Chapter 453 - 426: A Smooth Takedown

A fifty-man cavalry contingent from Ferrensburg arrived outside Moonlight City.

It was led by Meteor Knight Horasan Hodden, accompanied by one Golden Knight, three Silver Knights, and eight Bronze Knights. The remaining thirty-seven men were all intermediate or Advanced Level Knights.

Ference hadn’t sent these men to the front lines, dispatching them to Jesus instead, which clearly showed his determination to sow chaos.

"Haha, Sir Horasan! It’s been a long time!"

Jesus stepped out of the city to welcome him, greeting him with a warm embrace.

Horasan was a man past sixty, a native of the Gregor Plain. He had never been to the Royal Capital, so almost no one here knew him.

Jesus had only met him once before during a visit to Ferrensburg.

"Your Excellency, it’s been a long time!"

Horasan knew the purpose of his visit, but he was unaware of Jesus’s true situation, a detail Duke Ference had failed to mention.

He was a direct, goal-oriented man, so he got straight to the point.

"I heard your town was attacked by Wushan Territory. Has the fighting already begun?"

As Jesus led the men into the city, he gave an exaggerated account of Ronin’s arrogance and imperiousness. The long and short of it was that Wushan Territory needed to be put in its place, or they would completely disregard the Royal Family.

As the two conferred, Horasan completely failed to notice the black-robed man standing atop the city wall, the Witch Soul Pearl in his hand emitting an inky radiance.

’Excellent material. Thanks, Ference.’

...

At three o’clock the next morning, Elron cast several wide-area Vitality Skills. The well-fed and well-rested soldiers were left without a trace of fatigue; the spell also purged their hearts of any despair or pessimism about the war, leaving them incredibly invigorated.

Afterward, the Wushan Territory army split into two columns, heading straight for Nasca Town and Pisa Town along the main road of the plain.

The cavalry moved quickly, but the infantry and archers marched at a slower pace.

Fortunately, they weren’t carrying many supplies or pieces of equipment, which lightened their burden and allowed them to move faster.

Fortunately, the distance from the camp to the town wasn’t great. By force-marching, aided by several Vitality Skills from Elron along the way, Ronin and his men reached a patch of forest land about two miles from Nasca Town before nine o’clock.

Ronin used the Wind of Inquiry and was surprised to find no Witch Soul Knight patrols in the vicinity. That would save them some trouble.

He had his men eat their fill and rest briefly before they would cross the two-mile distance and storm the town in a single, decisive push.

Meanwhile, because the southern route was shorter, Ridder’s column had already arrived outside Pisa Town.

It was only a small town, with nothing but a low Earth Wall at its entrance that obviously offered little in the way of defense.

The Witch Soul Knights guarding Pisa Town realized an enemy had arrived. They immediately sounded the Horn, gathering everyone to meet the threat and swarming toward the town entrance.

"Sophia, you’re up," said Ridder.

Sophia grunted in acknowledgment and immediately unleashed Flame God’s Roar.

After a tremor that shook the very ground, the first wave of charging Witch Soul Knights was blasted to dust.

Just like last time, she again summoned Water and Fire Elements, leaving the enemy completely stunned.

At this sight, the less-experienced Knights felt their throats go dry.

’Mages are just absurdly powerful!’

Marvin thought back to that enormous Flame; if he had been on the receiving end, he too would have been blasted to cinders.

"Archers, attack!"

Ridder commanded in a loud voice.

Snapping out of their shock, the Archers quickly drew their bows and fired. A dense volley of arrows flew out, disrupting the enemy formation.

However, this level of damage was negligible to the Witch Soul Race. With their unique Constitution, they wouldn’t die even if pierced by arrows.

Just then, the enemy reacted, and a squad of archers fired back at them.

Sophia cast a Master-Level Clear Wind Skill. A powerful gust of wind swept through, throwing most of the enemy’s arrows off course.

Only a few Magic Energy Arrows still streaked toward them.

Ridder drew his Longsword. A flash of Sword Aura sliced the Arrows out of the air. "Everyone, charge!"

