Book 3-5.5 The Battle

“The Wikaly have started to move!”

Trebol shouted as he ran toward Yulian who was talking to Pere.

“They can’t just leisurely sit back since we have taken the center. How are they moving?”

“They have come out of the oasis and are starting to set up a formation. Wouldn’t that mean they want to face to us in a direct battle?”

“Then we should prepare as well. I leave it to you.”

Yulian had been studying hard, but he was still lacking quite a bit compared to the other Greatest Warriors when it came to the movement of such a large army. After asking Trebol and the other Greatest Warriors to prepare the formation, Yulian sent Pere to go gather the Red Storm warriors.

As he watched Pere run to gather them, Yuilan wondered to himself how it would be if he groomed Pere to become a Greatest Warrior instead of a member of Red Storm.

They will be moving around to other external areas in the future, and their army will continue to get bigger and stronger.

‘I would feel relaxed if Pere is defending the capital while I am out at war. Pere will be reliable since his strength is not lacking in comparison to any other Greatest Warrior, and it is always good to have a lot of Greatest Warriors.’

The deciding factor for Yulian’s decision was that Pere was having a hard time connecting with the Red Storm warriors. He hoped that Pere would quickly get along with them and become a leader in the Red Storm, but it did not seem to be easy. Honestly speaking, he had expected it to be difficult because Pere’s weapon was different than the rest of Red Storm, but not to the point of Pere being alienated like this.

‘I made have had the wrong idea in the past. Pere is more fitting to be a Greatest Warrior who leads thousands of warriors, and it is probably more his style as well.’

If you realize that you are wrong, all you have to do is fix it. Yulian quickly made up his mind to have Pere train under Egane instead of with the Red Storm.

Once the Red Storm warriors gathered, Yulian started to speak.

“The Wikaly have finally started to move.”

The Red Storm warriors’ eyes started to sparkle.

“I presume you all know what we need to do without me saying anything. It is the same story this time. Do not die. If you want to die, I will kill you with my own hands, so do not die by anyone else’s hands. Shouldn’t you be killed by someone at least at my level?”

“Huhuhu, what are you saying? We will not even lose to Yulian-nim now.”

The heavy atmosphere relaxed once more at Triquel’s words.

Yulian laughed internally as he pointed at Triquel as he responded.

“Triquel, I will verify that later.”

“There is no need to verify it… mm. I was just saying that is the case. Who said anything about sparring against Yulian-nim? Huhuhu.”

“You sly fox. Fine. I guess I said something useless. Then we will just do as we have always done and push forward.”

“Yes. Push forward.”

The warriors responded to Yulian’s words.

As the Red Storm warriors started to move, Yulian called Pere over and started to speak.

“Pere.”

“Yes, Glow.”

“You must become a Greatest Warrior. Stick next to Greatest Warrior Egane from here on. Watch how he moves, and how he leads. Take note of everything he does. I will let Greatest Warrior Egane know about it.”

Pere stared at Yulian for a moment before bowing his head and responding.

“I understand, Glow.”

“Pere, learn quickly. A time when we will not have enough Greatest Warriors will arrive soon.”

Pere wondered just how far ahead his brother was looking as he nodded his head again.

After giving commands to everyone, Yulian packed his greatsword and got on top of his pirma.

‘If we fail to get an overwhelming victory again, this war will become difficult.’

Yulian made up his mind to run around a little more in this battle and started to move his pirma.

The Wikaly warriors were shouting and the many flag warriors were moving left and right as if they were going to move at any moment, but in reality, they did not move at all.

Thanks to that, Pareia had some time to discuss strategies for taking on the Wikaly.

Eganed prepared all of the preparations and went to look for Yulian.

“The other Greatest Warriors are inspecting the formations. Since we have no chances of success in a direct battle this time, I think it would be best to slowly retreat a little by little.”

Pareia was currently over 10,000 warriors less than the Wikaly.

Of course they could make up the difference if they called up the warriors protecting the oases, but the things Egane was saying right now were obvious.

“Where have you decided to fight?”

Yulian was sure Egane would not recommend a retreat without a plan. Egane must have been looking for a location to handle the difference in number.

Yulian knew that Egane had been making a lot of preparations for a direct battle.

“We will divide the army and repeat a hit and run tactic, to the point that the enemy is chasing us back. About half a day’s distance from here is a location where we have dug ditches and filled them with black water. Once we drag them there, the archers will be waiting to fire their arrows.”

“The important thing is to retreat without having too many casualties and creating enough distance for the enemy to have to work hard to chase after us.”

Seeing Yulian quickly understand his intentions and verifying the details, Egane nodded his head.

“Yes. In order to do that, we need the strongest warriors in the front. I have already prepared the veteran warriors.”

“The Red Storm and I can be the vanguard.”

Egane started to tell Yulian a lot of potential dangerous situations. He knew just how strong this young Glow in front of his was, but he was not on board with the Glow taking the vanguard in such a dangerous situation.

