Chapter 31 – The Legion (1)
“This… This is quite a lot, now that I see it up close.”
“Don’t let your guard down. If we get broken through at any point, it’s all over.”
Finally, the Demon Coalition Army could face the enemies closing in from all sides. Their numbers were at least three times their own.
To top it off, their sizes were generally on the larger side, so much so that the area might as well be described as a sea of black, undulating with movement wherever it stretched.
‘Even from the reports, this is an incomprehensible number of monsters. They can’t all be fighting at will.’
Clutching his teeth, Viscount Zik, the Orc clad in armor and ready for direct combat, was in awe of the imposing presence of the enemy they actually faced.
The actual existing demonic army before his eyes wielded an even greater destructive power than expected.
“The enemy is charging!”
“Hold your positions!”
There was no time for preparatory maneuvers or provocations. As if they had waited for the perfect moment to attack, the beasts moved forward without hesitation and hurled themselves towards the hastily assembled defense lines.
Massive shock troops were advancing at the forefront, and they were tightly flanked by countless regular units.
If they allowed themselves to remain unprepared, the shock troops would obliterate them with their sharp and enormous swords along with their colossal frames.
“Ballistae! Open fire!”
But the demons also had their plans. At Zik’s command, mercenary mages who had hauled enormous cannons activated the runes carved into them.
These cannons, by using magic stones to unleash powerful magic shells, were indispensable in the battlefields of the Demon Realm.
“Yeah!”
Their firepower, while not on par with the enormous defense turrets used in urban fortifications, was still enough to knock down a significant number of enemies who couldn’t withstand the explosions of the fireballs.
“Th, they’re firing their own cannonballs!”
But that moment, the beasts also counterattacked.
Realizing that the flying blobs of flesh, soaring through the air like projectiles from a catapult, were the infamous throwing troops he had heard of, Zik gritted his teeth.
“Archers, shoot them down! And hurry up with the protection barriers!”
Zik urged the orc longbowmen armed with large bows to snipe at the aerial projectiles, and simultaneously drove the mages and shamans to erect protection barriers.
As the airborne biological bombs exploded in the sky and scattered poison gas and toxins, the troops coughed while managing to maintain their positions to avoid the deadly poison.
“Defensive spell complete!”
At almost the same moment, a semi-transparent magical barrier began to spread across the battlefield.
Although temporary, the fierce charge of the shock troops and the falling biological bombs were all blocked by the protection barrier.
“Destroy it!”
Seeing this, the queen clenched her teeth and ordered her soldiers to break through the barrier. Although it was difficult to break with mere physical force, continued assault would eventually overwhelm even the magical barriers.
“The enemy’s attacks are eroding our barriers. We need to regenerate them!”
“But if the barriers break, the enemy bombs will immediately rain down. Intercepting them all is impossible. So…!”
By now, countless enemies had spread out in a wide fan shape, attacking from all sides. Watching the barrier gradually cracking, Zik made a decision.
“Send the mobile units out!”
It was dangerous to temporarily lower the barrier and reinstate it, as enemy bombs could drop through the exposed gaps. To prevent this, Zik launched the mobile units deployed at the rear.
Composed of beings with high mobility, like centaurs and wolf riders, they circled the battlefield and charged across the ground to snipe at the throwing troops who were obliviously preparing to launch more bombs at the rear.
“Do you believe this to be your chance?”
The queen observed them through the eyes of the reconnaissance scouts in the sky and smirked. In fact, the demon coalition should be dealing with those scouts first and foremost.
Otherwise, they couldn’t match the computational power of the Hive Mind that could surveil the battlefield in real time.
“Charge quickly! Our mission is critical! If we fail, the main force will be wiped out!”
Dus, the centaur mercenary captain, fired his bow while sprinting at full speed across the plains.
‘As I thought, those stupid beasts only care about the prey in front of them. So now, that will be their downfall.’
Dus smirked as he ran with his comrades, seeing the enemy make no real attempt to stop them as they openly flanked around.
