The Vastness of Magical Destiny
Chapter 455: Volume 9: Phantom of the Ancient Castle - 10: Counterattack_3

Chapter 455: Volume 9: Phantom of the Ancient Castle Chapter 10: Counterattack_3

Like hammers the size of baskets continuously clashing together, thunder filled the sky, mixed with countless flashes of lightning falling like meteor showers upon Homer’s army, directed by Komer and Rebury. Mud splattered, and corpses littered the ground.

Although the Homer soldiers were trained in defensive magic, this kind of attack was beyond imagination, akin to an unbearable nightmare.

Lightning strikes accompanied by overwhelming currents bombarded Homer’s army incessantly. With almost no shelter, the soldiers futilely lifted their shields to guard themselves, but these metal shields only drew more intense bombardment. Soldiers fell in swathes, their scorched bodies emitting a ghastly stench, while the ground was pocked with craters formed by lightning, resembling a hell on earth.

The Homer soldiers could only persevere under the commands of their officers, relying on stringent military discipline. Their only hope was that this wave of magic assault wouldn’t last too long, allowing them to survive this ordeal.

Facing such an advantage, the Half-beast soldiers, who should have followed the plan and attacked, were stunned into inactivity. The terrifying attack power displayed by the "Thunder Shock" magic array was beyond their comprehension. Though they had previously been briefed and had witnessed magic attacks on a smaller scale, the immense power and fear it evoked caused them to not dare take a single step forward; they could only huddle and tremble, holding their spears and shields to maintain formation.

While the Half-beast soldiers were slow to launch their attack, the near-cataclysmic magic attack of "Thunder Shock" had drained the will of three thousand Homer soldiers. Despite their resilience and strict discipline, they couldn’t hold out long under the indescribable onslaught. When the fiercest strike of the massive spell created a ten-yard radius of collapsed ground in the center of their formation, the Army of Homer finally broke and began to flee. Once the first soldier fled, a rout quickly ensued.

When the Half-beast officers saw the great number of Homer soldiers fleeing, they snapped out of their trance and furiously ordered their men to surge forward in pursuit. The scene from the battle of Banassia nearly replayed itself exactly as before, except this time, the victors were the Half-beastmen, and those fleeing were the Homer soldiers.

Standing silently atop a hill, watching this scene unfold, it was clear the war had lost all suspense. Homer’s army, having collapsed across the front, had lost all will to fight. The previously timid Half-beast soldiers had become the fiercest of predators.

In comparison to the physical abilities of the beastmen, Mortal Soldiers were far inferior in both strength and running speed. A major battle had effectively ended before the two armies had even properly engaged, a rarity in the military history of the Continent, yet it had been played out twice in the Leon Region in a single month.

The fleeing Knight Balmore was entangled by two skeleton warriors under the command of Puppet Mage Mihayevich. Already grievously wounded, Knight Balmore nearly lost all courage to fight when faced with the sword-dancing skeletons.

As a knight officer who had long been at war, he knew little of the Necromancy from the Dark World. The almost perfect teamwork displayed by the skeleton warriors dealt a heavy blow to Knight Balmore, who after fleeing barely five hundred meters from the battlefield, was wounded by the skeletons. The Beast Warriors who arrived later dared not approach the indiscriminate skeletons until they vanished into thin air, after which they captured the badly injured Knight Balmore.

The battle at Mandu left only about three hundred of the three thousand Homer elite soldiers alive and captured; the rest were either killed by the magic or slain by the frenzied Half-beast soldiers. An anticipated battle indeed ended in an expected manner, but with the victors and losers in reversed roles.

The victory at Mandu not only greatly boosted the morale of the Half-Beast Mob but also filled the battle-hardened Half-Beast soldiers with newfound confidence.

Concerned about the unfavorable situation and having withdrawn from the eastern part of Izmir, the east mob army immediately altered their strategy for a counter-offensive with the support of the victorious southern mob army, surrounding Izmir with over thirty thousand mob soldiers.

Homer’s army, deprived of the mage reinforcements and suffering from the demoralizing effect of their main force’s annihilation, withstood a day’s worth of frenzied attacks from the tenfold Half-Beast Mob. Only after inflicting over five thousand casualties did they collapse; of the two thousand plus Homer Soldiers and one thousand Noble private soldiers, except for about five hundred who were captured, all were killed in the brutal, mage-less battle, marking the first total conquest of the Leon Region.

The complete capture of Leon greatly excited the mob leaders’ desires. The various mob armies were finally able to strut with confidence, convening for the first time for a joint meeting in Izmir.

Although they desperately invited Maha Gummi, considered a spokesperson for the Caucasus, to join the meeting, she declined politely on Komer’s advice.

The mob, heady with victory, quickly decided to return to the north of Leon to further liberate all the slaves in the region, and they promptly put their plans into action.

Within two weeks, Banassia and Murray, now devoid of any armed resistance, fell in succession. The now eighty thousand strong mob army surged north like a flood, attempting to cross the Nissai River towards Bruce Fortress. However, Bruce’s garrison, reinforced by three thousand Homer Soldiers urgently called from the Busen Plain, painfully destroyed the floating bridge connecting to the south bank of the Nissai, turning the wide and fast-flowing river into a natural barrier that severed the Leon Region from the rest of the Homer region.