"Pass the order: retreat."
Tartas issued the command decisively.
"But if we pull back like this, won't we leave the rear of the other legions on the front line completely exposed to Order?"
Tartas sighed. "There's no other choice. This was a battlefield we prepared for an encirclement, inherently ill-suited for a defensive stand. On top of that, the Earth Legion has already collapsed. Order's morale is soaring, while ours has hit rock bottom. Even if we dig in, we can hardly withstand Order's onslaught.
"Rather than bury our legion here alongside them, it's better to withdraw and continue covering the logistics and supply base. When the time comes, we can call for reinforcements while ordering the front to hold out. Our presence can also tie down this deep-thrusting Whip of Order legion, preventing them from committing fully to a counter-push. If reinforcements arrive in time, there's still a chance to save this battle line.
"However, if we are wiped out as well, the logistics base will have nothing left to protect it, and reinforcements will almost certainly arrive too late. Only then would this battle line truly be doomed."
"I understand, Big Brother."
Gelihar felt that his elder brother had finally returned to his proper senses, now freed from the Sage Elf's intellect-lowering aura.
Tartas glanced down at the scorched mark beneath his feet—the charred residue left by the Sage Elf's final combustion. "This matter must be included in the investigation report sent to our superiors."
"Yes, absolutely."
If it was merely an isolated case, fine. But if it wasn't—if the Church of Order had developed a method to disrupt and corrupt Sage Elves—would every future commander of the Church of Life have to shoulder a crippling debuff just to command their troops?
At that moment, the Life Legion began its withdrawal under its commander's orders. To be safe, the pack of monster beasts was designated as expendable rearguard fodder. Their operational lifespan was limited anyway; created specifically for immediate battlefield deployment, their recovery value was negligible, so there was no point taking them along.
Meanwhile, mobile forces fanned out to the flanks, providing cover for the retreat of the main infantry formations.
Yet just as the Life Legion began pulling back, the monster beasts went mad.
At first, from top to bottom, no one noticed anything amiss. The commanders assumed the beasts were adjusting their positions for the rearguard action, while the rank-and-file soldiers took it for a routine maneuver—until the distance closed to a critical threshold and the beasts continued accelerating in their charge. Only then did everyone realize... something had gone terribly wrong.
This kind of sudden internal betrayal was the most awkward and difficult scenario to manage, because no contingency plans had ever been made for it.
At present, the Life Legion's mobile forces were still behind the beast pack, far too late to circle back and block them.
With frenzied roars, the maddened beasts crashed into the heart of the Life Legion's formations, unleashing a rampage of slaughter, trampling, and destruction.
In normal circumstances, facing such a predicament would be thorny, yet far from unmanageable. But this was an active battlefield. Even if they wanted to deal with it, they had to see whether the opposing Order legion would give them the chance.
Clearly, Neo gave them none. When it came to tactical responsiveness on the battlefield, Neo's skill was beyond dispute.
Having just downed an energy recovery potion and endured the "massaging service" of three dedicated priests until now, Kevin dragged his exhausted body back into action, resuming his role as artillery coordinator.
He "saw" the rampaging beast pack and instantly understood whose hand was at work.
He knew better than anyone what kind of talent was harbored by that little kitten who loved riding on his back.
Kevin provided the firing coordinates. He didn't aim at the center of the Life Legion, nor at its front lines, but directly behind them.
At such an extreme range, precise coordinates hardly mattered, as pinpoint strikes were practically impossible anyway.
Yet beyond inflicting direct casualties, artillery served a vital role in shattering enemy morale.
The Life Legion was already in chaos from the rampaging beasts within and facing a frontal assault from Order. If shells began raining down on their rear, even if few lives were claimed, the blinding glare, the terrifying stark-white explosions, and the deafening concussions were indisputably real.
Warfare was like this: expecting to annihilate the enemy entirely in their defensive works was unrealistic. Making them break first was enough. Far more casualties were inflicted during a panicked rout and pursuit than in a direct head-on clash.
What had been planned as an ambush and encirclement had turned into being ambushed themselves. A peer Earth Legion had been dismantled with shocking speed, its fleeing commander barreling toward their positions aboard a commanding giant to beg for shelter. Their own monster beasts had abruptly turned on them, and now heavy artillery was pummeling their rear...
