“What exactly are you eating?”
Fang Ge covered his nose and kept waving his hand, trying to fan away the terrible stench.
Noam did not respond, but dragged his increasingly large body up to the platform and asked Fang, “Is everything arranged?”
“That’s right. Now it all depends on you. As long as you can stop the enemy here, we can talk about anything.”
Fang Ge looked at his army ahead. Although the entire formation appeared somewhat crooked upon closer inspection, there were no issues with the deployment, which aligned perfectly with the battlefield experience passed down from the Lars Family.
“I promised you all many benefits; don’t let me down!”
Seeing Noam in a daze, Fang Ge angrily patted the railing.
Finally snapping out of it, Noam replied, “You can rest assured.”
In the distance, the battle had already begun. Hammond led the cavalry, charging ahead under the cover of firearms, almost instantly scattering Fang Ge’s vanguard forces. Those vanguard troops couldn’t even form an encirclement, let alone use their numerical advantage to suppress the Graythorn Territory’s army.
“Prepare the cannons!”
Darsi skillfully commanded the artillery from the back. During these days of waiting for battle, they had practiced many times, and the gunners had almost ingrained the standard procedures into their bones.
After calculating the distance, Darsi shouted, “Fire!”
With a resounding command, the magical cannon roared, and a massive orange fireball surged out of the alchemical barrel, precisely landing within Fang Ge’s defensive range.
Fireballs fell in succession, and the explosive sounds struck the earth like a drumroll, shaking the ground and raising clouds of dust. The percussion echoed incessantly, and Fang Ge’s last remaining old cannon couldn’t retaliate at all.
However, quickly, professional mages began to cast spells on Fang Ge’s side, but rather than aiming to destroy the constantly roaring cannons, they focused more on facing the cavalry led by Hammond.
Although the number of Lars Knights on Fang Ge’s side was not negligible, the disparity in equipment was too great. Not to mention that Hammond’s firearms outclassed those of the opposing side, even the quality of their enchanted armor was significantly better.
Even if Hammond did nothing but charge with their defensive posturing in enchanted armor, he could directly send the opponent flying.
The Lars Knights barely managed to suppress Hammond only with the assistance of the mages from the rear, preventing Hammond from piercing directly into the heart of Fang Ge’s army like a spear.
But it was evident that Fang Ge’s forces knew this was merely a temporary solution; it couldn’t hold for long. The enemy’s infantry and artillery were advancing steadily, and the cavalry was just an appetizer.
In the back, seeing Fang Ge’s artillery exaggeratedly powerful, and then glancing at his own outdated cannons, he exclaimed in exasperation, “Where are your men? It’s time for you demons to take the battlefield!”
Fortunately, Fang Ge had sold most of these cannons to the Anju Kingdom and bled a lot, distributing enough military pay to the frontline soldiers before the war began, so they wouldn’t collapse at the first touch.
It was important to know that Fang Ge’s elite forces were at the very front, able to stop the Graythorn Territory’s army, while the rear consisted mostly of hastily recruited militiamen who did not even know how to use firearms, and combat power weakened the further back you went. Once the frontline faltered, the battlefield behind would inevitably collapse.
“What’s the rush?”
Noam took another bite of the black meat and remarked, “Look, aren’t they coming?”
Fang Ge finally couldn’t hold back his revulsion and covered his nose while looking into the distance. Indeed, the demon soldiers had already started moving; it seemed they intended to flank the battlefield and cut off the Graythorn forces from their rear troops.
However, on the other side of the battlefield, the Third Army Group had been waiting for White for a long time. Almost at the moment the demon troops mobilized, the proud Lars Knights of the Third Army Group also surged into action.
These Lars Knights had long harbored resentment, especially as the glory had been stolen by Hammond. As the formation that retained the most Lars Knights, many enhancements of the professionals’ formation had been proposed by the First Army Group, causing the Lars Knights of the Third Army Group to be pent up for a long time.
“Brothers, charge with me! Let these demons see what true Lars Knights are!”
