2.4 End of the First Battle
Book 3-2.4 End of the First Battle
-You must NEVER do a battle of Greatest Warriors with him. There is a reason that the Shuarei, who used to overwhelm Pareia, were defeated in an instant. Furthermore, they say that even when Venersis went as reinforcement, he returned without any gains. It is a better idea to consider the rumors to be true and plan accordingly. But Ebinong and the other Greatest Warriors just believe that we will win because of the fact that we have more warriors. They do not take him seriously. If I am right, Pareia will attack the moment their Glow has our Greatest Warriors tied up. You must not be careless.
Abram thought about Runa’s warning as he looked around at Pareia’s Greatest Warriors.
They didn’t seem to be worried at all even though their Glow was taking on three Greatest Warriors at once. In fact, wasn’t one of them starting to smile?
‘Dangerous. This is dangerous.’
Abham thought to himself as he started to speak to Ebinong.
“Commanding Greatest Warrior Ebinong, shouldn’t you return to the formation and prepare for battle?’
Ebinong looked at Abham in a way that made it seem like he was asking what Abham was thinking.
“Once our Greatest Warriors slash that puny Glow’s neck, Pareia’s morale will fall. What are you worried about?”
“That is what is weird. There is not an ounce of fear or worry in the eyes of their leaders. If we are all caught up by that young Glow and Pareia starts to charge, who will lead the warriors?”
Listening to Abham, Ebinong finally looked around at Egane and the rest of Pareia’s Greatest Warriors. As Abham mentioned, there were no signs of worry in their eyes. He also saw two of them returning to the formation.
Ebinong was also a veteran who had faced pretty much everything. He finally started to get a bit worried about what was going on.
“You return to the formation first. I will gather them and return with them.”
“I understand.”
Once Abham turned his pirma and returned to the formation, Ebinong rode toward where Yulian and the Greatest Warriors were fighting and started to shout.
“Since there is no winner, let us fight using our strategies, Pareia’s Glow.”
Once Ebinong joined in, Egane, as well as one other Greatest Warrior finally stepped forward as well.
Once the situation turned that way, Yulian decided he did not have to go easy on them anymore and started to swing the greatsword with all of his strength.
Boooooooooooong.
As the two greatswords approached them while slashing the wind, Shya as well the other Greatest Warriors of Wikaly were extremely shocked. They were clearly pushing this young Glow back, but the tables had turned in an instant.
As Yulian started to swing his greatsword while full of murderous aura, the Greatest Warriors of Wikaly could feel dry sweat on their backs every time they blocked his sword.
‘We might not be able to get away.’
Ebinong thought that way as he started to shout.
“Shya, Pratec, Tepoi, return to the formation.”
Even without Ebinong shouting at them, the three of them had wanted to do that, but they could not do so, as the moment they turned their body, one of the other Greatest Warriors might be taken out by Yulian.
As Egane and Amboma, two of Pareia’s Greatest Warriors rushed toward Ebinong at that time, Ebinong could not turn around either.
“All units, charge!”
At that moment, there was a shout in the Wikaly formation as they started to move forward.
It was Abham’s smart thinking.
With things ending up this way, if they give the command to charge first, they don’t need to give any other commands for a bit of time, so he had ordered them forward.
Pareia ordered all units to charge just a moment later, and the two formations crashed against each other like waves.
“Yaaaaaaa!”
“Ahhhhh~!”
While that was going on, Yulian’s greatsword pushed aside a shamshir and slashed the body of Pratec, one of Wikaly’s Greatest Warriors, and Pratec shouted as he fell down from his pirma.
They couldn’t do much about Yulian when it was three against one, and now that only two of them were left, Shya and Tepoi turned their pirmas around knowing it could be dangerous. Unfortunately, the Red Storm warriors had already surrounded them.
Ebinong was not in a good situation either. His life was in danger because of the shamshirs of Egane and Amboma.
