Ch.1236Vampire Hunt

Both sides had nothing but deception in mind, but after the alliance agreement was outwardly concluded smoothly enough.

We began preparations to destroy the “common enemy” as agreed, and as soon as preparations were complete, we started the war without delay.

“The Undead Duke’s castle, Fortress Agnita, can teleport anywhere in Naraka through spatial jumps. Tracking it is meaningless, and siege is impossible.”

“So we can’t strike first…? Then we have no choice but to target the limbs before the head.”

“You mean attack his allies to draw him out?”

“Yes. I don’t know what he’s doing holed up in his fortress, but he can’t just sit back and watch all his allies disappear.”

“There’s logic to that… but it’s essentially a gamble. Doesn’t it mean we could face enemies from both sides and collapse if we’re not careful?”

“It’s war. We have to accept that level of risk.”

My grand strategy was to attack the forces allied with Belliona and the powers that had formed alliances with Garmerlic, provoking him to come out on his own to protect his allies.

If things went well, we could defeat them sequentially, but if things went wrong, it was the perfect setup to be surrounded and annihilated.

Of course, I had thought of countermeasures for this problem. Not how to respond when surrounded, but how to avoid being surrounded in the first place.

“They’re more scattered than we are, so if we hit them with full force, we can crush them quickly before they have a chance to coordinate an attack.”

Compared to fighting while surrounded by twice as many enemies from front and back, fighting similar-sized enemies twice in succession is like wringing a child’s neck.

Concentration of forces. Swift decisive action. Defeat in detail. If we kept these three principles in mind, we had nothing to fear from the enemy’s coordinated attacks. That’s what I argued, and Caliburn reluctantly agreed.

“It’s not as simple as you make it sound… but I suppose we have no choice. Since there’s no other way, this is the best option for now.”

His tone suggested that while his pride made him reluctant to go along with my strategy, he would follow it for now since there didn’t seem to be a more effective method available.

“Ah, yes. If you think of a better method, please let me know.”

There’s really nothing likable about him. Honestly, it was annoying to deal with someone who wasn’t even my comrade yet kept nitpicking at everything.

If he didn’t have value to me, I would have ripped his head off long ago, but I needed his strength for now so I couldn’t kill him. It was truly frustrating.

Part of the reason I adopted swift decisive action as my motto was because of this frustration.

On top of the strategic reason that we needed to move quickly to defeat the Undead Duke’s forces one by one, there was my personal feeling that I didn’t want to associate with these beasts for long.

Because that was my intention, our army’s movements were unprecedentedly swift.

After deciding on the policy of cutting off the Undead Duke’s surrounding forces first, we immediately discussed and decided who each of us would target.

“I have an old grudge with that bloodsucker… but the war between them and us would be a battle of endurance. We couldn’t end it quickly.”

“Slaughtering monsters with good regeneration. I happen to have some expertise in that area.”

After discussing factors like distance to targets and compatibility, we selected “Empress of Blood” Erzsebet as our target.

Despite suffering a major defeat and downfall, she had persistently fled to fight another day, eventually meeting Garmerlic and succeeding in making a comeback with his help. She was the empress of vampires.

Whether werebeasts or vampires, their characteristic was regenerative ability that prevented them from dying even with fatal wounds, so if the two sides clashed again, the battle might not be decided for days.

Of course, since he had also formed an alliance with dragons, he could achieve victory by mobilizing them, but even then it would be slower than if we stepped in.

That wasn’t wrong.

The power of human gods like Elpinel specialized in severing such regenerative abilities, and Naga sorcery included several techniques effective against such creatures.

I’m not sure if Caliburn knew about the Naga under my command when he brought this up, but in any case, as he said, we had the advantage against vampires compared to him.

Therefore, I decided to take down Erzsebet and her minions, while Caliburn’s side would defeat Geirod and the giants under his command.

“Dragons and giants have been enemies since ancient times. We also… need to get accustomed to fighting giants for the future.”

This wasn’t wrong either.

Even if we successfully defeated Erzsebet and Geirod, we still had the formidable frost giants of Utgard as powerful enemies.

The logic of learning giant combat tactics through the war with Geirod was both bold and reasonable. Almost flawless.

“The future… Well, good luck with that.”

However, to my ears, the “future” he mentioned sounded like a provocation with Bergelmir, whom I had taken under my command, in mind, rather than the battle with frost giants.

