Good thing I sensed that Crypt Fiend leader's mana surge.
Rhode thought.
He had devised this plan to lure the enemy out.
They would wipe out the enemy patrols, draw out the Crypt Fiends' main force, and destroy them all here in one stroke.
The advantage was that they would not have to scout out the location of the enemy outpost or pay a heavy price to assault it.
That was why the hillside position had been manned by only a hundred or so members of the Musket Corps and a few Bronze Mortars.
What Rhode had not expected was that these Crypt Fiends could burrow underground!
Had he not carefully detected the threadlike traces of mana drifting through the air, located the enemy leader directing them, and followed those traces to the Crypt Fiends underground, those burrow spikes would certainly have erupted inside their position.
The thought of them wreaking havoc among the humans while the Scourge swept in to slaughter everyone sent a lingering chill through him.
Rhode composed himself, then turned his attention to the Scourge soldiers charging below the hillside.
They had already reached the foot of the slope, barely a hundred or two hundred meters from the trenches.
But their once-dense charging formation had grown sparse. At a glance, there seemed to be no more than two hundred Scourge soldiers left alive.
They no longer even had an advantage in numbers.
More importantly, under the fire of the human musket users and artillery crews, they had completely lost their command structure and were merely following the main force forward in a mindless rush.
Their formation was about to collapse.
Rhode thrust both hands forward, sending a Great Fireball hurtling toward the largest Crypt Fiend at the very front.
This Crypt Fiend appeared to be a