Ch.1189Smooth Growth

The time it took to annihilate the enemy was under ten minutes.

“Good, we’re returning! Turangkai, bury all traces as planned and withdraw!”

After eliminating all the monsters that came into view, leaving only a handful of prisoners, we immediately buried the entire fortress under a pile of stones and left the battlefield.

There was no time to collect the bodies. If we dawdled with such tasks and happened to encounter the leaders of the two forces, the situation would become extremely troublesome.

What reason would there be to voluntarily take such a risk when our forces had already expended their energy in battle? Whether we won or lost, the damage would be severe.

If we encountered them during withdrawal, we’d have no choice but to fight, but if we could avoid it, we should.

So we retreated without hesitation, all the way to our allied forces’ temporary base located far behind the ravine.

“Report casualties.”

The detailed battle report began two hours later, after we safely returned to the camp and I ordered rest and reorganization of the troops.

“87 casualties from Turangkai forces, 275 casualties from Nastaria forces. No severe injuries.”

“…We took quite a hit. It would have been dangerous if we had charged in recklessly.”

Even with a successful surprise attack resulting in complete victory, it was impossible to avoid casualties entirely.

The Arachnes, Trolls, and Ogres fought desperately until their last breath, and the allied forces suffered around four hundred casualties—nearly one percent of our total forces.

While there were no severe injuries, that wasn’t a consolation. Rather, the opposite. It meant the enemy’s attacks were that lethal.

In a conventional battle, those who might have survived with severe injuries instead died instantly on the spot.

“What about minor injuries?”

“The tallied number was around four hundred, but treatment is still ongoing… currently estimated to be around one hundred or less.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean there were no injuries at all. The number of those with light wounds was quite substantial.

Not those who were directly hit by Trolls and Ogres or dissolved by Arachne venom, but those who were scratched by claws or hit by flying rock fragments.

Their injuries were at most abrasions or fractures in non-vital areas.

Of course, even fractures would normally require weeks of recovery, but as you know, this world has many means to accelerate healing speed dozens of times over.

The miracle of healing had almost no effect on non-human races, but both the stone people and Nagas were well-equipped with their own healing methods.

First, the Nagas demonstrated a treatment method where they stole the vitality from enemies and distributed it to the wounded, maximizing their natural healing speed.

While scales wouldn’t fully regenerate and scars or aftereffects might remain, that was only temporary.

Apparently, after the annual shedding process, all such traces would disappear completely, returning their bodies to normal?

So I didn’t need to worry about the Naga’s minor injuries at all.

“What about the Turangkai side? Do they also use some kind of magical method?”

“I heard they get better by eating stones?”

“…That’s insane. The more I learn about them, the weirder they get.”

And speaking of not needing to worry, the stone people were in a league of their own.

“What on earth are their bodies made of that allows such a thing?”

“Well… I’m not really sure about that either…”

These stone-obsessed monkeys fight with stones, fill their stomachs with stones, heal by eating stones, and are even born by emerging from spiritually charged stones.

At this point, I was beginning to doubt whether they were truly living beings or perhaps some kind of natural rock spirits.

—-

Since creating the allied forces and heading west, our grand strategy had been consistent and simple.

First, scout strategic locations to find suitable forces to target.

Forces with good strongholds. Forces whose leaders weren’t particularly strong or weren’t at the front lines. Forces that were overly aggressive and had many enemies.

“In other words, you’re just picking on the weak ones?”

“We can’t easily replenish our troops, so we need to minimize losses as much as possible.”

Our total forces amounted to about 40,000 at most, even after scraping together every available soldier.

Of those, at least 5,000 had to be left behind for city defense and as reserve forces, so effectively, the 35,000 I was currently leading was all we had.

With those 35,000, we had to navigate through the hellscape of central Naraka, so we needed to conserve our forces by any means necessary.

Anyway, selecting manageable forces was the first step.

The next step was to target strongholds without demigod-level enemies, as we did this time, to easily reduce their forces while erasing our traces.

“Report from the scouts. As expected, they’ve dispersed their forces to various strongholds.”

“As I thought. It’s not easy to abandon land that was claimed with bloodshed.”

