Book 1: Chapter 18: The Unfortunate Fate of the Beastmens’ Expeditionary Army

In the skies above, two griffin knights were patrolling. Even from a distance, they were able to see the thick smoke rising from the capital of the Alva Duchy. They originally planned to ignore it as they had already received the news from the Southern command center of the Gabriel Empire(Swordsmen) that the feudal lord of the duchy, Duke Victor, had already fled from the city with his subordinates.

The current duchy capital should be no more than a ghost town, but that smoke had the special color of one of the empire’s three big families, the Ignaz Family. The young lady of the Ignaz Family, Elena Ivy{1} had gone missing in this region recently. This colored smoke could very well be her signal for help.

The two griffin knights passed over the mountains and approached the airspace of the capital. As they got closer, they were able to see a large advance force of twenty thousand wolfmen encircling a single watchtower, and the smoke came from the top of the tower. The flag of the Radiant Church flew over the tower. It seemed that this tower was being defended by the members of the Church.

At the base of the watchtower, three female knights were blocking the path from the onslaught of the wolfmen. The state of battle was very heated. The beastmen had originally wanted to overpower the three knights with their 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 number of the Radiant Church’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 armor of a knight.

The golden blonde knight was the fiercest. She had forgone the shield and instead swung around a large two-handed sword. Countless beastmen who had gotten too close were bisected by her, their weapons not even being able to scratch her armor. Sometimes, when the sword in her hands was engaged with another, she would simply kick the nearby wolfmen and send 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 shield. 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 send sparks flying off her armor. It didn’t take long before a pile of mutilated 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 shield, using the shield 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 signs of fatigue. It felt as if they had limitless stamina. Several hundred beastmen warriors had been killed in the short time the griffin 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 an 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 gruesome 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 pass. They were 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 griffin knights almost fell off their mounts in shock as they witnessed the scene. These three masked knights managed to hold their ground against twenty thousand beastmen and successfully made it look lopsidedly favored 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 was 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 shield on her back, too lazy to bother defending. Even though the armor she wore was just a normal set of knight’s plate armor and wielded a normal steel sword, her demon king aura buffed her armor and weapon to the point where she wouldn’t be damaged by the beastmen. She would be able to cut through them like butter.

It was rather unfortunate for the beastmen surrounding them. A new demon king required 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 fatigued, 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 to 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 armor of the knights. She still wasn’t sure of the final outcome, however, as she looked at the giant mass that was the beastmen advance force.

“Lady Ivy, Lady Holy Maiden, are you two alright!?” The two griffin knights took advantage of the fact that the beastmen did not have any anti-air forces and quickly descended at the top of the watchtower.

“Luckily, we had reinforcements from the Church. Where are the 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.”

“Lady Ivy… 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 the Laerte Line, waiting for the empire to send magi 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 will happen to them?”

Ivy gestured to Bella and the others.

“Lady Ivy, our griffins can only carry one more aside from us, so…”

The two griffin knights couldn’t blatantly say that they had to abandon Bella and the others who were knights of the Church due to the sheer authority that the Radiant Church held. They could only hint 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 griffin 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 on staying, the two griffin knights could only retreat and report back to the Laerte Line and see if they could get more griffin knights to be sent here to rescue all of the girls.

While Bella was moved by the fact that the two girls were 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 screwing 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 griffin knights encountered a large force of beastmen shortly after they left, numbering around a hundred thousand with all sorts of beastmen mixed within. This army waved 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 griffin 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 armor was of bad quality, but that there were simply too many arrows. The only fortunate thing was that as Ivy and Susan had chosen not to run, they managed to dodge another bullet.

___

“Lord Duke, the advance guard’s commander, Lord Colin, 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.”

“Didn’t we kill that fat feudal lord already? Why are there knights from the Church in that city? I remember our scouts reported that the Alva Duchy didn’t have any of the Radiant Church’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 is allowing his twenty thousand warriors to be stopped by a mere ten holy knights?”

Wolfman General Duke still hadn’t recovered from the shock that his decorated 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 was advancing in a line that had them set on a crash course to the beastmen army. Each of the skeletons was clad in a white plate mail and wielded both a three-meter-long bone spear and a bone shield 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 five-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 a heavy pitch-black full-body plate armor and wielding a jet-black shield and sword which were the same height as it, this skeleton didn’t seem like someone 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 Lady Angel had reported. Wasn’t there supposed to only be twenty thousand of them? Why did it look like they had the same number as Fred’s own one hundred thousand skeletons? Fred didn’t think too much after this as all he knew was that the command was to kill the 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 had gotten out of the way, Fred swiftly swung his sword downwards, cutting through the air. A pitch-black blade of 《Jian Qi》 ten meters in height traveled 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 center of the army currently and had managed to dodge the attack. However, he had already lost the will to fight. This one strike from Fred had not only killed two thousand beastmen but also their courage.

Soon after, the catapults at the rear of the skeleton army started their reign of terror. Several dozens 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 being broken, the skeletons began their advance. They set their spears at the same angle and direction and advanced with quick steps.

In the face of the advancing square formations, the beastmen who already had their formation disrupted were unable to mount a proper counterattack. Many beastmen warriors were 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 the evil beings.

Apart from the skeletal army right ahead of them, there was also a large force of zombies behind them, led by a six-meter tall ghoul. The light reflecting off the ghoul’s cleaver sent shivers down Duke’s spine. On the zombies’ flanks were what seemed to be shimmering ghostly figures and a peculiar force of humanoid evil beings that all wore a clown mask on their face.

“【Hell’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, and 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 forty thousand along with four dark suzerains of terrifying power. Duke’s beastmen expeditionary army was unable to leave the completely unavoidable massacre.

No one else would ever know what happened here. As the Dark Sanctuary needed a large number of corpses to turn into zombie laborers, these beastmen bodies will be turned into zombies to work for the very ones that killed them, if they were still usable 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.

___

Back at the Alva Duchy’s capital, Bella and the others had already killed around a fourth of the wolfmen advance force. The remaining fifteen thousand or so beastman retreated to the city gates but kept looking at Bella’s watchtower. The two sides had clashed for most of the day, and the 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 underlings 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 massacre 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 was dyed red with the fresh blood of beastmen. It was twenty thousand 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 numbers.

On the watchtower, the stairs were already piled up with beastmen bodies. Ivy and Susan had already retreated back to the base of the Church’s flag, and 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.

“Sister Ivy, sister Susan, can you two still walk?”

“That’s something we’re still able to do little Noesha, but why do you ask?”

“After nightfall, we will make our escape and break through the encirclement on the other side of the city. Angel has already scouted a path.”

—TL NOTES—

{1} 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 assume that Elena is just her middle name. Will keep mentions of her as Elena Ivy though

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