Demonic Dragon Summoning Technique
After wave upon wave of attacks, the number of Tuwu People still standing inside the encirclement dwindled visibly.
Wails became the dominant sound on the battlefield.
"Aim before you shoot!"
Maddox could not help scolding them.
The enemy had been surrounded, yet nine out of ten arrows still went astray. Such a low hit rate clearly did not satisfy him.
If the enemy had also been cavalry and both sides had drawn up formations to exchange arrows on the grassland, such poor accuracy would have put them at a severe disadvantage.
He was dissatisfied, but the surrounded Tuwu People were even more so.
They organized several counterattacks, only for large numbers to be killed or wounded before they could reach the cavalry.
Mounted archers became more accurate at shorter ranges. For a group of weakened infantry to try to break out of a cavalry encirclement was an impossible task to begin with.
"Get close, seize their horses, and break through!"
Moriarty roared with all his strength.
With the battle at this point, there was no longer any chance of turning defeat into victory. All they could do now was run, and hope as many as possible escaped.
An ominous feeling welled up in him. His instincts told him something must have happened to the Goshawk Tribe, or the enemy cavalry would not have been able to ride freely here.
If the enemy could wipe out the Goshawk Tribe, they would not spare the Cors Tribe, which had been left defenseless.
Panic threw him off, and his movements inevitably faltered.
After knocking five arrows aside in succession, the distracted Moriarty was struck in the left leg by an arrow.
"Ah!"
The pain drew a scream from him. Seeing their chieftain wounded, the already demoralized troops became even less willing to fight.
If the enemy had offered to accept their surrender, most of the Tuwu People would have laid down their weapons then and there.
Unfortunately, that was destined to remain wishful thinking.
From beginning to end, the cavalry battalion showed no intention of accepting a surrender.
The Third Supplementary Army's circumstances simply did not allow it to take prisoners.
"Kill!"
Moriarty roared, forcing himself to endure the pain.
A denser rain of arrows answered him. In the blink of an eye, two more arrows struck him, and blood slowly flowed from his wounds.
His will had not faded, but his weakened body gave out first.
After charging another twenty-odd paces, he collapsed in a pool of blood.
The surviving Tuwu soldiers seemed spurred on, each charging desperately.
But it was all in vain. The cavalry gave them no chance to get close, maintaining a distance of dozens of paces between them.
Time ticked by, and the fall of the last Tuwu soldier marked the end of the hunt.
"Put a spear through every Tuwu on the ground, then collect the spoils!"
Seeing the soldiers preparing to collect the spoils, Maddox hurriedly gave the order.
On the battlefield, people would stop at nothing to stay alive.
The Tuwu People might have been warlike, but they were still made of flesh and blood.
It was only natural that some would be afraid and choose to play dead.
If they were careless and got ambushed by those fellows, that would be a rotten way to go.
Dragon Spine Pass.
Days of fierce fighting had left the great northern fortress in a precarious state.
The magic crystal cannons, on which so much hope had been placed, had suffered four barrel bursts and five breakdowns on the first day of battle. By the third day, they had been forced out of action.
Having lost their suppressive firepower, the defenders could only resort to traditional methods of defense, dropping stones, rolling logs, and pouring boiling excrement down on the attackers.
The archers were their last source of ranged firepower, but the enemy had come prepared, advancing behind wooden boards and cowhide shields that greatly reduced the arrows' lethality.
"The enemy is setting up an altar! Have the mage corps act at once and interrupt their spell!"
Duke Alvin urged them on in a panic.
Although he had been relieved of his military post, his noble honor would not permit him to desert, so he had brought his private troops to join the defense.
"Your Grace, the mage corps is in the imperial capital. The mage corps we assembled at short notice is recovering its magic power."
Governor Steele offered the gentle reminder.
Compared with knights, mages were far rarer.
They were all children of nobles, and relatively wealthy nobles at that. Otherwise, they could not afford the expense of raising a mage.
All the mages in the Holy Glory Empire combined numbered only twenty or thirty thousand, most of them low-tier mages.
First- and second-tier mages had limited destructive power and were not enlisted in the army at all. The mage corps recruited only mages of the third tier or above.
The Northern Frontier Corps had previously possessed a unit of eight hundred mages, but they had been lost on the battlefield.
To hold Dragon Spine Pass, he had conscripted every mage in the province.
This force, composed mostly of low-tier mages, relied on powering magic arrays to kill the enemy, making it the equivalent of a single-use weapon of mass destruction.
After each spell, they had to stop and recover their magic power.
"What do we do now, then?"
"The anti-magic domain at Dragon Spine Pass was a shoddy piece of work. It stopped just one enemy attack before it ceased to function.
"If they attack again, we can only rely on the walls to withstand it..."
Duke Alvin swallowed the rest of his words.
He was no longer the commander of the northern frontier. Lieutenant General Griffin was now in charge of defending Dragon Spine Pass, and Alvin had no authority to keep issuing orders.
He could stand in the command post only because the others showed him respect. Without it, he was nobody.
"Pass down the order. Have the reserves ready.
"The moment a breach appears in the wall, plug it immediately with all our strength!"
Lieutenant General Griffin gave the order through gritted teeth.
In all his many years, he had never hated corruption as much as he did now.
More than ninety percent of the weapons and equipment in storage were substandard.
Not one of the thirty-odd magic crystal cannons was truly up to standard; the only difference was how bad each one was.
Now even the anti-magic domain had turned out to be a one-use construction.
After being dealt so many blows in succession by his own side, he had to be strong-willed not to collapse on the spot.
Fortunately, Dragon Spine Pass had been built long ago, and its walls were not shoddy construction. Otherwise, there would have been no point fighting this battle.
Outside the fortress, tens of thousands of prisoners were driven onto the altar, where their palms were cut. Blood flowed along the grooves and soon covered the entire six-pointed star array.
Below the altar, hundreds of priests cast spells together, and vast amounts of magic power began to gather.
Guided by the array, an elemental behemoth gradually took shape.
Even from far away, its soaring baleful aura could be felt.
As the behemoth solidified, the tens of thousands of prisoners on the altar were sucked dry, their flesh, blood, and souls all becoming offerings for the summoning.
Before long, even the fragments of their bones crumbled to powder and vanished, leaving only clothes scattered on the ground as proof that they had existed.
"Great Abyssal Demonic Dragon, your servants present these offerings. Please destroy the fortress before you!"
Seeing the behemoth descend, the old priest presiding over the summoning ritual hurried forward to state their request.
Magic Creatures of the abyss were usually ill-tempered.
A mistake at any point in the process could cause one to go on a killing spree without distinguishing friend from foe.
"I know. Remember to prepare more offerings next time!"
With that, the behemoth lunged straight at Dragon Spine Pass.
Its body, hundreds of meters long, placed tremendous pressure on the defenders.
Before the defenders could take action, its claw slammed into the wall. The tremendous impact sent countless defending soldiers straight to the afterlife.