Chapter 764: A Relentless Stand

Northern Mountain Raiders fall in swaths beneath the crossbow bolts like grass before a scythe, but the survivors charge on without fear.

In the distance, cavalry battalions repeatedly maneuver against the Northern Mountain Raider army's mountain-beast cavalry formations.

A towering shaggy giant, pierced by several heavy ballista bolts more than two meters long, staggers another dozen paces before hurling its stone.

A war rhino charges on after its handler dies, dragging the corpse beneath a body studded with ballista bolts. It tears open a gap in the line before finally collapsing.

At the front, the Northern Mountain Raider army hammers and compresses Peace Haven's formation again and again, only for row after row of raiders to have their necks pierced by sharp war spears and collapse onto the heaps of corpses in sprays of blood.

Every section of the Mixed Army Group's line is under pressure. The enemy crashes against it like an unending tide, knowing neither fear nor exhaustion.

After five relentless hours, Peace Haven's first defensive line begins to waver.

Agnico frowns. He finally understands why the Royal Army could not hold and was forced to retreat.

It has been a long time since Agnico witnessed fighting this ferocious or a battlefield this brutal.

Evening has arrived and the sky is darkening, yet the enemy shows no intention of withdrawing.

Windson says quietly, "My lord, should we contract the line? The coming night battle will place us at a serious disadvantage otherwise."

Agnico shakes his head and raises a hand. "Prepare to launch the illumination balloons!"

More than a hundred balloons, each dozens of meters across, are filled with special gas. A glass vessel of liquid hangs beneath each as they rise a hundred meters into the air.

They drift forward until they hover two to three hundred meters beyond the formation.

Devices buried in the ground attract the illumination balloons and hold them in place against the wind.

Strictly speaking, the illumination balloons are extraordinary constructs, though they are inexpensive and use rather unusual materials.

They are by-products of the Technical Research Institute's work on extraordinary alloys and potions.

Once an illumination balloon reaches the space above the enemy, a timing mechanism on its glass vessel activates and the liquid begins to trickle downward.

Just over fifty meters above the ground, the liquid atomizes into a brilliant fluorescent mist.

It resembles a luminous cloud and lights a large area beneath it.

Together, more than a hundred luminous clouds light the entire zone two to three hundred meters before the formation.

The light cannot compare to daytime, but it is roughly equivalent to dawn or dusk.

That is enough for Peace Haven's soldiers, who do not suffer from night blindness, to keep fighting.

Under moonlight, the luminous clouds become even brighter.

By now, every reserve reinforcement battalion has already been committed.

Agnico scans the battlefield and checks his pocket watch. "In two hours, have the second echelon replace the first on the front line."

The fighting becomes even more brutal after nightfall, and the Northern Mountain Raider army also begins to feel the pressure.

The raiders are clearly unused to fighting at night, and Agnico quickly spots the weakness.

After two waves of ranged saturation fire, eight fresh thousand-man battalions immediately advance.

With a fierce countercharge, they retake the ground lost during the day.

No prisoners are taken. Both armies finish off every wounded enemy they find.

The Northern Mountain Raider soldiers show no intention of surrendering, while Peace Haven's warriors fight to their final breath.

In one-on-one combat, the enemy has the advantage in physical strength, while Peace Haven's soldiers hold the advantage in martial skill and equipment.

The two sides are roughly evenly matched in individual combat.

Peace Haven's army is famous across the continent for its formations and coordination. Its teamwork far surpasses that of any other force, much less the disordered raiders before it.

When the fighting breaks down into ten-man squad clashes, the Northern Mountain Raiders collapse on contact.

Seeing the melee begin, the Northern Mountain Raider commander initially believes the battle has finally shifted into his army's preferred rhythm.

He soon realizes his mistake. The ten thousand fresh raiders he committed are being isolated and destroyed.

Peace Haven's seemingly disordered soldiers cooperate in small squads, then merge into hundred-man groups that encircle and kill the enemy together.

The raider commander can see clearly that some soldiers do not even belong to the same hundred-man company, yet they merge seamlessly and fight together as if they had always served in one unit.

The infantry assault fails, and problems soon appear among the cavalry as well.

Mountain-beast cavalry normally excels at night. It often rides out after dark to drive away the Vorry army's mounted scouts and impose battlefield interdiction.

There have often been cases where a stable front line was surrounded by superior raider forces after only a single night.

Tonight, however, the Northern Mountain Raider army has met its match.

When darkness falls, Dikern equips every rider with a new type of marking arrow before launching the layer-stripping tactic again.

A small cylinder sits behind the armor-piercing head of each arrow.

When an arrow strikes an enemy, the glass cylinder shatters and sprays out a special liquid.

Every mountain-beast cavalryman struck by one begins to shine with a vivid blue glow.

Peace Haven is marking its targets.

Peace Haven's rigorously trained cavalry cannot see the road clearly in the darkness, but each rider only needs to follow the formation ahead.

Almost every cavalry squad leader possesses at least Knight-level strength.

Their helmets carry a simple enchantment. Once activated with fighting spirit, it reveals the surrounding terrain.

Only then does the night battle truly intensify.

Among the mountain-beast cavalry, only the mountain-beast mounts possess night vision. Most of the riders cannot see in the dark.

Now the fluorescent agent on their bodies makes them stand out even more starkly against the night.

The mountain beasts cannot match the endurance of Peace Haven's specially bred horses, and their predatory presence has no effect on Peace Haven's warhorses.

Dikern and the other officers lead their men in a relentless harvest of mountain-beast cavalry lives.

During the day, the mountain-beast cavalry chased Dikern and his men. Now their positions are reversed.

Like wolf packs hunting in the dark, the cavalry battalions tear one piece after another from the beast-cavalry formations.

The Northern Mountain Raider commander watches his elite cavalry being worn away piece by piece. He is frantic, but there is nothing he can do.

The balance of the battle is tipping toward Peace Haven.

By dawn, the mountain-beast host that once numbered more than one hundred thousand has lost over half its strength.

The remaining thirty thousand or so have no hope of tearing open Peace Haven's defenses.

A full day and night of fighting has also taken a heavy toll on Peace Haven, especially in exhaustion.

Henwell, however, puts more faith in technology than mutation.

Peace Haven developed stamina-restoring potions long ago as another by-product of extraordinary potion research.

One dose leaves a soldier refreshed and restores a great deal of stamina.

The strength comes at a price. After the battle, the soldiers will need several days of rest to recover fully.