"What's going on? Why did the enemy catch up so quickly?"
The moment the words left his mouth, the Centipede King realized he had misspoken.
The four Venerables who had retreated from the battlefield, along with Marshal Howell, who had just awakened from unconsciousness, all showed displeasure in their eyes.
The battle had indeed collapsed a tiny bit too quickly, but they had done their best!
Other than refusing to stay behind and fight to the death, they had done everything they could.
When infantry encountered cavalry on the march—especially extraordinary cavalry—defeat was almost inevitable.
Let alone three understrength legions that had fought bitterly through the night, even ten main-force legions could only have struggled a little longer in that situation.
That question ignored reality, erased all their efforts, and even pinned the blame for incompetence on them.
"Your Majesty, now is not the time to assign blame.
The enemy is coming fiercely, and they are all cavalry. The rear guard probably will not be able to hold them off for long.
Our top priority is to prepare for battle at once. Otherwise, the consequences will be endless!"
Seeing that the atmosphere was wrong, Chancellor Javath hurriedly changed the subject.
External enemies were troublesome enough. If internal conflict broke out as well, the situation would collapse completely.
This was not the Underworld. After internal strife, they could not simply recuperate and rebuild. If they suffered heavy losses now, they might not even have a chance to return to the Underworld.
In fact, the conservatives within the tribe had long proposed abandoning the Surface World and retreating to the Underworld to restore their strength.
The greatest obstacle to putting that plan into action had not been opposition from the hawks, but the fact that they did not control an Underworld passage.