Even the bombardiers, their targets, continued their tasks as if the mobile unit didn’t exist, busily preparing and launching more bombs.
This way, the bombardiers would surely be wiped out, and the beasts, deprived of their support fire, would get crushed against the allied defense lines, resulting in their annihilation.
“Let’s go! Will the great demons lose to mere mana beasts?”
Boosted with morale, Dus encouraged his surrounding comrades, and everyone was exhilarated by the thought of being the main hero of this war.
“Hmm?”
“That’s our cue. Overwhelm them!”
But at that instant, the entire ground shook violently, revealing numerous enemies buried shallowly beneath it.
Emerging from the soil along with clouds of dirt were the beasts that had lain in ambush.
“What nonsense is this?! They set up a trap against us?! These creatures?!”
Dus and the mobile unit, struck with shock, scrambled as they found themselves surrounded.
Deprived of their momentum, the encircled mobile unit now had to deal with the hidden enemies.
“Stay calm! There aren’t that many of them! Kill these monsters and complete our mission!”
Dus still managed to keep his focus. Discarding his bow, he picked up a spear which began to glow with magic.
This was exactly why the demons could never truly be on par with mana beasts; a spear empowered by magic could instantly slice through even the most physically superior foes.
“How, how is this possible…!”
But at that moment, Dus’s spear was blocked. It was a distinctively large beast whose carapace emitted a peculiar reddish glow.
“Alpha Type, eliminate.”
The Alpha Type, an ordinary monster enhanced with a reddish barrier, sprinted toward Dus and extended its poison stinger located at the back of its body.
“Guh…”
Dus, valiantly resisting with his front legs, suffered multiple stabs to his stomach and chest, stumbling in disbelief.
‘How could a mere beast have more potent magic than me…’
It was merely a protective barrier, but its sheer density was the issue.
Regardless of the sheer amount of magic it contained, the highly concentrated defensive shield wouldn’t yield and instead began to counter with the monster’s stinger. Dus and his fellow demons started falling victim to this.
“The Alpha Type experiment seems to be a success. The ones who tried to overwhelm with magic are now being overwhelmed themselves.”
“Sufficiently valuable.”
The death of the centaur mercenary captain, Dus, only provided the queen with more data to analyze. She was nothing but delighted.
The near-perfect ambush and the first appearance of the Alpha Types instantly crushed the morale of the enemy mobile units. She immediately began a ruthless slaughter of the surrounded mobile troops, not allowing any escape.
Every last one was to be slain and turned into nutrients.
“Ugh! How dare these mana beasts dare…!”
“Even if you cling to the belief that we are mere mana beasts till the end, I, for one, am grateful.”
Though some resisted valiantly, knowing full well it was certain death, it was all in vain as the queen, seeing it only as resistance, instructed the mass slaughter using their numerical superiority to annihilate the entire mobile unit.
“The dispatched forces have been annihilated!”
“Th, they keep bombarding us. Moreover, some unknown creatures are joining the battlefield, and they have these personal magic barriers around them!”
Even the main force, tasked with holding their position, witnessed their dispatched mobile unit falling into a trap and being wiped out.
However, Zik, who showed no signs of despair despite the relentless sight of warriors falling and countless enemies marching on, had to quickly devise his actions.
‘Is this truly what it’s like in hell?’
With his defenses gradually crumpling and the endless rain of poison bombs leaving him mentally dulled, Zik watched the Alpha Type beasts covered in magical barriers pushing back his troops.
“What in the world is that?”
And that wasn’t the only problem.
An unknown entity appeared from the front. The woman with pale pink hair was wielding a spear wrapped in overwhelming mana, defeating orc warriors with her superior spear techniques one after another.
Staring at the chain of events which broke the limits of logic, Zik gave up on further analysis.
Trying to figure out the opponent’s identity any further was pointless.
It was now time to fight for his life by escaping as quickly as possible to buy some time. And he had to warn others to know that these border freaks were on an entirely different level from regular mana beasts. These creatures needed to be stopped before they grew even larger and took over the whole area.
