.)

(Even if they have these so called anty Great Barrier weapons, it would still take them a while to break through this barrier.)

(Not only that, we will be keep repairing it over and over again.)

(But even so, we cannot let our guard down.)

(We don't know what other new weapons vampires had developed nor we seen a limit of that weird 'island' thing they have.)

*Knock* *Knock*

"Come in." - said Victor before moments later a soldier entered a room.

"Sir. The enemy forces has been spotted near the city." – said the soldier.

"They enemy ground forces are within our sight already."

(Just on time.)

"How are the preparations going?" – asked Victor.

"Already in place sir." – replied soldier.

"The soldiers have also been placed in instructed place and are ready for long term combat."

"Good." – said.

"Then let's head off."

"It is time to give those vampires a lesson about how the real wars are."

The army of vampire alongside their golems, heavy machinery as well as soldiers from organization were making their towards the city of Cross.

And after they arrived near the city? It didn't took long for the vampire forces to prepare themselves and launch their siege on the Cross city.

A waves of giant golems walked towards the barrier and the planes by all, attacking the Great Barrier surrounding the holy city all at once.

"FIRE!"

But obviously the defenders of the holy city did not stayed idly, waiting for their barrier to be destroyed.

Spells were manifested and cannons roared.

While hiding behind the Great Barrier, the defenders unleashed their attacks at the attacks, bombarding them… But unfortunately, this did not stopped vampire forces one bit.

"DON'T PANIC!" – shouted Victor.

"We knew vampires are strong!"

"But they are looking too much down on us!"

"There is a limit of damage they can take and at one point they will be forced to retreat over and over again in order to recover!"

"They are not immortal as they claim to be nor their weapons are unstoppable!"

"Just keep firing and don't stop!"

"They want to scare you!"

"They want to get into your heads!"

"Don't let them scare you!"

"Don't let them manipulate you!"

"Use your faith as a weapon against these unholy fuckers!"

Both sides continues fighting over the destruction and preservation of the wall, keeping each other in a dead lock that lasted for hours.

But-

"…"

"Okay. We just got signal." – said Phantasia.

"Let's fucking go."

In the middle of the city, something had happened.

The ground burseted open in several locations, before then a horde of mole like plushy toys with metallic claws and drill nose crawled out of them alongside several snake like monster equipped with ant like body parts through their whole body.

The army of monsters suddenly appeared right in the middle of the city….. But they were not alone.

No.

Alongside them several vampire soldiers and players emerged from the holes.

"Okay, you bastards! You know what to do!" – shouted Phantasia before then starting up the summoning, calling forth a number of different monsters to his side.

"DESTROY THESE BASTARDS!"

[Some time ago before the holy empire started moving.]

"So, wait, we are going inside the city? Ahead of the entire army?" – asked confused Arthur.

"Yeb. That is the plan." – replied Phantasia.

"…"

"Okay….. But you do realize we really have no way of doing that, right?" – asked confused Mordred.

"He is right." – said Morina.

"I've worked in the holy city once and I can tell you this, the Great Barriers located in here and all other holy cities is not something you can easily compare to the Great Barriers you had faced before."

"It will take a while for the vampires to break through."

"And if you have some sort of secret weapon that could make an opening in the great barrier for us to slip in, we would end up instantly exposed and found out by the enemy."

"Well yea, even I'm not that stupid to realize that kind of problem." – replied Phantasia.

"So, instead we would exploit the weakness of the Great Barrier."

"?"

"Weakness? That thing doesn't have any bloody weakness expect for the power sources." – replied Morina.

"And those things are inside the city in the first place."

"Let me guess, spies? Or traitors? Nah, it won't work either. They- "

"Not this weakness you idiot." – said Phantasia.

"I'm talking about shape."

"Great Barrier maybe one of the strongest barriers there is, but it cannot exactly protect everything."

"The Great Barrier we had stolen from the holy empire may end up being a pale imitation compare to the one that empire uses, since we don't have either divine or holy power to use that thing…. But at least we learned something important from that thing."

"The barrier is just a dome."

"It only protect the surface."

"But underground?"

"It is completely unprotected."

"So, here is your answer."

"We will travel underground and get destroy these bastards from inside."

"Simple, isn't it?"

"We will use their faith they had placed in the Great Barrier against them."

"They will never see us coming."