Chapter 289 - 167: The Pursuit Arrives
The bloody battle grew more brutal with time. Within the narrow pass, the bodies of fallen soldiers from both sides had piled into a mountain of corpses, and the blood flowing from beneath it formed crimson streams.
Soldiers from both sides continued to fight with reckless abandon. The ranged attacks from their rear lines were no longer as frequent as before; the melee combatants had taken center stage.
The soldiers who fell from time to time, and the fleeting shadows around them, revealed that assassins from both sides had also joined the fray. Across the tangled battlefield, figures were locked in one-on-one combat everywhere, stalked by opportunistic assassins picking off the weak.
Viewed from above, the Northern Expedition Legion clearly had fewer soldiers than the Sniper Corps. However, on the narrow battlefield, the soldiers on either side failed to notice this. They all felt as if their reinforcements were endless, and so were the enemy’s.
However, Ah Pu and the others on a nearby hill could see the truth. Their time was running out. The intensity of the battle had far exceeded their expectations; the Northern Expedition Legion would be wiped out before nightfall.
The biggest variable was the constant stream of attacks from the nearby forest, which forced the Vanguard Army to remain on the defensive at all times. Many Mages had to use their energy to cast defensive Magic, leaving them unable to properly support the main front.
Then there was the massive Magic that would periodically materialize within the Northern Expedition Legion’s formation—Fire Dragon Tornadoes, Molten Bursts, Golden Wind Rains... All sorts of Fusion Magic combining different elements caused the soldiers of the Northern Expedition Legion to suffer immensely, killing and wounding tens of thousands with every strike.
"Sir Ah Pu, how is the Teleportation Array coming along?"
"If this doesn’t hurry up, our only option will be to risk it in the forest!"
"Hold on, don’t disturb Sir Bess! He’s busy right now! Setting up a Teleportation Array is delicate work!"
...
In a nearby clearing, the runic patterns of the Teleportation Array were nearly complete, with Bess carefully making the final adjustments.
As an Invisible Sentinel, he had mastered spatial abilities by a stroke of luck, but this was his first time setting up a Space Teleportation Array—and a Cross-border Space Transmission Array at that. He couldn’t afford the slightest mistake. Any error, no matter how small, would result in them being torn apart by Spatial Energy.
...
Finally, the Teleportation Array was complete. With a pained expression, Bess took a small piece of Space Stone from within his clothes (not the one from a Space Stone Detector, but a separate, individual stone) and embedded it in the center of the array.
To the delight of Ah Pu and the others, a Teleportation Gate opened.
"Sir Bess, did it work?"
"Yes, it’s a success! You can go through this Teleportation Gate and return to the lords’ continent."
"Let’s go, quickly. It looks like our army is about to collapse."
Looking back at the battlefield, the Northern Expedition Legion’s defensive line had all but collapsed. The Sniper Corps had broken through their center, and the soldiers on the flanks were barely holding on. The rearmost soldiers had been drained of energy by the attacks from the forest, leaving them powerless to provide support. It was clear the entire Northern Expedition Legion was about to be completely overrun by the Sniper Corps and carved into isolated battle groups.
"Sigh..." Ah Pu let out a deep sigh. ’This defeat is my fault. I was too arrogant, too ambitious. If only I hadn’t let the entire army attack the fortress after the Sniper Corps retreated... if only we had fallen back to rest and reorganize. Or if I hadn’t parasitized those lords who gave up their command... or...’
’The turning point of the battle was that sudden, extreme cold. It froze all those lords to death.’
’Judging by the current state of the battlefield, we must have been ambushed by that Lord Lin Yu’s Mage Corps.’
"Let’s go," Ah Pu said, dejected, as he led the other lords toward the Teleportation Gate.
"AHHH!!!"
"Oh no, my Core..."
A Core Lord suddenly cried out, his body dissolving into motes of light and vanishing before everyone’s eyes.