Although it was a prejudiced assumption… well, if you had seen the look in his eyes when he said those words, anyone would have been convinced as I was.

It was truly the look of a cross-eyed guard dog with rabies.

The fact that I didn’t immediately poke those eyes with my finger showed that my patience and self-control had grown to almost Buddha-like levels, if I do say so myself.

—-

Anyway, I led my troops to march toward Erzsebet’s stronghold.

What was it called again? Nirvator Castle?

Despite having lost everything and being utterly ruined after losing the war, she had apparently built an impressive castle using her newly acquired minions and undead monsters.

The fact that she built such a large fortress openly when she should have been hiding… was probably an expression of confidence that she had recovered sufficient power and was ready for any challenge.

But she would soon realize that her confidence was mere arrogance.

“—Is that the castle? They built it quite grandly.”

Because I had arrived.

—-

Through information provided by the werebeasts and our own reconnaissance, we discovered the location of Nirvator Castle and advanced quickly by water and land routes.

Approaching underground would reduce the chances of being detected, but it would inevitably be slower than above ground, so that wasn’t the best option.

Besides, unless they were all deaf, they would certainly notice an army approaching through tunnels large enough for troops to pass through.

So we advanced at high speed as far as we could via the river, and from there marched without rest for half a day.

“Enemy attack! We’re under attack!”

“Good heavens, where did such a large army suddenly come from…?!”

“Ferentz unit! Delay the enemy’s advance with your lives! We must buy time for the knights of the castle to prepare for battle!”

By that point, they seemed to have noticed our approach, and they did try to ambush us a couple of times along the way—

“Nigel, Turankai! Defend the flanks! Caljarat, clear the path ahead!”

“Yes! I’ll take the left!”

“I’ll handle the right side.”

But mere advance guard units rather than the main force couldn’t stop us or even slow our pace.

“Seventh and Eighth Centuries, follow me!”

Nigel sent her holy spears floating through the air, sweeping through the oncoming enemies like a two-pronged storm, while some of the Naga positioned on the left flank helped her by slaughtering the monsters that evaded the spears.

“Kraaaargh!”

“Wh-what is this power…?! My regeneration can’t… repair the wounds…!”

Crimson mist-like creatures were torn to shreds by the holy spears, and beings that looked quite human except for their skin color and wings fell from the sky spewing bloody vapor from their throats.

“Did you not even know your own weakness? Your ignorance is astonishing.”

As expected, Nigel’s spears completely nullified the vampires’ regenerative abilities, and the boiling blood sorcery evaporated their blood from within, greatly weakening their regenerative powers.

Thus weakened and fallen, they were slaughtered by spears and swords before they could rise again, becoming scattered pieces of meat.

‘How should I put it… they’re weaker than I expected.’

To be defeated so thoroughly by curses that could be easily blocked with basic resistance magic.

I’m not sure if it’s because they’re sentries rather than the main force, or if they’re hastily assembled troops of poor quality to begin with, but in any case, they seemed quite vulnerable to magical or curse-based attacks.

[Of course. How strong could soldiers scattered at outposts possibly be?]

‘I suppose that’s true.’

This was truly welcome news for us. After all, our army included many who specialized in curses and magic.

“Killing them may be difficult, but preventing their approach at least…”

Turankai also performed no less impressively than Nigel.

Unlike Nigel or the Naga, the rock monkeys had no means to directly attack the vampires’ regenerative abilities themselves. The fate of ill-equipped physical damage dealers, you might say.

– Kuguugugung…!

So instead of inflicting non-healing wounds on the charging monsters, they shattered and overturned the ground, burying the creatures in an avalanche of rocks.

The ones that turned to mist seemed unaffected by being hit and crushed by rocks, continuing to charge forward like heat haze, but that too was ultimately just a momentary struggle.

“Ha, impressive as it may be… how long do you think such petty tricks will work!”

– Kwaddeuddeuk!

“Kuhek…!”

Whether they couldn’t maintain the mist state for long, or because they couldn’t attack in that state, the mist-transformed creatures occasionally reverted to bodies of flesh and blood, and each time they were hit by rocks, flung far away, collapsed, and crushed.

That scene repeated until they could no longer rise again.

If you keep beating them until they die, they’ll eventually die. It was truly a simple and crude method, but it was certainly effective.