Standing there, in the middle of thousands of corpses and thousands of wounded, Groatian looked at the scene with complex eyes and frightening coldness.
His rage was such that it could not be described with words.
The explosion of the pearls of affinity that Bararde had hidden in the Golems had taken with them half of his men to their graves. As for the other half, the injured could not be counted with the fingers of the hands, even if each finger represented the number one hundred!
In the blink of an eye, his army, which had about two hundred thousand soldiers, suddenly became an army with barely ninety thousand soldiers able to fight.
His decision was similar to that of a general who opened his doors for guests to bomb them.
He felt so bitter in his soul that he could not help but constantly spit blood, even though these wounds were superficial.
"My general, we count among our men about a hundred thousand dead, according to the current figure. There are still wounded who cannot be treated without the assistance of experienced healers. As for the others--
"Short the suffering of those in agony, as for those who have superficial wounds or missing limbs; heal them and stop their bleedings, we will continue to walk towards the indicated destination." He retorted between his tight teeth and bloody lips even before his subordinate finished his report.
"B-but, general, with all due respect, we are not in a position to fight! In addition to our deficient number, the wounded, the mental pressures of your troops, and the morals of the troops are at their lowest. I fear that we can win any battle in this state. Retirement is the only and best option we have left!" He stammered these words when he saw his general, usually calm and wise, make such a decision.
"Little shit! Do you think I don't know all this?! Think for a second, if we return empty-handed to his majesty, and with such failure and such loss of demons on our slate, what do you think his majesty will do? He would execute us all as a traitor!
-Our only option is to find the second general and his squad to strengthen our ranks and accomplish, at all costs, the mission that his majesty had given us; this is the only way to wash our slate and hope to live one more day! Do you understand the issue now?!"
He spits out these words, lifting his subordinate on the tip of his foot by his neck that he had firmly grasped!
-Urgkuh!
Seeing the white drooling come out of his mouth, he released his neck and took several breaths, and exhaled to calm down.
After three seconds, he regained his previous calm.
"Execute my orders; as long as we are alive, no matter how small, we will always have a chance to reverse the situation!" He coldly whispered.
"At your command, my general!" The subordinate staggered back and knelt in front of him.
"Thank you for your clemency despite my insolence in questioning your orders, my general." He then continued.
"No time for that; by killing you here, I would only offer an extra chance to our enemies." He replied coldly, sitting on the ground to meditate.
But at the same time, footsteps resounded from afar. And according to their resonances, Groatian could say that they were at least hundreds or even thousands of men who approached them.
"Tsk, obviously it's the right time to attack us!" He replied with a stupid smile.
"This is our defeat, Huh. Regardless of their methods, a strategy remains a strategy, only victory counts.' He said to Himself, looking from afar with dismaying eyes that no longer had any hope.
But the next moment, his eyes lit up with a glimmer of vivacity, realizing that the guests in question were not enemies but rather the squad of the second general, of which were two left, guided by none other than their general!
"First general?!" The eyes of the second general were no different from those of the first as soon as he also noticed the troops he had sought so much throughout the forest.
But the next moment, the two sadly sighed when they saw the condition of the other.
Their mutual hopes collapsed the second they realized that the condition of one was not better than that of the other.
"According to the pitiful state of your area, I suppose you experienced the same hell as us?" The second general murmured after reaching the position of the first demonic general.
"... How much do your men count at the moment?" As usual, Groatian wasted no time giving an already clear answer.
As usual, he went to the essentials.
"Sigh, I currently have about 80 thousand soldiers able to fight and 10 thousand wounded who barely breathe." The second general explained briefly.
"... It's good that you were able to save as many. With my 90 thousand subordinates able to fight, it makes us about 170 thousand soldiers; it's feasible!" He murmured to himself.
"...The problem remains the long white-haired succubus that activates the traps of this forest. We have to get rid of her as a first real threat!"
"Hm? A girl? Are you sure that it's not a human man who commands the Golems?"
"How can I forget this bitch's face?! She presented herself as Fyora, and her gravitational formations are the most frightening that caused us such losses; I swear to kill her with my own hands with my skill of a thousand poisons!"
Upon hearing the statements of the other general, and the expressions of his subordinates, Groatian came to a single conclusion. But to confirm his suspicions, he asked for a question that worried him the most.
"As for this girl, have you met other enemies?" He asked, frowning.
"No, we thought you were facing enemy troops. That's why I did everything I could to come here. But I would never have thought that...
Hearing half of the explanations of the second general, Groatian no longer listened to the remains, already guessing the rest of his thoughts.
