Badge in Azure

Chapter 405: Honor (Part 1)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Standing in the midst of the skeletons, Daniel observed the situation up ahead. The enemy’s formation was still several miles from the sea, but they could not retreat anymore. In such a situation, where the soldiers had no more room for retreat, they would fight with all their might.

Subconsciously, Daniel began tapping his toes gently, causing the pikoosi’s heads to sway about. The pikoosi could feel his owner’s cowardice and became annoyed. Daniel snapped out of his thoughts abruptly, “what was I afraid of?” Even if the enemy fought desperately, Saleen did not give Daniel the order to fight until death. It would suffice to just kill a certain number of enemies. Saleen did not even allow Daniel to deploy every single skeleton.

At this point in time, Daniel took the mini binoculars hanging around his waist. He had been tampering with them for a long time. Even though it did not have a range like Saleen’s, the enemy was only a short distance away. He could still use it to observe the enemies’ expressions.

The Eastern Sea Allied Army’s formation was not very neat and complete as many low ranking commanders did not manage to escape. The soldiers could only gather. Those high ranking commanders could not command so many soldiers. They were also waiting for orders from the general. As a result, this ten-thousand strong team had very poor morale. They did not even put away their dead comrades, simply allowing these corpses to lie on the ice haphazardly.

Through the binoculars, Daniel noticed that the soldiers’ faces were filled with anxiety, dread, hunger, and confusion.

Daniel might not have learnt any knowledge regarding command and control in a battle, but he was a death mage. He had some knowledge about human emotions. Seeing that the enemies were having such emotions, Daniel immediately took out a small drum which was only a foot in diameter. Then, he took out a piece of bone and began striking the drum with it.

Dong! Dong!

The beating of the drum gave off an empty and desolate feeling as it spread across the ice layer, rousing all the skeletons. It was the Death War Drum. It could stimulate combat awareness in a spirit. Under the urging of the war drum, three-thousand skeletons began striding forward with bone spears in their hands. They began charging towards the allied army’s position.

The allied soldiers were feeling cold and hungry. As their teeth chattered, a trembling sound was given off. It was similar to a skeleton grinding its teeth.

Most of the soldiers did not even have a lance, they only had long knives. The knives only had a one-meter long blade, it was not advantageous for large-scale battles. A skeleton’s offensive power might not be strong, but in order to make them lose their offensive abilities, the best solution would be to use a heavy weapon.

These soldiers did not even bring along their heavy weapons, all these weapons had already sunk with the warships.

The general gave the order to attack calmly. Finally, the commanders urged the soldiers to sound their horns. A thousand man team charged head-on against the skeletons. Both armies clashed into each other ruthlessly, no fuss, no frills. The bone spears of the skeletons thrusted forcefully into the soldiers who did not have any shielding other than their own leather armor. The soldiers had no way of withstanding that attack.

The allied army swiftly organized two thousand man teams. They approached from both sides. A head-on conflict was definitely disadvantageous to the allied army since they had insufficient equipment. Even though the skeletons were of a low grade, the soldiers were still highly vulnerable. The eastern sea states did not experience such a harsh climate. Some high altitude regions had snow, but the terrain was flat, it was almost as if it was springtime all year round. In such an environment, a soldier’s equipment would definitely have some special style.

In order to grip onto a weapon tightly, a pair of gloves was a necessary piece of equipment. In the gloves owned by every soldier from the eastern sea states, the palm area was made of leather and sewed onto linen. This type of linen was very thick and sturdy. It was even waterproof, but it could not resist the cold. After a long time loitering by the seaside, the soldiers had lost all feeling in their fingers a long time ago. Now during battle, their weapons simply slipped off their hands during the battle.

The soldiers were not peasant soldiers, they were a real army with at least five years of training. They had actual combat experience too. These elite troops were thoroughly dominated in the clash with these skeletons who were of the lowest grade.

Three-thousand skeletons held onto their bone spears and charged forward, unfazed by the two prongs of soldiers. Under of the encouragement of the Death War Drum, the vitality of the skeletons was boosted. Without the presence of magic weapons, they could fight all the way to the end unless they were sliced into pieces. Spirits were not fearless, it was just that they were not afraid of the people in front of them.

Daniel ignored the two-pronged attack, because a spirit was not human. Since these skeletons were not summoned by him, he had no control over their formation. This two-sided approach would not be fatal as the enemy did not have cavalrymen. Since they only had infantrymen, the crux of the battle ultimately laid in the offensive power of each individual.

The skeletons would never panic. No matter what sort of advantageous position the enemy had, the skeletons would still continue soldiering forward with their bone spears. They would either kill the enemy, or be killed by the enemy.

The barbarians at the back of the skeletons were very agile. They did not charge forward blindly like the skeletons. Instead, they rode on skeletal warhorses and fired arrows. As the two-thousand soldiers executed the two-sided assault, the barbarians simply harassed them with arrows. The barbarians neither escaped nor reinforced.

