Dragon Gods Reign

Chapter 267: Man against beast

[Ouroboros' End]Watching the town’s forces charge straight into the smugglers’ phalanx, Darganth winced in response to the tactics in play. Next to him, Allaire reacted similarly, balling her hands into fists in a mix of frustration and rage over the lives wasted in the maneuver. Because while the soldiers were under the effect of enhancement magic, as they rushed into the dense wall of spears the defending smugglers were pointing their way, the metal tips sank into their flesh just as easily as if they hadn’t been.

However, there still had been a purpose behind this maneuver. Compared to the more flexible shield wall made up of sword-wielding infantry, the cumbersome spears wielded by the phalanx, as well as its general reliance on a strict formation, made it significantly more difficult for high ranking aura users to utilize their superior power. As such, the smugglers were keeping these soldiers in reserve. Thus, while the mana-less soldiers from the town’s armies were skewered as they crashed into the enemy line, the first and second ranks that were mixed into their ranks barreled through the wall of spears.

Seeing both sides devolve into a chaotic brawl, something where the smugglers had the advantage, Darganth shifted his gaze past the enemy front line. Expecting the enemy reserve to already be preparing to join the fray, he was then surprised to find them still holding their positions about two hundred meters behind their first line of battle.

“What are they planning?” Darganth wondered out loud.

Noticing a slight shift in Melidra’s energy signature as she reached out to her army in response, Darganth raised a hand before she could give whatever order she was planning. “Not yet. We’ll first look whether Vagha and his friends can deal with whatever they have planned. Only send in your undead if they lose control of the situation, or something threatens their lives. That way we can keep them guessing whether you and Cehlya are here or on the battlefield by the town itself, hopefully giving you more corpses to work with once you act.”

When Melidra looked at Darganth with a slightly puzzled look in response, Cehlya voiced her support for this, “It’s a simple but proven tactic, trust us on that. Once they know that our side has powerful necromancers, they’ll do everything to burn the corpses.”

“If you two think they’d manage that, sure.” Answering, Melidra still didn’t sound entirely convinced.

“They would. It might take the sacrifice of one or two mythic ranks, but they have over a hundred, so they would.” Darganth said.

Raising an eyebrow in surprise at this assessment, Meldira finally nodded in understanding. Still, Cehlya further added, “We can do better than that.”

By then, Darganth had already summoned a gold colored flare into his palm, the signal he and Vagha had agreed to. With it in hand, he returned his attention to the battlefield, ready to launch the flare skyward the moment the smugglers acted.

However, even as the town’s soldiers pushed more and more into the enemy formation, causing some of the soldiers to route amid the chaos, this didn’t happen. Not only did they not spring some surprise, neither the reserve forces nor the third line of defense and onward moved from where they were, seemingly abandoning their colleagues on the front line.

Seemingly recognizing this too and finding it as suspicious as Darganth did, the officers in the town’s army soon started reining in their own forces. Even as entire sections of the smuggler’s battleline sounded the retreat, many kept their units from pursuing their foes. Still, isolated units and the commanders of some sections of the frontline did the opposite and pushed on, soon causing the town’s formation to be drawn apart, creating gaps and exposing the flanks of many units to flanking maneuvers.

Before this could lead to chaos among their forces, the general overseeing the battle had the signal horn sound the order to hold positions. However, by the time the signal had fully propagated along the wall, both flanks were stretched thin, leaving only the center of the army as a cohesive force.

Into this situation, the smuggler leadership then unleashed their counterattack, though it did not come in the form of a charge from either infantry or cavalry. Instead, about two dozen mana signatures lit up along the width of their formation, something that was only seconds later followed by equally as many portals flashing into existence at these mana signatures.

Soon after, beasts started to emerge from these portals. Trotting through the rifts in space with slow steps, beast after beast stepped out of each portal and strode onto the battlefield without care for what they trampled over. Around the neck of each beast was a metallic collar that vaguely reminded Darganth of the one the ogres used for their subjugated beasts.

However, unlike the ogres, the smugglers weren’t using these as mounts and thus hadn’t selected only comparatively small beasts. Instead, each of the beasts they had sent onto the battlefield towered above the humans around them, with even the smallest standing at five meters shoulder height and over ten meters in body length. Meanwhile, the largest approached adult lesser dragons in size, standing at over twenty-five meters long.

Similarly, Darganth sensed massive differences in the strength of the mana signatures. Whereas the weakest of the beasts had such impotent mana that could’ve mistaken it for merely a second rank if it were not for the characteristic markers in its presence that identified it as a third rank, other beasts made Darganth wonder the opposite and suspect that their handlers had forced them to suppress their advancement to the mythic rank.

Though even without these beasts, the force that had arrayed itself in between the town’s army and the smuggler’s reserves posed a serious danger to the former. From each portal, somewhere between five and fifteen beasts had emerged, leading to over a hundred facing the town’s army. And not only were beasts typically stronger than humans and members of similar humanoid species of the same rank, but the town’s fourth ranks had yet to take to the field so the stronger beasts were practically unopposed.

