A couple more weeks had passed and there had still been no signs of the approaching army.
Fortunately, this was good news.
This made the hastily prepared line of defense become a proper one.
Now, there wasn't just one wall, but two.
And with Elena's efforts, more and more goblins from nearby territories took refuge in Oer and became vampires.
The city's population had now breached the 20,000 mark, and totalled to around 21,000 people.
Of course, too many vampires would pose a problem, so there were some tests beforehand to pick the best of the best.
This was war after all.
Today, Lucky was touring the military headquarters.
After finishing the defense line walls, the military base was now being expanded.
With a new growing army, Lucky decided that it was time to reorganize their training regiments.
He arrived near an open field.
Lucky took a page out of his own training regiment, and implemented them to the vampire goblins' training.
Though not as intense, he could see these vampire goblin soldiers struggling to lift car-sized boulders.
Some of their eyes were glaring with hate. These were the eyes of the newly-turned vampires.
They came here as refugees, expecting a vampire's immortality and life of debauchery.
'Who could blame them, vampires in this world are famous for those things after all,' Lucky thought.
But oh well, orders were orders.
Even if they wanted to rebel, they could never do it since they were 3rd generation vampires.
They could only send hateful glares towards the non-vampire soldiers. Jealous of the normal-seeming training regiment.
Currently, the non-vampire soldiers were practicing volley firing with dummy rifles.
The vampire soldiers would switch to volley fire practices after their Lucky-esque training regiment, but that would not be now. They still had around 8 hours left.
Finishing his brief visit, Lucky was just about to exit the headquarters when a hurried Elena arrived.
Seeing her tense expression, Lucky could guess what it was about.
"They're here?" He asked.
"Yes, they've set up camp in our nearest neighbouring village, Otur. One of Erina's spy units found out," she replied grimly.
"How are they so fast? I thought they delayed their march?" Lucky asked.
"Their mages.... teleported them all," she replied.
"All 100,000?" He asked.
She gritted her teeth, nodded, and replied, "more than 100,000. Their numbers have tripled, at least 300,000 soldiers are in Otur. We still don't know if Aura-wielding knights are among them."
'Fuck, teleporting 300,000 people instantaneously? That was possible for them this whole time??' He thought.
"How come they didn't just teleport right into our city?" Asked Lucky.
"I don't know, perhaps their teleportation spell isn't perfect," she replied.
"What is their expected time of arrival?" He asked.
"To Oer? If they all marched, probably within a day at their slowest," answered Elena.
"SHIT!" Yelled Lucky.
"Has Erina withdrawn yet?" He asked.
"Yes, but her spies are still there. Should we withdraw them as well?" She replied and asked.
"No keep them there. Tell them to stay low. We need a steady supply of intelligence," he replied.
****
The next day, a state of emergency had begun.
Soldiers manned the walls, the police ptarolled the city, and the city's new gun factories, converted from paper factories, continuously churned out rifles.
These rifles were muzzleloader rifles, with primitive iron bullets encased in paper cartridges.
Technically, they weren't rifles since they had no rifling. They were muskets.
But that was simply due to the time crunch.
The original design had rifling, but the manufacturing of these "rifles" had skipped the rifling step since they could only do it manually with their current technology.
These weren't modern factories that used mechanical tools, these were dwarven-operated smithing factories.
And as such, after around 2 weeks of operation....
And consisting of around 56 dwarven workers....
They only had around 2,500 muskets.
Not enough for the now 8,000+ soldiers, of which, 3,000 were non-vampires.
Considering that only a third of the non-vampire soldiers were part of of logistics, this left only 500 muskets to the vampire goblins.
Not enough for the side being besieged.
After all, Lucky had abandoned fighting with swords and arrows.
Facing an army of 100,000.... or now 300,000 instead, swords and arrows were simply not enough for their small population.
When added with the police force, the volunteer fighters, Lucky, and the sisters, the total force of Oer numbered around 16,000.
A force of 16,000 against an army of 300,000 with 5 mages and probably a bunch of Aura-wielding knights?
Anyone would say that it's impossible.
But all hope was not lost yet.
They still had a trump card.
****
Midnight, a few hours after the enemy forces were spotted.
In a distant hill near Otur, under the complete darkness of a new moon.
Newly built catapults were lined up. There were 50 of these catapults.
Each catapult was equipped with steel-reinforced parts, making them able to handle a load of upwards of a metric ton.
These were built as defensive weapons to counter the mages.
But since the enemy had arrived faster than expected and in larger numbers, they had to be repurposed.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
With a lot of effort, Lucky and his vampires managed to sneak in these 50 catapults.
Using Erina's kin, the Bloodweavers, Lucky had them cushion the movements of these catapults using Blood Control. Making them extremely silent.
Moreover, since they were vampires, they could see through the total darkness. A new moon was the opposite of a full moon after all.
These Daywalker vampire soldiers had been training routinely for these catapults ever since they were made.
Although plans were changed and they were being helped by the Bloodweavers, they kept their skillful routine of loading their catapults.
What were these catapults loaded with? Bombs, dynamite to be exact.
'This might be the last chance we'll ever get to use these bombs. The mages would definitely concoct a spell that could counter them,' thought Lucky.
Just in time, the spies planted by Erina had retreated from Otur and had arrived.
Using Blood Control, these Bloodweaver spies were able quietly to get away from the village-turned-encampment lickety-split.
They glided on the ground with blood as if skating on ice, but faster and quieter.