The efforts of the barbarians should not be underestimated. Even though they were using the softer bows which had no effect against metal armor, they could still cause damage against the enemy’s soft leather armor. Using such bows which required little strength to pull the bowstring, the barbarians could fire hundreds of arrows without getting fatigued.

Of course, all this credit went to Saleen because he had stringent standards for his soldiers’ equipment. Even though the barbarians had only submitted to Saleen recently, each of them had already received a metal launcher blade. With this item, one would not hurt their fingers during the firing process. The main source of propulsion came from the arm. It could increase the archer’s offensive power.

The sole flaw of a launcher blade was that it caused more wear-and-tear to the bowstring. Usually, if a normal bowstring was pulled using the fingers, it would only wear out after firing at least two-thousand arrows. When a launcher blade was utilized, the damage would be twice as much. In order to reduce the abrasion, one could either add grease or improve the quality of the launcher blade. These two things would increase the cost.

Every soldier under Saleen had two launcher blades. One was made from alchemy to be used in bows which were extremely expensive. The other one was a normal launcher blade, to be used in training or with a normal bow.

Saleen had insufficient manpower, which did not require him to differentiate the arms specifically yet. He had learned one thing from Lex; the quality he would receive from his soldiers would be equivalent to his input into them.

As the general viewed the battle from afar, he had no hope of achieving victory. At this point, he could tell that the spirit army had no intention of extirpating them. They were just here to damage his remaining forces. Once his forces were deteriorated to a certain degree, they would not be able to invade the city anymore. By then, the enemy would only need to guard the port in order to freeze or starve his people.

If the general’s warships were still around to enable his soldiers to be equipped adequately, these three-thousand skeletons would be no big deal at all. He only needed to set metal shields at the front, coupled with the two-pronged attack, to tear the spirit army to shreds.

At that moment, all his soldiers were using sabers. There were no hammers, poleaxes, or halberds of any sort. The soldiers had no tools to protect against the cold, causing their limbs to go numb. If they used a standard longsword, which weighed about two catties, they would only be able to make a faint graze on a skeleton’s body. That way, several slashes would be needed in order to cleave a skeleton. No matter how strong their command abilities were, it was useless. Unless they could make their warships float up, to distribute the heavy equipment to his troops.

As three-thousand soldiers and three-thousand skeletons were slaughtering one another, there were about seven-thousand more soldiers at the rear without any weapon in hand. They could only look on.

Suddenly, the general sighed. He told the mages around him, “Leave. Use the Windspeed Skill to escape, the other party will not pursue mages.”

“General, we will not go. Mage Youxi Maso is not back yet.” A few grey-robed mages began panicking. Even though the sorcerer and the grade-6 mages had left, a few of them here could still be a decisive force in this battle.

“Can you catch up to a skeletal warhorse?” the general said as he pointed to the barbarians who were firing away.

The grey-robed mages were left speechless. Even with the Windspeed Skill, it would take some time to catch up to a skeletal warhorse. While a warhorse’s physical strength would deplete over time, a skeletal warhorse would not. At the very least, they would not be able to catch up before those people could escape.

“Do you see that spirit in their army?”

“Yes.”

“That is a grade-8 spirit, a pikoosi.” The general’s voice was icy as he continued, “That death mage’s grade is probably lower, but that spirit’s offensive power will not be lower than that of grade-7. Even if all of you are around, you wouldn’t be able to help me. Don’t even start on Youxi Maso, he might not even return anymore. All of you, just go.”

“But, Sir!”

“Our main fleet has gone to Lianyun City. All of you shall go to Lianyun City. Once you locate them, continue the battle. The situation here is irreversible already.” As the general spoke, he removed his strange-looking helmet and threw it on the ground. He then told the trusted soldiers surrounding him, “This time around, you don’t have to protect me. Just try to kill more enemies.”

His helmet held a larger significance. By wearing it on his head, it would actually affect his field of vision. The general never expected this day to come, whereby he would need to go forth and kill the enemy personally.

As the remaining commanders heard their general’s words, their gazes became void of life.

“Why are you all looking at me like that? You are dying on the battlefield as a soldier, are you all not satisfied?”

“It’s all your fault, why do you have to plunder the warships? Those warships were more advanced than ours. Naturally, the enemy would be very powerful. If it wasn’t for your order, we wouldn’t have been reduced to such dire straits!” One of the commanders could not help but vent his rage on the general.

The general sneered, “When we first looted it, all of you were still discussing about the distribution of the loot. Now you are blaming me?” With an icy gaze, he stared at everyone, then continued, “We are here to conquer. Do we still have to do business with them?”

“But, we have the right to surrender!”

“No, at least not for you.” The general suddenly wielded his longsword, and took a step forward. He strode over five meter, then he pierced his longsword directly into the mouth of that commander who had offended him. The longsword withdrew in a flash, drenched in scarlet blood.

“Anyone else want to surrender?”

The surrounding commanders dared not make a single noise. Among these commanders, many of them did not become a general based on valiance. Since the general had the power of a grand swordmaster, he alone could kill all of them easily. The general still had almost one-hundred trusted soldiers beside him.

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