Thus, when these beasts then set into motion after a signal horn sounded a moment later, Darganth didn’t hesitate. As the massive beasts accelerated and charged at the town’s line, his hand shot upward and pointed skyward before he released the flare that he had conjured into his palm earlier.

Streaking upward, the small golden ball of fire and light created a trail of glowing flames in its path as it rapidly rose for a second or two. By then, the beasts were already mowing through the frantically scattering first wave of the smugglers' forces. The ground shook under the weight of their unified charge, sending soldiers tumbling as the smugglers made panicked attempts to evade their supposed reinforcements.

Then, the flare erupted into a giant ball of golden flames that illuminated the sky. And with it, the battlefield erupted into pure chaos as the forms of no less than fifteen dragons appeared at once, all with strength well into the early stages of the mythic rank. Besides Vagha and the eight other solar dragons from his group, this number included the six dragons that had accompanied them after having demonstrated their potential in the war on Ikrus. Previously, these had been operating from the starweaver under Vorthos and Enillas’ command, but with the ship and those two having reunited with Darganth and his group, so had the dragons.

Having hidden among the common soldiers of the town’s army to act as a sort of vanguard for Darganth and his group, both groups of dragons were now perfectly positioned to counter the charging beasts.

Already moving forward the moment their true form manifested, they collided with the beasts one after another a second later. Surprisingly, it was one of the two fire dragons who reached their chosen target first, more specifically Noiro. Heading straight toward one of the larger beasts on the battlefield, he turned his neck to the side and let his shoulder slam into the feline beast’s open maw. Teeth shattered against his scales as the impact drove the beast’s head back, sending it sprawling to the side while Noiro shifted his attention to the next foe.

Similar scenes played out wherever a dragon had appeared to block the path of the charging beasts. Vagha sliced through the body of a snake-like beast with a single well-placed swing of his claws, Averyla struck another beast down by grabbing its head in her fist and breaking its neck with a twist of her wrist, and Selvi incinerated two of the beasts she was facing with a pillar of fire she conjured under them. Meanwhile, the two solar dragon who Darganth hadn’t been able to reward with a direct power boost during his coronation showed that they had made good use of the boons he had granted since then, with Anthalor easily pushing back one of the largest beasts with one claw and Triast having cleared his vicinity of all three foes that he had faced with one blast of fire magic that incinerated everything ahead of him.

However, even with there being fifteen of them and some of the beasts having stayed close by the others that had emerged from the same portal, dozens of beasts still struck the town’s army. As the charge of their kin broke before the dragons, these beasts cut into the town’s formation. Hundreds of soldiers were sent flying as the massive beasts crashed into them before lashing out with their limbs. Shields, even when wielded by aura users, proved ineffective at stopping these claw swings and bites from even the weaker beasts, while sword strikes only left negligible damage on the beasts, often either being poorly aimed and bouncing off armored body parts or lacking the strength

behind them to leave more than skin-deep wounds.

Even when the occasional third rank tried, they more often than not failed to even slow these beasts down. Dispersed across the scattered formation, they were spread too far apart to group up for a coordinated attack, leaving many to simply abandon the units they were supporting and retreat back toward the wall.

Those that didn’t found themselves largely outmatched by the beasts they were facing, even if their situations weren’t as hopeless as those of the rest of the army. Unlike their lower rank colleagues, third rank aura users managed to keep pace with the blindingly fast movements of the beasts, dodging claw swings and retaliating with strikes that at least cut into the flesh. Where this failed, their endurance at least allowed them to survive direct hits, though the strike and impact from being flung backward left them battered and bloodied afterward.

Some aura users even managed a step further, conjuring an aura avatar around themselves that allowed them to trade blows with the weaker beasts, at least until the damage to their constructs dried out their mana pools and forced them to flee. Meanwhile, the mages were bastions of elemental power amid the chaos that the town’s army had devolved into, with everything from burning to frozen shields protecting them while they launched flashes of elemental magic at every beast within range.

But the most successful ones were those few mages who had a well-coordinated unit and decided to support them. Empowered by enhancement spells and aided by magic barriers, these units formed solid defensive lines that found great success even against the beasts. Even as the charge sent tens of soldiers flying, their colleagues rushed at the beast.

In one such fight, four hastily improvised lances that were carried by two or three men each were also brought to bear against their foe. At the same time, new soldiers filled the gaps in the shield wall, gradually wearing down the beast’s momentum through the sheer numbers it charged through. Once sufficiently slowed, the lances were thrust forward. Striking the beast in the side, they sank deep into its torso.

In response, the beast recoiled and let out a pained roar. Exploiting this momentary distraction, the rest of the unit then launched their counterattack.

At the forefront of this were the few second ranks present. External aura bloomed up around a few individuals scattered amid the rest of the formation, combining with the enhancement spells already affecting them to elevate their physical might enough that they could leap up and land atop the beast in a fraction of a second. Ramming their swords, daggers, or whatever other sharp objects they carried into the spot where they landed, they put their entire strength into it and forced these weapons to slowly carve through the beast's hide.

