The Habsburg Empire's army. To this, add the Batavia Republic and the Free Cities League.
Though the coalition bore every outward sign of a combined force, as is well known, the true core of its strength lay in the roughly thirty-thousand-strong Demon Lord army. The backbone of that army had always been the Orcs. Known also as the Pig-folk, these demonic beings were born with powerful arms and unmatched endurance, and they wielded long pikes more than a meter longer than anything a human could comfortably manage.
That, inevitably, blunted the impact of the knights' mass charges to a considerable degree.
"Do not retreat! Do not move a single step!"
Demon Lord Zepar roared.
"Become a wall and hold back the tide!"
The former sixteenth-ranked commander was a genius of defensive warfare — not merely within the Plains Faction, but across the entire Demon Lord army. The same commander who had once held the line against the terrifying charges of the knights at the Battle of Austerlitz now displayed that dazzling talent once more.
— Khoollah, Khurp!
The Orcs answered with a thunderous war cry.
The battle was intensifying.
On the right flank, Demon Lord Agares and three other Demon Lords reenacted a clash of mythical proportions. It was, in the truest sense, a fight that sheared away hillsides and gouged open the earth. Neither allies nor enemies dared approach the right flank. Explosions raged so violently that it was terrifying even to watch, and even Zepar had stopped paying attention to that side.
"Beleth and Sitri. And Vassago, I suppose… We have no choice but to trust them."
If the right flank were to break, even once, the entire operation would end in utter failure. The battle plan drawn up by Vice Commander Laura de Farnese was as delicate as a row of dominoes. For it to succeed, the right flank absolutely had to hold.
— Thud-thud-clip, thud-clack, grnnnh!
The sound of hooves began rolling in from the distance. The knights were charging once more. A demonic aide spoke.
"Commander! This is the sixth charge!"
"I have eyes and ears of my own. How long has it even been…"
Zepar groaned, half in disbelief.
"The knights of Bretagne — are they truly monsters?"
The sixth charge had already been completed. It had been merely an hour since the battle began. The military operations were so swift that they went beyond abnormal — they could only be described as extraordinary.
Moreover, it was the dead of night. A time that was overwhelmingly advantageous for demons compared to humans. Yet Bretagne's cavalry, relying on their spheres of light, had executed charge after charge in perfect formation.
They couldn't lose either. Zepar steeled his resolve and swung his command baton.
"Mages — drench the ground! Javelin throwers and slingers — don't hold back your spears and stones!"
"At once!"
The mages moistened the earth just before the knights clashed into them. Since they had to conserve their mana, they couldn't turn the entire area into a swamp, but even slightly softening the ground was enough to reduce the horses' speed. In the end, the sixth charge yielded no significant gains either.
— Crrrunch! Crack!
The moment the knights pulled back, goblins leaped out of the trenches and drove stakes into the ground. The softened earth yielded easily, allowing the stakes to sink in with little effort. Now, once the human army's mages dried and hardened the ground for their knights — paradoxically, this would only serve to lock the stakes firmly in place.
On the opposite side, Queen Henrietta watched this and marveled.
"Impressive. Leave the ground damp and their charges lose all force. But use magic to dry it and you end up helping them secure their stakes… Hmm."
Queen Henrietta found herself caught in a dilemma. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That was the right way to put it. A general nearby responded to the queen's sigh.
"Your Majesty, our forces have fought valiantly. Our casualties are nearly…"
"None, I know. But the enemy's casualties are nearly nonexistent too. Do you understand what that means? Time is passing with no losses on either side. That is precisely what the enemy wants."
Suffering no casualties does not mean you are winning the battle. Even if you were reduced to a blood-soaked husk, achieving your objective — that is victory. And the enemy was executing their delaying tactics beautifully to buy time for the river crossing…
Any ordinary commander would stall for time here.
But Queen Henrietta de Bretagne was, in every sense, anything but ordinary.
"Milianne."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Your orders?"