-So, in other words, only two people could cause us so many losses?! What a humiliation! We would become the laughingstock of the entire demonic community if this information were ever leaked. But it is not futile thoughts that should worry my mind.
-Normally, this is the ideal time to attack us. But they don't; maybe the bulk of their armies are already exploring the tomb of this former divine king, and they have let these two arrays masters occupy us for the time they finish their explorations to come and take care of us afterward? Or maybe...that they organize themselves to come--!
-One second, this situation is too strange; why are we all suddenly meeting together in the same place?! It's too much to be the result of chance! These bastards still didn't consider all this in their strategies, did they?'
The more he thought, the more his face turned pale to the point that it was noticed by the second general who explained until now.
"Ehu...are you all right, first general?" He asked, waving his hand in front of Groatian's fixed expression.
"Second general, how did you locate us?!" He asked, clinging to the shoulders of the second general, who was surprised.
"Huh? Why did you suddenly become so--
"Please answer my question without wasting a single second more!"
"?! Hemm, we just ran here to avoid the traps that started automatically. Now that I think about it, it's too strange; the traps weren't really--
Before the second general finished his sentence, Groatian closed his eyes and extended his magical perception to inspect the surroundings.
"!!!" The second after, his eyes shone with a bloodthirsty glow!
"Everyone, form the ranks! We are half surrounded!" He yelled instantly, waking everyone up in their short moments of peace!
"Half surrounded? What do you mean by--!!
Before the second general finishes his sentence, his whole body cools down, feeling the familiar look that icy his veins.
When he looked up, he crossed the golden pupils of Fyora, who hovered in the air, beating her succubus wings a few times, making her long hair silvery, like white canvases drawn on a red background slightly tinted with blood because of the blood mist around the areas.
"It-It's her! The vicious bitch!" The second general unconsciously stammered these words, pointing the finger at Fyora; as if he had crossed the reaper's gaze!
Following the fly trajectory of the latter, who had just landed seven hundred meters from them, Groatian and the others gulped with nervousness, noticing the masked army with a piece of dark textile!
Even if their numbers were not impressive, with only about two hundred and fifty thousand divine soldiers, their numbers were still higher than those of their enemies.
But even worse, the confident and vigorous aura that emanated from them was anything but ordinary, and this presence alone was more than enough to flatten the morals of the enemy troops and make them tremble with fear in front of them.
" Delta squad, light the feathers of the left wing!" She then thundered while being bathed in her divine and chaotic aura that disturbed the flows of the surrounding manas!
"HOOO!!!"
Simultaneously, General Myulan's Delta Squad shouted together, splashing the divine auras of their bodies, which merged before creating a substantial golden bird's wing that extended more than two kilometers!
"?!?"
As if their astonishment was not enough, Fyora's imposing tone rumbled again!
"Gamma Squad, light the feathers of the right wing!"
"HOOO!!!"
At the same time, the same phenomenon was repeated with the men of General Barade!
Seeing that the situation was worse than he had ever been, Groatian bit his lower lip until the latter bleed from his rage and indignation!
His bloody divine aura then also splashed off his body!
"Listen to me all! I have only one thing to tell you; this battle is no longer a battle for glory nor for wealth, but a battle of revenge! We could, no, we have an obligation to avenge our comrades and brothers in arms who have been victims of the vicious and shameless strategies and techniques of these sons of bitches who stand in front of us! That's an unexpected opportunity we could never dream of having in the past or the future, But now we have this opportunity! Let's fight for our brothers, for their revenge, but above all, LET'S FIGHT FOR OUR OWN SURVIVAL!!"
-HOOO!!!"
With Groatian's motivations, the demonic troops saw their morals loaded by the latter's words, which were also imbued with all his thirst for blood!
[The general's heartbeat!]
It is a leadership skill that generals and squad leaders use to connect with their troops and lead them harmoniously!
Instantly, Groatian did not need to order anything; his troops second general's unconsciously adopted an offensive formation that showed the halo of a giant golden gorilla!
"Fufu~, a four-star general, Huh? If you had not suffered so much damage, the result of this battle would probably be uncertain, but at the moment, you are destined to be defeated by us!" Fyora murmured these words when she saw Groatian form his field of war rather than her.
But she didn't panic because unlike Groatian's divine field of war, which only asked for the help of a four-star general, "the crane wings" was the formation of a divine field of war that asked for the assistance of a five-star general, hence the reason for the time it took her to activate it, since she was only a three-star general, like the other two generals beside her.
"And now, dear members of my squad, it's time to complete the creation of the divine royal crane!
-GIVE THIS FUCKING BIRD SHINE IN ALL ITS SPLENDOR!"