While the soldiers were cleaning up the battlefield and gathering materials from the dead monsters, they found that there was a high chance of finding a poison monster core that was perfect for equipping the weapons of the soldiers in the army.
“Have it added to the high-priority tasks for the blacksmiths. There should be enough to equip the elite veterans of the army,” said Akira after finishing inspecting the monster core and returning it to the soldier who had brought it to his attention.
Although there was not enough to equip every soldier’s weapon it was still a significant discovery and would be an overall boost to Kodria’s strength in the future.
With a salute, the soldier left Akira and the others who had been watching over the clean-up from the city wall. They continued discussing with each other how to fix the minor mistakes made in battle today and how to better coordinate their defense and offense power.
Akira said little and only listened to all the older officers who had far more experience in large-scale battles than him. He made mental notes on everything he heard trying to better understand tactics for large-scale armies as he had never studied such things before.
He was well versed in the small scale battles, but Kodria’s army, when you just counted the werewolf soldiers from the different clans it was already over 10k soldiers not even counting the other demon races such as the orcs or goblins which when added easily reached over 20k soldiers.
This number did not even include the city guards that were not weak as a large portion of them were retired veterans who had a few wounds that caused them to be unable to fight on the front lines but did not prevent them from holding a defensive position on the walls or to smack around some petty criminals. The navy had also exploded from its meager 4 large ships to now having several smaller patrol ships built to help keep up with the needs of protecting the river and lake. With two more large ships nearly finished.
The cavalry was the slowest to grow as the birthrate of Gargs was the limiting factor, only giving birth to a batch of young pups once a year at the most.
Currently, a large portion of Kodria’s army was split between the Bent-gii, the northern border fort, and Kodria’s main and outer city which had the lion’s share of the military protecting it.
All this was such a massive change compared to when Kodria was founded and had only a few thousand total soldiers to protect Kodria.
***
The next morning Akira woke to several howls that reached him in one of the small stone rooms inside the command tower where he and the other officers had elected to sleep. Staying in the tower instead of sleeping at their own homes made it so that they were able to reach the soldiers under their command quickly if anything unexpected happened.
“AWOOOO!”
The continued howling of the distant scouting parties caused him to hurriedly get dressed and equip his armor, which had been polished by someone the night before.
“Yap!” said Fluffball as he stretched and yawned still underneath the warm fur blanket.
When Akira opened the small room’s wooden door, the cold air from the large central room hit him hard causing him to shudder and completely shake off any drowsiness that still lingered.
“Yap…” said Fluffball, unhappy with the cold air invading the small room.
“How long do we have before today’s attack?” asked Akira as he was handed a wooden mug filled with a warmed wine that was giving off white steam in the cold air.
“From what I heard so far, an hour at the most. They are coming from the south this time,” said Klyn.
“And the monsters this time?”
“Not the same as yesterday,” said Zundar. “They are not sure what it will be today as the monsters blend too well with the snow and are all crawling low to the ground.”
“The soldiers are already mobilizing and eating a large meal to help prepare them for a full day of battle. Although I wanted to give them more time to rest, we will have to settle with what we were given,” said an older officer.
“Make sure everyone is ready to head out in half an hour,” said Akira.
“You werewolves are quite efficient with long-range communications,” said Balue, who was leaning against the ice-cold stone wall not showing any sign of sleepiness.
Akira only shrugged at that.
When a half hour passed, the army once again flowed out of the outer city gates. The gates all locked down after they had exited to protect the citizens inside.
The soldiers were all given dry rations. They would be able to eat it when it was their turn to rest in the rear of the army. Although they knew it was going to be another long day of fighting they were energetic and joked with each other as they marched south in the morning sunlight to wait near the southern fort.
When 15 minutes had passed a group of fast-moving scouts riding Garg’s could be seen rushing towards them.
One of the riders came to a stop near Akira and the other officers and hopped to the ground before saluting them.
“The monster wave is only a few minutes behind us! Their speed is far faster than the toads from the day before. From what I was able to see it is probably a group of some type of reptiles!” shouted the scout giving his report immediately.
Akira nodded to the man and waved for him to join back up with the other scouts. He then turned to the officers around him.
“Gentlemen prepare yourselves and your men. After today I have a feeling there should only be one more day of attacks,” said Akira.
The officers were not sure how he knew something like this but did not question it as so many weird things always happened just as he said they would. They all left to take command of their soldiers.
