The following morning, I woke up to the sound of a horn that signaled all soldiers to go to their posts.
During the night, I asked Vespera to watch the camp closely in case any lesser demons tried attacking. Thankfully, none of them advanced to our position.
Our objective was to push the Kalusia army back into the depths of the desert, as we were currently located very close to the border of the empire.
Losing one battle meant that the enemy’s forces could invade the towns that were the closest to us.
Thousands of soldiers got into different groups and arranged themselves in organized rows.
The ones in the front had shields and spears, the middle had lighter weapons, and the soldiers in the back had their bows and arrows ready.
As they marched through the desert, my companions and I followed them from the sky, and after an hour, we saw the enemy’s forces marching towards us.
Their soldiers were a mix between beastkins and lesser demons. However, the beastkin looked terrified to be there.
I couldn’t feel any bloodlust from them, which made me believe that they obviously didn’t want to be there.
’They are probably cursed...’ I thought, considering that Zagor was sending people to curse others in other nations, it seemed plausible that he was doing it in Kalusia, too.
There was a massive problem with that, and that was the fact that there were thousands of them. I was only able to heal the curse on the bandits because we could do it one by one, and their numbers weren’t this exaggerated.
’I don’t even know if I have this many holy panaceas...’ I thought, pondering on other options.
Nonetheless, I didn’t have much time to wonder as the two forces were rushing toward each other head-first. The fight began, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
"It’s a war, Ichiro... It’s just impossible to save everyone..." said Gina as we watched the battle from the sky.
Gina was right, but the fact that she had to be the one to say that to me when it was her own country that was being enslaved and sent to war made me feel pretty stupid.
The battle-maid had already decided that sacrifices needed to be made for her nation to be saved, and if she was able to come to terms with that idea, then I had to do it, too.
’I can’t save you now, but I promise I’ll save your whole country...’ I thought as I crashed down on the battlefield, head-first with my bo in hand, creating a massive shockwave of wind and earth magic that split their formation.
During the fight, I tried my best to avoid any beastkin as they all attacked me with terrified expressions, which made it almost impossible for me to attack them back. It just didn’t feel right.
I focused on the lesser demons since they were much more dangerous and vicious and were also the main reason for most of the empire soldiers’ deaths.
"Sorry..." I muttered as I used my mithril dagger to slice the head of the lesser demons that stood before me with one swift slice.
As their bodies disappeared along the shadows, I felt a tinge of sadness coursing through me, but I couldn’t let that stop me, or the empire’s soldiers would be the ones dying.
I noticed that the empress and her soldiers were doing their best not to kill the beastkin soldiers, and instead, they were knocking them out and taking them into custody.
I couldn’t tell if the empress realized what I was thinking or if she felt the same as I did.
Lysandra was a powerful warrior, so having an opponent who clearly didn’t want to fight back probably had her thinking the same as me.
One thing I noticed was that the beastkin warriors didn’t have a mark on their necks like the cursed bandits used to, which made me wonder if they had actually been cursed.
They could have easily defected from their army and gone to another country if they weren’t cursed. Well, maybe not "easily," but there was definitely a chance.
The fact that they were fighting while terrified meant that there had to be something else at play, so capturing a few of them could help us look for what was tying them to their army.
As the fight prolonged, I kept taking down the beastkin soldiers and sending them to our backlines, where they were being transported to the camp for interrogation. However, out of nowhere, a massive pack of lesser demons arrived for backup.
There were at least two thousand of them, which wasn’t that many, considering we had eight thousand in battle at that moment. I only knew that because I asked the empress, though.
The enemy forces had five thousand soldiers, but we had dwindled their numbers after taking out plenty of the lesser demons. However, the addition of two thousand more arriving from the flank wasn’t expected.
To make it worse, all of their incoming backups were lesser demons, so they were rushing fast toward the battlefield with clear bloodlust that could be felt all around us.
The empress gave a command for the soldiers to split and defend against the demons, prompting them to move with their shields raised to the sides of the battlefield.
Meanwhile, I flew high in the air to get a better sight of their troops, and I spotted another large group of people riding through the desert with haste toward us.
"Is that...?" I pondered out loud as I squinted and focused my vision on the distant desert riders.
"It’s Samir!" I exclaimed, quickly descending towards the empress.
When I told her that backup from Aridonia would arrive in a few minutes, she gave orders to their soldiers to keep pushing the enemy troops. That way, the desert soldiers could flank them from the side.
As the soldiers scattered to pass the order around, I quickly flew to the frontline to help them with the push.
’I don’t know much about war strategy, so I’ll follow Lysandra’s plan...’ I thought.