The Blood army got a second wind after their commanders joined them. What felt like fighting a single soldier, switched to fighting a single giant organism connected by its head, the commander. The commanders of the coalition army needed to work even harder than before. They needed to worry about the commanders and about their soldiers' morale.
Hayato stopped charging in, and instead, switched into strategy. He split the army this time into five 20.000 or so men battalions under the lead of him, Bard, Audun, Eric, and Griffin. After Ed got locked into combat with the strongest commander, they retreated back to study the change in the enemy lines. Both sides did the same thing. After splitting his army, Hayato led the charge with his central army charging first. Then the right and left wings followed. As the enemy focused first on him, they didn't react in time to the other four armies' synced charge.
At least it seemed that way. It was, in fact, a bait, to get the commanders locked in combat at the front. The enemy commanders started killing them from behind. They could have succeeded, if not for the existence of Gobuta and Raikou who instantly killed two weak enemy commanders. The others noticed this and killed as many people as they could before retreating.
Ed and the enemy commander were locked in aerial combat. Neither one of them holding the advantage over the other. Each time they crossed weapons, they caused shockwaves similar to thunder sending both of them dozens of meters farther each time. After a couple of minutes of combat, they ended up on the right battlefield.
"Edward…" Emilia noticed him and frowned. She was worried about him and his behavior lately, but she couldn't spare him much thought as she was locked into combat. The right and left armies had it worse compared to the central one. In the first two days, they needed to fight monsters mostly, so they could manage. But on the third day, the soldiers of Blood sect switched, and now it was a mix of Beastmen and Oni.
Emilia was worried about Ellie at first, seeing as how she needed to fight her own kin. However, she didn't need to worry as Ellie could see the big picture. A certain Oni female blocked Emilia's path while saying, "Remember me?"
Emilia didn't care about this, but she did remember the face. It was the Oni that fought against her in the tournament back in the academy. She also remembered how troublesome her barrier was.
"I don't have the time for you." Emilia unsheathed her white rapier that reflected the light of the sun. In one gentle thrust, a glacier emerged out of nowhere, trapping the Oni girl, her barrier, and dozens of soldiers behind her. Emilia didn't want to use this a lot, as there was a risk of hurting her own allies.
"Oooooh!" The soldiers cheered as they saw how Leonard managed to best one of the enemy commanders. He was hurt in the process, as the enemy had a higher cultivation, but Alicia supported him by using Healing magic. The left army was going through a similar process where they managed to kill many of the stronger foes. But still, everyone had an uneasy feeling in their hearts.
Ed told them that the enemies would have many Immortal Establishment fighters. But, they only encountered a handful of them. They were all worried about when the true assault by their enemies will start.
They also worried about Ed himself, as they could no longer see him due to how far he and his enemy traveled.
"Kuh!" Emilia noticed how Ellie got blown away by someone. She had dismounted, as she needed to since she fought barehanded. She looked towards the one who sent her flying, and it was a Beastman as well.
"You traitor. Look at you, the only beastmen in this army of humans. You bring shame to the nobles of our kingdom." The beastman had two pointy, grey wolf ears and seemed to be in his late twenties.
"I'm not a traitor, your royal family is. The fact that you would side with these murderers brings shame to our whole race, not just our kingdom." Ellie didn't take his words lying down. Instead, she retaliated as she looked at Emilia.
Emilia understood that Ellie needed help and didn't need a second confirmation. She descended from her horse and joined her friend. The two of them started fighting against the man, who seemed to be a prince of the beastmen kingdom.
Similar to Ellie, he seemed to have an enormous physical power, and on top of that, he could use magic. The three of them flew high as they could fight freely in the sky. The man was at Immortal Establishment level 1. Similar to Snake whom they fought back in Scale kingdom. Back there they needed to fight with so many people, but now the two of them felt like they could take him on. From the start of the war, they felt their cultivation increasing abnormally.
"You annoying fly!" The prince seemed to be fed up with Emilia, as she blocked his attacks with ice blocks every time. He switched his focus to her, which proved to be a mistake. Emilia conjured over twenty fire spears and manipulated them with her QI. The prince didn't struggle with them, as he used his own QI to disperse them. But, he forgot about Ellie, who appeared at his right side, hitting him with her full power.
The prince lurched as he felt the pain go through his whole body. He flew even higher and brandished his claws. He swiped with both his hands a couple of times, sending tens of flying slashes. They couldn't be blocked with Emilia's ice glaciers alone, causing both her and Ellie to get injured. But, they didn't remain injured for long as they brought out Ed's potions and drank them.
The fight resumed, and the prince seemed to be losing as each second passed.
"Wait! If you kill me! Your whole family back in the kingdom will be executed!" The prince seemed to beg for his life, as he knew what would happen to him.
"Don't worry. After we win this war, I'll go back there and kill your whole treacherous family." Ellie approached his beaten and battered body.
"Do you really believe that you can win?!" The prince seemed to panic more and more as she approached him.
Just as she was close enough, he brought out a round ball. It was the same ball the man who attacked Scale two years ago used to teleport. But, before the prince could activate it, his hand froze along with the ball.
"We won against you, didn't we?" Emilia told him as she froze his whole body. Ellie then proceeded to shatter it and his body.
