In the span of just three hours, the army of more than forty thousand that had once formed the "first line of defense" was reduced to barely ten thousand.
For the most part, they were the personal retainers of various northern houses, bound hand and foot to the war chariot of the northern nobility, and among them were many who held knighthoods.
They knew that surrendering would bring them no mercy; their fates would only be grimmer, and it would bring ruin upon their own families.
Among the remnants were over three thousand heavy armored cavalrymen from the Principality of Bosque, nearly seven thousand elite spear-and-shield infantry, and more than two thousand archers.
Yet to their horror, they discovered that the threat was not merely along the front line. The vanguard of the Kingdom of Cinders had long since shattered the flimsy defense at the mountain pass, infiltrated the principality's interior from the flank, and materialized at their rear like phantoms, completely encircling this stubborn force of barely ten thousand men.
This was no longer just a failure of battlefield decision-making; it was a total crushing superiority in marching speed, intelligence, tactics, and their entire military system.
—While the northern lords were still lost in their sweet dreams of clinging to natural chokepoints, the forces of the Kingdom of Cinders, through joint land-and-air coordination and the assistance of the "Nocturne" intelligence network, had swiftly completed their encirclement of the army, and had even broken the enemy's morale through psychological warfare before the battle had even begun.
They intended to fight a battle of total annihilation.
Loren Bosque looked at the legions glaring hungrily ahead, and then turned back to see the countless eyes gleaming with eerie light behind them.
At last, he fell into utter despair. Staring blankly into the distance, he shook his head over and over.
"No, impossible."
"Things shouldn't have turned out like this."
"I was supposed to win a glorious victory, ride the momentum of that triumph to defeat my elder brother, and become the undisputed heir to House Bosque..."
In such dire straits, his speech was growing incoherent.
Only when the adjutant beside him spoke up did he barely snap out of his stupor.
"My lord, what... what should we do?"
From the distance came the red dragon's majestic, oppressive voice. At this moment, however, it seemed tinged with a mocking lightness, which stoked Loren's fury even higher—yet left him entirely helpless.
"Time is almost up."
"Ten."
"Nine."
"My lord, what should we do?"
"D-damn that wretched dragon! How dare he treat us like this! And those filthy, lowborn beasts!"
"Once this war is over, I will slaughter every last one of them!"
As the countdown neared zero, the pressure mounted heavier and heavier.
Under this crushing weight, Loren had lost his mind entirely, reduced to spewing curses.
Within the ranks, even among the elite private retainers maintained by the nobles—and even among the officers who held knighthoods and landed fiefs—there were men who broke under the pressure and deserted.
Even the soldiers who remained in their positions trembled violently, drenched in cold sweat, all will to fight thoroughly drained away.
Across from them, among the army of the Kingdom of Cinders, the eyes of the hobgoblins and ogres burned with ferocious bloodlust. They could hardly wait to surge forward and tear their enemies to shreds, longing for the rare thrill of slaughter, and more importantly, to win glory on the battlefield and elevate themselves into the ranks of the exalted dragonblood nobility.
As for defeat?
That had never entered their minds; at best, it was a stale joke fit for the humor column of the Kingdom Daily.
"Four."
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
"I gave you your chance, but alas, you failed to cherish it."
The voice was remarkably calm, as though stating the most mundane of facts.
"Therefore... crush them."
Instantly, as the red dragon's final order rang out, the entire wasteland seemed to boil over.
"Crush them!"
"For the Kingdom of Cinders!"
"Fight for the great red dragon!"
The satyrs' war drums thundered, the screeches of the wyverns pierced the air, and the battle cries of the hobgoblins and ogres blazed as fiercely as roaring flames, mingled with the dull rumble of heavy artillery carriage wheels grinding across the earth.
These tumultuous sounds, each a testament to the kingdom's military might, wove together across the plain, sending shudder after shudder through the encircled foe.
In the ogre heavy artillery battalion at the rear, the ogre Datou, serving as artillery commander, was just about to give the order to bombard the enemy encampment when he was personally stopped by the hobgoblin marshal, Duoluo.
"Hold," Duoluo said. "There is no need to waste shells here. It would be boring if it ended too quickly."
"Our boys haven't tasted blood in far too long."
Duoluo looked toward the seemingly fortified human positions in the distance, a savage grin spreading across his face.
In truth, Duoluo had other considerations as well: he intended to keep this artillery as a trump card held back until the very end, denying the northerners any opportunity to prepare countermeasures in advance.
This so-called "war" was more like a routine infantry drill; he had not even deployed the drake cavalry, nor had he unleashed the wyvern legion. He was simply sending forward the soldiers armed with semi-automatic rifles.
Loren stared intently at the terrible forces advancing at rapid speed, heavy beads of sweat streaming down his forehead, his face twisted into an ugly grimace.
"S-stop them!"
"Hurry, you fools! Get to the front and hold the line!"
Yet under repeated prompts from his adjutant, he managed to regain his composure and began applying the tactical knowledge he had studied since childhood to devise a counterstrategy.
With gloom-shadowed eyes, Loren watched the enemy, only to realize with a shock that they had not sent cavalry or spear-and-shield infantry to charge as expected. Instead, they had pushed their most vulnerable firearm-wielding infantry to the forefront, sending them in on the charge.
This was undoubtedly tactical contempt on the enemy's part, but it also offered Loren a precious opportunity—a chance to achieve a victory.
As the commander in this war, he had naturally studied the armies of the Kingdom of Cinders through magical projections.
Those long rods known as "guns" were terrifyingly potent ranged weapons, but their fatal flaw was that they took an exceedingly long time to reload, leaving the wielders helpless against an enemy charge during the interval.
And under his command were three thousand of the finest heavy cavalry, more than enough to tear these frail infantrymen to shreds.
At this thought, Loren skillfully swung himself onto his horse and donned his helmet adorned with a lion's mane.
"Assemble all cavalry! Prepare for a massed charge!"
"Have the archers provide covering fire."
"Yes, my lord."
The herald hurried off toward the cavalry lines to deliver the commander's orders, while the adjutant adjusted his full suit of armor.
"To dare underestimate me like this..."
"I will make you pay."
Loren gritted his teeth, letting out a cold sneer.
He knew that after losing the bulk of his forces, this might well be an unwinnable battle.
Yet he would make those bastards who dared look down on Loren Bosque taste bitter regret, and he would make himself a hero worthy of being recorded in his family genealogy—and even in the annals of the Northlands.
'Even in death, a lion of House Bosque will tear off your arm.'
Lowering the heavy visor of his helmet, he thought viciously to himself.
Chapter 309