Subjected to this same ordeal, even the Order legion would have required Karen to fly a bone dragon straight to the front lines and lean on sheer personal charisma to steady the formation—and even then, success wouldn't have been guaranteed.
Once a battlefield rout took hold and mass psychological collapse set in, it was no longer a question of courage or loyalty. It was a tsunami.
By this time, the Order knights had already surged ahead, cutting into the enemy lines right on the heels of the Life Legion's retreating mobile units...
When the soldiers of the Life Legion saw those black-armored Order knights appear on their positions, they finally... broke.
From that point on, organized resistance, holding actions, and orderly retreats became outright impossibilities. Unless Karen's head took on water and he called off the pursuit, the sheer momentum of both sides would ensure that the fleeing army faced near-total destruction.
Tartas blinked, wetting his dry lips.
This was his family's private army, the core wealth of his household. By rights, seeing it broken here should have torn his heart apart. Yet faced with a collapse so total, his emotions went strangely numb.
Gelihar, on the other hand, watched the spectacle with wide eyes. He had anticipated a retreat, even an escape, but never in a manner like this.
Compared to the catastrophic loss of his family's "assets," what pained him far more was the realization that once his family fell into ruin, his status as a de facto matrilocal son-in-law would plummet even further, leaving him thoroughly dominated and controlled by his wife.
Tartas waved a hand, and his personal guard appeared, stepping forward to escort their commander in a hurried withdrawal.
As for the main force, he knew the situation was beyond salvaging. Saving his own skin came before anything else.
Meanwhile, Nibula had just fled into the Life Legion's encampment, intending to confer with Tartas on their next move. But before he could even lay eyes on Tartas, he watched the Life Legion collapse as well.
For a moment, far from feeling shock or grief, Nibula actually burst into laughter so hard a snot bubble popped from his nose.
When one's own plight was already miserable, seeing a "friend" beside you suffer just as terribly offered boundless comfort to the soul.
Even so, he quickly gathered his things, rounded up the handful of subordinates who had escaped with him, and began a second round of running for his life.
Throughout the history of church warfare, a tacit understanding had long existed: commanders and prominent figures taken prisoner would be treated with courtesy and held for future negotiation and exchange. Ordinary priests, on the other hand, held little value.
This understanding could be traced all the way back to the Divine War of the previous era.
Only one party had ever been the exception: Order.
In any war involving Order, let alone commanders, even branch gods and principal deities were marked as primary targets for destruction. The badge insignias on the breastplates of Order's twelve knight legions used the tally of slain deities as their unit of measure, and the main gate of the 1st Knight Legion's encampment was constructed entirely from divine remains.
Against high-ranking enemies, the Church of Order consistently favored public, legal execution whenever possible. Conversely, toward low- and mid-tier priests, barring exceptionally grotesque circumstances, they were generally captured and held for prisoner swaps.
As for the argument that executing high-ranking enemies would invite reciprocal retaliation against their own captured leaders... well, Order truly didn't care.
If a high-ranking commander was captured, they were simply written off as dead. Even if great costs were paid to trade for their return, they would only be pressured into committing suicide upon arrival. It was cleaner to let them die in enemy hands.
Back when Karen had felt uneasy about the battle's prospects, his own thought had been that if things went disastrously wrong, he would simply martyr himself for Order.
Precisely because of this tradition, an Order commander who suffered defeat and couldn't pull out was expected to waste no time taking their own life.
So while the Church of Order was technically a "church," it had always been an outlier among the religious sphere—and an outlier down to its very marrow.
***
"Aaaahhh..."
Daliwenluo began to wail, though he soon ran out of breath, reduced to sniffling with tears and snot streaming down his face.
Purr stood atop the mantis's head, leaning on her staff. She, too, was weak and thoroughly drained, yet she stubbornly held on to her human form. She wanted to see Karen, to stand before him and hear his praise.
Seeing Daliwenluo carrying on like a mourner beside her, Purr snapped irritably, "Show some spine! You only won a battle and performed a great service—is that worth losing your head over?"
Daliwenluo lifted a hand, staring at his bloodless, pale palm, and examined the energy remaining in his body. He desperately needed a recharge from his "young master."
