When they finally reached the second gate, the gate commander rushed up to meet with Laz.

"What’s the situation outside?" Laz asked, seeing several flying beasts in the air that would occasionally rush forward, only to be knocked back by a strange force.

"They arrived here about half a day ago and have tried breaching the gate several times, but some strange force is repelling them. According to the messages we received, it was the Empresses doing and they shouldn’t be able to breach the gate any time soon. While that was comforting, we didn’t believe it until we saw it with our own eyes. I don’t know how the Empress did it, but glory to the Empress all the same," the commander said, his eyes ablaze with fire.

"Well, commander. Between you and me, it will only hold for so long before it eventually will shatter. So the problem is still there. But that’s why we are here. I’m sure you’ve received the orders?"

"Yes. We will be providing support from this side of the wall and supplies will be delivered as well. When do you plan on heading out?"

"Right now. Open the gate," Laz said, raising his hand as the banners were brought up to full staff and the legion all took their positions."

"Yes sir," the commander responded before signaling to the guards to raise the gate.

Laz didn’t say anything else as the gate was raised up, he just marched forward at the front of the column, flanked by the numbers and a slightly roughed up Blake.

The beasts weren’t right at the door as the energy from whatever seal Tamesis had powered up made them uncomfortable, forcing them to back away if they tried to stay close for too long. So when Laz and his Death Walkers arrived on the other side, they could see the masses of beasts that had gathered, all up and down the wide path leading down the mountain. As for the ones who could fly, they were higher up and back quite a way, watching from above. As the rocks surrounding the gate could provide the enemy with ammunition to use against the gate, any sort of loose rocks had been cut away and removed thousands of years ago, leaving nothing but smooth cliff faces for hundreds of miles out. There would be no flying beasts dropping rocks on them any time soon.

Of course, when Laz and his people came through, the beasts who had just been restlessly pacing noticed it and began to growl at them, getting aggressive. What’s more, most of them seemed to have the blackened eyes that let Laz know they had already been corrupted by the shadow dragon.

Still, Laz marched forward fearlessly until his entire legion emerged from the gate. As the gates closed, Laz stood watching the beasts who were now lining up, showing an intelligence that they shouldn’t possess. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Laz looked over the groups and lines that were gathering and smile.

Raising his hand, Laz wrote a rune in the air, Thurisaz, and began injecting energy into it. As the black flame rune grew stronger and bigger, even the beasts sensed the danger. Before any of them could react, Laz punched the rune into the air, sending it flying up and outward. As everyone looked on, the rune floated in the air for a few seconds before exploding, raining roaring black flamed destruction down upon the enemy lines. Like a firework going off, fireballs poured out of the explosion point, toasting many beasts into ashes while sending others flying off from the resulting explosions. This was the result of Laz’s insight into runes after all of his time here in this land. They were using rune work from over ten thousand years ago and showed that there were many different ways to use runes, far more than he had ever thought. While it was true that he was basically being used for his ability to ramp the goddesses up to actual godhood, he also had been allowed unrestricted access to whatever books he desired and therefore was able to read and learn a whole lot about things he never even considered.

HIs men cheered on while the rain of fire continued to decimate the enemies. The problem was that as they died, many more came charging into their deaths as well. Using such a rune element took a lot of time and energy and it didn’t make sense for Laz to do it again as the beasts were pushing through the dead bodies and charging them.

"SHIELDS!" Laz ordered as the first beasts came upon them and the massive group behind him raised their shields and huddled together, spears filling the small gaps between them. Laz and his numbers stood forward as the beasts came upon them and didn’t retreat back. While Laz was hesitant to let them stay out with him, he trusted their resolve in doing this. The first strike was the most important and they needed to see just how strong their leaders were.

Holding Sever in his hands, Laz stood there and wait as the beasts came upon him. Massive horse-like beasts with hands sticking out of their necks arrived first and were cut down first, everyone just taking one step to the side and swinging, decapitating the useless beasts. Even if they had hands they weren’t holding weapons so the hands could only grip at prey and bring them to their mouths to be eaten, something useless in a battle like this. Then came other beasts in waves, one after another. Lighting cats, massive armored dogs, horned bears and other monstrosities, one after another. But they only knew to charge and not how to fight. While the occasional beast would slip through just due to the sheer size of the past they were guarding, most would be killed at the line held by Laz, Two, Six, Seventeen, Blake and several other members from the original trash legion.

When they got tired, they would switch out with others.

Laz still held the front but Two, Six and Seven had dropped back to get a drink.

"What they hell are they doing, sending only one line of beasts at us at a time like this? It’s useless and wasting their troops," Seventeen complained.

"They are probing us to see our strength. We’ve yet to fight even a foundational level beast and besides, they don’t care about their troops anyway. If one dies, dozens more will take it’s place. Their numbers are unlimited... ours are not," Two responded, looking at the surging tide still making it’s way up the hill. While they were making a good showing, it was only for show and nothing more. Them doing this would inspire the troops and that was it. It wasn’t going to make a dent in the beasts attacking them and Two knew that Laz knew that as well. Looking over at him, Two couldn’t help but wonder just what Laz’s plan was.

After over an hour of this, Laz called over some of the stronger resting members.

"Throw these bodies down the hill as far as you can," Laz said with a smirk.

The men didn’t know why he wanted that, but with their foundational level, they could throw these things several hundreds of feet, if not further if they swung them around and left them go.

So one at a time, that’s what they did.

Seeing the beasts being thrown over their heads didn’t stop the lines from charging one at a time, but the resulting explosions from the carcasses caused the advance to hold.

Laz had been inscribing runes on each body he killed, locking in their energy and preparing them. Once he had a big enough pile next to himself and he had killed dozens upon dozens by himself, moving his line forward when the stacks got too big, he started his next plan.

Once the bodies were air born, Laz started the fuse and when they hit something, be it another beast or the ground, the life energy of the beast was ignited into a huge explosion that shook the beasts lines.

"Alright. You all keep throwing, everyone else take a break," Laz ordered, sitting on the ground while some water was brought to him.

One after another, the bodies were tossed forward, leaving massive holes on the ground and in the enemy ranks. While these beasts didn’t have much strength, their life energy was abundant. And since there were only weaker beasts around, there was no one to stop these things from reeking havoc.

By the time the last body had been thrown, over half an hour had passed by in which the enemy had stopped charging and were doing nothing but protecting themselves. As for the stone path way, it was now littered with craters and debris, making any sort of charge almost impossible. Now the beasts couldn’t even advance as quick as before, much less set up lined charges.

"NOW WHAT?" Laz called out, knowing that the one who should hear it would.

In the distance, a massive black bird like shadow erupted from the ground and stood on top of a tall mountain hundreds of miles away.

"YOU THINK THESE LITTLE TRICKS CAN SAVE YOU?" It bellowed out, making the ground rumble.

Laz didn’t move from his spot.

"I think you’re just a stupid lizard who doesn’t have two braincells to rub together. I’m going to take a nap. Let me know when you come up with something..."

And as the shadow dragon roared it’s displeasure, Laz leaned back on the body of a beast that he didn’t kill himself and fell asleep.