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Chapter 67: The Terrifying Night in Peacock Forest Area (Part 1)

Ximengsi Continent’s southern region, outside Steinbeck Fief, Peacock Forest Area

Cromwell Principality’s expeditionary army fell into an unprecedentedly wide panic because of the sudden and unexpected changes. Grey Fort where over 50,000 soldiers were stationed displayed no obvious anomalies, but Evan Fort, where over 20,000 mercenaries were stationed, was different. These mercenaries had basically all come for money, so once anything unusual emerged on the battlefront, they would easily fall apart due to a lack of morale.

At the granary behind Grey Fort, Miss Jenny encountered a thorny matter. A large number of faintly blue-colored will-o’-the-wisps attacked the supply center with wisps of flame that spouted off their ephemeral forms. These fire ghosts were very fast; in addition, anyone who came into contact with them would be ignited and swallowed by faint blue fire.

Many rear-service personnel had no time to escape and spontaneously combusted due to the attacks of these fire ghosts. After their entire bodies were initially burned by the blue flames, they would struggle for a few times in the midst of the wisps of flame before falling to the ground and decomposing into ashes. As the granary caught fire, the resultant soaring blue flame appeared particularly conspicuous in this moonless night, alerting the whole camp of the problem.

“This place is cursed. I am not doing this!”

“Don’t block the way. Quickly get out of the way!”

“Don’t run away! Quickly put out the fire!”

Miss Jenny kept herself sober with great difficulty, refusing to be overwhelmed by fear. However, no one executed her orders. These over 30,000 rear-service personnel weren’t regular army personnel, so their mental discipline was far inferior compared to that of the regular army. Upon facing this terrifying scene, all fronts quickly collapsed. They couldn’t attend nor heed Jenny’s orders, they just threw away their helmets and armors to flee all the faster in every direction, not caring the least about the fire within the granary.

Under Princess Natalie’s campand, the over 5,000-strong militia of Steinbeck Fief took advantage of the night’s cover, bypassing Evan Fort where the panicking mercenaries were stationed to directly strike at the supply center behind Grey Fort. That soaring blue flame, however, was the best guiding coordinate in the moonless night. Those fleeing rear-service personnel of Cromwell Principality had already lost all fighting spirit, so when they encountered the attacks of Steinbeck Fief’s militia, they only symbolically resisted for a short while, before escaping in disorder. In fact, many of them didn’t even bother to symbolically resist and simply directly fled.

Princess Natalie led the troops to attack the enemy from the front. Her blood-red long hair was especially conspicuous in the middle of the night. With every swing of the sword in her hand, the soldiers of Cromwell Principality closest to her would fall to the ground, completely dead. After she killed several people, no one dared to step forward and block the path of carnage caused by the red-haired war goddess. Upon seeing Princess Natalie approaching, all would automatically retreat and bustle to remove themselves from her way.

More than 30,000 defending troops of Cromwell Principality were chased and systematically killed by just over 5,000 Steinbeck Fief’s militia. The situation was quite chaotic. Because of the darkness, many defending troops of Cromwell Principality were unable to clearly see the number of attacking enemy troops. This allowed their imagination to work in overdrive, so they mistakenly believed that the other side had more people, directly collapsing any last remnants of their morale.

“Natalie! Aren’t you already...”

“Jenny! I... I am just helping someone do things, nothing more.”

Jenny had a shocked expression. She was very familiar with Princess Natalie’s fiery red long hair. After all, they had come to blows just a year before. At that time, Jenny had used raid tactics and carried out a sneak attack, successfully forcing Princess Natalie to withdraw to her own nation, thereby rewriting the war situation between Kruft Kingdom and Cromwell Principality.

However, a year later, just as all things must change with time, when they finally met again, their identities had quietly exchanged. Now, Princess Natalie had become the sneak attacker whereas Jenny had to lead troops to defend the granary. In the past, Princess Natalie had looked down on sneak attack tactics the most, but now, she herself also participated in a sneak attack. This was simply the natural law cycle of growth.

“Jenny, surrender! They will not make things difficult for you. I can guarantee your safety.”

“Natalie, I haven’t lost yet. You have just over 5,000 or so troops. Wait until the reinforcements of Evan Fort and Grey Fort comes...”

“They won’t come. Jenny, don’t you feel strange? Those fire ghosts only attacked your side, but not the people on my side.”

After hearing Princess Natalie’s reminder, Jenny finally noticed that something was wrong. The fire ghosts attacking the granary area were only attacking the troops of Cromwell Principality. As for the militia of Steinbeck Fief, they indifferently passed them by as if they didn’t see them. Usually, ghosts indiscriminately attacked all of Human Race. Since they didn’t attack, there was only one possibility: they were on the same side.

“Natalie, you... could it be that you are already...”

“Jenny, I had no choice in the past, but now, I just want to... Let’s drop this matter here. With this granary burned down, even if you return, you will not be able to easily explain yourself and will certainly be punished. You might as well follow me.”

“Surrender is impossible. Unfortunately, it is truly impossible because in this life, I will stick with my soldiers to the last moment.”

“Then, don’t blame me.”