Weeping, he said, "I was going to find my family, but now I've lost the chance."
According to his original plan, when the two armies clashed and the Life Legion broke, he would abandon everything and sprint alone toward his dearest kin for a grand reunion.
Yet now, never mind pursuing them—his prior exertion left him incapable of even jumping down from the mantis's head.
To pine after a feast for so long, only to find himself unable to lift a knife and fork when the dishes were finally served, was sheer agony.
"What's the big deal? I'll send a message to the philanderer and tell him to look out for your family so he can bring them to reunite with you."
Daliwenluo shook his head, staring at the sapling whose crimson glow had faded. "They ran very fast. The moment the tide turned, they chose to flee."
"My, that decisive? As expected, you Church of Life commanders truly know how to cherish life."
"Also, please don't send a message asking Count Rekar to hunt them down. I'm terrified he'll actually catch them... If he does, he'll stifle and rob me of the joy that belongs to me!"
Daliwenluo wore a woeful expression as he went on, "Since I failed this time, I can still look forward to the next."
Purr chuckled. "I see. What you enjoy isn't the outcome of revenge."
"Exactly. I don't harbor that much hatred toward them. What I crave is the process—just like what they inflicted upon me back then."
"Then I won't message the philanderer. But I won't go out of my way to tell him not to capture them either. You know, this is war."
"That's fine. I have faith in my father's and the others' ability to flee. As long as they don't look back, that pirate chief won't catch them."
"Ah, what a delightful day. If only I could have a cup of coffee right now, meow."
Philomena produced coffee, a cup, and a fire-attribute crystal.
"Oh, my dear little sleepyhead, aren't you precious? Come here, let Big Sister give you some love."
Purr reached out, took Philomena by the chin, and planted a kiss on her cheek.
Philomena froze. Never in her life had anyone treated her with such intimacy.
Purr looked over at Richard, who lay sprawled on the ground. "Oh, Young Master Aisen, you won't mind, will you?"
"No, of course not..."
Richard had started by cutting himself open to draw out Little Jerrys, then progressed to vomiting Jerrys, then digging through pools of blood to retrieve Jerrys, until he was milked completely dry, without a single Jerry left.
The original Jerry had gone on strike from sheer exhaustion, sinking into deep slumber.
In the past, Richard would take beatings while Jerry repaired his body, treating it as physical training. This time, Jerry had been subjected to forced labor, training the creature itself.
"Oh, good. Since you don't mind, I'll take another."
Purr leaned in for a second kiss. Philomena tried to dodge, and what was meant for the cheek landed squarely on her lips.
Philomena's face flushed crimson instantly.
"Heehee..."
Purr giggled as she watched her, trailing a fingertip lightly across Philomena's chin. "Girl, from now on, you're mine."
Seeing Philomena's flustered, awkward state gave Purr immense satisfaction. Ah, no wonder Karen used to pick on her so much that she developed a psychological shadow. Bullying her really was this amusing.
The former adventure group leader, whose family portrait was replaced by a black cat, was rebellious and unrestrained to the bone. Being trapped in a cat's body for years on end had merely suppressed her domineering swagger.
Just then, Philomena looked upward. "The commander is here."
Purr instantly went limp, leaning weakly into Philomena's embrace as her staff slipped from her fingers and vanished into thin air.
The little bone dragon descended. Under the pressure of its pure draconic bloodline, the giant mantis, no longer constrained, crouched down obediently, not daring to step out of line.
"Come, come, let's see the great heroes of this victory!"
Neo was the first to leap down from the bone dragon.
The greatest contributors to this victory were a cat and a dog.
Back when Karen had traveled to the Moon God Church as part of an observation delegation, he had brought two pets along—a cat and a dog. Contemporary newspapers had covered it, describing him as an "elegant young man."
At the time, Karen had yet to make a name for himself, and his status had been modest. Public opinion had largely dismissed it as deliberate ostentation from a youthful Order recruit.
Yet if the true battle report of this engagement were ever published, juxtaposed against those old news clippings, the flavor would be completely different.
Purr's decoy operation and the turned beast tide, combined with Kevin's artillery coordination, had untangled nearly every high-difficulty knot of the battle. In the end, they had secured a massive triumph at minimal cost.
