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In the skies above, two gryphon knights were patrolling. Even from a distance, they were able to see the thick smoke that rose from the capital of the Alva duchy. They originally planned to ignore it as they had already received the news from the Southern command centre of the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen) that the feudal lord of the duchy, Duke Victor, had already fled the city with his subordinates.
The current duchy capital should be no more than a ghost town, but that smoke had the special colour of one of the empire"s three big families, that of the Ignaz family. The young lady of the Ignaz family, Elena Ivy had gone missing in this region recently, this coloured smoke could very well be her signalling for help.
(H: I do realize that it"s weird that Ignaz isn"t in Ivy"s name, I went ahead and checked but couldn"t find any mention of it, and neither of her family members are referred to by their last name so I a.s.sume that Elena is just her middle name. Will keep mentions of her as Elena Ivy though)
The two gryphon knights pa.s.sed over the mountains and approached the airs.p.a.ce of the capital, as they got closer, they were able to see a large advance force of 20,000 wolfmen encircling a single watchtower, the smoke came from the top of the tower. The flag of the Church of Light flew over the tower, it seems that this tower was being defended by members of the Church.
At the base of the watchtower, three female knights had blocked the path of the onslaught of the wolfmen. The state of battle was very heated, the beastmen had originally wanted to overpower the three knights with sheer number and force them apart before defeating them one by one; it seemed that the commander of these wolfmen was relatively intelligent, knowing that a large amount of the Church of Light"s knights was on the level of holy knights and that the three knights before them must at least be holy knights, seeing how calm they were.
However, a dismounted knight was nothing to fear, in theory, it shouldn"t be very hard to kill three dismounted holy knights after separating them. The wolfmen warriors easily separated the three knights, then as soon as they actually entered combat, they discovered that they had been tricked; these three were most definitely demons in the armour of a knight.
The golden blonde knight was the wildest, she had forgone a s.h.i.+eld and instead swung around a large two-handed sword, there were countless beastmen who had gotten too close were bisected by her, their weapons not even being able to scratch her armour. Sometimes when the sword in her hands was occupied, she simply kicked nearby wolfmen and sent them flying several meters away; most people would probably believe it if one were to tell them that she was a berserker instead of a knight.
The purple haired knight was the most gruesome, she didn"t even wield her sword, leaving it sheathed on her back alongside her s.h.i.+eld. Her weapon was a pair of glistening metal claws, the wolfmen who got near her were ripped apart and eviscerated with several quick strikes. Just like with the blonde knight, the beastmen"s weapons did nothing but sending sparks flying off her armour. It didn"t take long before a pile of eviscerated bodies built up around her.
The redhead knight was more normal, relative to the other two knights at least. She wielded the standard sword and s.h.i.+eld, using the s.h.i.+eld to knock beastmen back and the sword to cut them down. The only problem was that once again, she was unscathed from the beastmen"s attacks.
It was evident from the number of bodies that this envelopment had gone on for quite a while, but the three knights didn"t show any sign of fatigue. It felt as if they had limitless stamina, several hundred beastmen warriors had been killed in the short time that the gryphon knights had been watching, the arrows from the top of the watchtower also contributed to the body count; no matter where the arrow hit, even if it was just a scratch, it would be immediate death for the beastman. Those who were hit by the arrows rapidly shrivelled up, as if they had all the blood drained from their bodies. Even for the fearless beastmen, this was quite a grisly way to die.
Several beastmen had by sheer luck made it past the three knights and tried to deal with the archer on the tower, but had their way blocked by a blue-haired female knight that had appeared out of nowhere, leaving them unable to pa.s.s, and only able to watch as the archer shot ducks in a barrel. The beastmen advance party was made completely out of agile wolfmen warriors, without any long ranged unit capable of dealing with the archer that was thinning their numbers.
The two gryphon knights almost fell off their mounts in shock as they witnessed the scene, these three masked knights managed to hold their ground against 20,000 beastmen and managed to make it look lopsidedly favoured towards the three of them. This wasn"t something that holy knights should be able to do, were these three females dragon knights? But a dragon knight is able to summon their mount at any time if they were dragon knights, why didn"t they summon their mounts? It would definitely make the killing a lot faster.
Bella carried her s.h.i.+eld on her back, too lazy to bother defending; even though the armour she wore was just a normal set of knight"s plate and wielded a normal steel sword, her demon king aura buffed her armour and weapon to the point where she wouldn"t be damaged by the beastmen but able to cut through them like b.u.t.ter.
It was rather unfortunate for the beastmen enveloping them, a new demon king requires reaping of lives to become "awakened", and only then could they be considered a real demon king. These beastmen just happened to have the fortune of being "free experience" for the three unawakened demon kings Bella, Dolores, and Eleanor.
