But not all fronts were faring as well as this one. I was having a grand time with my Death Knights, but naturally, the other Demon Lords didn't have Death Knights. They were completely exposed to the Imperial knights' charges. They tried to respond with hobgoblin warriors and Lizardman warriors, but those were quite weak against knights.
Bad news came through the Slime communicator. Part of the battle line had been breached! Captain Zepar immediately concentrated Ogres toward that point, but like dominoes falling, the right wing's battle line began letting the enemy through one breach after another.
The first line, which had held up well until now, crumbled rapidly. Polearm infantry with broken ranks were nothing more than a hearty lunch for the knights. I couldn't see it from where I was, but right about now, Orc polearm infantry were probably dying in droves to Aura-infused two-handed swords.
—Fall back to the second line. All units, retreat to the second line.
Captain Zepar's judgment was swift. The Orc polearm infantry slowly coordinated their steps and withdrew. It was no easy feat for a phalanx of polearm infantry to retreat one step at a time. A single mass composed of dozens of Orcs had to keep in perfect rhythm. In the end, we lost quite a few Orcs in the process.
—Hurry! Are there units that haven't finished retreating? I repeat. If any units haven't finished retreating, fall back as quickly as possible.
Shortly after, the first line's Orc units joined up with the second line's Orc units. Just five minutes after the retreat began, we had fallen back a full twenty meters. Compared to the measly five meters we'd lost in an entire hour just before, this was a spectacularly rapid withdrawal.
"The Orc bastards are running away!"
"Push them hard, boys! If we tough it out just a little longer, we win!"
The Imperial forces were brimming with confidence. NCOs ceaselessly ordered the polearm infantry to advance. They probably thought they had momentum on their side. In war, seizing the right momentum could lead to an instant victory. They recognized this as their opportunity. Imperial knights and human polearm infantry clung on even more tenaciously.
Then Captain Zepar shouted.
—Mage unit, attack!
The mages, who had been quietly focusing on support magic until now, suddenly changed their tune. Ten mages in the rear simultaneously unleashed fireball spells. The fireballs soared over the Imperial forces' heads and slammed down roughly thirty meters ahead. Flames erupted with a roar.
It was where a wooden palisade had originally stood, piled high with straw to look like a defensive fortification. In truth, they had carefully coated the palisade with oil and only brought in thoroughly dried straw. The straw on the inside had, of course, been generously soaked in oil as well. When the fireballs rained down on it, the fire spread in an instant. It was for precisely this moment that Captain Zepar had been saving and saving his mages — his most powerful unit type.
The flames formed a long wall stretching horizontally. The entire Imperial army was split in two by the wall of fire.
The quickest-witted soldiers took advantage of the fire just starting to rage and scrambled back to safety. However, just as our Orc polearm infantry had found during their retreat, the Imperial polearm infantry couldn't retreat just because they wanted to. Polearm infantry were a collective, not individuals. In the end, the Imperial soldiers who had been rushing at us like hounds were completely blocked by the wall of fire.
They were clearly thrown into confusion. They had suddenly been forced into a last-stand formation — or rather, a back-to-the-fire formation.
Monsters with the instincts of a wolf pack were not about to let a golden opportunity slip by. They pushed aggressively against the Imperial forces. The Orc polearm infantry used their reach advantage to advance one step at a time, while Goblins darted between the Orcs' legs — since the small-statured Goblins could roam freely beneath the polearms — slashing at the Imperial soldiers' knees.
The Imperial knights fought hard, but that was all. Aura could not be sustained indefinitely. They either had to be continually rotated with reserves in the rear, or employ tactics like cavalry charges where destructive power was needed only for a single moment. Either way, these options were not available to the Imperial knights currently trapped by the wall of fire. They burned through their Aura rapidly. After their Aura was gone, they were beaten down one by one by monsters swarming like piranhas.
"Urgh, aaaargh!"
In the end, the Imperial longspear infantry's formation collapsed. What they called a morale break. The Hippogriff Knights who had been leading the charge at the front fell one after another, while behind them, crimson flames flickered out their fiery tongues. Anyone who tried to maintain formation in this situation would hardly be human.
The Imperial army threw their formation and everything else to the winds. Some made hopeless charges in this direction, while others tried to find an escape route by jumping into the fire. The outcome was obvious. Either they'd be skewered by the Orc-grade longspears or barbecued by the flames. Or they'd be left trembling and calling for their mothers, accomplishing neither—longspear infantry who had lost their formation were worth nothing. Every last one of them died without exception.
"How ghastly…"
Laura murmured.
"A thousand? Maybe as many as two thousand have been wiped out."
The fire crackled and snapped. The searing heat reached us across tens of meters. When we had set up our positions, we had thoroughly cleared all the vegetation between the first and second lines. The fire, seeking fuel, burned toward the Imperial forces rather than toward the Demon Lord's army.
The thick fog and the dew-laden undergrowth prevented it from spreading into a full-blown conflagration. But it was obvious that the mages over there would need quite a long time to put the fire out.
In the meantime, just as we had done at the first line, we drove countless stakes into the ground ahead of us. Then we reorganized the longspear infantry formation that had fallen into considerable disarray during the first line's retreat. At times like these, the Demon Lord's army was clearly at an advantage over the human army. On our side, all the Demon Lords had to do was command, "Monsters, gather over here!" and the units would be reassembled almost immediately.