Even Neo, scouring the Mad Pope's memories, could find precious few instances of such "comfortable" and "lavish" battles. All he had needed to do was avoid making mistakes.
Yet this kind of battle was nearly impossible for anyone else to replicate; a pairing like this cat and dog could hardly be found anywhere in the world.
Neo walked up to Purr and said, "You did well."
Purr silently mouthed a single word at the thrill-seeker: "Scram."
She was on the verge of reverting to a cat, and this frail, delicate pose wasn't meant for him to gawk at anyway.
Neo deliberately feigned ignorance. "Ah, you must be severely depleted. Someone call a priest over, quickly! And you—hurry up and turn back into a cat. It'll conserve some energy."
Purr shot him a glare.
Karen climbed down from the bone dragon. His face was pale, remarkably similar to Daliwenluo and Richard.
Purr looked at Karen and finally realized what a heavy toll her earlier unrestrained frenzy had taken on him. Forgetting her scheme to act spoiled and demand more and better coffee supplies, she instantly shifted back into a cat and curled up on Philomena's shoulder; every second she remained in human form was an added drain on Karen.
Karen reached out and scooped Purr from Philomena's shoulder. Purr's tail lifted, and when Karen moved his fingers close, it wound naturally around them.
"Tired this time. Next time you become human, I'll cook fish for you."
"Mmh-hmm, meow..." Purr shifted her paws in Karen's arms, settling into the coziest resting posture. "Did you advance again, Little Karen?"
"Mm, God's Revelation now," Karen replied with a smile, adding, "A God's Revelation powerhouse."
"Hehe."
Karen looked at Daliwenluo. "Rest first. I need a moment to catch my breath as well."
"Yes, Young Master." Daliwenluo bowed his head promptly.
Then Karen turned to Philomena. "Philomena, you'll be responsible for..."
Philomena reflexively looked resistant. Though she didn't know why, her instincts told her she should be.
"...responsible for taking Richard to his parents so they can look after him."
"Oh... alright."
Purr raised a limp paw and said weakly, "Don't worry, we wouldn't dare let you nurse the wounded, meow. We're afraid you'd nurse them into corpses."
With those arrangements settled, Karen carried Purr back onto the bone dragon alongside Neo. While the pursuit continued, the two of them were about to face another "battlefield" far removed from this one.
Neo spoke up: "Another great service rendered. Once we turn back and strike, we can help the other legions shatter this entire front line. Have you thought about how to explain this to the Whip-Wielder? After all, you secured this legion commander post under the slogan of having 'no ideas of your own.'"
Before Karen could answer, Neo quickly followed up: "Alright, alright, I know. You're going to say: 'The Whip-Wielder doesn't matter that much.'"
Karen chuckled softly.
Neo continued, "Thanks to Pilger's earlier dispute with us, he's been constantly filing reports against our aggressive strategy. That effectively cuts off any chance of him sharing credit for this major victory as the army group commander. And with a triumph this monumental, simply reclaiming independent command over our own legion would be a waste. We should seize this opportunity to take command of the Ninth Army Group, replace Pilger, and make his 12th Regular Legion work for us."
"Mm." Karen agreed with the assessment. Unified command was an absolute necessity; he had no desire to face internal dissension during their next operation.
Moreover, it was a way to build his credentials. Though legion commander and army group commander were wartime appointments, they would translate into substantial capital once they returned to debrief after the war.
Neo said, "We need to find a way to maximize the effect of this victory."
Karen said, "Purr isn't suited to being placed in the spotlight, so the greatest credit for the success of the decoy plan naturally falls to the head of the communications team. Therefore, the first thing I plan to do after the battle is recommend Daina for merit.
"That will certainly catch the High Priest's attention, drawing his direct gaze toward us, which will lead to formal instructions.
"And when the High Priest issues his directives, he certainly won't direct praise toward his own foster daughter. After all, our High Priest has always maintained strict propriety and style in such matters. The commendation will inevitably land on my head.
"With directives coming straight from the High Priest, replacing Pilger and taking command of the Ninth Army Group will be entirely justified."
Neo curled his lips in a smirk.
"You've really got Daina all figured out, haven't you?"
Chapter 799