Looking at the beastmen who were killed by arrows, Bella was rather envious of how much more convenient it was to be an archer; even though as a demon king, Bella would never feel fatigue, it would still get boring after a while of repeating the same actions. Because Susan and Ivy were watching, Mia wasn"t able to buff the three knights, if they had the same buff that Mia had given Annie, the rate of death amongst the beastmen would be much higher.
On top of the watchtower, Susan looked down at the three knights surrounded by a sea of beastmen in shock, she had originally wanted to support the knights with her healing magic but realized after a while that she was completely unneeded as the beastmen couldn"t even get through the plate armour of the knights. She still wasn"t sure of the final outcome, however, as she looked at the giant ma.s.s that was the beastmen advance force.
"Ivy-dono, holy maiden-sama, are you two alright!?" The two gryphon knights took advantage of the fact that the beastmen did not have any anti-air forces and quickly descended to the top of the watchtower.
"Luckily we had reinforcements from the Church, where are reinforcements? What happened to the soldiers of the empire"s southern army? Why are they not here yet? This signal fire"s been lit for half a day already."
"Ivy-dono… duke Victor and his men ran into the beastmen"s main force during their escape, there are no survivors. The entirety of the empire"s southern army has dug in at the Laerte line, waiting for the empire to send mages from the magic division to their aid before they sally out to confront the beastmen. It"s best if you two come with us, we can take you two back to the Laerte line."
"How could this have happened… then what happens to them?"
Ivy gestured to Bella and the others.
"Ivy-dono, our gryphons can only carry one more aside from us, so…"
The two gryphon knights couldn"t exactly blatantly say that they had to abandon Bella and the others who were knights of the Church due to the sheer authority that the Church of Light held. They could only hint at that to Ivy and Susan.
"Then you two go back without me, I can"t just leave like this after I brought them into this mess. Why don"t you go, Susan?"
"I"m staying as well, we are all part of the same Church after all. I would feel guilty for the rest of my life if I leave them to die here."
Ivy declined the gryphon knight"s offer, Susan did as well, even though she and Bella were from opposing factions, she unconsciously felt that she shouldn"t leave. Seeing that the two were obstinate in staying, the two gryphon knights could only retreat and report back to the Laerte line and see if they could get more gryphon knights sent here to extract all of the girls here.
While Bella was moved by the fact that the two girls choosing to stay behind, but if they stayed, Bella and the others wouldn"t be able to show their true ability. By staying behind, weren"t Ivy and Susan inadvertently s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g over their teammates? Oh well, Bella thought to herself as she returned to the slaughter, but not before gesturing to Angel with her eyes to send a few ghosts to call in the reinforcements.
The gryphon knights encountered a large force of beastmen shortly after they left, numbering around 100,000 with all sorts of beastmen mixed within; this army flew a flag embroidered with a set of wolf fangs, it was evident that this beastmen army belonged to the wolfmen tribe.
After they discovered the gryphon knights in the sky, countless arrows flew and the unlucky knights were killed along with their mounts mid-air without a chance to send a signal about what they had seen. It wasn"t that their armour was of bad quality, but that there were simply too many arrows. The only fortunate thing what that as Ivy and Susan had chosen not to run, they managed to dodge another bullet.
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"Duke-sama, the advance guard"s commander, Colin-sama, has sent an emergency report detailing that the advance guard has met fierce resistance at Alva city from knights of the Church. They have been unable to take the main watchtower."
(H: Duke is a name here)
"Didn"t we kill that fat feudal lord already? Why are there knights from the Church, I remember out scouts reporting that the Alva Duchy didn"t have any of the Church of Light"s chapels? How many knights are holding off Colin"s forces?"
"There are…around… ten!"
"Only ten!? I can"t smell the scent of a dragon so there shouldn"t be any dragon knights in the vicinity, so those knights should only be holy knights at most. Is that Colin so useless that he allows his 20,000 warriors to be stopped by a mere ten holy knights?"
Wolfman general Duke still hadn"t recovered from the shock that his decored subordinate Colin had been stopped by a measly twelve knights and was about to dispatch reinforcements when suddenly an oppressive aura swept over him and his army. He raised his head and was scared witless.
Directly in front of the wolfmen army, a large force of bleached skeleton soldiers had formed neat and tidy squares and were advancing in a line that had them set on a crash course for the beastmen army. Each of the skeletons was clad in white plate mail and wielded both a three-meter-long bone spear and a bone s.h.i.+eld studded with bone sikes. Apart from the skeleton infantry, Duke could see several wooden machines being pushed up behind the white army. If duke remembered properly, these were the essential tools of human siege warfare, the catapult, he didn"t know how these undead managed to obtain human weapons.
The skeleton army didn"t number any less than the wolfmen, after a glance, Duke estimated that both armies had about the same numbers. What made him the most worried was the 5-meter tall skeleton in the ranks of the white army. Apart from its height, this skeleton had quite a few other distinctions from the other skeletons around him; clad in heavy pitch-black full plate and wielding a jet-black s.h.i.+eld and sword which were the same height as it. This skeleton didn"t seem like one you"d want to mess with.
