A random glance to the backlines by a single mage finally noticed Princess Gaap gasping for air on her black demon stallion. However, before he could react, she had lost all consciousness and landed head first on the ground, causing a neck fracture due to the weight of the armour, aggravating her injuries further.
The Mage of Jade Gem shouted for a healer despite his disbelief that their almighty commander could fall and it prompted several of them to quickly rush to her aid.
"There is no use trying to save her. She is too far gone." One of the senior Mages of Jade Gem a.s.sessed her condition. There was no way she could survive a b.l.o.o.d.y hole in her chest and a neck fracture, so all they could do was to wait for her to resurrect in a few days time. The second in command under Princess Gaap immediately sent his messenger to Prince Stolas who had remained at the backlines observing the situation.
"What?! Gaap was killed? But didn"t she ride with you all a few minutes ago?! f.u.c.k!" Prince Stolas kicked a stone nearby to vent his anger. It was evident Moloch"s soldiers knew who to target and the floating platform was giving their ranged troops an added advantage. Usually, the Demon flying units would be sufficient to mow such troops down with a hit and run.
But right now, those ranged troops were doing more damage to both the front lines as well as the back end. To make matters worse, their flying units had been forced to retreat because of the overwhelming aerial defences Moloch had placed. Perhaps, he should send an emergency letter to Marquis Forneus and request for him to partic.i.p.ate in this war and deploy the most well known veteran air force in the entire Demon Metropolis.
The Dragon Devils.
They were the one particular demonic air force which Moloch feared the most. It was to the point he specifically had prepared the Wyvern Goblin Knights to fight them. Marquis Forneus not only had the Dragon Devils in his possession but an army of draco-humanoid troops that could swoop into any position to disrupt the formation of the defending army.
Dragonlites were a breed of half-dragon half-humans that aligned themselves to the demons because of the crude, twisted perception of crossbreds amongst adventurers.
The general population of humans despised any adventurers who fell in love with monsters but fortunately, there were havens, sanctuaries and monster towns that existed to allow these two distinct races to cohabit together.
Hence, the crossbred population of dragonlites preferred to be with the demons and monsters who had a system of meritocracy which rewarded people for their strength and power instead of their birth and race. In fact, for a tyrant King, Baal had shown to be extraordinarily merciful towards these discriminated races and provided them with a place to live readily as compared to other monsters.
This was most definitely because Baal could sympathise with them. He had been conceived from a frog monster who had crossbred with his mother, who herself was a crossbreed between a human and a cat humanoid.
As a child, Baal had to scrimp and save every dungeon penny he could obtain through legal and illegal means. He was not as lucky as his children now who had the ability to live in luxury.
And unfortunately for his parents, they were not able to live long enough to see the success of their child as they had been killed in the advent of the Dungeon World"s Harbingers. Those creatures which represented living natural catastrophes in the Dungeon World could forcefully remove the resurrection "blessing" from this world"s inhabitants.
That incident had also become a significant turning point for Baal inciting him to grow stronger, braver and even more ruthless. It wouldn"t be wrong to say that it had formed him into what he is now.
----
"s.h.i.+t, man! This dungeon is tough, but G.o.d d.a.m.n, it"s exhilarating! Best dungeon yet!" Yue Han praised Boss Jin as he took a breather and took a chi bottle from his storage ring to have a drink. "Hippo, any idea where the rest of the Pandawans are? So far, it"s only been the two of us together."
"That"s not too surprising, considering we are in the centre. I advised Bu Dong and Luo Bo to head to the far east to aid a group of Pandarens. Given this pressing situation, we seem to have entered the next phase of this dungeon, so I a.s.sume they should have retreated by now or be in the midst of doing just that. But d.a.m.n, all the blasting of artillery guns, cannons and tank shots are making things way too hard to concentrate properly!" Xiong Da answered.
As always Jin had taken his instance a couple of notches above any other dungeon supplier store. It really felt like they were in the middle of a warzone.
The lawyer hid behind a barricade and took his phone to check his score for a moment before turning his Pandamonium map app on to search for the other Pandawans" location. As the most hardcore fan and veteran among the Pandawans, Bear Cub One had a.s.signed Xiong Da the temporary t.i.tle of a military company leader and provided him with the tools to monitor the entirety of Pandawans in the battle.
It made the Pandawans more competent in responding to immediate threats, allowing them to quickly help the Pandarens if necessary. (In essence, it was meant to help out Qiu Yue.)
Leading the squads of Pandawans while fighting at the same time was tiresome, yet Xiong Da enjoyed this new role granting him such a dominant position. It was something different compared to his usual job where most of his colleagues were merely obeying his commands just for the sake of doing so.
While both the Pandawans and Pandarens were aware that there would be system text messages going across their half-mask every once in a while to inform the customers of the battle, the cultivators still lacked a general sense of direction.
That was where Qiu Yue, Jin"s appointed strategist for the day, stepped in while Xiong Da handled Pandawans. Before the start of this event, Jin had created a Pandamonium forum post informing the ma.s.ses that there would be "one tactician" who would contact the Pandarens after certain developments of the war to make sure there was some coordination aside from the regular system text messages.
Qiu Yue was already quite busy handling the overall tactical decision, so she could not personally whisper for varying groups of Pandarens to move in accordance with her strategy.
Predicting such problems in advance, Jin had recommended letting the cultivators use their mini pets to allow Qiu Yue to send her commands through instead of using the usual magpies from Que Er. (After all, she was now considered as a major offensive war a.s.set after her deeds in the Giant World.)
This provided a middleman for Qiu Yue and the Pandarens as a platform to question and clarify orders too. (Although the Goblins Telecomms Operators were doing the clarification in disguise as that "one" tactician which Jin mentioned.) Despite the limited mini pet"s responses, Jin and the System needed to save processing s.p.a.ce for other more critical procedures.
Nevertheless, it gave them a better grasp of the situation as the Armies full of Wights and Flowers pressed on along with Duke Vepar"s and Earl Furfur towards the Sky Bridge.