Without knowing who we were, where we came from, or even our size, the enemies had basically two options.

Either abandon their key strongholds and concentrate their forces in one place, or withdraw forces from their main base to reinforce key strongholds with defensive troops.

“Then the forces at their main base must have been significantly reduced?”

“Yes, the frequency of guard rotations has decreased to less than half of what it used to be—”

Most of the forces we targeted chose the latter option, which was exactly as we had anticipated.

“Good, prepare the troops. We’ll launch a surprise attack on their main base.”

After dispatching support troops here and there, the forces left to defend their most important base would be at most half of the usual—or even less.

Perfect for a surprise attack to bring them down.

“The tactics will be the same as before—lure them from the front and strike from behind. Tell them I’ll support the more dangerous side.”

“Yes!”

Once we decided when and where to fight, the only remaining issue was how to fight.

This also required careful consideration of various factors such as the enemy’s intelligence, fighting style, and defense level, but generally, decisions were made according to my suggestions.

At first, there were many different opinions, but after my proposed strategies worked well a few times, everyone simply agreed with my suggestions unconditionally.

And I preferred the method of luring the enemy out with moderate forces, alternating between attack and retreat, then launching a surprise attack on their rear with separate elite forces.

This method was optimal for preserving our forces.

Once the infiltration team destroyed the enemy’s main base and dealt with their leader, the lured forces would also lose morale and collapse instantly.

– “You worthless monkeys, how dare you cause trouble! Do you know who I am!”

Sometimes the enemy’s leader—a top-tier hero or demigod-level powerhouse—would fall for the lure and come out…

– “Who am I? I’m the one who’s going to make today your death day, fool.”

– “A human demigod?! Are you Xanten?!”

– “No, I’m not.”

In such cases, I would step forward to handle them.

– “KWAGWAGWAGWAGWANG!”

– “Oh no, that sound… could it be…!”

– “Surprised? You’re full of openings.”

While I held them off, the rest of the special forces would destroy the enemy’s rear as planned, causing even such powerful enemies to become distracted and reveal weaknesses.

-【 Sky Slash. 】

Showing such weaknesses against me was as good as begging to be killed.

Anyway, in this manner, as we advanced into central Naraka, we destroyed more than a dozen major strongholds and completely annihilated four forces along with their leaders.

In the process, we eliminated two demigod-level enemies.

One was a dark-skinned monster who controlled shadow waves and wielded gravity-like power, and the other was a giant turtle-like beast that created freezing tundras just by walking.

The giant turtle tried to counter with extreme cold that supposedly froze time, and the shadow monster countered spatial cutting with gravity-based spatial distortion, but that was all they could do.

– “I just need to avoid getting close, right?”

– “Spatial distortion? I’ll just twist it back in the opposite direction.”

The turtle couldn’t block Sky Slash and was split in two, while the shadow human’s spatial distortion was neutralized by Ophelia using a similar technique.

Due to the overwhelming power difference, they could only hold out for about 2 seconds, but for me, those 2 seconds were enough to thrust the pre-activated Leviathan.

Thus, we gradually broke down the powerful entities of central Naraka one by one, and in return, we grew distinctly stronger with the spoils of war and divine essence we obtained.

“Haschal, how is the condition of your new equipment?”

“Excellent. You have every right to be proud of your casting skills.”

The Nagas were particularly helpful.

Not only did they provide rapid transport of supplies and wounded through waterways, but their casting—magically inscribed weapons and armor—was quite useful.

Even my Frosting was enhanced with the ability to spread the chill of the netherworld over a wide area, and a new spell was added to absorb the blood of pierced opponents to restore my vitality.

The winter armor newly fitted with dragon scales also had increased defense thanks to those scales, plus newly inscribed spells to resist magic and curses.

At this point, both my gauntlets and armor were arguably comparable in performance to the swords of the Great’s Twelve Knights.

And I wasn’t the only one to receive such armor; dragon scales were quite plentiful, so everyone in our party received the same equipment.

Thus, we gradually grew stronger. Strong enough to not be inferior to any other force in the hellscape of central Naraka.