"I'll trust in the full strength of the Green Rose Knights."
Just one hour after the battle commenced, Queen Henrietta played her strongest card. She deployed the knight order universally recognized as the continent's finest. The order that included not one but two Sword Masters immediately answered the queen's command, raising their hooves into motion.
"Descendants of Bretagne! Charge!"
"For our queen!"
The mages sent wind blades flying so the knight order could ride to their heart's content. The blades swept across the earth and sliced the stakes driven into the ground in two. It was a support fire that spared no magical power. Witnessing this magic, Demon Lord Zepar ground his teeth.
"The Green Rose Knight Order…! Javelin troops!"
It was a knight order entwined with him in a long, bitter enmity. It was right to that knight order that Zepar had lost all his subordinate Ogres. He would now exact his revenge for that.
"Spare no magic! Attack!"
"But my lord, if we do that from the start, the magical power for the decisive battle will…"
"If you have eyes, then look!"
Zepar, uncharacteristically excited, shouted.
"Isn't this the decisive battle right now!"
And so, the Demon Lord's army poured magic towards the charging Green Rose Knights. They made the ground damp and shot fireballs. Just as Zepar had said. The fact that this was the decisive battle became clearer than anything, and the human army, as if to give an eye for an eye, returned fire with unbridled magic.
Forty fireballs crossed the night sky, falling from this side to that, and from that side to this. Just as the Orcs screamed and tried to flee, a transparent barrier unfolded and deflected the fireballs.
The Demon commanders drew their swords and roared,
"Fall back! Death to those who retreat!"
The veteran knights of the knight order gripped their lances and shouted.
"Break through! Trample—to death!"
There, a massive collision occurred.
As spear tips and blades, iron and iron clashed, the air trembled violently. Red blood spattered everywhere. A horse's hoof trampled an Orc's face. The helmet shattered along with the skull. A long spear pierced a cavalryman's chest and burst out through the back.
"Kraaak! Khuhaaak!"
"Khur, khurp!"
Screams and groans erupted in a tangled cacophony. There was no human language in them, nor any demon tongue. Only the roars of blood-soaked beasts resounded. Warhorses gnawed viciously at the Orcs' shoulder flesh with their savage teeth, while the Orcs tore apart the entrails of unhorsed cavalrymen with their fangs.
"Die! Kraaak, I said die!"
"Kruprahaala!"
It didn't matter whether the one tearing flesh apart was human or demon.
Weapons clattered to the ground in heaps. The clanging of iron striking iron deafened them to the very core of their ears. At the queen's command, at the Demon Lord's command, and above all, those who should have treasured their own lives burned them without hesitation.
In that place where sight and hearing had gone numb—.
"Hold formation! Guhk—don't break from the ranks!"
"Don't stop, keep riding! Charge! Glory to Bretagne!"
The knights finally pierced through the pike formation.
At their vanguard was Sword Master Marianne de Nazelle. The blonde maiden swung her moondao like a windmill. Every time the golden Aura cleaved through the night air, an Orc's skull went flying.
"All forces, follow me!"
Through the path the Sword Master had carved open, a dozen or so knights charged in succession. The narrow passage where barely one or two could pass widened in an instant. As a dozen followed, tens poured through, and so hundreds surged in.
The defensive line had been breached.
Hope and despair intermingled.
"Yes, that's it! Royal Guard Knights! Continue the charge!"
"Damn it! Use every means necessary to restore the line!"
As it happened, Henrietta and Zepar shouted out at the same moment. The queen and the Demon Lord sprang to their feet and swung their command batons furiously. But in this instant when the strongest spear met the strongest shield, the goddess had surely sided with the spear.
The central defensive line was split asunder. For one brief moment, the pikemen in one section were slaughtered. The knights' warhorses easily cleared the deep trenches in great leaps. Just as a levee collapses in a flood, hundreds of cavalrymen surged through.
Just as Queen Henrietta sensed victory—
"Second defensive line. Third defensive line."
