Ch.173173. The Final War (11)

“······What kind of situation is this?”

Shortly after Bjorn, who had been briefly trapped, reappeared on the battlefield.

Looking around, he naturally muttered in disbelief.

And for good reason—the battlefield had completely transformed from before he entered to after.

First of all, high-ranking forces had been directly deployed to participate in the battle.

Although there was considerable risk of friendly forces getting caught in the crossfire, neither side could use wide-area attacks meant for clearing mobs, but….

Even taking that into account, their influence on the battlefield couldn’t be ignored.

A prime example was the multiple Avatars—ten of them summoned—who wrapped their greatswords with aura in the form of boiling blood.

As a result, when they swung their swords, droplets of boiling blood aura frequently splashed onto the enemy formation—the Imperial Legion’s side.

Fortunately, mages were blocking the effects of these area attacks; otherwise, these precious lives could have been wiped out in an absurd manner.

Meanwhile, the super-faction battle unfolding on one side of the battlefield had reached a stalemate despite the numerical disadvantage.

Compared to this side’s eleven high-ranking vampires of 3rd grade or higher plus ten multiple Avatars, the other side had deployed ten different high-ranking faction members and twenty Celestial Warriors.

Numerically, it was 21:30—the other side had about 50% more forces—but in terms of overall grade, this side clearly had the advantage, and furthermore:

The ten Avatars, summoned to match the sacred number of the God of Vengeance who deliberately shed blood during the ritual, were enhanced beyond normal Avatars.

For spiritual beings like gods, power resides in symbols, and following these symbols truly manifests in tangible forms.

Separately, the overall battle situation was turning completely unfavorable for the Imperial Legion.

[[[《Holy Judgment: Flame》!!!]]]

[[[[[《Holy Spear of Hundred Light》!!!]]]]]

The multiple angels who had somehow returned near the ground were flying through the sky, bombarding the enemy lines with magical attacks.

Pillars of flame imbued with holy power struck the ground, and hundreds of spears of light formed by the angels pierced through soldiers.

The red light these angels scattered while flying across the battlefield was a blessing to allies but a symbol of terror to enemies.

Meanwhile, on another part of the battlefield, there was a force striking the Imperial army’s flank.

Poor warriors who had transformed into Abominations when their bodies couldn’t withstand the blessings during the process of cultivating multiple legions.

This army of horrible monstrosities emerged from the forest to ambush them, throwing the right flank of the Imperial Legion into chaos while feasting after a long time.

On the left flank of the Imperial Legion, they were being hit by—an army of undead.

About 10,000 undead forces—Grave Guards and Vampire Soldiers created by vampires using donor corpses or Imperial corpses, along with undead summoned by necromancers.

By objective standards, they were merely hastily assembled forces that a proper Imperial Legion could repel without casualties, but….

Indeed, could they withstand an ambush by an undead army even in this situation?

Naturally, they couldn’t overcome the ambushing undead and the mid-level vampires commanding them.

They had even buried corpses under this land in advance, reviving them as undead during the ambush.

And not just any undead—Feral Ghouls and Wraiths, which are particularly powerful and cause chaos in melee situations.

Of course, this undead army easily succeeded in striking their flank, focusing on causing terror rather than directly annihilating them.

“Hiiiiieeeek!!”

“T-this is impossible!! It was a battle we couldn’t win from the start!!”

“Wait! Where are you—”

“—Get out of my way!!”

*Squelch!!*

Eventually, the morale of the Imperial main force, which had been consistently beaten down, plummeted, and soldiers who had lost their will to fight and were trying to flee appeared throughout the front lines.

In common terms, they had completely broken.

In truth, it was surprising that the army hadn’t collapsed until now, as the Imperial Legion’s morale had been rock bottom from the beginning.

After surviving dozens of life-threatening crises fighting in the north, they finally destroyed the Orc Empire only to find that the Rome Empire had fallen.

Even just considering this, it was obvious their morale would plummet.

Suddenly, the command declared they would recapture the capital without regard for the soldiers’ wishes, and then they even purged the popular Helena Valerinus for absurd reasons.

By this point, it would be normal for deserters to appear in droves, but there were too many powerful individuals guarding against desertion, and those who tried might be made examples of through terrible deaths.

Therefore, most soldiers reluctantly followed the orders of the upper echelons.

They suffered from all kinds of sabotage committed by ratmen, endured hunger while watching their officers feast, and were forced to protect these same officers.

Even after finally reaching the battlefield after enduring such hardships, the Imperial army was repeatedly pushed back and defeated by the evil god’s forces.

During the march, they feared the terrifying deserter-hunting cavalry, and on the battlefield, they were forced to fight by officers tasked with executing fleeing allies.

Something that had been building up through all this finally exploded at this point, resulting in an enormous number of deserters appearing across the entire front line.

“Don’t run away!!”

*Slash!*

“Arghh!!”

“You cowardly bas—*squelch*—gack!!”

“Get lost!!”

Of course, there were junior officers like decurions trying to prevent desertion, but these 7th grade at best individuals couldn’t possibly stop this number of deserters.

When they executed a few with their sabers, dozens would rush in and turn them into pincushions with spears, and most of the mid-level forces capable of handling these numbers were engaged in battle.

As a result, about 20-30% of the common soldiers began fleeing in all directions without looking back, but…

Unfortunately for them, most of these fleeing soldiers were “hunted.”

“One more!!”

*Crack!!*

“Hey, Mr. Orc! Let’s go that way!!”

“Yes, understood!”

*Crack!!*

Those participating in this hunt for stragglers were orcs and various beastmen—all wolf riders, a type of cavalry mounted on Blood Wolves.

These followers of the Red Wolf God, who lived in the northern wasteland, the desolate frigid region in the northeast of the Empire, were dispatched on the orders of the Iron Man to help their kinsman who destroyed the Empire.

They numbered 1,000 in total.

In fact, wolf riders were closer to monster cavalry than light cavalry, so with these numbers, there was no danger in hunting stragglers.

But even so, with tens of thousands of stragglers scattering, it was impossible for just 1,000 riders to handle them all.

Especially since the purpose of this hunt was to stabilize the security in the surrounding area.

The accidents that tens of thousands of deserters or stragglers could cause were unimaginable, so they needed to prevent such incidents from occurring in this area, which would soon become the territory of the Vengeance Order.

Since they couldn’t know what a single escaped soldier might do, they needed to deal with all of them, but 1,000 riders had clear limitations.

The method they chose was to summon large numbers of Revenge Hounds, red werewolves, and release them everywhere.

Thus, as the flow of the entire battlefield solidified toward the Imperial side’s defeat.

After briefly conversing with Van Gaitenphang and assessing the situation, Bjorn raised his greatsword, looked toward the enemy lines—

—*BOOM!!*

He leaped forward, kicking off the ground, then spread his shadow wings and charged toward the enemy faction members.

The first of the pantheon’s faction members to catch Bjorn’s eye was a Banner of Horror, resembling a massive golem.

A giant monster—summoned as 2nd grade—standing 10 meters tall, wearing a crude, fear-inducing mask on its face.

Seeing it, Bjorn flew toward it like a streak of black light, swung his sword before the Banner of Horror could even react—

—*Slash!!*

The next moment, the diagonally bisected corpse of the Banner of Horror began falling to the ground.