The Vastness of Magical Destiny
Chapter 609: Volume Sixteen: Hazy Dark Fog, - 3: Hidden Dangers_2

Chapter 609: Volume Sixteen: Hazy Dark Fog, Chapter 3: Hidden Dangers_2

If Berserker Bear Warriors are the Beastman Alliance’s indestructible shield, then the Sovereign Warrior Squad, wielding their long spears, are the Alliance’s unstoppable spear. Mortal heavy infantry is like a paper shield before them; frenzied Tiger Tribe Warriors can easily tear through an infantry defense ten times their number. If not for the Tiger Clan’s lower fertility rate, which has kept the number of Sovereign Warrior Squads from expanding, the defenses of the Northern League Countries would have likely been torn apart countless times by now.

Fine beads of sweat seep from Feltermites’ brow, knowing that he is likely facing the toughest battle of his life. The beastmen’s assault this time seems different from any in the past few decades. St. Nicholas Fortress mysteriously fell, and the beastmen swarmed in. Surrounded on all sides, the Golden Oak Legion faced an unprecedented and frenzied siege by the Beastman Alliance Army. Over thirty thousand warriors, from the Corps Commander on down, were completely wiped out, with barely more than a thousand escaping alive. Most dire of all, the Royal Court Mage Corps and the Fire Shadow Knights also suffered severe hits, with more than ten mages and magicians dead, and several others injured.

The Blue Dove Corps are now desperately plugging the gaps in the Northern Front to prevent further incursion by the beastmen. With their newly formed combat strength, it is hard to imagine how they can withstand the frenzied beastmen. Thus, the kingdom has reallocated seven of the ten mages and magicians originally assigned to the Iron Cross Corps, leaving only one mage and two magicians behind. Can these three alone withstand the beastmen soldiers howling as they charge from the open fields beneath the walls? Can they destroy the battering rams which may bring destruction to the fortress below? Feltermites dares not contemplate further.

"Sir, what should we do?" The officer beside him seemed to voice the concerns of all officers crowded around Feltermites. No one believed the Iron Cross Corps had any hope in this battle. As the beastmen mobilized on such a grand scale, the officers of the Iron Cross Corps had already considered the brutality of this battle. Dozens of battering rams utterly extinguished the officers’ hopes of defending against the beastmen with the fortress’s strong fortifications. With only the bare three members of the Royal Court Mage Corps left here to hold the line, the situation was dire.

Ignoring the officers around him, Feltermites took a deep breath of cool air from the open fields to calm himself; he could not offer any answers at the moment. He needed to carefully assess the strengths and weaknesses of both sides. Although the beastmen greatly outnumbered the Iron Cross Corps and appeared terrifyingly ferocious, upon closer observation, Feltermites also noted that these Minotaur soldiers, Falcon Feather Hands, and Tiger Tribe Warriors lacked the discipline and morale previously seen in the beastmen he had encountered on the frontier. It was clear that this beastman army was not the most elite of the forces.

Feltermites deduced that the beastman forces that had broken through the North and penetrated deep into the Lake Isek Region to slaughter the Golden Oak Legion were the main force of the Beastman Alliance Army. Otherwise, even if the beastmen had breached St. Nicholas Fortress, a legion such as the Golden Oak Legion, dubbed the kingdom’s finest army, would not have met such a dire end. Having come from the Golden Oak Legion himself, Feltermites had a profound understanding of the legion’s celebrated combat strength and indomitable spirit. Without a significant disparity in combat capabilities, the Golden Oak Legion would not have suffered such a fate.

The wild ferocity of the beastmen did not intimidate the valiant warriors of the Iron Cross Corps. Although most of the Iron Cross Corps soldiers were new recruits, composed of reserve soldiers from the past one to two years, many of these reservists were veterans who had retired from the Golden Oak Legion. With the increasing tension in the North, these veterans were recruited again to form the Iron Cross Corps. Within this corps, Feltermites relied on these veterans to quickly bring the unit up to speed. Acting as both low-level officers and instructors, they slowly matured during their tenure defending the Western Kingdom’s frontiers. Feltermites believed that although their combat capabilities could not be compared to those of the Golden Oak Legion, the corps was certainly capable of battling the beastman army, at least with the support of the fortress’s robust defenses.

But the situation had changed. The appearance of the battering rams in the open fields had caught Feltermites off guard and struck fear into the officers. Although Feltermites had vaguely heard about beastmen using battering rams during Myron Duchy’s disastrous battle, he had not given it due significance. According to the information received at the time, the enemy had used battering rams on a small scale, only a few, with beastmen soldiers showing clumsy operations that did not play a significant role. Feltermites even suspected that the soldiers of Myron Duchy exaggerated the beastmen’s combat prowess or that the beastmen assembled one or two battering rams through some smuggling channels to boost their own morale. But now, it was clear he had made a mistake. If he had known that the beastmen would deploy battering rams on such a massive scale, he would have defied orders if necessary to insist the kingdom not withdraw those seven mages and magicians. Now, he faced the daunting task of how to destroy those potentially lethal battering rams.