Just as the two of them tried to enjoy their victory, they noticed something. Ed's monsters were nowhere to be seen. Just as they tried to search for them, they saw two figures coming from the distance.
Their hearts beat faster and the two of them could feel as if they were bleeding. The two figures flew above the armies and stopped above the central one.
"Is this all you have?!" The Immortal Establishment level 4 commander returned with a lifeless body in right hand, as his left one had disappeared.
"EDWARD!!" As his allies saw his body, they screamed as tears filled their eyes.
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"Wh-" The man holding Edward's corpse noticed a projectile approaching him very quickly. He could dodge it, but only by hair's width. "What are you trying to do old man?" He looked at the archer that shot towards him. Fury, rage, disbelief. All could be seen in his eyes as he couldn't make heads or tails out of the situation.
"RELEASE HIM NOW!" Bard screamed at the top of his lungs sending his voice traveling all over the battlefield. Before the man could speak back to him, he noticed a presence behind him. Audun flew up as fast as he could and attacked as soon as he reached the man. His halberd bent due to the strength he put behind it. The axe part cut through the air releasing a whistling sound.
"Oooh careful careful." The man disappeared from the attack's trajectory and appeared far away, still holding Edward's body. His complexion looked pale due to the blood loss of his missing arm, but he looked ready to fight.
"I told you to RELEASE HIM!" Bard then appeared, charging a lightning arrow. As he released the arrow, the unthinkable happened. The man used Edward's body to block the arrow and change its direction.
"YOU BASTARD!" Bard bellowed and rushed at the man. Audun came to get him from behind as well.
"Don't get so angry. If you want the body, you can have it." He said as he threw Ed's body into the air. The two old men rushed to catch the body, but before they could, a flame approached it first and incinerated it. The two of them looked at it in shock while they slowly turned their heads towards the man. He had escaped, and they couldn't even recover Edward's body.
The man fled towards his army and mingled with the soldiers. He then continued until he reached their headquarters.
With no way to channel their anger anymore, Bard and Audun switched back to attacking the army. Their ferocious assault claimed the lives of hundreds of people every second. However, their QI consumption rivaled their killing speed. If they continued in this way, they would be killed easily once their QI is completely gone. Realizing this, Hayato switched his target and started approaching them.
"Return to the back of the army and rest. We'll still need you two later." Hayato told them, but they seemed shocked at his nonchalance after his friend had just died.
"What are you talking about? We'll just perish here after our savior…" Audun said with a somber face. Bard seemed to agree with him as he kept charging arrows and firing them.
"JUST LISTEN TO ME! We will need you two later, and you will return to the back. Don't let his hard work go in vain. And don't forget, this is a war to win, not to perish in." The two of them didn't seem to listen, but Hayato didn't leave until the two of them had retreated. Hayato did the same thing with the rampaging Charlie, as he wanted to get revenge. But, he was much easier to convince compared to the previous two.
Similar cases happened all over the armies with Emilia, Ellie, Leon, Liz, and others. Their respective commanders got all of them to retreat and wait for further orders. They couldn't keep them in the front lines, as they would have been killed with such a frenzied mind.
As expected, with the disappearance of such strong figures, the front lines started losing people much faster. The commanders of the armies had to work the hardest. Many of them fought multiple Immortal Establishment cultivators at once. They had no hope of winning in such a case, so they didn't stay in the fight for long.
Emilia was sitting back in a tent with a face that couldn't be described. Her eyes were wide open, and even though she wanted to cry, tears didn't seem to be coming out. The scene of Edward's body being carried like a lifeless swine replayed over and over in her mind. Ed's words telling her that he won't die in the basement of her castle also played in her mind. Two words escaped from her mouth while thinking about everything. "You liar."
Her tent opened up, breaking her out of the loop. She looked up to see Hayato's father, Akira.
"It's been around thirty minutes since that man returned. We have another thirty minutes before the war's climax, maybe even less. We need to be ready." Akira spoke while realizing that Emilia could hear him. At least she was calm, unlike Ellie who thrashed everything around her room.
"You've received some equipment from Ed, right. Put those on and be ready, you'll have to move out when the signal appears." Akira left as he finished his words. Emilia looked dazed for a while, but then her eyes focused back. The same thing happened with many others. They had to win this war, and if they couldn't, they'll take as many people as possible with them.
The coalition army lost much of his morale due to the disappearance of the commanders but still fought hard. The blood sect army commanders retreated back as they felt uneasy.
Back in their headquarters, the man who killed Edward finally got to enter the room where the highest commanders were staying at.
"Leader, I have some information to tell you." He said as he glanced towards the people inside. There were five people there each one with a high cultivation. The weakest one was the same as him a level four. But the highest one was the man standing and looking towards the armies.
"Did your brain lose half of its contents? Or did you simply get some common sense and lost your pride along with your hand?" One woman spoke as she cracked a smile. She was of average height with a curvy body. She seemed to know the man well enough to tease him.
"Shut up this isn't the time. The enemy is planning something big and we need to prepare." He said as he seemed in a bit of a rush. Different compared to his attitude back with Bard and Audun.
"Did you find out from the boy who took your arm?" The leader said.
"Yeah, he was strong." The man glanced at his missing left arm as he spoke.
"Well then, let us hear this plan."
Hello everyone! Hope you enjoy the chapter. Do you think Ed is really dead? If not, tell me what you think is happening.
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