Chapter 642: 642
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Saleen already planned to let his people consume worms, he did not have a choice . The war would very soon spread to the whole mainland . In at most three years every country would be sucked into the Holy See's war . By then, it would be even more difficult to purchase grain . Without stable logistical support, could they still fight a war?
The soldiers in the city did not know that Saleen was vexed over their food . Saleen had secretly altered their meals, increasing the ratio of fish and prawns . These things were not any less nutritious than beef or mutton, it was just a problem of taste .
Saleen had deployed a twenty-thousand man team each to both sides of the city wall . Metatrin City's city walls were more special and extremely thick, they could not be destroyed by magic or divine spells . The upper half of the city walls were assembled using Dante's Sequence, it was unlike the style of any other country on the Myers mainland .
There was a maze-like cloister that was built by piling up rectangular stone pieces, the cloister was sixty yards thick on either side . The fortress above the city walls was split into two stories that had a width of hundreds of yards . Even the side door was constructed in this manner . With this in mind, one could finally understand why Saleen took such a long time to construct the city walls despite having hundreds of thousands of spirits as his laborers .
These spirits worked through the night helping Saleen to build the city and the city walls consumed the most time .
People could live in the city walls . Twenty-thousand people lived in an eight-mile long city wall, it could actually accommodate one-hundred-thousand people . There were horse tracks within the city, they were slanted and lead towards the thirty yard tall city walls .
Saleen wanted to build an even taller city wall, but he could not do it . If the city walls were too tall, they would be taller than the magical towers .
One story in a magical tower was six yards tall, nine stories would equate to a height of fifty-four yards . Only the city walls of the Holy Rock City were higher than one-hundred yards, but that was only because the city itself had been carved out of a mountain, the height of its foundation was not even less than sixty yards .
Using a ladder to leap over a thirty yard tall city wall would result in massive casualties . The broken-edged barrier was not guarded because Saleen did not deploy too many mages, he did not want the mages to die there .
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The thickness of Metatrin City's wall was larger than its height, the wall was in fact an eight-mile long house . The entrance of the city was fifty yards wide while the exterior façade had a ten yard wide horse track and a soldiers' fortress . If the enemy tried to leap atop the entrance, they could suffer a rampage by the cavalrymen .
As the cavalrymen charged horizontally across the horse track, the infantrymen scaling the city walls would not even be able to organize a defense formation . There were magic stone cannon platforms within the city, while the trebuchets on top were protected by magic arrays . These two weapons would not destroy each other .
The city did not contain any magical towers, the only structure which could function like a magical tower was Saleen's temple . The temple was slightly far, it was about five miles from the city walls . Without a central magical tower to make the link, it could not contain any offensive power for the time being .
Fortunately, Saleen had many low grade mages at his disposal, they were all left behind by Lex . The intermediate grade mages had been taken by Lex, so these low grade mages actually became the main offensive force .
Once the three kings returned, Diyabannersa and Banchajanna would each defend one side . Each of them would lead thousands of spirits, cooperating with the soldiers and assisting in the defense .
The skeletal troops could fire arrows . Over long distances accuracy would not matter . The strength of a skeletal troop would not be exhausted, so Saleen had prepared large quantities of inferior bows for the skeletal troops to use . These bows had substantial might and a very long range, but their accuracy was pathetic . They would only be suitable for blanket-type scatter shots .
Along the road, fifty death knights were stationed at an interval of every two-hundred yards . Of course, these death knights could not rival the doom knights, but Saleen had given them heavy armor . It would still be pretty easy for them to conduct a rampage on the enemy's infantry .
In the midst of the intense preparation for war another tens of thousands of people had swarmed into Metatrin City, they were the citizens of the nobles living nearby . From the broken-edged barrier to Metatrin City, the distance was about one-hundred miles . There were numerous villages and fortresses along the way . Saleen had already given his last order; to allow these nobles to seek refuge in his city . It was impossible for their fortresses to resist the Holy See's army .
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These nobles had to comply because they had only settled down in Metatrin City very recently . They could not recruit sufficient soldiers and had very little citizens . Even though it was easy to defend a small fortress, manpower was scarce . In the face of an offensive by a large army, such fortresses would not even last a day .
The expeditionary army rested for three days at the broken-edged barrier before continuing on its journey . The vanguards had already done a sweep across Metatrin's plains, but they did not manage to plunder any grain and got attacked in western town . One of Lex's emblem groups led thousands of mercenaries and rushed out of western town, flanking three-thousand of the Holy See's light cavalrymen .
This emblem group was equipped with three-layered armor . Even though it was not made up of heavy cavalrymen, its offensive power was close to that of heavy cavalrymen already .
On the other hand, the less than four thousand mercenaries simply followed behind . Hundreds of them positioned at both sides of the enemy forming a clasp formation . It was as though Lex's emblem group was a blade and the over three-thousand mercenaries were the steel pieces which sandwiched the blade .
