Disastrous Victory (6— Last Part)

In the enemy's second City siege, the battlefield spanned from the breached City walls to the place where the transporting ships descended and let the student troops set foot. It was already growing dark, and the sun was almost gone to their left.

There were two fronts on this battlefield. One, where the proactive side was the Academy as its army attempted to breach the enemy's second City but was firmly and even deathly held back by the enemy. And two, to the left side, where the student troops had descended, tens of thousands of student troops faced off against tens of thousands of enemy cultivators. From a distant point of view to anyone with a brain, it would look like a weird battle had been ensued.

Well, that was because… it was!

The current situation couldn’t be any worse than it has turned into. Before it all started, Cari’s transporting ship’s student troops became confused as they couldn’t find Heian Ciemnosc or anyone from his team on the transporting ship. But with Cari’s words, they believed they were recuperating and meditating until the last moment to fight the battle with their utmost. This fueled his troops’ morale and kept them away from questioning any further.

Still, Heian Ciemnosc and his team were always present, and only now that they were seemingly not around did the troops realize it. He and his team would constantly walk around casually, even drink and eat with other troops whenever there was some free time. But now, they were nowhere to be seen, and that still dwelled in their hearts. Then, the moment where it all started came, but there was still no sight of them. Cari reprimanded them and explained that that team would come out after them so as to not reveal their full strength yet… He could only do so much.

The battle started the same as before. Machine guns opened fire and alerted the enemy, putting pressure on them. Before long, the 3 transporting ships let their troops down, and they started assembling the cannons before carrying them over until reaching the maximum range before it became too risky. But the enemy wasn’t firing back at them until 20 minutes later when all cannons were assembled and their teams shot at the same spot.

At first, the army was leisurely oppressing the enemy. But when the enemy’s cannons finally started firing back at them, they did so in unison and all at once. The first wave of the enemy firing their cannons in unison was like a tsunami from the sky as it bore down from the City towards the army! However, they were detonated in the air by the transporting ships’ machine guns. Even then, a few hit a couple cannon teams directly!

The enemy wasn’t unprepared and ignorant enemy’s first City. They were aware of the disparity between both sides’ cannons’ aim and fire rate, and orderly fired their shells at the army, one by one, together! The image of 300 cannons firing and those shells becoming enormous projectiles the size of a 2-story building was overwhelming. Its impact on the student troops’ minds wasn’t small.

Every time the enemy City fired a wave, many of the army’s shells would end up detonating altogether with the enemy’s. At the end of each round, less than half the army’s shells would end as explosions and land on the enemy’s second City. But a couple enemy projectiles would land on the army’s cannon teams. There were too many enemy shells that their detonation would end up disrupting the trajectory, and anti-detonation measures the army’s cases had.

The army’s accuracy no longer mattered. The enemy could render more than half their shells useless and still affect their troops. Though they now had array formations protecting them, they were simply the lowest, light green protective array formations, not even using specifications to handle the enemy shell’s might and peculiarities. It wasn’t that the Craftspeople focused on array formations didn’t know how to do it or weren’t aware. But as commander Lionel thought of Heian Ciemnosc and that he was a genius in Craftsmaking, he deemed it too costly to focus on.

The long-distance fire stage of the battle was thus incredibly prolonged. The army suffered thousands of casualties and lost a third of their principal and supplementary cannons. But after 5 hours, mainly due to the machine guns, the enemy’s second City barrier was broken through. Thus, there was a hole in the City walls.

But this time, when a misty sand should’ve been lifted and covered the battlefield, the enemy kept shooting all around them. They no longer fired in unison but aimed their cannons towards the side the hole in the City walls was facing. In mere minutes, the army was halted several times and suffered hundreds and hundreds of casualties as they opted for the same previous strategy. The enemy cleared the way and saw the army closer than before after several minutes. The Academy’s forces could only rush and use their tools however they could.

The transporting ships also came down, letting their tough, bulky armor and bodies become the enemy cannon teams’ target. The student troops were in danger, and the armor could take it, but their lives couldn’t be lost!

