Chapter 600

When the news that Ha-shal-leur’s special forces were wreaking havoc on Ai-shan’s central bases reached Ordos, Landenburg’s main force, which had set out a step late, was also fully engaged in their operations.

Taking advantage of the Ai-shan main force’s focus on Ha-shal-leur, they launched a pincer strategy to attack the scattered enemies in the southern Great Plains, aiming to weaken Ai-shan’s combat power.

Ha-shal-leur only knew the general outline of the operation, but Ludwig’s orders to his first sword, Joshua Blake, were far more detailed and complex.

“Landenburg Knights, prepare for a full charge! Annihilate the Empire’s enemies!”

“Those Western lunatics! They should be holed up behind their stone walls, how dare they come out!”

Shouts, screams, curses, and wails mingled and boiled over.

Landenburg’s elite corps—2,500 cavalry, 500 knights, six masters, and a hero—were sweeping through the southern Great Plains, executing extreme mobile warfare.

From the perspective of traditional military doctrine, this was an utterly reckless operation.

While a defensive battle centered on heavy infantry might have been understandable, history had proven that engaging Ka`har with cavalry-centric tactics was suicidal.

The Empire’s cavalry couldn’t match Ka`har’s mobility. Their archery, capable of raining precise arrows even while retreating. And their overwhelming horsemanship, which truly shone in chaotic cavalry skirmishes.

The only advantage the Empire had was the ease of training medium cavalry, thanks to trade with dwarves and countless iron mines.

In other words, even Landenburg’s elite would suffer massive losses if they engaged Ka`har in cavalry combat alone.

Of course, Ludwig wasn’t ignorant of this common sense. In fact, he knew it better than anyone in the Empire.

That’s why he sent all the masters and heroes beyond the barrier, excluding the special forces. Even knowing that if they were counterattacked and annihilated, Landenburg would be finished.

Moreover, Ludwig gave Joshua, who was in charge of the main force, two key orders—tactics and strategies that Ha-shal-leur’s special forces had never heard of, the core of this operation.

– If we can’t win in open plains combat, then we simply won’t engage in it.

The result unfolded before Joshua’s eyes.

—-

“Ahhh! My leg, my leg…!”

“Mom, mommy!”

“Run! Get out of here!”

Flames engulfed the village. The screams of Easterners being slashed, pierced, and burned echoed to the heavens.

These weren’t the cries of warriors, but the wails of ordinary people living their daily lives. Led by a knight wielding an impossibly long sword, the Westerners cut down every Ka`har in sight, regardless of age or gender.

The Ka`har warriors who tried to protect them had long been annihilated, forced into unfamiliar defensive battles.

Had they fought on the plains, they could have used their mobility to outmaneuver the Imperial forces. But with the enemy raining arrows and fire on the village, their greatest strength became meaningless.

The moment the warriors tried to create distance with their divine horsemanship, the Imperial forces charged into the village, slaughtering the warriors’ parents, siblings, and children.

Forcing the enemy into defensive battles by massacring civilians. A brutal method, but undeniably effective.

The Ka`har warriors, once the raiders and plunderers, were now the ones being raided. Unaccustomed to defensive battles, they fell one by one. And once the warriors were wiped out, the non-combatant Ka`har were also doomed.

Unlike Ha-shal-leur, who avoided harming non-combatant Easterners, the main force operated under orders to leave no Ka`har alive. Yet, it was hard to call them cruel.

While Ha-shal-leur’s goal was merely to draw attention, the main force’s objective was to reduce Ka`har’s strength to a level where they posed no threat to the Empire.

Burn the pastures, torch the fields, destroy their homes, and exterminate the people.

With no chance of victory in a head-on clash, this scorched-earth strategy was the only way to fundamentally weaken the enemy’s power.

—-

After completing what had become a routine massacre, Landenburg’s main force took a brief rest to regroup. Their commander, Joshua Blake, wiped the blood and oil from his blade as he assessed the situation.

“Ahhhh!”

“Please, please stop…!”

“No, nooo!”

The screams and wails echoing around him were unsettling, but in this kind of war, they were inevitable. Joshua ignored the Easterners’ cries.

‘It’s not a pleasant sight… but it’s necessary.’

