Chapter 934: The All-Out War (continued)
In the face of the Marsh army, who had members like the giant multi-headed serpents that wielded catastrophic military power, even the st.u.r.diest fortress would become nothing more than an ordinary small village.
The reason why the Red Tree fortress could sustain up till the now was because it had one out of the four Legendary Masters and a demiG.o.d holding the fort.
Putting aside the discussion of the four Legendary Masters for the moment, just that demiG.o.d alone was a through-and-through strategic martial force in his own right. With him around, even an army of thousands of men and horses would not stand a chance of victory.
However, the Marsh army also had DemiG.o.d Masters.
For ages, the Marsh races had been able to resist the invasion of the humans. And they mainly depended on those DemiG.o.d Masters who lingered in the human world and refused to leave.
Some of them had become the ancestral totems of the tribes they stayed with. Some of them had laid their roots with countless descendants. There were also some who cultivated all day long and never showed their faces before others.
But for the future of their races, at the summoning and invitation of the Marsh G.o.ds, and under the entreaties and beckoning of the Marsh races, they all set foot on the battlefield, one after another.
At the moment, among the Marsh army that surrounded the Red Tree fortress, there were two DemiG.o.d Masters.
With two against one, the side of the Marsh had a considerable advantage. But even so, they did not have the confidence of being able to hold back that human DemiG.o.d Master.
The other side might not be able to defeat them, but they definitely had the ability to break through and escape.
Or perhaps… If the other party did not wish to escape but rather insisted on battling to the end, the battle between them would most likely implicate all the living souls here. Everyone would be left to die without any proper burial grounds.
This was, of course, not something that the demiG.o.ds of both sides wished to see happen.
So the war was brought to a standstill and became a long siege.
However, while the Red Tree fortress could still hold up, the other fortresses could not.
By the time the army that the Duchy of Thunder had urgently a.s.sembled rushed down, the many strongholds that had been set up since a long time ago were down to three. And the Red Tree fortress was among these three.
The army of the Duchy of Thunder, of course, attacked the Marsh races without further ado. Both sides fought a ferocious battle, which left them all in a great mess of deaths and injuries. Then, like the situation at the defense line at the Great Wall that was northeast of the continent, they both set up base camps and launched a long-term confrontation.
In this case, the Duchy of Thunder would, of course, no longer have the power to support the defense line at the Great Wall—in fact, they themselves needed support.
If it had not been the reinforcements that the Mifata Federation provided them, they might not have even been able to retain their own defensive line.
And at this point in time, the reinforcements of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs finally overcome the arduous journey laden with high mountains and lofty hills. They lost about 20-percent of their military strength but finally made it to the northern fortress group of the Kingdom of Eagle.
They had finally arrived and were just in time. If they had taken two to three more days to arrive, they would be moaning in anguish as all the fallen fortresses would have greeted them upon arrival instead. They might also have to collect the dead body of King Igor along the way.
With their support, the Kingdom of Eagle was able to protect and hold on to its final and st.u.r.diest fortress. This battle was not lost yet.
On the other hand, the army of the Commonwealth of Gold Coins was unable to break through the obstacle posed by the Marsh army. Regardless of how they had already sent in three troops as replacements. But in the face of the allied force comprising the many Marsh races, who were also supplementing their army with more reinforcements and doing their best to block the way, there was nothing the army of the Commonwealth of Gold Coins could do.
The geographical landscape of the Marsh was really not suitable for human combat. Waging wars in such places simply gave the Marsh race a much greater advantage.
To add fuel to the fire, the allied force from the Marsh even gained the support of the Desolation race from the Graystone Mountain.
The Desolation race was essentially part of the Half-Orc race. Thus in this great battle that decided the fate of their race, of course they would stand by the side of the Orcs.
In fact, the Desolation G.o.ds were already fighting this war under the leaders.h.i.+p of their Master G.o.d, Morani, the “Steel Lion.” Although they had been estranged from the Orc G.o.ds, they were, ultimately, Half-Orc G.o.ds. In such a war where the different races were fighting for their survival s.p.a.ce, the Desolation G.o.ds were unable to take a neutral stand like their allies, the Void G.o.ds.
For this, Morani had apologized to Sui Xiong. And in turn, Sui Xiong had accepted his apology.
It was true that they were all friends. But friends would also have their own stand to take. Sui Xiong could not impose his stand on Morani.
All Morani could do was to restrain the Half-Orcs and the Desolation race so that they were unable to ma.s.sacre the humans.
In fact, there was no need to worry at all. Even if they had the intention to kill, they simply did not have the chance to do anything so far.
At present, among the many kingdoms of the humans, the one in the direst situation was still the Duchy of Griffon. After losing its capital city to the allied force comprising the underground races and pygmies, the army was greatly demoralized. They were continuously losing their territories under the attacks of the allied force of their opponent and were in great distress.
Seeing how the Duchy of Griffon was on the verge of collapsing, the Kingdom of the Blue Moon, which had always been on bad terms with the former, finally deployed its soldiers to help it retain one of its territory in the east.
Even if after this battle, the Duchy of Griffon might be devoured by the Kingdom of the Blue Moon, at least for now, it was still able to barely survive.
And the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs, the most aggressive country among all the human-populated countries, also paid a heavy price for its many years of aggression.
On the very day that their elite troops arrived at the northern defense line of the Kingdom of Eagle, the allied force comprising the elves and dwarfs, which had long been prepared for this attack, rushed out of the Ancient Forest and the Mountain of Broken Clouds. They launched an aggressive attack on the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs by closing on them from two sides.
Of course, the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs was well-prepared to stay vigilant against this. But being on guard did not mean it was able to put up a defense. In the face of a fierce joint attack by two long-time opponents, even the people of the Kingdom of Thousands of Springs, who relished fighting in wars, found this an extremely difficult battle. Their defense line was continuously drawing back.
Every time the defense line drew back, a large number of bodies of the dead men from Thousands of Springs would be strewn all over the place.
Of course, the dwarfs and elves also lost a great deal. But it was imperative that they won this battle. Even their G.o.ds had all turned out in full force, what else could the mortals say?
If they won, everyone could gain peace and prosperity. If they lost, they would no longer have a foothold on the Main Plane.
What else was there worth thinking about? They just had to put their lives on the line and go all out!
So there were the flames of war everywhere on Earth. Almost every country was involved in this war. Other than the southernmost part of the continent, which was still in a state of peace, only the Republic of Northwest, which was very far away, was not implicated in the war.
Vast numbers of refugees were heading to the Republic of Northwest. The Church of the Void Mask had thus mobilized all its forces to ensure the safety of these people.
And the G.o.ds that the members of the Church of the Void Mask believed in had come to the South, to where the Mifata Federation was. They stopped in the sky above the Mifata Federation with solemn expressions and did not say a single word.
Above the South Sea, thick clouds of war practically suffocated the G.o.ds.
Sui Xiong could clearly see that there were large numbers of murlocs gathering here from all directions. Most of them were unarmed, but they wore expressions that reflected their heightened enthusiasm, which could even be described as madness.
He could also guess what these fellows wanted to do, and he could not help but wonder to himself.
Such a large number of murlocs gathering here at the South Sea, other than attacking the Mifata Federation, what other reason could there be?
No one would have expected this group of murlocs, who had lacked a sense of existence for so many years, to want to hit the headlines with such sensational news, albeit in such a soundless manner!