After less than half an hour of desperately charging, the foottroopers abrged barged into the City, and started making the enemy fall. However, currently, the enemy resisted with all they could, blocking the army but letting some Spirit Rebirth realm student troops pass through like it was nothing. Once again, thinking about Heian Ciemnosc, Lionel didn’t send many teams consisting of such and even decided to send them in batches. Every 10 minutes, he would send 2 temporary teams of Spirit Rebirth realm student troops.

But what was worth noticing from this situation was that even as the teams sent in were still alive, they didn’t seem to have time to send their Spirit Sense once and rapidly to signal a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the commander. They were either hella busy or having too much fun winning the battle, right?

However, that was not the worst thing happening in the battle. For starters, after several tens of minutes, the enemy suddenly started detonating their cultivation base! The scenario from the previous weeks of these hidden forces striking up a rebellion changed! It now looked like things had clearly changed since the images, where the enemy’s leader was facing the Wrath Nihility Academy’s upper echelon.

It went from a rebellion to a race extinction war!

In just under a minute, thousands more of student troops fell! Everyone was shocked. Even the enemies became astounded as they faced their fellow cultivators, giving their lives and cultivation away. Let alone the Academy’s forces. They were straight-up scarred seeing hundreds of their fellow student troops fall one after another to the enemy’s sacrifice!

But that wasn’t the end of it. As soon as the army began facing a crisis amidst the battle. There was a force of more than 15,000 cultivators flanking the student troops from the west-south. Forced to face this contingent, which was probably half the cultivators in the City, the student troops were forced to retire a clique from their numbers and fend off this enemy, or at least stop it until the City was further breached, but the strongest enemy cultivators were in this small contingent!

From a positive point of view, the student troops weren’t being blasted into smithereens by the contingent. But they couldn’t gain an easy hand against them. Commander Lionel had placed the strongest in the middle and front of the army breaching into the City, not caring about a possible reinforcement since the transportation ships’ machine guns did fine before. Now, as these two fronts were ongoing and the Academy’s casualties were several tens of thousands, the piloting team in the central module could see the commander.

Lionel had become anxious and terrified and felt his head going mad as he thought of all these lives being lost by the little ants below becoming parts or clothes remaining. Why were they fighting still?! Couldn’t they see he made many mistakes?! The foolish Lionel was even accepting his shortcomings as the piloting team saw him constantly cover his mouth with his palms and bite his rapidly growing nails repeatedly.

But that was all the piloting team could do. The commander’s last orders were to focus the machine guns on breaking the barrier entirely with the cannon teams’ fire. Together, they should break it and start taking the lives of their enemy with heavy bombardment all over the City! Lionel wasn’t even using the machine guns to help the army’s clique fighting against the City’s contingent.

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Since that order was given, 3 hours had passed, and the piloting team could wish to ravage the barrier with a transporting ship, lunging at it with the giant thing and aiding their fellow troopers below. But that wasn’t going to happen. The commander remained silent ever since.

By then, only a few traces of light remained below the far horizon. Everything else was dark. Only the machine guns’ firing line and the Power Energy attacks on the 2 fronts lighted their surroundings.

… pum… pum… boom boom boom… pum, pum, pum… boom boom boom, boom boom…

“FUUCK!” - “Get me out of here, aaaaah!!” - “Another team’s down!” - “Go merge with another team!” - “We are already a third!” - “Do it!!” Below the transporting ships, the long line of the army’s cannon teams was being destroyed one after the other. After half a day of battle, even the Spirit Formation realm troopers grew exhausted and fell to the enemy’s shelling. Many teams could be seen wandering between craters and corpses that weren’t yet picked up and had succumbed to the desert, cracked ground recently.

The casualty rate was catastrophic. Every trooper and sub-commander could already imagine the news tomorrow or in just a few hours of their army being wiped out in the Academy’s medallions. But they quickly washed away such thoughts. They can only focus on the battle and at least ensure something was won… even… even if they have to die.