“You must be cautious and even more cautious. You must not end up encircled by the enemy and pay attention to the signal.”

“You do not need to worry about that. Haven’t I told you already? There is a weird intuition that kicks in during battle.”

“If it was not for that, I would never put the Glow in the vanguard. Please do not lose that intuition and pay attention to your surroundings. This time, it is a battle in a large battlefield where the Wikaly can gather speed. If you end up surrounded, even the Glow and Red Storm will not be able to last long.”

At Egane’s continued worrying, Yulian smiled before tapping his chest.

“Please try to trust your Glow a little more.”

“I trust you, very much.”

The two men gazed at each other, with eyes full of boundless trust for one another.

Egane was proud of his Glow, and Yulian was thankful that such a warrior was part of his army.

“Then I will continue to prepare the warriors. Please take 5,000 warriors and stand in the vanguard. Vibli will be with you.”

“Greatest Warrior Egane should be careful as well. If we can get a decent level of success in this battle, the Wikaly will end up falling to us.”

“We must give our best.”

Egane respectfully bowed to Yulian before turning his pirma around.

“Shall I prepare as well?”

Yulian stretched out his arms as he mumbled to himself.

“Why would the enemy be here……”

Seeing the Wikaly warriors charge at them as if they had been waiting for them, Egane let out a voice of despair.

The enemy should not have been here. He didn’t know just how far they must have gone around to reach here, or how they were able to accurately know about this area.

Pareia, who had been planning on drawing the Wikaly warriors here and launching fire arrows at them, ended up suffering under the same fire arrows.

The flying fire arrows.

“Retreat, all units retreat!”

Egane quickly ordered the retreat, but flames were rising up from multiple locations.

“Aaaahhhh~!”

“Put out the fire!”

“Save me!”

Even the valiant Pareia’s warriors were shouting left and right, as if they could not handle the pain from their flesh burning.

The enemy had already prepared a perfect formation. Pareia’s warriors had no choice but to be completely defeated. The warriors who were trying to avoid the fire and retreat lost their lives to the Wikaly warriors’ shamshirs.

Egane did all he could to gather the warriors and fight back, but they were seriously lacking in number, and Pareia’s warriors were already in chaos, that there was nothing he could do.

As they were helplessly being defeated, Yulian was heading over with the rest of the Wikaly warriors chasing after them.

“Merge!”

Before the formation ended up in more chaos, Egane decided to merge with Yulian’s vanguard unit and shouted loudly.

Yulian already knew something was wrong based on the smoke he saw in front of him, but he was currently being chased. Thinking that there would be more casualties if they turned back right now, he did not lower his speed and continued forward.

Once he saw the Wikaly warriors chasing behind Egane and the main army, his world turned black.

They were surrounded on both sides. Furthermore, the moment the vanguard unit he was leading merged with the rest of Egane’s army, the formation will end up in a mess.

“Red Storm will turn around and fight. Our goal is to earn as much time as possible.”

As Yulian shouted with the goal of earning some time for the Greatest Warriors to fix the formation once they merged, the rest of the Red Storm turned their pirmas around and followed after him.

The strength of the warriors dashing forward on their pirmas really was strong. There was no issues killing them, but it was true that it took more effort than last time.

Abham ordered 5,000 of the warriors to continue chasing Pareia’s warriors, while ordering the remaining 5,000 warriors to surround Yulian and Red Storm. He was planning on washing away the shame from the past incident.

Although the situation was definitely different than last time, Yulian and Red Storm did not end up surrounded.

Since there was initially some distance between them, they were able to speed up a bit. This, in addition to Yuilan’s intuition, allowed them to efficiently aim for the gaps in the Wikaly formation as they dashed forward.

Behind them, Yulian’s vanguard army and Egane’s main army merged together, and Egane was shouting loudly to fix up the formation.

The Wikaly warriors were relentlessly chasing behind them.

Runa’s ability to lead the troops was starting to shine.

He put a small vanguard unit of only 500 warriors with the remaining main force dashing right behind them to cause chaos in Pareia’s unprepared formation.

The worst day for Pareia had started.

Sixteenth day of the fourth month in the year 256 of the continental calendar.

This day will go down in Pareia’s history as the worst defeat they faced since Yulian became Pareia’s Glow.

Only 5,000 warriors ended up surviving out of their initial 14,000 warriors. It was such a brutal, no, disadvantageous battle that the number of warriors who ended up as prisoners was less than 3,000.

Triquel, as well as nine Red Storm warriors perished in battle.

Greatest Warrior Trebol perished in battle.

This battle made Pareia, who had started to become confident, hesitate about their next move, and gave rise to the genius known as Runa Brink.

End of Chapter 5.

Next up:

The Decisive Battle

He knew it was reckless. But he could not retreat.

He needed to make 20,000 warriors stop with just 3,000 warriors.

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