【Skeleton Emperor】 Fred looked strangely at the beastmen army on the other side. Their number was different from that which Angel-sama reported, wasn"t there supposed to only be 20,000 of them? Why did it look like they had the same number as Fred"s own 100,000 skeletons. Fred didn"t think too much after this, all he knew was that the command was to kill beastmen.
Fred readjusted the crown on his head and then raised the giant sword in his hand. Seeing his gesture, the skeletons ahead of him hurriedly made way for their sovereign, as they knew that their boss was going to use one of his special moves. After all the skeleton soldiers got out the way, Fred swiftly swung his sword downwards, cutting through the air. A pitch-black blade of 《Jian Qi》 ten meters in height travelled towards the beastmen army, forcefully splitting their forces into two.
The beastmen who came into contact with the 《Jian Qi》 left behind no corpse, they were split into many tiny pieces and scattered around, it was quite a gruesome sight to behold. Fortunately for Duke, he wasn"t at the centre of the army currently, and had managed to dodge a bullet, but he had already lost the will to fight. This one strike from Fred had not only killed 2000 beastmen, but also their courage.
Soon after, the catapults at the rear of the skeletal army started their reign of terror, several dozen flaming boulders arced over the skeletons and onto the beastmen, disrupting their formation with many beastmen being launched into the air by the impact"s explosion. While the beastmen"s formation was broken, the skeletons began their charge, they set their spears at the same angle and direction and advanced in quick step.
In the face of the advancing square formations, the beastmen who already had their formation disrupted were unable to mount a proper countercharge and many beastmen warriors will killed on the spot by the long bone spears of the skeletal army. Seeing the scene unfold before him, Duke wanted to sound the retreat but unfortunately, he discovered that it was already too late to retreat. His army had been surrounded from all sides by evil beings.
Apart from the skeletal army right ahead of them, there was a large force of zombies behind them, led by a 6 meter tall ghoul. The light reflecting off the ghoul"s cleaver sent s.h.i.+vers down Duke"s spine. To the zombies flanks were what seemed to be s.h.i.+mmering ghostly figures and a peculiar force of humanoid evil beings that all wore a clown mask on their face.
"【h.e.l.l"s Warden】 Maltz, 【Shadowless Demon】 Tanpur, and 【Bone-corroding Duke】 Adrian, these old friends move pretty fast!" Fred wasn"t too shocked to see those who had just arrived. Angel"s summons wasn"t very choosy, every one of the Dark Sanctuary"s evil beings in the area had received it.
The combined total of the Dark Sanctuary armies numbered at 40,000 along with four Evil Suzerains of terrifying power. Duke"s beastmen expeditionary army was unable leave the ma.s.sacre that was completely unavoidable.
(H: kind of a rank/t.i.tle I guess)
No one else would ever know what happened here. As the Dark Sanctuary needed a large amount of corpses to turn into zombie labourers, these beastmen bodies will be turned into zombies to work for the very ones that killed them, if they were still useable of course. Those who didn"t leave behind enough body parts would be eaten on the spot by Maltz"s ghouls. It wouldn"t take long after the battle before the only thing left behind were streaks and splatters of blood.
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Back at the Alva Duchy"s capital, Bella and the others had already killed around a fourth of the wolfmen advance force, the remaining 15,000 or so beastman retreated to the city gates but kept in view of Bella"s watchtower. The two sides had clashed for most of the day and night was swiftly approaching.
"What"s happening, why is it that none of my subordinates are here yet?" Bella leaned against the wall and asked herself. It was strange that not a single one of her subordinates had arrived yet to reinforce her, 【Skeleton Emperor】 Fred should have been here long ago with how close he was, unless he was held back by something on the way.
Currently, Fred and the other Evil Suzerains were preoccupied with the ma.s.sacre of Duke"s beastmen army, as they were all evil beings, it was easy for them to lose themselves after they started seeing blood. They were having a killing high, and had forgotten to send a subordinate to report their situation to Bella, leaving her wondering what had happened to them.
Currently, everyone in Bella"s group had been dyed red with the fresh blood of beastmen. It was 20,000 beastmen after all, the battle had been intense and quite a few beastmen had made their way around the three knights and onto the watchtower due to their sheer number.
On the watchtower, the stairs were already piled high with beastmen bodies, Ivy and Susan had already retreated back to the base of the Church"s flag, they too were covered in beastmen blood. It was evident how heated the battle was, as even the cleric had been dragged into the melee.
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"Ivy-nee, Susan-nee, can you two still walk?"
"That"s something we"re still able to do little Noesha, why do you ask?"
"After nightfall, we make our escape and break through the encirclement on the other side of the city. Angel has already scouted a path."