More and more explosions went off to the sides. Though the enemy cannon teams continued to be evacuated and joined the fray to block the army, they could still accurately send them off every few minutes. The corpse-recovering teams were tired, and their Power Energy became half-exhausted. Those were just a few auxiliary troopers who didn’t even count in the army’s significant force and were in charge of menial tasks and dirty but safe work like moving corpses in the middle of a battle.

They were at the Conflagrate realm initial stages or lower realms, and all doing what they could in the Academy’s name. But even as they used so little Power Energy and exhausted their physical strength first, they were still becoming tired after half a day. Hundreds of troopers like this had perished, and their job was indeed the safest, even in this battle.

As the cannon teams continued to be bombarded, but less and less every time, they watched as the enemies atop the walls quickly decreased.

“... MOVE, mooooooooooove!!” The sub-commander yelled with his left eye socket empty. His troopers did disappoint, and as if injected with chicken blood, roared inside their bodies as Power Energy erupted and turned their surroundings into turbulent wind. They charged forward at the less than 2,000 cultivators. None of them no longer cared for their lives and started to go all out without caring for the injuries they received back.

The sub-commander’s face distorted and elongated as he finished screaming his lungs out, blood and viscera spitting from his lips as the dark hid the sight. Otherwise, it might’ve alerted his troops. The less than 5,500 troops charged forth and ate several Power Energy attacks before sensing, in their deaths, their fellow troopers take down the last few enemies…

… At the City’s entrance, tens of thousands of student troopers fought with everything they had, and the enemy also fought with all their Power Energy and physical strength depleted. Their movements were low, and fewer lights could be seen flashing by. As the cultivators became aware of their exhaustion more and more, they tried detonating their cultivation base. Even if they were tired out and their Power Energy storage was emptied out, one’s detonation was still macabre and deathly. Only its area of effect changed.

“Take them… ha-! Down!” Cari shouted. Zi Ye healed him from the back, the latter’s hand on the former as he bled from both shoulders and beside his chests. Zi Ye was paler than before, his hair shortened, and a few bleeding cuts streamed thin blood lines from his abdomen. The remaining tens of thousands of student troops blinked with difficulty, gulping before silently raising their arms and weapons and conveying their Power Energy to attack.

But as they moved, they were slow and only advanced 3 meters every 5 seconds. They stumbled and supported themselves on one another as they continued forcing their way forward. They could hear some tiresome battles deeper in the City and saw some corpses with their uniform lying on the City’s streets. But their vision was too blurry to see well enough.

The battle still continued. It wasn’t over… But above their heads, after several tens of minutes more, the barrier was finally rendered useless.

. . .

Early in the morning, the next day. It was around 3 hours after the second City fell under the Academy’s army’s hands.

Heian Ciemnosc and his team were returning to the enemy’s second City’s territory when he realized the situation from 15 kilometers away, covering a small but notorious part of the City with corpses barely being moved. Heian Ciemnosc, without saying anything, only giving his team a glance and a nod. He continued to trek forwards. When he led his team to enter the City through its new hole, everything became deduced by him.

The Concealed Ornament Team saw a few tens of thousands of corpses outside the City. Many were already placed near each other and were covered, ready to be sent back. But there was this other spot where a hill of corpses was left alone due to being short of manpower. The bad news was that the majority belonged to the Academy, while the minority belonged to enemy cultivators.

Heian Ciemnosc ignored the corpses outside after glancing at them, standing still for a few minutes, before entering the City with his team. At the entrance, just as he was walking around, he sensed something as he saw the remnants of a corpse. It was the back of a human with only its upper left back and part of its upper left arm intact. The rest, even her ribcage and the vertebral column, had been decimated. Heian Ciemnosc enhanced his eyes and Spirit Sense and discovered who she was. The blonde who belonged to the first City. This was what remained of her.