A leading knight raised his molten long spear, leading the rest of the Lars Knights into a charge.
The Lars Knights of the Third Army Group crashed into the flanks of the demon army like a moving fortress, engaging in fierce combat.
White looked at the cavalry with some envy. That position should have been his, but his current identity and status no longer allowed such dangerous behavior. He could only watch the engagement between the Third Army Group and the demons from the constructed watchtower, keeping close tabs on the potential variables in this war, as instructed by Lauri.
This was also the best opportunity for the Third Army Group to make merit; if they could deal with the demons, then they could personally restore the glory of the Lars Knights.
The demons were quickly blocked by the Third Army Group; they preferred face-to-face charges over artillery support, and the demons were soon being pushed back.
However, White quickly noticed something was wrong. These demons acted like desperate outlaws, utterly unafraid of death, refusing to retreat even as their numbers dwindled.
It was known that surpassing a thirty percent casualty rate without collapsing already indicated an elite force. Even when White was staunchly defending Winterhold, the losses had not approached the level of the demons.
This was no longer just a matter of casualties, but rather these demons were literally fighting to the death without retreat. However, it wasn’t so much that they possessed any fighting spirit, but rather that these demons were a group of mindless, soulless beings.
At that moment, White’s first thought was of some kind of elixir that transformed people into living corpses that only knew how to fight. But that was merely a legend; such a thing could not exist in reality. More likely, it was some form of stimulant.
However, all that was irrelevant now. The demon army was being pushed back, and these matters could be researched later.
At that moment, a knight next to White observed that the situation had begun to lean heavily in their favor and said with a sigh, “General, once this war is over, I want to ask for leave to return to Graythorn Territory. My fiancée has been waiting for me, and my family has been urging me quite insistently.”
White nodded and patted the knight’s shoulder, saying, “Alright, after we finish this fight and log your merits, I’ll grant you leave to go and have a plump baby before you come back.”
Meanwhile, on the other side, Noam furrowed his brows. He hadn’t expected that even after the demons had received mass and eaten the sacrament, they still couldn’t overcome the enemy’s main force in a frontal battle.
It seemed the enemy was stronger than he had imagined, but it didn’t matter. Any force was futile before the Demon God and the Demon King’s majesty.
Finishing the last bite of the black meat, Noam jumped down from the platform. Doug didn’t sense anything amiss; he only knew the demons were finally getting serious. Yet he had no idea what the so-called killing move of the demons was.
For some reason, as he watched Noam slowly walk into the army’s ranks, Doug felt a sense of unease.
Just as the frontline was about to collapse, ready to route in a flood, the demons seemed to have received some sort of summons, becoming increasingly crazed.
As Noam walked halfway through the army ranks, his body suddenly began to swell. The black blood and flesh inside him moved quietly, as if a strange power was wildly growing beneath his skin.
With a ripping, painful groan, the black flesh suddenly broke free like a beast, rapidly expanding. Noam’s skin began to bulge, veins protruding, as if countless crawling creatures were moving inside him.
In an instant, the flesh became increasingly massive, the ribs twisted into unnatural shapes, the skin could no longer bear the pressure, and countless cracks appeared, with blood flowing out like a stream.
With an eerie explosion, Noam’s body could no longer withstand this force, and the black flesh erupted from within. Shattered bones and bloody flesh scattered through the air, and a fog of blood filled the battlefield.
Doug’s army was already panicking due to this transformation, fleeing in all directions, and chaos erupted in the rear.
As for Doug, he was so terrified by the scene before him that he fell to the ground, especially upon seeing the creature born from Noam’s blood and flesh.
It was a massive mound of flesh standing on four hooves, resembling a small hill, covered with whips of tentacles, and equipped with several large mouths distributed all over its surface.
Before Doug could even recover his senses, those mouths opened simultaneously and spoke, “I am Noam, the commander of the watch under the Demon King Supreme, here to declare your deaths!”
This statement reverberated across the battlefield, drowning out even the cries of the soldiers near Noam.