As the army formed up into their proper positions several soldiers with good eyesight were able to catch rare glittering lights from the morning sun reflecting off of something smooth in the distance.
The approaching monster wave was far more silent than the loud toads the day before and if you were not alert and looking for them you would probably suffer from an ambush.
As the monster wave got closer, there was a low almost unnoticeable slithering sound as the wave of monsters charged forward. The sun that was still rising was able to shine more light on the wave of monsters headed their way revealing their glittering scaly bodies.
[Gray Coiling constrictor lvl 110].
With the sighting of the monster wave the Shamen under Klyn began their chants to fully buff the soldiers.
Akira watched as 500 or more of the snakes approached the army. Each of the snakes had patchy gray scales that helped them blend in with the snow and gray bark of the winter trees. The average size that he could see was over 14 ft long and they were as thick as an adult male’s bicep.
If it weren’t for their constant movement and the glittering scales from the sun it would be hard to notice them in the snow.
“Hmph!” said Balue showing disdain upon seeing the wave of monsters.
“Looks like we will have to help out on the front lines today,” said Zundar as he judged the strength of the [Gray Coiling constrictors] headed their way.
“Time for you to get some exercise Fluffball. They look quite agile so you should be careful,” said Akira.
“Yap!” said Fluffball defiantly before disappearing into the crowd of soldiers on the right flank.
Zundar moved to the left flank while Akira along with his royal guards stayed at the center of the shield wall to help hold the line.
Balue was rather uninterested in fighting and had decided to stay in the rear with the reinforcements ready to help if he really was needed.
As soon as the snakes were within range the archers from both the infantry and the guards on the walls of the southern fort began shooting their arrows.
…but the arrows that did hit the slithering [Gray Coiling constrictors] at such a long-range only bounced off the Scales that were slick and as hard almost similar to low-grade metal armor allowing the fast-moving snakes to approach front lines with little damage done by the ranged attacks.
A small formation of infantry with crossbows stepped out from behind the shield wall and fired at almost point-blank range into the approaching wave of [Gray Coiling constrictors] and was actually able to penetrate slick scales killing several of them.
The crossbowmen were only able to fire off one volley and were forced to quickly retreat behind the shield wall before slippery snakes were able to reach them.
Bam!
The [Gray Coiling constrictors] one after another coiled up and launched themselves at the front-line soldiers with a force that was strong enough to break the bones of those not wearing heavy armor.
After slamming into the shields the large snakes wiggled and lashed out with their tails as they tried to wrap around the soldiers so that they could squeeze them to death. Some of the large snakes coiled up once again and launched another attack at the soldier’s armored necks with their fangs out dripping with paralyzing venom.
Many dents started to appear in the front line infantry’s armor as well as large bite marks in their shields as the snakes tried to pierce their armor, most of the time failing in this attempt, but not always.
The more unlucky front-line soldiers’ armor and shields started to look terrible as more and more dents and holes began to appear as they were targeted by the snakes.
Throughout the day three waves of 500 [Gray Coiling constrictors] rushed at the front lines not letting anyone pause their fighting until around midnight.
Although the number of monsters was far less than the day before, the attacking power of the individual [Gray Coiling constrictors] was stronger and required more than one soldier to handle them.
When they were finally able to clean up the battlefield Akira was disappointed that there were no monster cores found in any of the bodies. Even with this disappointment, they could still use the hard scales as a type of leather armor so he was not too bummed out.
***
Ding!
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The Fruit guilds territory has been wiped out.
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The Tree guild has been wiped out.
-
[The ….]
Message after message continued to pop up letting everyone know which territories were able to resist the waves of attacks.
Several guilds were destroyed the moment the first attacks happened.
The stream of constant messages caused everyone to stress out as they were also desperately defending their territory against the massive waves of monsters with the little forces they had. They were quickly burning through their potions and gold.
Each of the northern guilds was having a hard time protecting both their dukedom and the peasants which they needed to craft items for them as well as make food, drink, and other items to sell to fund their expansion. The number of injuries and deaths from both the demigods and the peasants was constantly rising higher and higher.
The small guilds and hunting groups that had been smacked down several times before by the stronger guilds were now all watching from a distance and were like hungry wolves as they paced back and forth ready to strike out and capture the territory if the occupier were to be overwhelmed by the waves of monster attacks or grow to weak and offer themselves up as a ripe fruit to be plucked.