We even ordered the monsters to eat. The meal was carried out with striking efficiency and simplicity—they took the human corpses lying right in front of them and feasted on the spot. Some Ogres even approached the flames and roasted corpses for added flavor, skewering the bodies of longspear infantry like kebabs on spears they'd seized from who knows where. The sight left both Laura and me at a loss for words. What could you even say to that? It was disturbingly postmodern…
The catapults that had been hurling boulders from the rear also fell silent. The summoned horses had reported that the Imperial forces had withdrawn a considerable distance back. Well, anyone who would stay within catapult range until the fire died down would be a first-class fool. A temporary ceasefire fell over both armies.
"Those incompetent fools!"
The moment Crown Prince Rudolf received word that the Imperial army had failed to break through the Demon Lord's right wing, he slammed his fist violently against the table. It wasn't just the Crown Prince—General Michael von Kolovrat, General Johann von Kutusov, and other senior officers of the central army burned with fury.
"Eight thousand five hundred elite troops plus fifteen hundred knights, and they still couldn't break through? Margrave, explain yourself. Didn't you claim most confidently that with ten thousand men, you could seize the right wing and then some?"
Prince von Rosenberg, the Margrave, ground his teeth. According to the reports, nearly three thousand casualties had occurred since the battle began. Every single one of them was a soldier he had personally cultivated over a lifetime. The one whose guts were being torn apart right now was none other than the Margrave himself. And neither the Crown Prince nor any of the other generals had provided a single reinforcement!
"……"
The Margrave did not answer the Crown Prince's rebuke. He merely tilted his head slightly downward—but there was no one present who didn't recognize that as silent defiance against the Prince's censure. And it was equally apparent that Prince von Rosenberg, the Margrave, had lost his voice as Commander-in-Chief.
"Hah! They say a subordinate resembles his general, and there's not a word of a lie in it."
The Crown Prince promptly began to act not as the nominal Commander-in-Chief but as the de facto one. First, he judged that although the breakthrough had failed, the Demon Lord's right wing had also suffered heavy damage. From the very start, the Crown Prince had been hoping for precisely this situation—the enemy weakened, but the central army's forces entirely intact.
'Now, if I commit my own forces and seize the victory, the credit for this battle will belong to me and me alone—Rudolf von Habsburg.'
The Crown Prince wore a smile of deep satisfaction. This battle was truly overflowing with gifts for him, he thought. Just for starters, the empire's potential rebels—the frontier army—had been weakened. And by mobilizing the central army this time, his grip over the military had grown all the stronger.
Use barbarians to fight barbarians.
The Crown Prince mused. This, right here, was the hallmark of a true ruler. Whether they were aristocratic houses, frontier troops, or commoners—it didn't matter. Outwardly they might swear loyalty, but in the end they were all jackals eyeing their own gain. A ruler, since ancient times, had to know how to set those jackals against one another. And hadn't he just damaged the frontier army without getting a single drop of blood on his hands?
If he now committed additional forces to punch through the Demon Lord's right wing, he would rise as humanity's savior—the one who shielded mankind from the Demon Lord's clutches—and the sole worthy heir of the Habsburgs… That dreamlike prize had just fallen before his eyes like a ripe apple. All he had to do was reach out and pick it up!
"General von Kolovrat! General von Kutusov! Immediately take ten thousand of Habsburg's finest soldiers and march toward the enemy's right wing!"
"Yes, Your Highness. We shall never betray your expectations."
The two generals answered in booming voices and strode out of the command tent. Throughout this exchange, the Margrave had kept his mouth firmly shut, staring at the floor. The mercenary captain merely shrugged his shoulders.
Ten thousand Imperial soldiers marched toward the Demon Lord's right wing. Banners flying splendidly, they descended from Pratschen Hill. Watching them from high above the sky was a single small Demon Bird. It beat its wings and soared through the gaps in the mist-laden clouds.
And.
Far away from Pratschen Hill, a young girl sat with her eyes closed. White hair—not the faded, lifeless white of age, but a radiant white that had grown that way from the very beginning. The girl let out a small grin, then slowly opened her eyes.
Golden eyes gleamed like a beast's.
"It's time."
Barbatos, the Demon Lord ranked eighth, rose from her seat.
She could barely contain her excitement. Zepar! That one had delivered on her expectations. Through her slimes she had been tracking every development on the right wing in real time. Zepar had executed a brilliant defensive battle. By maintaining a razor-thin balance—as though the line might collapse at any moment yet never quite did—he had drawn the Imperial army into committing ever more troops.
Barbatos believed once again. We Demon Lords are not incompetent. No—we of the Plains Faction are not incompetent! Every one of the Crescent Alliance Army's seven victories over the Demon Lord's forces had never been the Plains Faction's fault. We are capable, we are brave, and above all, we know how to win. And now it was her turn to prove it.
She didn't even need to issue separate orders. Barbatos had sent every other Demon Lord besides herself to the right and left wings. She alone stood guarding the central army. In other words, every monster stationed here answered directly to her command—
—Thud.
All it took to send the entire central army forward was a single footstep.
Barbatos walked out in silence. Behind her came zombies, skeleton soldiers, every manner of undead monster. There was no splendid military band. No exhilarated battle cries. They were warriors, and in death they remained warriors who knew how to fight in silence. They had been so for two thousand years. Barbatos's personal monster corps of five thousand advanced, one footstep at a time.