Volume 2 chapter 82
After the fall of Picard's City, the Alliance's advance was exactly as Clyris had feared. It wasn't just a breakthrough; it was an armed parade.
They encountered no meaningful resistance. The speed of their march was practically equal to the speed of their conquest.
Of course, this was partly because Clyris had piled the vast majority of her forces on the front lines, leaving the rear cities with no combat-capable troops and insufficient defenses.
Strictly speaking, these "cities" were merely large towns. Their walls were just five or six meters of stone without a single defensive array.
The only resistance the Alliance encountered came from the routed demon soldiers fleeing Picard's City. But without heavy artillery or air support, these broken remnants stood no chance against the War Behemoths.
Helms hadn't even reached Bagus City when he heard the news that the Alliance had taken three cities in rapid succession. Their vanguard pointed straight at the last city before Goron—Forgrave City!
Arriving at Forgrave, Helms's first order was to evacuate the First-Rank demons unable to fight, and then to calm the routed soldiers from Picard.
"Everyone... Everyone!" Helms looked at the chaotic mass of soldiers below. They had lost all will to fight. Days of fleeing had left them ragged, many without even their weapons.
No cannons, no heavy machine guns, no shells... some didn't even have rifles!
Yes, they had lost almost all their rifles. Their ammunition had run out long ago.
And their numbers were pitiful—only seventy or eighty thousand remained. Most were Second or Third-Rank demons. There were only about fifty Fourth-Rank demons, and not a single Fifth-Rank among them!
More importantly, they had been beaten into submission. Helms looked out and saw only heads hanging low, bodies covered in filth and wounds, eyes filled with terror.
With a force like this, he was supposed to stop hundreds of thousands of elite Alliance troops?
"No wonder Her Majesty said not to defend the city..." Helms sighed inwardly, but kept his face calm.
"We cannot run anymore! Behind us is Goron City! We must delay the Alliance for Her Majesty, to buy time for Goron's defenses to be built! If we keep routing and let the Alliance take Goron... and the cities beyond... Talisk and Abbys Fortresses will fall!"
"If those two fortresses fall, we have no more strongholds to stop them. The Alliance will march all the way to the Dark City! That means losing another two-thirds of our territory!"
"And many will die! Many, many people! Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of our kin will die!" Helms shouted. "So, warriors! We must delay the enemy! We must buy time for our brothers in Goron! Hold the line! For Her Majesty!"
However, his words yielded little result. While some soldiers stirred, most remained unmoved.
"Can we... really do it..." A soldier muttered, his eyes lost.
"Impossible... who can fight those monsters... even Commander Gina died..." A survivor from the Fortress Artillery unit stared blankly ahead, his eyes dead.
"No! No! I don't want to die!" A survivor from Lucas's shock troops screamed, breaking down. "It's meaningless! No one can stop them! No one can stop those monsters! No one! We're just throwing our lives away!"
"I don't want to die! I just want to live!"
These words ignited the emotions of every routed soldier. They had been terrified on the brutal battlefield, the first to break and run—otherwise, they wouldn't have arrived here first.
Asking them to face the Alliance again was impossible. Their will was shattered!
"Yes... I saw it on the wall... Even Commander Lucas was shot dead easily. What use are we?"
"Impossible! We can't stop them! The Alliance still has Ninth-Rankers hiding! They must be..."
"Run!"
Someone shouted the word. The crowd fell silent for a second, then erupted like water dropped into hot oil!
"Yes, yes, yes! Run!"
"Run away!!"
The soldiers clamored, getting up to leave. Even Helms's personal guard couldn't stop them. After all, they were kin; they couldn't bring themselves to kill their own people.
"Everyone! Brothers! Don't panic!" Helms tried to maintain order, but it was futile. The soldiers ignored him completely.
They were a flock of startled birds, not an army. They had no courage left for the battlefield.
BANG!!
Seeing words were useless, Helms drew his pistol and fired a shot into the sky!
The loud bang drowned out the noise, silencing the crowd momentarily.
"No one runs! Guards, seal the exits! Anyone trying to force their way out without my order will be shot on the spot!"
Helms spoke coldly. His harshness incited anger in the crowd.
"If you want to die, go die yourself! Why drag us with you?!"
"Yeah! You don't understand the cruelty of the battlefield! You just hide in the safe rear and send us to die!"
BANG!!
Helms fired another shot. He looked coldly at the crowd. No one dared meet his gaze, but their trembling bodies betrayed their anger and unwillingness.