“Protect the Greatest Warriors!”
With a loud shout, Abham and the personal warriors of each Greatest Warrior tried to help, but it was not enough to take on Red Storm.
It was only because both formations were fighting in close proximity that they could use the chaos to barely manage to defend.
“Step back.”
Abham shouted as he forcefully swung his shamshir, and the three Greatest Warriors of Wikaly put all of their efforts into finding a way out of the situation.
Egane and Amboma looked at each other before the two of them stepped back first.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
There was a loud beat of a drum from the Pareia’s formation as the warriors started to move.
The warriors in the front started to defend in a circle, and the warriors who were in the back started to block the Wikaly warriors from the front and back.
The Wikaly Greatest Warriors should have changed their formation to counter this, but none of them were able to do so.
The battle was turning like the first battle with the Shuarei.
The only saving grace for the Wikaly was that their numbers were almost twice that of Pareia, and because they had already charged forward under Abham’s command, things were not easily going Pareia’s way.
“Ugh.”
Ebinong made a single grunt as he was struck by Yulian’s sword and fell off his pirma, and the Red Storm started to shake their shamshirs with even more strength.
But since there were twice as many enemies, it was difficult to continue to block the enemies as they pushed forward.
The barricade made by the Red Storm warriors started to open up a little bit, and the lead warriors of the Wikaly troops used all of their strength to push forward and defend the Greatest Warriors.
“Hurry.”
Surrounded by Abham and his personal group of warriors, Shya and Tepoi managed to get away from the chaos.
“We need to lead the warriors!”
Abham shouted as he ordered his warriors to defend as he stepped backward, and Shya and Tepoi had already moved to the back to see just what was going on.
“I have slashed the neck of the enemy’s Greatest Warrior.”
Yulian lifted up Ebinong’s armor high in the air with his greatsword as he shouted loudly.
Even amongst the loud shouts of the warriors, Yulian’s voice was heard by everyone.
“Waaaaaaaaa~!”
Pareia’s morale was super charged as they shouted and started to push forward with even more strength, while the Wikaly’s morale was lowered by the fact that their Commanding Greatest Warrior had been killed. They instantly started to be pushed back.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
There was the beat of a drum from the Wikaly formation and the lead flags started to move.
The WIkaly Greatest Warriors were finally able to get a grasp of what was going on and started to issue their commands.
As expected, because the Wikaly had an overwhelming number of warriors in comparison, it was hard to inflict a lot of damage like Pareia’s Greatest Warriors wanted to do.
The Wikaly warriors started to move quickly, trying to get away from Pareia’s encirclement.
It was natural that if the Wikaly were able to fix their formation and the battle continued, they would have the advantage because of their numbers.
The moment Yulian thought he needed to do something, the situation in the battlefield started to change again. Vibli and Trebol, the two Greatest Warriors who had taken a roundabout way to the left and right, were starting to strike from the sides.
They showed up exactly when they were needed. The encirclement that was about to break started to become tighter once more with the help of Trebol and Vibli’s 6,000 warriors.
25,000 Wikaly warriors against 20,000 Pareia warriors.
Normally, this 5,000 difference would play a critical factor in desert warfare, but Pareia’s morale as well as their overwhelming number of Greatest Warriors helped to make up for that difference.
If they could have taken care of the other two Greatest Warriors as well earlier, they would really have been able to overwhelm them.
As the battle continued, the performance of Red Storm and Yulian was spectacular. It was just like looking at a wild beast that jumped into the middle of a herd of pina. Nobody could stop them, and a path was created everywhere they went.
Pareia’s warriors flooded those paths while Yulian and Red Storm jumped left and right to create more new paths.
Pareia’s Greatest Warriors were shouting with joy internally as they moved their warriors to the paths created by Yulian.
This was it.
This was the reason that they could not defeat the Shuarei in the past even when they had more warriors.
As Yulian was chaotically moving around, he could feel that sensation returning to him.
