The plan to stay in southern Erdashu and destroy the UTC’s vassals was a solid plan via attrition was solid, but it’s taking too long. The UTC owns too much territory and too many resources in northern Erdashu, the central Tomchaka strait and islands, southern Huilapole, and their northern Huilapole states. Therefore, the new plan was to take northern Erdashu and kick the UTC off the continent.

The legion’s Hetmen competed to see who would reach the inner sea first, capturing settlments and fortresses as they went, and it was the 68th Legion which eventually besieged the key port city of Massawa. The other legions were days behind.

Then a horde of 600 monsters stormed across the tropical savanna.

They possessed the body of a titan spider, with the upper half of tomchakan druids attached to the creature’s removed head, stitched together with magic to give the druid full control over the spider’s powerful body.

They wore steel-plated armor thick enough to deflect bullets and swords. Their empowered human arms easily swung giant halberds, their titan spider legs smashed through armor and shattered elven bones, and their spider mandibles consumed their defeated foes.

They fought with coordinated efficiency, broken into ranks of six per squad. They had painted spirals on their rear ends, blue was the most common, red seemed to be for squad leaders, and green perhaps denoted the commander of a group of squads. They chittered and screeched as they fought, working to corral our forces into manageable kill zones.

We slayed 70 in that battle, but 3,100 elves died before we were forced to abandon the siege.

This druidic abomination will certainly become a staple in battles ahead, but we’ve dealt with their kind before. It’s just a matter of learning how to kill these monsters.