CHAPTER 211: CHAPTER 210: THE BREAKING OF LINES

The air was heavy with the promise of blood.

The Sengolio scouts had seen them coming. By the time Liraeth’s army reached the open fields before the captured town, enemy banners were already raised. Horns blared. From the walls and streets, the Sengolio army poured forth, rank upon rank of armored men, their roar echoing across the plain.

Then came the thunder.

"Shields up! Hold the line!" Gordon’s voice boomed above the chaos as Liraeth’s army clashed first.

Cavalry thundered from both sides, lances splintering in a storm of horse cries and screams. The crash of iron hooves shook the ground, men tumbling beneath trampling beasts.

"Forward! Don’t give them ground!" Gordon shouted again, his sword flashing as he cut down a Sengolio soldier.

But the enemy pressed hard. Sengolio troops fought with a savage ferocity, their blades swung not with fear, but hunger. They drove into Liraeth’s soldiers, who were braver than farmers but less blooded than men who had grown up on war. The line bent.

A figure broke through, a Sengolio True Knight, armor glinting crimson in the haze of dust and blood. He lunged at Gordon, their blades colliding with a crash that sent sparks flying. Gordon gritted his teeth and met him head-on.

But before their duel could settle, another presence surged forward. An enemy True Knight, aura blazing like fire, charged straight toward them.

Gordon’s eyes widened. He could not take two.

Then a shadow streaked across the battlefield. Garrick slammed into the True Knight, his own aura flaring in answer. The clash of their blades rang like thunder, shaking soldiers around them.

"This one is mine!" Garrick roared, forcing his foe back with sheer strength.

The Church’s army swept in from the flank, their five hundred soldiers moving. Their strikes were measured, their shields locked tight. Not overwhelming, but steady, a wall of twilight flame. They pushed into the Sengolio lines, slowing the enemy’s advance.

Even so, Gordon frowned, sweat running down his brow. His eyes darted across the battlefield. His soldiers were faltering, their inexperience showing against Sengolio’s relentless charge.

"Damn it... hold!" he growled.

Then, from behind, came a new roar.

Lumberling’s group struck like a blade through the spine of the enemy. Goblins and kobolds surged forward with savage cries, tearing into Sengolio’s rear ranks. Panic spread as men realized they were being attacked from behind.

Lumberling stood at their front, his spear gleaming, eyes cold.

"Captains, I’ll leave things to you," he ordered without looking back.

"Got it, my Lord!" Gobo2 grinned, his weapon already slick with blood. "It’s my time to shine again!"

The goblin captain bellowed, rallying his kin as they swarmed the enemy flanks.

Lumberling then turned his head toward Skitz.

"Let’s go."

Skitz’s sharp grin widened. "Been waiting for that."

Both moved at once, their steps blurring into bursts of speed. The noise of battle fell away in Lumberling’s ears as his senses locked onto the strongest auras, True Knights in the distance, cutting through men like wheat.

And in the next breath, he and Skitz were gone, streaking through the chaos, hunting the heart of the Sengolio force.

.....

At the very front, Skarn, Vakk, and Takkar led the boar cavalry. Two hundred-pound tusks gleamed, tearing into shield lines as the monstrous boars crashed forward like living battering rams. Enemy spears snapped against their thick hides and armor, men were hurled aside, trampled underfoot as screams split the battlefield. Wherever the boars passed, order collapsed.

Behind them surged the hunter units, led by the ever-grinning Gobo2 and the deadly Gobo1. Arrows hissed through the air, finding gaps in armor with unerring precision.

Hunters darted between enemies, their blades flashing in quick, brutal cuts. One moment they were behind the cavalry, the next they were in the thick of the enemy, laughing as they carved chaos into the Sengolio ranks.

"Don’t fall behind, brothers! Kill them all!" Gobo2 howled, leaping into a cluster of soldiers, his sword cleaving one man in two.

Not far from him, Gobo1’s voice was cold and sharp. "Aim for the commanders. Cut the head, the body dies." His hunters followed his words with eerie precision, striking officers and sergeants, unraveling the enemy’s cohesion.

And then came the elite squads.

Aren, calm and commanding, rode at their front. His voice carried like a blade of ice.

"Forward. Don’t stop until their banners fall."

His squads moved like shadows. Mounted on warhorses, they cut through enemy lines with precision strikes, their movements sharp, disciplined, and merciless. They weren’t a wave, they were a knife, plunging straight into the enemy’s ribs.

Within moments, the Sengolio formation buckled.

Men screamed as the boars tore through the front. Arrows and knives from the hunters fell like a storm, and Aren’s elites finished what the chaos began, executing clean, lethal strikes.

Two hundred ninety-two. That was all. Yet the sight of them on the battlefield was more terrifying than any battalion ten times their size.

Even Garrick and Gordon, locked in their own battles, stole glances at the carnage Lumberling’s army wrought. The tide had shifted.

With the combined push of Liraeth’s two thousand, the Church’s five hundred, and the monsters under Lumberling’s banner, the Sengolio army wavered. What had been a confident charge was now a desperate defense.

Step by step, they were being pushed back.

...

Skitz found his own prey.

A hulking Sengolio Knight came at him with a massive broadsword, each swing carrying brutal weight. But Skitz moved like smoke, his smaller frame slipping through openings with a mocking grin.

"Too slow. If I stood still, maybe you’d have a chance." He chuckled, his short blade carving a shallow cut across the man’s cheek.

"Stand still, you rat!" the Knight roared, swinging hard enough to split the ground.

Skitz ducked under the blow, his laughter sharp and cruel. He was overwhelming his opponent, each exchange pushing the Knight further toward defeat. Soon, very soon, he would finish this and turn his hungry eyes on another battlefield.