King
Chapter 973 - 973 118 Strategic Initiative

973: Chapter 118: Strategic Initiative 973: Chapter 118: Strategic Initiative The sky gradually brightened, and the first ray of dawn spilled over the land as the sound of charging horns echoed from the horizon.

The enemy had sent reinforcements, and the battle had reached its final stage.

Less than three thousand of the Alien Coalition Army remained on the battlefield, as if just a bit more effort could completely annihilate the enemy forces.

“Hehe…

Hudson, no matter how much you schemed, did you not expect it to still fall short in the end?”

The bell-like laughter revealed the joy in Derris’s heart.

After enduring a whole night, the moment of turnaround had finally arrived, a feeling truly beyond words.

“Miss Derris, don’t celebrate too soon; first, see how many elves can still move.

All right, this battle should come to an end; we’ll meet again if fate allows it.”

Having said that, Hudson decisively ordered a withdrawal.

The battle had pushed the Expeditionary Army to their limits, continuing could indeed annihilate the enemy in front of them, but their own losses would be extremely heavy.

Watching Hudson’s smug expression, the heart of the elf young woman sank to rock bottom.

Nearly annihilation, only a fraction of the surviving troops were kept; it couldn’t be considered a victory by any means.

In an instant, Derris’s rage swelled to its limit, thinking of their difference in military strength, she extinguished the thought of fighting Hudson and her gaze towards the direction of the reinforcements was filled with murder.

Clearly, her own race came to assist, yet they turned out to be the main force on the battlefield, while the ally watched idly by.

The troops sent by the Ancient Heritage Alliance mostly died during the fight, with the few survivors scattered on the battlefield, practically invisible unless sought out carefully.

Out of sight meant out of mind, so Derris promptly labeled the Ancient Heritage Alliance as unreliable.

A mere few thousand Human cavalry managed to hold back an army of two hundred thousand for so long?

Once the seed of doubt planted, it became a thorn embedded deep in her heart, never to be dislodged.

But reason told her that the Ancient Heritage Alliance had no reason to betray their allies at such a time.

Without the support of the Elf Race, they simply couldn’t escape the Human Race’s retribution after the war.

Staring in the direction Hudson had left, Derris muttered to herself, “Is this also part of your calculation?

If all Human generals are this formidable, how can elves even survive!”

…

Freed from the battlefield, and looking down at his diminished troops, Hudson sighed silently.

“Let’s stop here and rest, take inventory of the casualties in each unit.

Priests, give your utmost to heal the wounded.

Use Magic Potions as much as possible, try not to resort to Divine Arts.”

Truth be told, their current location wasn’t safe, being only about thirty li from the battlefield.

But the Expeditionary Army was exhausted and the enemy had been tormented all day and night, also in a state of weariness.

If he had another twenty thousand cavalry, Hudson wouldn’t mind turning back for a counterattack.

Still, it was better to let it go; sacrificing the Kingdom’s Elites and Ancient Heritage Alliance was not worthwhile in any conceivable way.

…

“Marshal, this time I was greedy for achievement, failing to secure enough time for the army, please punish…

Before Jose could finish his plea, Hudson just laughed heartily.

“No, you are not only free from wrongdoing; you actually contributed!

Missing the chance to wipe out the enemy’s stragglers but gaining the opportunity to defeat their main force, no matter how you look at it, it’s a great gain.

The battlefield is ever-changing, having the chance to burn down the enemy’s camp, I would have abandoned the interception plan too,” Hudson said.

Hearing Hudson’s words, Jose grew even more anxious.

He didn’t aim to break through the enemy camp, but merely followed Hudson’s orders, playing a game of ‘distract Wei to save Zhao’ with the enemy.

But after a few rounds, the enemy figured out his force size and deemed his small number of troops incapable of penetrating the camp.

The enemy refused to retreat to reinforce, and what was intended to feint turned into a blitz.

“Marshal, after we breached the enemy camp, we didn’t find much in the way of provisions.

Besides the ten thousand enemy troops left behind, the rest were wounded.

For this, we even lost three hundred Magical Beast Knights; the result was actually quite average!” Jose hurriedly explained.

Whether the result was good or bad depended on the comparison.

Compared with the battle commanded by Hudson, sacrificing three hundred Magical Beast Knights for such results was indeed not presentable.

Despite losing fewer troops when the Magical Beast Beast Legion previously attacked the fifty thousand reinforcements, it’s not the right way to calculate,

“General Jose, but tactically speaking, the actual profit from this battle was indeed insignificant,

compared with our previous achievements, it’s hardly worth mentioning.

But war is not just military, it’s more about politics.

The delayed action of the Ancient Heritage Alliance forces led to the Elf Legion being crippled by us—could the Elf race have no feelings about this?

Once a rift forms, it’s not so easy to mend.

At the very least, the Elf Race won’t be able to send reinforcements to them in the near future.”

Militarily, aside from those severely wounded, which doesn’t count as a military achievement, we can roughly tally up the accounts.”

First, we annihilated fifteen thousand enemy troops transporting provisions, then severely damaged more than twenty thousand of the enemy’s reinforcements, and your side contributed by wiping out ten thousand of the enemy, conservatively estimating at least forty-five thousand enemies annihilated.

If we consider your mid-route ambush and the enemy’s non-combat losses, the Alien Coalition Army’s losses are likely around fifty thousand.”

No matter how much provisions were destroyed in their camp, the enemy forces are now cut off from supplies, and their morale and spirit will inevitably take a severe blow.

Perhaps the various races have stashed away some dry food for themselves, but the amounts definitely wouldn’t be significant.

Possibly due to an argument over dry food, they might even have a falling out.”