Chapter 59: Delicious

"Have these monsters grown less aggressive?"

After Maes Copperhammer ordered the whole army to fall back to the second line, the general suddenly noticed something.

The imps fighting his army had begun to act in a chaotic way.

No, no.

Demons were chaotic creatures, always and everywhere. What Maes really meant was that the demons, who had been so efficient at killing, had suddenly become "inefficient."

Under Koda’s command, the demon warriors had been fighting in groups of seven or eight, killing off the lone or wounded dwarf warriors one at a time.

And beyond those "killing squads," Koda had sent a huge number of sneaky tricksters across the battlefield, or rather, free agents.

These imps, drifting around the main fight, were not there to wound anyone. Their real duty was to stop the other dwarf warriors who tried to rescue their besieged comrades.

Every time a dwarf warrior ran toward a wounded friend, an imp would appear and block his path.

The imp was weak, but the trouble it caused was huge. If the dwarves ignored it, it would attack them and make them wounded too. If they dealt with it, they would find, to their horror, that by the time they got free of the little pest, the warrior they wanted to save had already been torn to pieces.

But now this savage, inhuman slaughter had stopped.

Because of Koda’s indulgence, all the demons were wild and could not be stopped.

Across the whole battlefield, there were no more killing squads finishing off stragglers, and no more free agents blocking the dwarves’ rescues.

In their place was a field of absolute chaos!

Dwarves, demons, earth dragons, abyssal earth dragons.

Countless bodies darted around the field like grains of rice in boiling porridge. Without a view of the whole battle, no one, and nothing, could predict its next step. They could hardly even tell where they were.

"Everyone!"

"Gather on me! Close in on me!"

But in the face of this, the dwarf general, Maes Copperhammer, seemed strangely excited.

Because he saw a chance, a chance to save as many of his warriors as possible in all this chaos!

Thud! Thud!

After igniting his battle aura, Maes sent dozens of imps blocking his way flying with just two swings of his hammer.

Behind him, the attendants who were still loyal to him cleared away the demons that dared to close in.

"Unwounded warriors on the outside, the wounded on the inside! Protect the wounded and follow me out of here!"

The moment he finished speaking, the brave general led the charge.

Every dwarf warrior who heard him gathered on him.

Soon, a formation like an arrowhead appeared on the battlefield.

It had to be said that General Maes did poorly in many ways. But in this moment of crisis, he made a very correct call.

Countless wounded lived because of his command. They were shielded in the middle of the formation, as they should be.

And on the outer ring, countless brave dwarf warriors fought demons to the death, holding back their chaotic, unending assault.

Maes and his attendants became the sharpest point of the arrow, cutting a path in front.

Everything looked so hopeful.

As long as their formation did not break, as long as the demons could not break through it, they would soon be free of this chaotic battlefield.

But on the Abyssal Throne, a true demon was thinking the same thing.

"As expected. Never abandoning a single wounded man is a virtue that moves the heart."

"Because you give them hope, they misjudge their own dying lives."

"But have you ever thought about whether those who have lost most of their strength are truly worth saving?"

Sure enough, at the very moment Maes found his glimmer of hope, the demons, so chaotic a moment ago, were taken in hand by Koda again.

But unlike before, under his command they changed their tactics once more.

"Wound as many of them as you can," Koda said coldly.

"Slow their escape first, then cut them down little by little."

"But don’t wound too many at a time, and don’t cut too hard."

"It’s like some ancient torture in the histories, cutting flesh from a living man."

"It must not hurt him too much, and it must not kill him too fast."

"Only then will he realize, in the last moment before his breath stops, the sad truth that he is already dead."

In the darkness, a pair of slit-pupiled eyes was the first to see the fate of these dwarf warriors.

From the very beginning, Koda had expected the decision Maes would make. He did not stop it because he was chasing a higher aim in this campaign.

To wipe out these dwarf warriors, every last one!

If they chose to embrace hope, Koda would give them hope. Because only then, at the moment that hope burned out, could this monster, evil and cruel to the bone, sit calmly on his Abyssal Throne and savor the ultimate despair he had craved for so long!

* * *

"General, we have more wounded. Others have filled the gaps!"

"General Maes, more wounded have appeared, but we have no spare hands left."

"More demons are blocking us. We have to slow down, or the ones in the back can’t keep up, General!"

"General!"

"General..."

"Gen..."

At last, at the edge of the battlefield, Maes stopped.

He turned and looked behind him.

The whole battlefield could no longer be called bloody.

Because from start to finish, it had been a massacre!

Just a "slaughter show," staged by some twisted executioner to display his own skill.

"Huff... haah..."

Maes stood up and looked at Karolith, the Imp Matriarch, closing in on him from far away.

"Come, you monster!"

"Dwarf Father above, even if I die, I will die bravely..."

Thud!

The next moment, an abyssal fireball struck his back and knocked him down.

Karolith did not grant him a brave death.

While Maes was still gasping for breath, she was already impatiently stuffing his head into her mouth.

The taste of despair.

Always the most delicious, isn’t it?