Chương 48: At Death's Door (II)

"Tch! I left them back at the camp. Those bastards had been following me." Drazel spat on the ground, only now beginning to grow truly irritated.

"So you're planning to cut off our escape? Is that why they're heading back toward the cavern? To attack our rear when we least expect it? Who do you take me for? I'll detach ten thousand soldiers to turn around and face yours while my twenty thousand destroy your allies. Do you really think your chances improved just because you reduced my numerical advantage? I still have thirty thousand demons under my command, while you have only ten thousand! The rest are scum!"

"You were never a strategist like our father, Drazel. If you had been, the first thing you would have learned is not to get overconfident."

"Our father was weak! That's why the demon kingdom fell!... And you are following right in his footsteps."

"... There is no point in arguing with you any longer." Drazira let out a tired sigh.

"In any case, you have nothing to worry about. My new lord indulged my whim, so the demons will not fight their own brethren. My troops only withdrew from the battlefield so they would not get in the way."

"So they withdrew just to keep out of the way? Are you an idiot?" Drazel let out another booming laugh.

"And this lord of yours? Is he the one who summoned that undead army? Are you a necromancer's slave now?"

"I will not allow any more blasphemy from you, Drazel!"

"Attack!"?! Drazira had raised her arm, ready to give the order to advance. But Sae beat her to it, shouting furiously beside her.

"Leave no one standing!... Except those who surrender! They can stay standing!" But, in the end, she was still Sae.!!

"Ugh!" Drazel groaned.

"What is this?" Just as the troops on both sides began their attack, an overwhelming pressure descended over the battlefield. The demons who had taken to the air to attack from above had no choice but to return to solid ground. Only Drazel had enough strength to remain airborne.

"I told you not to get overconfident, Drazel," Drazira declared.

"Especially not against the proud race of the visiare," Sae added beside her. The space above the battlefield had become extremely dense, making flight difficult. It was the result of the visiare's spatial magic combined with Avelle's authority as the goddess of that land.

"Ha! Do you think you'll accomplish anything by forcing my army to fight on the ground with your strange magic? Not only are you weak, even your strategies are too simple!" Drazel raised his arm toward the skeletal warriors.

"Men! The enemy's weak point is the center! Those skeletons are only padding out their numbers while they wait for their flanks to prevail!" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. A grin spread across the demon's face from ear to ear, then twisted into another warped, mocking sneer.

"Of course, the spirits on one flank and those blue-haired creatures on the other wouldn't accomplish anything anyway," Drazel jeered, covering his mouth with his sharp claws.

"But I won't even give you the satisfaction of trying, sister." Following the demon's orders, his army concentrated its assault on the center of the battlefield. The clash was fierce, and although both the visiare and the forest spirits, supported by the Elderbark, did everything they could, the center of the army began to give ground under the demons' relentless advance.

Drazel was delighting in it, not because of how the battle itself was unfolding, but because he was watching Drazira's face, waiting for horror and despair to appear. It was not as if he had always despised his sister. She had been their father's favorite, the true heir according to some, but Drazel could not have cared less about that. What he loved was seeing those who stood in his way crushed. And now the moment of her end was drawing near. Or so he thought.

Neither Drazira's face nor Sae's beside her showed even a hint of concern. They were simply watching the battle unfold with serious expressions.!!

"Wait..." That was when Drazel noticed something. His army had advanced too far into the enemy lines. The skeletons had not been retreating because they were being overwhelmed. It had been an orderly retreat, a planned one. Not only that. From the very beginning, the enemy ranks had been spread into a line that was far too wide and lacked depth. That was how fifteen thousand soldiers had been able to hold against his twenty thousand. Now, those same fifteen thousand had almost completely surrounded them.

"Quickly! Fall back before they complete the encirclement!" Drazel shouted at the top of his lungs as he flew over his army, making sure his generals heard him and turned their forces around.!! But it was already too late. Drazel had said Drazira's allies did not even come close to half his forces. There was a reason for that. Behind the demon army, another army emerged. But it was not the demons who had withdrawn from the battlefield. Up until now, Nerez's army had only five thousand skeletons in it.

It was the other five thousand, which rose from the earth, that completed the circle around the demons. For any army, that alone was a death sentence, if only because of the blow to morale. Not only that, the skeletal soldiers were now fighting in an entirely different way. The power they displayed now was incomparable. Until then, they had been ordered to fall back. Now, the order was to attack.

"What kind of skeletons are those... and there are ten thousand of them... What necromancer could summon a force like this?!" As if being surrounded by enemies were not bad enough, the crowded demon soldiers were getting in one another's way and could do little more than fall like flies before their enemies' attacks.

"Hannibal's strategy at the Battle of Cannae." Nerez's voice came from behind Sae and Drazira as he walked toward them.

"I've used it plenty of times, but with skeletons that can appear wherever I want, it's never been this easy to pull off." Drazel's expression twisted with fury as he watched his forces being annihilated without being able to offer any real resistance.

"This isn't over... Soldiers! The time has come to show your true power!"!!

"Drazel! Don't you dare!" Drazira watched as her brother took out a gemstone glowing with a somber purple light. Many of the soldiers did the same. They were netherites, stones that stored souls.

"Sister, you should know that in the beginning, demons collected souls. It was our father who forbade that custom, weakening us beyond repair."

"It was because of acts like that that our world was doomed!" Drazira exclaimed, seeing so many of her own kind about to repeat the mistakes of the past.

"Watch, sister! Watch the power our father denied our race!" Drazel brought the netherite closer to himself, ready to absorb all the power of the souls he had accumulated.!! But all at once, every stone in the demons' hands went dark. No trace remained of the somber purple light they had been emitting.

"What... what is happening? What just happened?!" Drazel exclaimed, the color draining from his face.