This assault was analogous to a swordsmanship expert using a longsword to swipe at a person's neck . With a crack, the three-thousand expeditionary cavalrymen were cut off in the middle . This offensive was swift and decisive, the expeditionary army did not even have the chance to alter its formation . Not many enemies were slaughtered, only about two-hundred of them . As most of the expeditionary troops were struck by cavalry crossbows, their injuries were not serious .
Lex's emblem group turned around and charged at the enemy again . This time around, her soldiers had changed to lances . During this abrupt dash, they tore another piece of flesh from the enemy, killing around two-hundred people . Lex's emblem group then left in style . In these two instances, almost five-hundred people were lost, it was definitely a huge blow to the three-thousand vanguard cavalrymen .
The enemy wanted to give chase, but they were not as familiar with the terrain as Lex's men . In this tapered region, the mercenaries had disposed of their shovels and sharp antlers to allow the speed of the cavalry to be reduced to its minimum . This action made the expeditionary army's cavalrymen realize that this place was no Tanggulasi Empire .
The mages whom Saleen had hidden in the hilly region observed this whole event and the three kings sighed in regret . If they had coordinated with this offensive, then all three-thousand cavalrymen would have died there . The order Saleen had given was to attack the large force traveling behind these cavalrymen though . The Holy See's army used light cavalrymen as the spearhead force, there were another ten-thousand soldiers at the back .
The three kings were going to attack these ten-thousand soldiers and then flee before the main forces at the back arrived .
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The vanguards had retreated, they should be meeting up with the ten-thousand strong army soon, before entering the periphery of western town . Banchajanna flew onto the battlefield and grabbed a corpse on the way . He smelled it and his face contorted in disgust .
Seeing Banchajanna return dragging a corpse in hand, the other two spirit kings also detected a tinge of strange smell . It was like the scent of the gods, but it was not quite like it either . This smell contained an evil which exceeded the scope of the rules .
"These people…" The three kings looked at one another, then turned to look at the soldiers behind them . These soldiers had been recruited by the nobles . The five camps under Saleen's command did not simply recruit anyone . The offensive power of these soldiers was pretty good, but they were ignored because of their age . Since the regular army did not have a place for them, they defected to the nobles .
Judikaka said, "Let's go back, there's no need to ambush anymore . "
The commanders leading the human troops were in a tight spot, but they did not dare argue with the three spirit kings . Judikaka cast a death spell, when this spell was targeted at the corpse, it caused the corpse to explode with a clap .
Diyabannersa also shook his head, this corpse was effected with a divine spell and death magic could no longer manipulate it . This situation was more severe than the one in the beginning . When the expeditionary army first entered Phoenix, the bodies of the soldiers were not displaying such serious symptoms yet .
The thousands of troops hiding in the hills retreated, leaving behind some Caucasus people and barbarians to continue observing the enemy . Judikaka flew onto the battlefield, destroying all the bodies . After transforming all of them into a pile of decomposed flesh, he led the army back to Metatrin City .
Judikaka went to visit Saleen personally, he was afraid that Diyabannersa or Banchajanna would spout the wrong things and anger Saleen . Judikaka was not disobeying the order, but this order was not very meaningful anymore .
In the temple, Judikaka could feel an unknown pressure, "Saleen is merely a grade-6 mage, even if he is making tremendous progress, he shouldn't be able to exert pressure on monarch-grade spirits, right?"
Judikaka did not look too much into it, he told Saleen, "There is something amiss with the soldiers in the Holy See's army . Be it the Corpse Explosion Skill or the Undead Soldier Spell, their bodies are not affected . "
"Oh? I don't know much about death magic and divine spells, give me a moment . " Speaking, Saleen told someone to get Narnia, then he continued questioning Judikaka .
"What is going on, did you not conduct an ambush?"
"The soldiers of the expeditionary army are infected with a vicious divine spell . I don't know the specifics, but within a year, the offensive power and constitutions of these soldiers will be forcefully boosted . No matter their injury, they will be able to recover swiftly under the effect of this divine spell . "
Narnia nodded and said, "There is indeed a divine spell that works like this, but it will consume the soldier's lifespan in exchange . "
"Yes, when I was at the borders, I could still manipulate those dead soldiers for a while . Now I can't and only less than a month had passed . This means that the divine spell veiled in the soldiers' bodies is slowly increasing its speed of influence . I estimate that these soldiers will not live for more than six months even if we do not kill them . The ones with the shortest lifespans might only live for two to three months . "
Saleen inhaled a breath of cold air . The life of the Tanggulasi people were slightly shorter, but they could also live for eighty to ninety years . On average, the age of a soldier in an expeditionary army would not be more than thirty-five years old . The Holy See had condensed the other forty or fifty years of remaining life of the soldiers in order to release massive offensive power . Even if these soldiers conquered Metatrin City, they would still die off swiftly .
What could be crueler than this? For their religion, these soldiers had traveled about twenty-thousand miles to Metatrin . In the end? Before they set off on this expedition, their fates had already been sealed, they would die on foreign soil .
"What about the main forces?"
"I didn't come into contact with them . The main forces consist of grand swordmasters and holy masters above grade-8, I don't wish to take the risk," Judikaka answered honestly .