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The grounds were now saturated with Magic Diffusion Particles that would play hell with any teleportation type spell and its lock for destination for 8-10 hours. The time delay of the Dead Men Army would only serve to allow more time for anti-teleportation techniques to be used by the Lamentian forces. The cannons fired once more to blanket another area, extending the field of protection to fifty miles, with the watchtowers covering the final ten or so with their own munitions. In only a matter of minutes, the area of teleportation had been effectively neutralized. The delay had only served the interests of the Lamentian forces. The opposing army could wait as long as they wished, now, but the Lamentian Army would not.

The ground forces continued to advance, now roughly forty miles out. Soon, the ground based mobile artillery cannons would be in range to launch projectiles into the ranks of the army to soften them up for the other ground forces to do their jobs.

The modified Blackhawk helicopters had re-armed themselves and had set out across the field again to drop another load of anti-tank/personnel/MD mines and increase the size of the mine field that separated the two opposing forces. Damaged choppers had been replaced with operational ones, and the damaged ones had begun a swap-out of damaged parts and equipment.

And above the entire scene, the Obsidianus continued to charge for the launch of its central guns...

((Big enough to take out one of your siege machines and blow the crap out of any singular troop that walks over them. Mostly kinetic force will set them off, like stepping on one, or rolling over one, or stepping too close to one, etc.))

(( Yes. Above ground. And only about 5-6 feet between them. Any magical energy will trigger the MDMs, which might have some...nasty side effects for your men if they're trying to teleport. And if any of them are lucky enough to somehow avoid the MDMs, the other mines would still pose a threat.

Also, POST MOAR!! ))

And they suddenly exploded.

Well, they didn't, but the mines under them certainly did. MDMs didn't need to see something magical to explode. They had to FEEL it in the air. The other mines on the ground, the anti tank and anti personnel mines, didn't need to see to FEEL the tremor of someone or something moving near them. Thus, some MDMs went off as the residual magic in the creatures set off the mines, and their footfalls set off the landmines.

Simply stated, they suddenly exploded.

The advancing ground forces wouldn't have any idea WHAT had exploded out in the field, just that something, or someone, had triggered a detonation of some mines. But that didn't matter. Even if they somehow managed to ignore the mines, they'd be destroyed by the next strike. Some of the mobile artillery cannons would suddenly halt in their tracks as their firing crews and spotters would get into position. The maximum range of the mobile units was around 15 miles, and these were to be the farthest back weapons.

Each unit was guarded by a tank, an APC loaded with 12 soldiers and a top mounted rocket system, and a Humvee with 3 soldiers each and a back mounted .50 caliber machine gun. As they set up, the spotters picked their targets and let their rounds fly. The MD Rounds would diffuse and negate the teleportation field wherever they hit for 8-10 hours, as well as negate any magical energies in the area, and infecting the Dead Men with the same nullifying properties. Not only that, the direct explosion range would be enough to cover a radius of 20 feet in all directions, while the AMP would extend to a range double that, 40 feet in all directions. A total of 15 of these artillery cannons stopped to begin firing as the rest of the Lamentian forces continued to advance closer... The total AOE (Area of Effect) for the 15 cannons would cover a large part of the forward forces of the Dead Man Army. And this was only the farthest deployment...

The Blackhawks were back in business, and would soon proceed to drop several more mines, doubling the size of the minefield out beyond the range of Lament's main guns. This action would add a larger buffer to Lament's ground forces.

But the main air forces were about ready to unleash some hell of their own.



On board the Obsidianus, things were in full swing.



"Sir, Central Canon answering full power. All stations report locked and loaded."

Bring the thunder. They've stood there long enough!

Let's show them what the Lamentian Guard is really made of!



Bursts of light erupted from the central canon of the Obsidianus as the forward quarter of the Dead Man Army would suddenly explode into a fiery blast and a full half would be engulfed by an AMP. This would be followed soon after by triple cracks of booming thunder. The central canon had fired...



White hot streaks sped across the battlefield as three Anti-Magical Shells from the flying cruiser slammed hard deep within the clustered ranks of the Dead Man Army. There was no stopping these shells. Their momentum alone could pierce cleanly through virtually any armored structure, and magical barriers would simply be ineffective as the shells would emit the negating fields around themselves.