Soon after, the banner carrier of the unit brought down the might of its magic formations onto the beast. Though it took some time until their effect activated, once it did, it immediately shifted the odds of the fight. Manifesting as clear chains of ice, the spell far surpassed what the mage could’ve conjured on his own, managing to not just hold back the beast but slowly drag it to the ground as it wound around it.

All the time, the beast continued its struggle. Lashing out as much as the chains wound around its body allowed, it landed a few more devastating swings of its claws against the formation. At the same time, it lashed out with its magic by sending acids flying in all directions, with soldiers hit by them melting within seconds.

However, soon the third rank mage supporting this unit finished casting his first offensive spell of the fight. Darkness gathered around his outstretched arm as he did so, briefly lingering there before a swift motion from the mage caused over a dozen pitch-black spikes barely wider than a finger to extend from his palm and skewer the beast. A twist of his wrist then caused barbs to form all along these, immediately followed by the spikes receding back into his hand. In the process, they ripped open the clean puncture wounds their entry had caused, dragging bone fragments and parts of organs along with them and pulling them out of the beast's body.

With this, the creature's ability to resist crumbled, allowing the chains to finally drag it to the ground. Within seconds, its entire body was swarmed by the soldiers of the unit, hacking and stabbing at whatever spots in their reach they believed to be the least robust. Simultaneously, the second ranks that had climbed its body stopped simply attacking its body and walked toward its head.

Once there, one of the third orders among them gathered his aura around his weapon before thrusting it toward the beast's eye. From its tip, a concentrated aura projectile erupted, ending the beast's suffering with a swift death as it pierced the eye and struck the brain.

Only as the final muscle spasms ended a few seconds after this did the soldiers slowly stop their attacks, though none celebrated. Even with a third rank mage as support, this attack by a single third rank beast had left almost half of their around a hundred-man-strong unit dead or wounded. Not just that, their banner bearer and all of their mages, including the third rank one, had burned through significant portions of their mana pool to allow this victory, leaving them woefully unprepared to endure a second such fight.

But with enemy beasts still raging all around them, this danger certainly existed. While quite a few more had fallen to Vagha or one of the other dragons, around twenty still tore through their allies.

Still, despite the danger still persisting for individual units, this phase of the battle was overall a victory for the town’s forces, even if a costly one. But with many parts of the formation still battle-worthy and fifteen dragons to supplement those that weren’t, the army currently on the field still stood quite a good chance at winning against the smugglers' reserves.

As such, the latter’s leadership was forced to make a decision. Either they let the battle proceed and risk losing even more troops if the town’s forces push onward, or they sent in their mythic ranks to stop the advance but risk them having to fight enemy mythic ranks under the effect of the enemy army’s magic formation.

Exactly this was the moment Darganth and his group had been waiting for. Guessing their foes had recognized the same dilemma they were seeing, they prepared themselves to step in the moment they saw an enemy mythic rank move toward the frontline.

But to Darganth’s disappointment, there was no sign of such a movement even as the last beast fell a few minutes later. Slowly, the town’s army reformed and regrouped, gathering in a cohesive battleline once more, though one far thinner due to the casualties the fighting had caused. The dragons were circling above this movement, keeping an eye on the enemy reserve force as they flew up and down parts of the town’s formation.

However, this inaction from their enemies didn’t last long. After having stared down the town’s army from just outside the arrow range the former had demonstrated during the earlier fighting, the smugglers' reserve force suddenly started backing away from the fight.

“So we get a turn in the fighting after all.” Scalladra said with a grin as they watched this.

“Hopefully. Might also just be them pulling back to a better position.” Darganth said.

“Don’t give fate any stupid ideas.” Scalladras said in response. From his tone, Darganth guessed that he agreed that it was a possibility and that he didn’t like it.

Still, as they minute after minute passed with them watching the battlefield, this possibility stayed in their minds. Not just that, but also the question of whether the general would pull the army back or bet on having the advantage in a clash between mythic ranks. Because without the army there, the smuggler would’ve, at least for the moment, accomplished their goal of preventing the town’s forces from establishing a secure hold over the area before the wall.

After all, with how valuable mythic ranks were in an army, no leader would send them out if there wasn’t a purpose behind it. And while just drawing out the enemy mythic ranks could also qualify as a purpose that was strategically valuable enough, Darganth was significantly more confident that the smugglers would send mythic ranks to ensure that the town’s forces could entrench themselves on the conquered fields. Thus, he found himself smiling when the general had the signal horns sound the command to do just that.

With it, the movement they were waiting for from the enemy mythic ranks also came. Though the effect was minuscule from such a distance, the magical energy radiating from the figures hovering above the smuggler camps shifted enough for any mythic ranks focusing on it to notice them getting ready to join the fight.

Darganth and Yldra simultaneously turned to the other in response, exchanging a quick nod before both let their own mana flare as they gathered spatial magic into their hands. Pausing for a few seconds, they waited as a portion of the smugglers' mythic ranks shot forward, with those on the town's side then responding in the same way. Only when the first mythic ranks were just about to reach the battlefield did both let their spell manifest, opening four portals just ahead of the group.

Dashing forward immediately after, Darganth passed through the same portal as Serania, landing in the middle of the battlefield with her at his side.