Though his knightly sensibilities recoiled at the carnage, emotions were a luxury for someone responsible for thousands of lives. A commander must base every decision on reason and logic, not feelings. That’s what Joshua believed.

Unlike the special forces, whose role was merely to draw attention, the main force’s mission was to physically annihilate as many Ka`har as possible. They had no time to rest, enduring relentless battles.

Marching, fighting, massacring—their fatigue and stress were beyond imagination, and there was only one way to relieve it.

Joshua permitted all forms of cruelty toward Ka`har prisoners. Even in victory, there was no time for a proper break, so these brief moments of release were all they had.

Prisoners in the hands of stressed soldiers had no chance of survival, but since they were targets for elimination anyway, it wasn’t a problem.

‘This is the nature of annihilation warfare.’

Joshua turned his attention from the prisoners’ screams to focus on assessing the situation with his adjutant.

“…How many are left?”

“We lost thirty knights and seventy cavalry in this battle. Remaining forces are around two thousand.”

Thanks to Ludwig’s tactics, the plains conquest force was winning, but not every battle was a decisive victory.

With annihilation battles twice a day and unavoidable ambushes during marches, they had no choice but to endure.

By obsessively using scouts, they managed to avoid encountering large enemy forces in the plains. But when small groups of warriors suddenly appeared, rained arrows, and retreated, there was little they could do.

Chasing them would only increase losses, so their only option was to rely on armor and shields, push to the next base, and force the enemy into defensive battles.

Thus, the conquest force, which had started with three thousand, was now down to about two thousand, having lost a third.

Bertrand, Landenburg’s ninth sword, had fallen in a joint attack by paladins, and Klaus, the fourth sword, had lost his right arm.

Restoring a severed limb required a healing priest’s miracle and a long recovery period. The recovery potions they had brought and the few combat priests’ healing weren’t enough to quickly heal such injuries.

Not just Klaus, but the other masters also bore significant wounds. Even if they were forced into unfamiliar defensive battles, the paladins were still a formidable threat.

Joshua, Landenburg’s hero, fought tirelessly to minimize losses, but in large-scale battles, even he couldn’t handle everything.

—-

“Urgent report! The main force of Ordos is on the move!”

After a forty-minute rest, as the main force marched toward the next battlefield, a scout returned with an arrow in his back, urgently reporting.

“A medium cavalry unit with black banners is marching west! A massive force of thousands!”

“The Black Armies… Or-han’s elite medium cavalry. Good work. Any other movements?”

“Not yet…!”

The scout bowed his head, pale. The only information he had was that the Black Armies were heading west. He had raced back to report as soon as he confirmed it, avoiding Ka`har scouts.

‘They took the bait. So far, the plan is working.’

Joshua praised the scout and ordered him to tend to his wounds, then considered the next strategy.

‘If Ka`har’s main force is entirely focused on the special forces, we can continue the annihilation battles… but that’s unlikely. By now, they must have heard about us. The subjugation force will soon head south.’

Neither Ludwig nor Joshua expected Or-han to be so fixated on the special forces that he wouldn’t notice the main force in the south.

The special forces’ role was solely to keep Or-han occupied and delay the main force’s exposure.

The fact that Ordos’s main force was only marching west, not splitting between west and south, suggested they had succeeded in delaying the timing.

That had always been the special forces’ core objective. If Ka`har moved simultaneously, the slower Imperial forces would inevitably be caught.

The day or two bought by the special forces was the lifeline for the main force’s safe retreat.

‘It’s time to pull back.’

Joshua decided to retreat. The main force’s strategic goal was no longer annihilation but a swift withdrawal. Just as Ha-shal-leur had been told.

“Landenburg Knights! Mount up! Retreat southwest!”

However, the main force’s retreat path differed slightly from what Ha-shal-leur knew.

Ha-shal-leur believed the main force would head straight west, crossing the barrier to return…

“Our destination is the Dane border! Maintain distance from the pursuers, cross into Dane, and return to Landenburg!”

Ludwig’s second strategy: to forcibly drag Dane, currently preoccupied with attacking Panam, into this battlefield.

Given Ka`har’s reliance on plunder for supplies, their main force pursuing Landenburg would inevitably raid Dane’s territory to resupply.

As they always did.