Ch.600The Truth Behind the Diversionary Operation

Haschal’s detachment was reported to be raiding Aishan’s central strongholds when news reached Ordos. Meanwhile, Landenburg’s main force, which had departed later, was also fully engaged in their operation.

Their strategy was to exploit the distraction of Aishan’s main forces focused on Haschal, attacking the scattered enemies in the southern plains to diminish Aishan’s military strength. While this was all Haschal knew of the operation, the orders Ludwig Wilhelm von Landenburg had given to his First Sword, Joshua Blake, contained far more complex and detailed instructions.

“Landenburg Knights, charge formation! Exterminate the enemies of the Empire!”

“The westerners have gone mad! They should be hiding behind stone walls, how dare they!”

A cacophony of battle cries, screams, curses, and wails filled the air.

Landenburg’s elite corps—two thousand five hundred cavalry, five hundred knights, six Masters and Heroes—swept through the southern plains, executing an extreme mobile warfare strategy.

By conventional military doctrine, this was an utterly reckless operation.

History had proven that facing Ka’har in cavalry-based engagements was suicidal. The Ka’har possessed unmatched mobility that Imperial cavalry couldn’t hope to match, archery skills that allowed them to unleash devastating arrow volleys while retreating, and overwhelming horsemanship that excelled in cavalry skirmishes.

The Empire’s only advantage was its ability to field heavy cavalry thanks to trade with Dwarves and numerous iron mines.

In other words, even Landenburg’s elite forces would suffer massive casualties engaging the Ka’har in cavalry battles.

Of course, Ludwig was well aware of this obvious fact. Indeed, he likely understood it better than anyone else in the Empire.

That’s precisely why he had deployed all available Masters and Heroes beyond the Wall, except those with the detachment. He did so knowing that if they were counterattacked and annihilated, Landenburg would be finished.

Additionally, Ludwig had given Joshua, who commanded the main force, two orders that Haschal of the detachment had never heard—tactical and strategic directives that would be crucial to this operation.

– If you cannot win in open field cavalry battles, then simply don’t fight cavalry battles.

Before Joshua’s eyes lay the results of this strategy.

—-

“Aaaagh! My leg, my leg…!”

“Mother, motherrr!”

“Run away! Hurry, run!”

In the center of a village engulfed in flames, the screams of eastern people being cut down, impaled, and burned alive filled the sky.

These weren’t the cries of warriors, but the wails of ordinary people living peaceful lives. Led by knights wielding enormously long swords, the westerners had stormed in and were cutting down every Ka’har in sight, regardless of age or gender.

The Ka’har warriors who had tried to protect them had long since been annihilated, forced into unfamiliar defensive battles.

Had they fought on the plains, the Ka’har could have exploited their greatest strength—mobility—to outmaneuver the Imperial forces. But when the enemy attacked villages with artillery and fire, their mobility advantage became meaningless.

The moment warriors created distance with their divine horsemanship, Imperial forces charged into the villages and slaughtered their parents, siblings, and children.

Forcing defensive battles through civilian massacres instead of mobile warfare was a cruel strategy, but undeniably effective.

The Ka’har warriors, once raiders and plunderers themselves, found themselves on the receiving end of raids and were defeated one by one in unfamiliar defensive battles. Once the warriors fell, the non-warrior Ka’har couldn’t escape massacre.

Unlike Haschal, who avoided harming non-warrior easterners, the main force operated under orders to leave no Ka’har alive. Yet they couldn’t be condemned as cruel.

Unlike Haschal, who possessed enough strength to achieve overwhelming victory in direct confrontation with the Ka’har and whose battle objective was merely distraction, the main force’s tactical goal was to reduce Ka’har power to a level that no longer threatened the Empire.

They burned pastures and fields, destroyed dwellings, and exterminated residents.

Since victory in direct confrontation between main forces was unlikely, this thorough scorched earth strategy was the only means to fundamentally reduce enemy strength.

—-

While Landenburg’s main force took a brief rest to reorganize after yet another massacre that had become routine, their commander Joshua Blake inspected the current situation of his troops while cleaning his sword blade soaked in blood and oil.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

“Please, please stop…!”

“No, nooooo!”

The screams and wailing from all around disturbed his ears, but in “this kind of” warfare, it was inevitable, so Joshua ignored the eastern people’s cries.

‘Not a pleasant sight… but necessary.’

Though his knightly sensibilities felt revulsion at the scene before him, emotions were a luxury for someone responsible for thousands of lives. A commander bearing such responsibility must make decisions based on reason and rationality, not emotional impulses. That’s what Joshua believed.