Further examining the City wall’s hole entrance at once, an easy thing to do for the current Heian Ciemnosc, he discovered the remains of his scouting group’s scouts. Their remains were all over the place. Some remained with their Power Energy vestiges stuck to the City wall, ground, or other corpses. It was like a wisp of mist, hanging by a threat and dissipating with every passing person’s tiniest wind disruption as it grazed against them.

Heian Ciemnosc stopped and was as if stuck in place. After another few several minutes, he continued walking into the City. This time, he didn’t see houses burned down, destroyed with cultivators having previously sparred in or around them. He saw that everything was mostly fine except for the long lines of corpses lined up along the streets. Each sidewalk had at least a thousand corpses lying on them before the turn of a corner.

He had no comments. His visage was neutral, but his eyes were becoming ultimately cold. Counting the student troops outside and inside the City, his Spirit Sense told Heian Ciemnosc that only 150,000 student roops remained. And that Lionel had shut himself in the City’s central room with only Cari and Zi Ye in, sitting on a stool and holding his head as if keeping himself from going mad.

“Take a rest around. We still have to scout in 10 hours or so,” Heian Ciemnosc twisted his neck to turn his head back and said to his team. They looked at him and silently nodded. They didn’t walk around to help but moved to secluded areas to continue meditating. Heian Ciemnosc turned his head and didn’t look back anymore before heading to the central room directly.

… Step, step. Creak~, step step. Step.

… Heian Ciemnosc arrived before the central room’s door in the headquarters and stopped for a second before opening the door. He stepped in with several surviving sub-commanders following behind. There were 7 fewer sub-commanders, and the one in charge of the second-in-command-less transporting ship back at the first City also perished. Seeing Heian Ciemnosc with a slight turn of his head, Lionel was about to snap when he saw the other sub-commanders behind and held himself back.

Step, step, step, step, step, step, step…

Heian Ciemnosc clapped his hand, making a small noise. Lightly smiling, he looked at the screen below in the bulky, rectangular table and said. “Well, a little less than 12 hours before the third City. I’m so excited, does any-”

“Where were you all this time?! Desertion is not acceptable! Could it be that you felt guilty and came running back here like a fucking rat worse than a miserable dog?! You have cost the Academy many lives for nothing!! Aaaggh!” Before any other siege, I will fuck-!!” Hearing Heian Ciemnosc’s words and seeing his antics, Lionel no longer gave a shit and snapped at him, only to be detained at the worst conjecture by Cari.

“...!!” Cari held Lionel from behind, his arms over Lionel’s left shoulder below his right ribs, forming a lock with his fingers at Lionel’s sternum. Pulling backwards, Cari looked at Heian Ciemnosc, giving him knowing eyes with guilt before stepping backwards, forcing Lionel to sit back down and even using what little Power Energy he had left. Noticing his friend’s situation, Lionel felt like crying but held himself for Cari’s sake. As for Zi Ye, he could barely remain conscious.

Heian Ciemnosc looked at Zi Ye after giving Lionel’s left profile face a glance. The latter was ignoring him.

“We weren’t aware of such things… your sub-commander perished too, Heian Ciemnosc. My condolences,” one sub-commander said, nodding slightly but not being emotional. Heian Ciemnosc thanked her with a little nod before saying in a light tone, “I was aware. My medallion heated up badly. It only happens when one’s direct superior dies… The Academy does care about their people and doesn’t want them to die for tribalism.”

“...” Lionel’s frows bulged with veins, and his countenance reddened, his feminine face becoming quite ferocious. Heian Ciemnosc skipped a glance towards him and continued. “But it’s that brother-sisterhood that kept this army together and allowed it to win and not suffer too many losses. Let’s continue working on it.”

“...” Lionel’s face became stiff but was relaxed as well. The sub-commanders nodded and slightly smiled. They commented on not being aware of Heian Ciemnosc’s absence except for a couple. Afterwards, the sub-commander began reallocating troops to one another. They were less, and they had fewer sub-commanders. Now, they had to first re-organize before planning for the immediate siege.

…