In the end, Jenny didn’t compromise. Princess Natalie knew that she regarded face as all-important and didn’t want to admit defeat, and her fierceness was not inspired by any loyalty to her nation. However, Princess Natalie could only face this troublesome matter. A burnt down granary, this kind of matter needed a person to take the blame. Since Jenny had been responsible for the matters of this granary, if she didn’t die in battle and instead managed to return, she would be punished. According to the slavery system of Clark Alliance’s allied nations, this punishment would lead to the classic punished princesses and other aristrocratic misses’ fates. Jenny herself also knew what these were, and she would rather die in battle here.

Princess Natalie and Miss Jenny quickly engaged in several blows. From a distance, a swordswoman and an assassin, two starkly different professions, could barely be seen as Jenny transforming into a shadow and quickly swaying around Princess Natalie, assumedly looking for a suitable opening to backstab the swordswoman. For the moment, no victory or loss could be determined between these two.

Jenny attacked, and her daggers scraped Princess Natalie’s armor many times, creating sparks, but she had no way to deal a fatal blow to Princess Natalie. Both sides had fought several times before, so they were quite familiar with each other’s attack patterns and routines. It would be very difficult to determine a winner in a short time. As for the other rear-service personnel, they didn’t care about Miss Jenny and were too busy fleeing in confusion.

Princess Natalie hadn’t lied. Everything she had said to Jenny had been true. It was impossible for Evan Fort and Grey Fort to send any reinforcements. The over 20,000 mercenaries in Evan Fort were already preparing to withdraw. Upon seeing that the granary in the rear had caught fire, the leaders of the multiple mercenary groups couldn’t sit still. If the granary were burned down, there would be no way to ensure their supplies, breaking the promise made before the war where Cromwell Principality had promised to guarantee all the mercenaries’ rations.

However, it now seemed that this promise would be impossible to complete. Cromwell Principality couldn’t even resolve the matters of army provisions for their own troops. How could they have the energy to care about them as strangers? Just when they were hesitating, alarmed screams rang out from outside. Then the tone of those screams changed, and it seemed that the owners of these voiced had received a huge fright.

“Commander, the other side has made a surprise attack! They have at least 50,000 people...”

“Impossible! Steinbeck Fief has just 5,000 or so people. Where did those thousands of people...”

“I am not mistaken; they are rushing towards this fort!”

Several mercenary commanders quickly climbed Evan Fort’s perimeter wall and following the direction of the guards, they saw dwarming figures moving about Peacock Forest Area. Those figures were thickly dotted. From a visual estimate, there were over 50,000 troops. Because the moon didn’t shine through the darkness of the night, they couldn’t clearly see the appearances of those shadows. They could only see the armor and weapons of the other party, which gleamed with pallid light.

“Retreat, retreat! We don’t want money. Eric, that boy cheated us! We clearly came to an agreement for facing 5,000 or so enemy troops. Changing that number to tens of thousands of people... This matter has nothing to do with us even if the money offered is vastly increased.”

These mercenary commanders who were usually anyway decisive in handling affairs, under the pressure of the desperate situation, also became frantic. Since the number of enemies had increased, it was clearly different from the agreed business terms. Money was one thing, but this was clearly the business of getting killed. They would have considered staying at least a little if the pay had been increased, but without any offers... Thinking this, the mercenary commanders issued the retreat orders without any hesitation.

There were indeed over 100,000 troops in the forest; however, these troops weren’t living people, but rather undead. They were all zombies and skeleton warriors pacing up and down. Because there was no moonlight and starlight, the visibility was very poor,so the mercenaries couldn’t clearly see their appearances, merely observing their armors and weapons that reflected a pallid light, thereby, making the mercenaries mistake them for human troops.

This could also be considered fortunate. If the mercenaries had clearly seen their shadowy opponents, they might have been in an even more panicked state than now, leaving shadows in their hearts for the rest of their lifetimes. Whatever one said, an undead legion was far more frightening than a human legion and also had a bigger deterrent force.

Clyde and ancient Demon King Andrisno stood in Peacock Forest Area, watching the retreat of those mercenaries from Evan Fort. The undead legion didn’t directly participate in this war; they just paced up and down while playing with fire here, nothing more. As for the other side being frightened and retreating, that wasn’t his issue. It was just the other side not having sufficient courage, nothing more.

“The Human Race is like this: they innately fear the darkness. Even if there is nothing in the darkness, they foolishly think otherwise.”

“Andrisno, you seemed to understand a great deal about the Human Race?”

“No, no. Lord Clyde, I am just expressing my thoughts. I also don’t understand much about the Human Race.”

“Is there no movement from that fellow Eric?”

Ancient Demon King Andrisno’s blood-red demonic pupils emitted blood-red radiance. That was the state she entered whenever she commanded the demonic creatures. The specters that had secretly snuck into the frontline for scouting consisted of the will-o’-the-wisps that had raided the granary area as well as undead and skeleton warriors that paced up and down Peacock Forest Area. These over 100,000 demonic creatures were all under Andrisno’s command. Clyde didn’t participate because his abilities didn’t fall into the category of summoning and controlling demonic creatures.

“The specters in the front just sent the latest intelligence. Eric seems to have just woken up from a drunken sleep and still doesn’t know the current circumstances!”

“This guy, he truly came here to play. Determine his coordinates; I will go and take a look at what ability he has.”

Clyde had thought that Eric, the commander of the opposite camp, would have made some big moves, but via the intelligence report, he learned that this fellow had truly had no reserve plans from the start. In addition, he was still drunk even as his camp was under assault. It now seemed that Clyde had been overanxious. The commander of the opposite camp was a mediocre person.