That weird feeling! He could start to see the entire battlefield. Where Pareia’s warriors were being pushed back, where they were currently doing well.
Even though Yulian was still a tiny chick when it came to strategies, many different paths were starting to be created in Yulian’s head.
Even he didn’t know what kind of paths they were. All he knew was that he needed to move according to those paths. Yulian started to move in accordance with what was in his head without even realizing he was doing so.
Egane was making sure to pay attention to Yulian even though he was busy issuing commands.
He was waiting for Yulian to move in the way that he had labeled ‘awakening.’
“It’s here.”
Seeing Yulian start to move in a different way, Egane started to shout. He ordered the warriors to follow behind Yulian.
The Wikaly’s Greatest Warriors were frustrated. They could not issue commands in the beginning, and the enemy struck from the sides before they could even fix the formation, but thinking about their numbers, it was not a dangerous situation at all.
But they were starting to get pushed back more and more. And the reason for that? All because of a single person.
He was using the strength of a War God that they had only heard rumors about. They were finally witnessing it with their own eyes.
“Pareia’s movement is weird.”
At Shya’s words, Abham nodded his head and responded.
“They are starting to split themselves apart. If that continues, they can get eaten up because of the number difference.”
“Maybe the heavens are helping us.”
“Their movement is too weird for us to believe that to be the case.”
Tepoi answered.
“Let’s just push forward like this. We had a lot of loss in the beginning, but our numbers are still greater than theirs.”
“Since they are splitting themselves apart like that, they are pretty much serving this victory to us on a silver platter.”
“Something is suspicious. It is too odd. Why don’t we order the warriors to retreat?”
Trebol did not agree with Abham’s suggestion.
“We are not lacking in numbers, and we are not lacking in momentum either. It is clear that the ones to retreat first will end up with a lot of damage, so why should we retreat?”
“With the way things are going, we can do it. Didn’t we manage to split their forces?”
Shya debated about the two Greatest Warriors’ opposing viewpoints. One of the weaknesses of a formation lacking a Commanding Greatest Warrior was that they were slow to come to a decision.
While Shya was debating, the battlefield suddenly changed in a weird way.
“How is this possible?! How did we end up being surrounded?”
As Abham looked to the battlefield and shouted, Tepoi turned pale and Shya decided to go with Abham’s suggestion.
“It is still not too late to order the retreat.”
All three Greatest Warriors agreed and started to sound the drum to retreat.
“They caught on quickly.”
As the Wikaly warriors heard the drum and started to slowly retreat, Pareia’s Greatest Warriors shouted in disappointment.
They were leaders who had experienced Yulian’s weird movements. Even still, they could not figure out why Yulian was moving that way. But they knew the end result it would bring.
They knew that if they just followed Yulian, the Wikaly warriors will end up being surrounded.
The Wikaly’s Greatest Warriors were feeling the same way Pareia’s Greatest Warriors felt the first time they fought against Venersis. They were baffled.
“Should we push forward like this?”
Egane asked the other Greatest Warriors, and they started to debate it.
“Let’s clear the battlefield first. The remaining warriors at their oasis have probably prepared a defense, and since the enemy Greatest Warriors are more wary now, let’s just stop here for now.”
Amboma agreed with Vibli’s suggestion.
“Our mission is not to take the oasis but to distract them until the division that went up the quicksand river can take over the center of the Wikaly territory. As Greatest Warrior Vibli mentioned, it is probably better to stop here for today. Today’s battle can be considered an overwhelming victory.
The other Greatest Warriors all agreed, and once the drum sounded for the warriors to stop, Pareia’s warriors stopped moving forward and lifted up their arms as they started to shout.
They had managed to win their first battle against the Wikaly.
End of Chapter 2.
Next up:
The Wikaly’s Counterattack
It was an unexpected counterattack. It wasn’t like they were careless or anything.
They just cleanly lost.