He bent his knees, then powerfully kicked off the ground.

The ground exploded in that instant as Ridder shot forward like a cannonball, covering two hundred meters in the blink of an eye.

His Fighting Qi surged, and the razor-sharp Sword Qi emanating from him sliced apart any enemy who rushed him before their blades could even meet.

"Charge!"

At that, Anilu and the others charged forward.

The cavalry began their slaughter, followed by the infantry, the militia, and even the archers, who had put away their bows and drawn their swords to join the harvest.

Despite facing seventy to eighty thousand Witch Soul Knights and Witch Soul Soldiers, the battle was completely one-sided.

Riding her Magic Flying Carpet, Sophia watched the battle from above, her eyes fixed on Ridder.

’As expected of the former Expeditionary Army Commander-in-Chief who slew the Shadow Lord. Ridder seems a bit stronger than Ronin, especially in his response to being surrounded—his actions are far more clean and decisive.’

Her feeling was, in fact, correct.

Before his one-man-stand against ten thousand at Tars Town, Ronin’s combat prowess had been somewhat inferior to Ridder’s. Now, however, any gap between them was much smaller.

With Ridder, a Proud Sun Knight, leading the charge into Pisa Town, the Witch Soul Knights’ resistance was torn apart like flimsy paper. The battle drew to a close not long after it began.

Meanwhile, at Nasca Town, the battle involving Ronin and his men had also commenced.

He adopted essentially the same battle strategy as Ridder: an initial wave of Magic, followed by archers to break the enemy’s formation, and then a charge by the Knights...

The three Meteor Knights had no means to resist and were quickly dispatched on the battlefield under the combined assault of Ronin and Harmon.

This battle also went exceptionally smoothly, ending in less than forty minutes. There was still about an hour left until noon.

When Ronin and Sophia had razed Tars Town, it had taken them much longer.

It was true what they said: there is strength in numbers.

Harmon surveyed the battlefield and chuckled. "There’s one benefit to fighting the Witch Soul Race: you don’t have to clean up the battlefield much."

They’ve all turned to dust. There’s nothing left to sweep.

However, while there were no Witch Soul Race corpses, there were bodies of their own men.

Though the battle went smoothly, casualties were unavoidable.

By Ronin’s rough estimate, the number of Knights and soldiers killed by the Witch Soul Knights was at least in the double digits.

Fortunately, with Elron present, any injury that wasn’t instantly fatal could be treated, which lowered the mortality rate to some degree.

Ronin leaped onto a rooftop and shouted, "All uninjured men, conduct a sweep of the entire town! Kill every member of the Alien Race and take all surviving humans captive. No indiscriminate killing!"

And just like that, the two towns were effortlessly conquered by Ronin and his forces.

At that moment, inside Moonlight Castle, Mephisto’s expression was thunderous.

"Damned Wushan Territory!"

He had planned to launch an offensive once the men from Ferrensburg arrived, but he never expected the enemy to beat him to it.

He could clearly perceive from the information transmitted by the Witch Soul Pearl that his forces deployed in Nasca Town and Pisa Town had been annihilated.

’All that Power of the Soul, wasted!’

’A single Marquis’ Domain... splitting its forces to attack two places at once and winning so quickly? How can they possibly be this strong?’

Forewarned by the disaster at Tars Town, Mephisto had not only pulled back his defensive lines but also strengthened his troop deployment and overall power.

And yet, they had been defeated even faster than last time. He found it both unimaginable and unacceptable.

’Ronin, Lurans, Sophia... they must have other powerful Knights or Mages that I don’t know about!’

Mephisto frowned. What he found even more unthinkable was that Wushan Territory had actually dared to openly invade Jesus’s domain.

’I wonder how the Royal Family will react to this news?’

A sinister glint flashed in his eyes. ’No matter what the Royal Family does, Wushan Territory’s main army is here. That means their other holdings must be vulnerable. It’s time for my own forces to attack!’

Mephisto suddenly broke into laughter, as if losing the forces of two towns meant nothing to him at all.

’Finally, things are starting to get chaotic!’