The central canon of the Obsidianus was twice the size of any gun mounted on the Dark Tower, and could fire three rounds of any mix in Lament's arsenal, all in quick succession. Maneuvering thrusters allowed for multiple targets to be hit if the ship could be turned, and in this case, it could. Magnetic coils were charged with energy to propel the rounds at speeds higher than Mach 8. The outer layers of the rounds themselves were made of a tungsten alloy to be able to withstand the massive amount of heat generated by the atmosphere on an object moving at that speed. While the MD Rounds were used in this case, the gun could fire any of Lament's SPR Rounds on a far larger scale, as well as solid slugs with a depleted uranium core and tungsten alloy coating for maximum target penetration and destruction.

The cracks of thunder would echo off the mountains around the battlefield and be answered by the detonation of the rounds themselves. The larger size of the rounds covered an even wider radius of destructive power than the city's main guns. The trade off for this power was the time it took to charge and fire the main guns. However, even this could be minimized by using the shield generators to assist the charging generators and making use of auxiliary power as well. And the trade off for this was that the ship would be completely exposed to any attack that might be made.

The MD Rounds would explode as they penetrated nearly five feet into the ground due to their speed, blasting shrapnel through many, and into most of the forward quarter of the Dead Man Army. That meant close to 50,000 Dead Man soldiers would have wounds simply from the shrapnel blown out by the detonation of the three rounds. And that did NOT count those that would be annihilated by the detonation of the rounds themselves. These larger rounds had a blast radius of roughly 5 city blocks, while the AMP that followed would reach out to a range of 20, eradicating any and all magical sources in the effected areas for 8-10 hours. That kind of range would simply mean that, of the 200,000 strong Dead Man Army, roughly 100,000 of them would be unable to use any magical means for anything.

That kind of toll, added to the toll done by the ground based artillery, would mean that roughly 60% of the entire Dead Man Army that was attacking Lament would be unable to use, or be effected by the spells of their mages, or make use of their crystals. The "death" toll would be far less staggering, but it would be safe to assume that the losses could consist of much of the advanced forces...

Actually, they did. The MDMs didn't go off, but the disturbance of them treading around the mines caused the anti-personnel/anti-vehicle mines to explode around them, killing them. Thats what mines did... Stealthy or not, it didn't really matter. Movement and tremors would set off the mines. Thats what they were designed for. Stealthiness had nothing to do with it.

As for the "I TELEPORT MAH ARMEEZ!", there would be no turning back. The anti-magical energies would have prevented the full voiding action, and probably ripped most of the army in half as they were torn by the closing of the realms. Even still, the army would be trapped in the void for at least 8-10 hours due to the coverage of the Anti-Magical Pulses. And if they dared to show themselves after that 8-10 hour time, preparations would have been made to prevent the magical energies from coming to fruition anyway.

In short, the Dead Man Army had ******** themselves over.

Lament's forces waited and prepared.

Helicopters began to spread MD-Mines around the open areas of the field in various areas concentrating around areas not defended by ground troops. As soon as the army tried to make its reappearance, the mines would explode and prevent it from happening. Meanwhile, the Obsidianus began to charge up its weapons once more.

When the halfway teleported army came out of hiding, since teleporting a 200,000 man army was apparently possible, Lament's forces would just send them back into wherever they came from.

Also, the scouts would be destroyed on their way OUT of the minefield as well. Mines worked both ways, in and out. Of course, if they managed to get out of that anyway, which they probably would since they're Undead-Undead Clones of James Bond, they'd find that Lament was thoroughly sealed off from attack or infiltration at this point except by going through the minefield and the plains.

And that is exactly why they would remain on a high level of alert for the foreseeable future. Patrols would scout the surrounding areas for any signs of the army, using thermal visors to spot body heat from any invisible units, and eliminate them. Air patrols would scout the surrounding hills looking for any stragglers as well.

In the meantime, the Obsidianus was once more docked and hidden away to undergo immediate outfitting and arming, its initial test having been a great success.

That didn't mean they were invisible. Instead they were seen as moving objects the same temperature as the surrounding air, and were picked off just as easily.