Chapter 807

The Holy War Army suffered a crushing defeat on the Sokaro Plain.

If they had merely been beaten into retreat, that would have been bearable. But this was no ordinary defeat—the seventy thousand soldiers committed to battle had been almost completely wiped out.

To commit every ounce of strength to the battle, the Holy War Army had narrowed the area they guarded around the battlefield. As a result, they failed to notice that, besides deploying troops directly in front, the Gabellans had also sent forces to the army's left, right, and rear, leaving the collapsing enemy with nowhere to flee. The Battle of Sokaro had been a trap from the very beginning, and the Gabellans had made such arrangements because they were absolutely certain of victory.

The Gabella Empire—or, more precisely, the Secret Art Society—had been plotting a war with the Holy See for a very long time. Through both open and covert channels, the Secret Art Society had never stopped gathering and studying information about the Holy See's armed forces. They knew the Holy War Army's organization, fighting methods, and even the personal temperaments of its commanders like the backs of their hands.

They had conducted especially thorough research on the Holy See's greatest trump card—the War Elephant Legion.

In the early days, standardized magical weapons that could be deployed on a large scale in battle, such as fire crossbows and Thunder Hammers, had not yet been invented. Mages possessed a bewildering variety of abilities, with wildly differing levels of skill, making it difficult for them to fight collectively as an army. Lacking the means to confront the elephants head-on, the Secret Art Society had once been deeply wary of these Giant Beasts.

They had determined that if they fought on Holy See territory, or even in the imperial