The Devil"s Evolution Catalog Chapter 70: The Chaotic Battle With the Demonic Werewolves Part 1 {Draft}
The reason why we were leisurely standing around was because our opponents were the werewolves. Against their speed, running away now was simply too late…
Besides, if Violet Snow"s guess was right, those werewolves should be fighting against the medusas right now. In light of that, they shouldn"t be that brainless as to charge at us for no reason. At the very least they would try to discover our intentions and then try to avoid or bring us into the fight against the medusas.
After all, fighting a war on two fronts wasn"t the smartest idea. As long as they had some brains in them, they shouldn"t do that right...
Either way, I had a lot of room to maneuver. For example, I could pretend to be harmless and wait till both sides have exhausted their men before suddenly turning on both of them. By then, subjugating both sides should be easy...yup, sounds perfect.
At least that was how I thought it would turn out.
These were merely my a.s.sumptions but seeing as she didn"t raise any opinions but instead took her time to explain these matters to me, she must"ve had the same idea as me right…
While I was busy making wild guesses, a h.e.l.lhound rushed up to Violet Snow and reported something in their usual barks. After which, she nodded her tiny little head and said, "Mhm, their attack is about to reach us. In that case, it"s time for battle."
"..." What"s with that nonchalant announcement! Wasn"t the reason why we were standing here because you had some a.s.surance that they wouldn"t attack? What happen to our plan of ambushing at the right moment?!
"What"s with that look on your face?" Upon discovering my strange expression, she turned her attention to me before giving out an "Oh!". In an instant, her gaze told me exactly what she thought of me at the moment, [Idiot, Stupid, Fool].
"Did you a.s.sume that they would ignore us in order to avoid fighting on two fronts?"
"As an intelligent life form, I feel that the least they can do is to send an emissary to find out about our situation, I"m sure they wouldn"t just attack us without…"
While it was kind of awkward to be exposed just like that, it"s not like my thinking was wrong…
"Anyone who thinks that they have a brain is brainless themselves." She sighed and stopped talking. The adorable little puppy was at a loss for words to describe the r.e.t.a.r.d standing before her right now.
Well...it"s not like this is the first time she"s treated me as an idiot…
I ignored the arrogant puppy and turned towards One-eye. "Get ready for battle! One-eye, I"ll leave the commanding to you."
"Yes Master!"
The formation was the same as always except the addition of the half-orcs at the back. These newcomers were given special care at the moment. I had given One-eye specific instructions to keep them behind the Mo sabres in order to prevent any unnecessary losses. After all, this wasn"t the time to use them yet.
It didn"t take too long before the hunched over figures of the werewolves entered our sight. As they bore down upon us, they sprinted on all fours like a bunch of mindless beasts.
They numbered roughly in the 60s and as expected. Their humanoid body was covered in a jet black coat of fur that extended all over their ma.s.sive body from their razor sharp claws to their lupine head. Within that wolf-like head were a couple of rows of equally sharp teeth that looked more like a meat grinder than a mouth.
If they were to stand upright, I would estimate their real height to be at least 250 cm. Their upper body proportions were significantly wider than most life forms. Just based on this alone, it looked like they were built for charging attacks. It was as if we were up against a bunch of (American) football players.
They seem even stronger than I had initially thought...
Their sprinting speed was exceptionally fast and could be said to rival the speed of the h.e.l.lhounds. As they charged ever closer to us, they would give off a frenzied howl, spraying the battlefield with their disgusting spit as they did so. The howls probably had no meaning behind them but it was precisely this reason that they sounded even scarier.
To us on the receiving end, it felt like we were up against an unfeeling berserker whose only purpose was to kill.
"Awwooo!!!"
In a blink of an eye, they were less than a hundred meters away from us. Due to the height of the shieldwall, we weren"t able to see them as they approached us. However, this made it that much scarier for the shieldbearers as the disembodied howls echoed in their ears. They trembled as their minds filled in the blanks regarding their strength.
As for the other devils, they were just as unsettled. From their vantage point, they were able to clearly see the herculean physique of the werewolves. Only the h.e.l.lhounds and half-orcs were unfazed by this display and were instead fired up as they readied for battle.
"Fire!" I gave off the command to the archers. As they were my summoned minions, this task could only be accomplished by me. On my signal, the 30 archers let loose a hail of arrows at the approaching werewolves.
In face of this arrow rain, even the werewolves couldn"t get away unscathed IF the arrows managed to hit them. However, that was an extremely big if. Due to the parabolic curve of their flight path, the werewolves had plenty of time to react to the incoming arrows. They slowed their charge down by a tiny bit, dodging the majority of the arrows, all the while maintaining their formation.
As the distance got smaller and smaller, the blinding speed of their charge grew ever more apparent. A breath later, they had reached the shield wall.
