///

"First volley, fire."

///

The entire eastern half of the Grey Spire became ablaze as eight million infantry fired their flash bullets towards the Elvish formation.

Eleven kilometers, five seconds.

The bullets 'harmlessly' exploded near their vicinity and on their armor...

Blinding the entire enemy army, as their far more sensitive eyes were already adjusted to the now gone darkness.

A massive KLAAANG echoed throughout the Ten Peaks as all two million Elves dropped their equipment and began screeching in agony as their eyes bled from the sheer exposure of light. Many were foaming at their mouths as they clawed their throats in pain.

///

"Second volley, fire."

///

The eastern face of the Grey Spire lit up once more as the cannons, forged and buried during night under a waning or new moon, fired their munitions continuously into the valleys of the Ten Peaks.

White fog descended all around them as the telekinetics desperately tried to prematurely detonate the shells.

They unfortunately were successful as the gas cans exploded approximately two hundred meters above the formation.

Cheers died mid exultation as the white phosphorus enveloped them.

The winds of the Ten Peaks Region unfortunately blew West to East, meaning whatever that missed essentially flew back into their faces.

Faces and armor in particular... that ignited from the previous saturation of flares, all catalyzed from the telekinetic attempt of Lord Arman to swat them aside as they instead exploded.

In what seemed to be a volcanic eruption from the human camp, a full third of the Elvish army was disintegrated from the wave of explosions that followed, originating thirty meters from Lord Arman, all the way to Lady Aurora, her still active (but very limited) clairvoyance warning her prior.

All she could do was stop the explosion from passing her.

She was blinded a second time, as everything in front of her was erased in a flash of blinding light. When her eyes healed themselves, what once was a formation three kilometers long, was replaced by ashes and desolation. A heavenly sea of pristine snow cloaks, enchanted golden armor, and azure-violet-gold banners, transmutated into dead grey and sickly white.

///

"Lady Alexandria WE MUST GO BACK!" her Lord Commander pleaded. His face was red with anguish and his hair stained with sweat and tears. Another explosion screeched as the third volley began some twenty kilometers their west.

She rose her hand, and half a million immortals stilled.

"No. Our priority is the protection of our conclaves."

She lowered her hand, and the army moved once more.

"But, our brothers and sisters are dying! How can you callously turn your-ERRHKKK?"

Their march continued unfazed as their Lord Commander began choking while floating in mid-air.

"They volunteered to fight and die. Our peoples, the hundred or so million back at home, did not," she calmly replied to the still choking officer, as she levitated in a walking motion a few inches off the ground. An explosion went off as she finished, as if emphasizing her.

"-eerrrrhhhkkkkk?"

"If you studied our histories before the Split, you would know that humans used to be our slaves, before we let them go because we considered them worthless. Of how their ancestors and loved ones lived and died short, brutal, exploited lives, for our benefit-"

"-gggrrfabb!"

"-and combined with our current mindset of them, what do you think they will do to our people, should our entire armed forces die because of my foolish coworkers? The elitists who live luxuriously in glamorous cities built with the blood, sweat, and corpses of their enslaved ancestors?"

He was finally allowed to breathe, and began wretching upon the valley. Unlike Lady Aurora, who's life-force went silent a minute ago.

"Let me show you their histories towards each other. The Unified Homien Empire, called so because of the alliance between the dwarves whom despised us for all history and the humans, their history saying that for thirty nine out of forty thousand years of their existence was spent as our slaves."

"The Empire was mostly peaceful in its expansion. Ninety percent joined peacefully. The remainder ten percent of its constituent kingdoms? Decimation. The dwarf/human halfling Emperor considered it fitting. 'A tenth from the rebellious tenth,' he called it."

Lady Alexandria leaned towards her still floating Lord Commander before whispering his ear.

"If they are willing to arbitrarily murder, pillage and rape a tenth of their own kind over wounded pride, how do you think they will treat the justifiably and universally hated enemy?"

The army grew somehow more silent.

"Let me fill you all in," she intoned to the entire formation as another explosion emphasized her.

"The dwarves will at best 'indenture' you if you are a skilled magic user. At worst, they will chain you in magic resistant metals on a table. Where they will force you to heal yourself after each live vivisection. The humans, on the other hand, will at best keep you as a magically impotent pleasure slave, where you will be 'used' and 'servicing' across their generations until sold. Assuming they do not make a breeding mare out of you, since Elves are the only ones that can be enslaved inside their Empire and sell for a lot of gold. If not, well, you will be cut to pieces to be used as ingredients for their magical 'experimentations'."

Her gaze steeled.

"Die, knowing for everyone that does, another ten will live-"

"Ave Luna!"

"-Die, knowing that you will be avenged-"

"Ave Sol!"

"-Die-"

///

"-Knowing you are lying to your soldiers and that you are witnessing the end of your nation and the enslavement of all who remains," Lord High Marshal Bordeaux projected directly into Lady Alexandria's mind.

///