Unlike the detachment, whose role was simply to attract attention, the main force’s mission was to physically annihilate as many Ka’har as possible, forcing them to endure relentless battles with barely any rest.

Marching, fierce battles, massacres—a brutal cycle. Their combat fatigue and stress had reached unimaginable levels, and there was only one way to relieve it.

Joshua permitted all manner of brutality against Ka’har prisoners. Even after victory, they had no time for proper rest, so these brief diversions lasted only tens of minutes.

Prisoners who fell into the hands of stressed soldiers had no chance of survival, but since the prisoners were targets for elimination anyway, it hardly mattered.

‘This is the nature of a war of extermination.’

Joshua turned his attention away from the screams of Ka’har prisoners and focused on assessing his troops’ condition with his adjutant.

“…How many remain?”

“We lost thirty knights and seventy cavalry in this battle. Remaining forces number around two thousand.”

Thanks to Ludwig’s tactics, the plains expeditionary force had been winning consecutive battles, but they weren’t achieving overwhelming victories in every engagement.

With extermination battles occurring roughly twice daily, plus inevitable losses when attacked during marches, casualties were mounting.

Though they obsessively deployed scouts to avoid facing large enemy forces in open plains, they had few countermeasures when small groups of warriors suddenly appeared, showered them with arrows, and disappeared.

Pursuit would only increase losses, so their only option was to endure behind armor and shields while marching to the next stronghold to draw the enemy into defensive battles.

As a result, the expeditionary force that had initially numbered three thousand had lost a third of its strength, with only about two thousand remaining.

Bertrand, Landenburg’s Ninth Sword, had fallen to a coordinated attack by Champions, while Klaus, the Fourth Sword, had lost his right arm.

Regenerating a severed limb required a healing priest’s miracle and long convalescence. The recovery potions they’d brought and the few battle priests’ healing abilities were insufficient for such severe injuries.

Klaus wasn’t alone—other Masters also carried various wounds. Even in unfamiliar defensive battles, Champions remained formidable opponents.

Landenburg’s Hero, Joshua, fought with all his might to minimize casualties, but with repeated large-scale battles, even he couldn’t respond to every situation.

—-

“Urgent news! Urgent news! Ordos’ main force is on the move!”

This report reached the main force as they marched toward their next battlefield after forty minutes of rest. A scout who had returned with three arrows in his back continued his urgent report even while coughing blood.

“Heavy cavalry with black banners are marching west! An army of thousands!”

“The Black Banner Army… Orhan’s elite heavy cavalry. Well done. Any other movements?”

“Nothing else yet…!”

The scout bowed his head, face pale. All he knew was that the Black Banner Army was heading west. He had rushed back at full speed to report this fact, evading Ka’har scouts along the way.

‘They’ve taken the bait. Everything is proceeding according to plan.’

Joshua commended the scout and ordered him to tend to his wounds, then contemplated his next strategic move.

‘If all of the Ka’har main forces focus on the detachment, we could continue our extermination campaign… but that’s unlikely. By now, they must have heard about our activities here. A punitive force will soon head south.’

Neither Ludwig, Joshua, nor Orhan had expected that attention would remain solely on the detachment, overlooking the main force in the south.

The detachment’s role was merely to keep Orhan himself occupied there and delay attention shifting to the main force for as long as possible.

Given that Ordos’ main forces had marched only westward rather than splitting between west and south, they seemed to have succeeded in delaying this shift in attention.

That had been the detachment’s core purpose from the beginning. If they moved simultaneously with the Ka’har, the slower Imperial forces would inevitably be caught.

The day or two that the detachment had bought them was the lifeline the main force needed to retreat safely.

‘Time to withdraw.’

Joshua decided to retreat. The main force’s strategic objective was no longer enemy annihilation but the swiftest possible withdrawal—as per the operation details Haschal knew.

“Landenburg Knights! Mount up! Retreat southwest!”

However, the main force’s retreat route differed slightly from what Haschal had been told.

Haschal believed the main force would take the shortest route directly west, crossing the Wall to return…

“Our destination is the Dane border! Maintain distance from pursuit forces and return to Landenburg through Dane!”

Ludwig’s second strategy was to forcibly draw Dane—currently focused on invading Panam—into this conflict.

Given the Ka’har’s doctrine of plunder-based supply, their main forces pursuing Landenburg’s troops would inevitably raid Dane territory for supplies.

Just as they always had.