"Boom boom boom"
An endless chain of crashes echoed in the battlefield as black fur met with white bones. Right before they collided, the werewolves leaped off the ground with a mighty kick of their legs and dived right into the shield wall. Their speed was simply too great for the sabre wielders who couldn"t even attack before the shields began toppling one after the other.
What was an impossibly heavy shield to the large imps was merely a toy to the werewolves. To them, all they needed was a slap of their palms to send these toys flying.
One of the sabre wielders finally came to his senses and immediately stabbed at the werewolf in front of him. At that moment, the werewolf was just about to rip into the large imp crushed under the bone shield beneath his feet. However, the sudden sabre thrust ended up foiling his attack as he was forced to retreat a few steps in order to avoid the lethal thrust.
However, before he could even breathe a sigh of relief, the werewolf was already gearing up for a second attack. However, instead of stepping on the shieldbearer, he leaped at the heavy shield and with a casual lift of his arm, picked it up and threw it as if he was slamming down a wooden table.
Just as that sabre wielder was about to stab at the werewolf, he was instead greeted with an ever looming wall of white…
The heavy bone shield slammed into the sabre wielder with a loud smack, not only was he knocked off his feet, the two reserves behind him got caught up in the attack as well. The heavy shield crushed the three imps into the ground with the combined force of its weight and the werewolf"s immense strength, killing two of them and severely injuring the other.
This scene played out all across the battlefield; in a battle between my geared imps and the demonic werewolves, we lost completely.
The ones who charged up first were obviously two-star werewolves. With herculean their strength, overpowering the one-star shieldbearers was a given. As such, the immediate failure of the shield wall was predestined.
The eight two-star werewolves breached the shield wall in an instant, creating a gaping hole for the other one-star werewolves to swam in.
While they were only one-stars, our broken formation meant that even these werewolves were able to inflict significant casualties on my imps.
As I stood atop my bone wall, I was struck with a severe headache as I looked at the tragedy unfolding before me. Not only did the immense combat strength of the werewolves cause me grief, the rapid failure of the shield wall was another problem as well.
The heavy bone shield was a creation of my own design. In my mind, it was to be an impregnable fortress but...it ended up failing battle after battle. As long as we met with a strong enemy, these shields would fail spectacularly, where it was thrown away, broken into pieces or even used against us.
Because of this failure, the sabre wielders ended up being a high-risk occupation...the exact opposite of what I had intended. The moment the shield wall broke down, this entire formation became a death trap for the sabre wielders.
I should revamp these heavy shields...no, what"s more important now is to stop these demonic werewolves. No matter what, we mustn"t allow them break through any further!
Once again, the guardsmen had to put out the fire caused by the heavy shields failing. A portion of them led by Nine-finger were dispatched to plug up the breach while the others, commanded by One-eye, immediately tried to separate the sabre wielders from the werewolves. As long as they succeeded, the sabre wielders would be able to regain their effectiveness.
However, those who had never faced the two-star werewolves before, were unable to truly grasp the terror of their combat strength…
A guardsman bravely stepped forth and separated one of the sabre wielders from the werewolf. However, before his bone sword even had the chance to swing at the enemy, his body was swept away, shield and all, with a single swipe of the werewolf"s claw.
Given their strength, One-eye was barely able to hold off one of the werewolves. And so, I decided to throw all caution to the wind as I commanded my two bodyguards, "No.3, Big 4, go ahead and help them as well."
"Master...you can"t always…"
"This is an order!" I immediately interrupted him and hurriedly said, "Violet Snow"s here, so just go!"
"Your will is our command, Master."
No.3 gave Big 4 a reluctant look before leaving helplessly for the battlefield together.
Sigh, it must"ve been hard on you guys to have such a willful master.
As the werewolves were mixed into our formation, the skeleton archers had no way to shoot without causing friendly fire.
Realizing that, I summoned more bone walls, raising the entire archer squad seven meters into the air, giving them a much better vantage point to shoot. At this height, their arrows should have an even greater impact due to the high ground.
While the effectiveness of their arrows were limited, this didn"t mean that the werewolves were completely immune to them either. While I couldn"t speak for the two-stars, the one-stars were definitely unable to take these arrows head on.
With their suppressive fire, our dire situation was given a moment of reprieve. However, this didn"t mean that it was time to relax, the battlefield was still a chaotic mess and if I didn"t think of a way to turn this situation around…
Just as I was mulling over our disadvantaged situation, the demonic half-orcs charged into battle in a shocking display of power...
Footnotes:
TL: I made a mistake in the previous chapter where I said that he could only summon 3 skeleton archers in a day, it should be in one session instead. I"ve changed that retroactively.
TL: Since callmecat (editor/guy in charge of website stuff) is busy on a date with hurricane Maria, the chapters will have to released in draft form. I"ve done some proofreading but if you notice any glaring mistakes , please contact me via the contact us page.
Credits:
Special thanks to Steve Granger, Ichitsuzen, and LaRue Martin!!