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In the king’s city, City of Tusk, in the Kingdom of Wolfheart.
This city, which had been ravaged by the church, had yet to fully recover. From above, the outer city still lay in ruins. Nevertheless, compared to the Broken Tooth Castle that had been completely destroyed by the demonic plague,the outer part of the citylooked much better. At least, therewere not piles of decayinghuman remainsdown the wells and drainage facilities.
Just a few months ago, this place had still beenunder the ruling of the Tusk Family, a branch of the royal family of the Kingdom of Wolfheart. Iron Axe had initially planned to evacuate the towns and villages before he dealt with the nobles. As such, he had not interfered with the relentless battles between the Tusk, Token and Redstone Gates Families immediately. However, the sudden appearance of theRed Mist forced him to adjust his original plan. As the Tusk City was the central citythat connected the south and north of the kingdom, he had to seize it to let the troops retreating from the Kingdom of Everwinter through.
It was a fairly quick and boring battle. Even without the support of the Longsong Cannon, the five temporary units, which totalled 500 soldiers, soon breached the well-fortified Tusk Castle and the Tusk Citywith the mortars and the anti-demon grenades. The local lord, Hilburke, was shot dead when he was supervising his army. The city thus fell even before the nobleslaunched a proper counterattack. The other nobles thus all surrendered,whichofficially ended the dominance ofthe three major families in the Kingdom of Wolfheart.
Asa commander who had been following Roland since the first battle in Border Town, Iron Axe knew the military strength of Neverwinter better than anyone else. Five years ago, they had still been struggling to defeattheLongsongDuke; but now,theFirst Army could flatten any kingdom on this continent on His Majesty’s order.
They had far outstripped those nobles.
However, this did notgive Iron Axeanyself-contentment, nor did it relax his mind.
He understood the unbridgeablegap between the human race and the demons.
As the Red Mist continued to spread, the First Army was forced to constantly retreat from the Kingdom of Everwinterto the Kingdom of Wolfheart. Casualties increased every day. As the armywas not able to build a permanentdefensive line, the units were often caught unprepared by the enemies. Intelligence showed that the demons frequently appeared on the path that the troops had to pass, despite that they had confirmed several times beforehand that the road was clear.
The constant defeats would definitely lower the morale among the soldiers. Iron Axe knew that he should have directed the army to the Cage Mountain and given the troops a good rest. However, His Majesty’s order superseded everything.As the king needed people, he had no choice butto keep advancing despite the surging casualty rate.
There was no other way except fighting back.
They had to punch the demons in their ugly faces! Only in this way could they shake them off and raise the morale.
Iron Axe thus picked the Tusk City as his temporary stronghold.
The demons are putting their guard down,
Brian reported as he looked through the telescope. He had returned from the Southernmost Region to the Sedimentation Bay on Roland’s order with 1,500 Mojin warriors. This was also the first formal Sand Nation army in the history of Graycastle.
They started to put their guard down at the border the Kingdom of Everwinter,
Iron Axe agreed with a nod.
Edith was right. Erecting the Obelisk on the ridge of the continentcan beboth good and bad. Although the ridge is a perfect hiding place, the demons can’t easilymarch down to the south from there.
He could see dark,crimson clouds spread across the sky as hegazed upon the northfrom the watchtower of the castle. The Red Mist had already crossed the border of the Kingdom of Everwinter and the Kingdom of Wolfheart, andwas now pressing slowly toward the Tusk City.
Right below the clouds was Goldwater Town, which had been half enveloped by the Red Mist. Nevertheless, surprisingly, Iron Axe did not see a single Fortified Monstrous Beast. Only very few Devilbeasts were hovering in the sky, as though they had been completely abandoned by their peers.
This would have never happened at the early stage of the war.
After several fruitless fights, the General Staff had formed a basic idea of what the demons were planning on.
The intention of their military operation was, in a way, the same as His Majesty’s, which was totake more populated cities and have the men there serve them. Therefore, the demons were making every effort to stop the First Army from taking refugees away.
To seize men’s territories as fast as they could, the demons normally used the Fortified Monstrous Beast tocircle out a small Red Mistzone to enable their troops move from one area to anotherswiftly like frogs, and then attack the city before the RedMistcompletely spread out.
By the time the demons took most of the cities in the Kingdom of Everwinter, they had advanced significantly slower. This indicated that as their territories expanded, the demons found it increasingly hard to manage the cities they had taken.
It was actually pretty easy to understand why it had happened.
It took time to force men to work and manage encampments. As the territories expanded, the demons’ troops were further scattered. Another key factor was that the demons did not really need to send their main force to attack humans. With sufficient Red Mist, they just needed to dispatch a unit to destroy one unit of the First Army. It was thus totally unncessary to assemble a large army.
Given that, after the demons reached the border of the Kingdom of Everwinter, there were fewer attacks from them. Perhaps, the demons did not necessarily reduce their total force. However, as the Red Mist had expanded significantly and stretchedaway for several hundred kilometers, it was almost impossible to monitor the whole area without increasing the force.
This was exactly what Iron Axe had observed.
Sir, all the ‘supplies’ shipped from Neverwinter have arrived at the Tusk City,
a soldier ran up to the watchtower and reported.
Finally!
Iron Axe exclaimed in excitement as he turned around to face Brian and said,
Let’s go take a look.
They thus walked out of the castle and saw several hundred iron barrels at a clearing in front of the city gate. These barrels wereround, about half as tall as a man, one cubit in width, without asingle crack on the surface.
Sir, what are they?
Brian asked as he studied the barrels up and down, looking utterly confused. They did not look like regular containers since there were no handles. They did not look like weapons either. Numerous battles had told him that fixed explosives were far less powerful than cannons. It was a little too unrealistic to use these barrels to fight the demons off.
Brian pushed the barrels but they did not budge at all. Apparently, these barrels were filled with something. Nobody would like to spend time and effort shipping hundreds of heavy iron barrels to the front unless they were extremely important.
This is His Majesty’s new invention. You were still in the Southernmost Region helping His Majesty expand his territory when they were being tested, so naturally you don’t know,
Iron Axe replied smilingly.
These barrelswill be the key to this battle. If they really work asperfectly as they did in the test, we would then beable to catch the demons offguard even in a mobile warfare!