Laura de Farnese smiled.
"Go ahead and break through as much as you like."
The order from the deputy commander was immediately relayed to the subordinate commanders.
Unlike the first defensive line that Zepar had been in charge of, the second and third defensive lines had no trenches dug. Pike-bearing soldiers simply stood in multiple rows, lined up one after another. The two legion commanders holding these lines simultaneously raised their command batons.
"All forces, split to either side."
"Leave the center open for the knights."
Paimon and Marbas.
The two legion commanders were not particularly skilled in command. In terms of offense, they were no match for Beleth or Sitri, and in defense, they fell short of Zepar. However, Paimon and Marbas possessed two advantages — absolute advantages, at that — that most Demon Lords did not.
—Krrrrgh!
—Kerrek, kerek!
The fact that they were supreme Demon Lords holding the fifth and ninth seats in the hierarchy.
Dantalion could, at best, convey his will to a few dozen Monsters. But the two Demon Lords could issue orders freely to demonkind numbering in the thousands. With a single word, without the need for any messengers or command structure, massive forces would move.
The second advantage went without saying: they had earned absolute trust from their soldiers.
Paimon and Marbas had never once abandoned their own forces. When supply lines were cut and the entire army suffered from hunger, when they were isolated deep in enemy territory and had to press on with desperate marches — in all of it, the two legion commanders endured every hardship alongside their soldiers.
A true leader proves themselves not through words but through action. In that sense, even if Paimon and Marbas were not exceptional military commanders — they were undeniably leaders of all demonkind.
Orders delivered directly to the soldiers. Absolute trust that made them follow without a shred of doubt.
Through the interplay of these two factors, the legion commanders carried out the headquarters' directives impeccably.
"...!"
As if the Red Sea were parting, the forces of the second and third defensive lines split in two.
Already surging with momentum, the knight order could not react in time and charged straight ahead. If they stopped here, they would only be surrounded and attacked by the pikemen from all sides. The Green Rose Knight Order pressed directly toward the enemy headquarters.
"No! It's a trap!"
Henrietta de Bretagne, who had been watching the scene from afar, shouted urgently. The generals nearby tilted their heads in confusion. From a superficial glance, it looked as if the defensive lines had simply collapsed of their own accord, terrified by the knight order's charge.
"Your Majesty, the breakthrough has succeeded. Are the remaining defensive lines not retreating? If we press on like this, annihilate the enemy's command post, and assault their foothold..."
"What part of that looks like the movements of 'retreating' enemy troops?! Send an order to Lord Narze at once! Tell him to withdraw, even at the cost of taking damage!"
Despite the distance, Queen Henrietta had seen right through the enemy's maneuvers. Taking one step further, she instinctively realized they must withdraw, even before she had grasped the enemy's true intentions.
"Your Majesty, I am most humbly sorry, but..."
However, realizing the truth did not grant her victory.
"Communication magic is being disrupted by anti-magic and cannot be established."
"What? What are you talking about? We can see magic flying back and forth brilliantly right now."
"My deepest apologies. It seems only communication magic is not functioning in this entire area."
Henrietta frowned.
"Such powerful anti-magic that it can interfere with the whole area... and yet they only blocked communication?"
"Yes. I am terribly sorry."
"Who would do something so nonsensically inefficient?"
Henrietta slowly opened her mouth.
She turned her head sharply to look ahead.
"From the very beginning...?"
Henrietta gripped her command baton tightly. If they could deploy anti-magic, then naturally they should have been blocking all sorts of magic, not just communication. It would have been far more advantageous to tie down their entire magical combat power in the first place.
But the enemy had only cut off communication.
As if they were luring a delicious prey deep enough into the trap.
"Death Knights."
On the opposite side, within the Demon Lord's army headquarters, a golden-haired woman and a tall man stood side by side. Of the two, the woman — a human known as Laura de Farnese — raised her right hand.
"Block the knights' charge."
In that instant, four hundred greatswords erupted from the earth.