"I won't send you to throw your lives away! I will fight with you! The Alliance wants to exterminate every single one of us! In this situation, whether it's you, me, or even Her Majesty! We are no different! We have no choice!"
"I am with you! Her Majesty is with you! Do you want to disappoint Her Majesty?"
Helms spoke slowly. The soldiers trembled.
"B-but... those monsters, we really can't fight them... Her Majesty? Where is Her Majesty? Let Her Majesty come..." A Second-Rank Fire Demon raised a trembling hand, tears of burning magma flowing down his face. "My brother... swept by that thing... and he was gone! Nothing left! His whole body vanished instantly... right in front of me! Vanished!"
"We can't fight that... Only Her Majesty... Only Her Majesty... But Her Majesty didn't come..."
"Yes..." A Third-Rank Shadow Demon stood up, looking at Helms. "Sir Helms, we ants can't do anything! We don't ask for forgiveness... we... just want to live!"
"The continent has no place for us. We can retreat further! Run to the Arctic Ice Plains! Humans can't survive there, but we can! As long as we cross the North Sea, we can run there! We can live... that's all we want..."
"Sir, let us go..."
"Yeah! Losing our meager combat power doesn't matter, right?"
"Exactly! Sir Helms, we just want to live!"
Helms looked at the pleading faces with a stoic expression, but he sighed deeply in his heart.
These people... their confidence had been completely crushed.
Since the war began, the West had suffered defeat after defeat. From Hall Pass to Picard, they had been beaten to the point of collapse. They finally held at Picard, pinning their hopes on it. They fortified it, poured in troops and artillery, thinking they could stop the Alliance. But it fell in a single day. The confidence they painstakingly rebuilt was utterly destroyed!
"Run..." Helms took a deep breath and spoke slowly. "True, we can run. Run to the Arctic Ice Plains."
"The snow there never melts, storms rage constantly. Humans can't survive, but we can... But what about after? How will we face the Alliance then?"
"The North Sea is only a few hundred kilometers wide. If we can cross it, the Alliance soldiers can too! On the barren ice plains, what will we use to fight them?"
"Even fortresses with defensive arrays fall. In open field battles, who can stop a Charge Formation? Who can fight a War Behemoth? In the end, it will just be a massacre! Like slaughtering cattle and sheep!"
Helms's words blew through the crowd like a cold wind, making everyone shiver.
He continued, relentless. "Ten thousand years ago, we lost, so we retreated from the last stronghold in the West! Five thousand years ago, we lost again, and retreated from the Central Continent! Now, where can we retreat to?"
"Face reality, everyone! We have nowhere left to run! On the Ice Plains, we won't even have a chance to linger on! The Alliance will land within a few years, and it will be a slaughter! There is nothing on the Ice Plains! No fortresses! No ore! No resources!"
"We won't be able to build heavy cannons, planes, machine guns... we won't even qualify to make the Alliance take us seriously! But here, we still have fortresses! We still have heavy cannons! We still have planes! We can still fight! We can make the Alliance fear us! So why... why not fight one last time?"
The soldiers lowered their heads in shame, but still dared not speak of returning to the battlefield. They were afraid... Fear is not easily erased. Even knowing that running only bought a moment of life, the instinct to survive drove them to flee.
Seeing this, Helms spoke again. "I understand. Relying on our combat power to block the Alliance frontally is just meaningless suicide! So I am not asking you to defend the city!"
At these words, the soldiers looked up in shock, disbelief on their faces.
Helms smiled simply. "Her Majesty also understands the disparity in power. So our mission is not to defend the city! Instead, disperse into the wilderness! In small squads, infiltrate their rear! Coordinate with our brothers in the Air Force to raid their supply convoys and delay their advance!"
"We don't have to face the main Alliance army. We might not even encounter their elite squads—because the Air Force brothers will hunt those strong units for us! We just need to follow behind, like hyenas following a lion, picking up scraps! Will you follow me for this?"
"Just... just that? Nothing else?" A soldier asked skeptically.
"Nothing else!" Helms said frankly. "Besides, once we disperse, if you want to leave, I can't stop you, can I? I won't make it hard for you. Just... before you go, notify the Air Force brothers so they can claim the credit!"
The soldiers looked at each other. After a murmur of discussion, a Fourth-Rank Blood Demon stepped forward.
"We are willing to fight!"
Seeing this, Helms finally smiled.
"Welcome, my brothers. Let us return to the battlefield of hell and fight them to the death!"
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