1568 Chapter 1396: Post-War
The dazzling radiances that streaked across the night sky disrupted his thoughts. He looked up frantically—a gigantic battleship gradually emerged from behind the mountain with its hull facing the battlefield. Shortly after, another string of glaring brilliance erupted.
The momentum has shifted.
Vandal understood clearly that he was guaranteed to lose this battle if this continued. The enemy was ready and had been waiting for him to take the bait. As a commander, he was aware that the Undead Army's struggles were only instinctive. The emergence of the magic cannons and Valkyries Army became the last straw that overwhelmed the balance. If he didn't come up with changes, it would be almost inevitable that he would fail.
Almost… but it wasn't for sure. If he held a powerful force to completely overwhelm the enemy, he might still stand a chance to defeat them and conquer the fortress!
Vandal turned around and gazed at the back. The spiritual flames in his eyes burned intensely as though he was making a tough decision. Finally, he gritted his teeth and pulled a Necromancer toward him.
"Report to the commander that the situation is critical and we need reinforcements!"
And how could Alex let go of this opportunity? He unleashed his other trump cards, Maggie, Scarlett and the Valkyries Army ambushed the retreating Undead Army, it was a massacre.
After the Undead Army was annihilated entirely, the folks in the fortress were finally relieved of the tension that lasted for a month. However, the soldiers were the only ones who were relaxed as Alex delegated the sentry duties to the Valkyries Army and let the soldiers off on an extended holiday. The exhausted soldiers cheered with both arms raised, but this didn't mean that he had it easy. He was still responsible for the post-war losses and personnel replenishment.
In terms of war damage, there was nothing particularly worthy of his attention. As the Undead Creatures failed to breakthrough the city walls, the fortress didn't suffer any damages internally apart from the destruction the Skeletal Trolls and Vampires left on the city walls. However, these issues were minor and one could easily repair it, he had plenty of mages capable of wielding the Earth element.
On the contrary, the situation with the number of casualties wasn't as simple.
He had lost nearly a thousand soldiers, which was an acceptable number. No matter what, he used up to 10,000 troops to defend against an army of 150,000 troops. On the other hand, the regional army that Ben led suffered grave losses, especially at the start of the battle when they were inexperienced in facing the Undead Army.
Even though the number of casualties slowly decreased as the days passed, two-thirds of their forces were gravely injured post-war, which was a huge number. Although they successfully repelled the enemies and defended the fortress, he displayed a rather gloomy complexion. However, this was a war and no matter how prepared one was, unexpected situations were bound to happen. If they were to speak about anything fortunate, they could be thankful that the Valkyries Army was around to heal their injuries and only a few number of them died during the war.
In addition, there were many areas that needed to be cleaned up. The Valkyries Army were responsible for clearing the remains of the Undead Creatures by stacking and burning them into ashes. Thereafter, they held carnival banquets to celebrate their victory. Apart from the Ocean Elves who weren't interested in festive occasions, almost everyone in the fortress participated and used this method to heal their pain in losing their family members and friends.
On the other hand, the plans that Alex and Scarlett came up with succeeded. After confirming that the Undead Army was completely destroyed, the reinforcements returned to their territories to recuperate and regroup their forces. Before they left, their representatives asked Alex about the Holy Statues. Even though everyone was aware of the Holy Statues' advantages and flaws, the situations that they were in were different from Alex's, after all.
He had a lack of manpower which was why he had no choice but to use the Holy Statues to make up for their offense. But this didn't appear as a problem to the reinforcements as they had sufficient manpower and assistance from the magic cannons. If they could also obtain this legendary artifact in their territory, they would be more confident in facing the Undead Army in future.
Alex nodded and agreed without much hesitation. He passed the details to Scarlett and appointed her and Anne for negotiations. The other party agreed to hand over the deposit first and pay the remaining amount after Rhode completed building the Holy Statues. There also weren't issues with the delivery. Although the Magic Fleet couldn't be used as cargo ships, it wasn't tough to search for a few floating merchant ships to transport the item.
At this moment, there were dramatic changes in the other battlefronts.
Unsure if it was due to the annihilation of the Undead Army led by Vandal, the other Undead Armies slowed down their pace and showed signs of hesitation for the first time. Even though the other defensive lines in the Renner Kingdom suffered different extent of damages, they were still stable and strong. Not only that, but the Kingsley's Kingdom defensive line also repelled the Undead Army. It was also rumored that they tried to recover their lost ground and Alex was surprised when he heard this news.
Alex threw this matter to the back of his head and shifted his attention to the plan before him. But he didn't expect that the aftermath from repelling the Undead Army being this tough to eliminate, where it had affected places of up to a thousand miles away.
The fortress restored its usual peace as the days went by. The reinforcements temporarily withdrew to reorganize their troops while the Valkyries Army and Magic Fleet left to assist the other regional fortresses. All these were within Alex's expectations and also the reason why he annihilated the enemies at once. If the battle dragged on for too long, the Valkyries Army and Magic Fleet might possibly be mobilized to other regions and he wouldn't have sufficient forces to handle the enemies. But now, he got to enjoy a period of peaceful time and wasn't afraid even if the Valkyries Army wasn't around to provide support. Although he had lost quite a number of soldiers, he wasn't concerned that the Undead Army would return anytime soon.
Time to chill a bit while planning for his future move. He was getting tired of playing this game, if weren't because Nyx had suggested to play along in order to learn from this and also to give her enough time for her plans, he would have gone straight into the enemy's lair, ignoring any restrictions and fight the Big Boss, it would be hard but not impossible besides from this war he learned that he could not do everything by himself, he was powerful, extremely powerful but this doesn't mean he could singlehandedly fight an entire country on his own, he needs his own force. This war taught him that and this was rather fun if Alex must be honest, he discovered another side of him he previously didn't know. He loves commanding, he felt like a king ordering his subjects, watching them struggle as they grow.
Th𝗲 most uptodate novels are published on free(w)ebnov(e)l.𝒄𝒐𝙢