The Vastness of Magical Destiny

Vladimir Koff and Solonberg strictly followed Komer’s instructions, selectively targeting the officers of the Storm Infantry Corps for assassination. Disguised as ordinary infantry from the Storm Infantry Corps, they had the advantage from the start. Amidst the frenzied attacks by the Gray Wolves, hardly anyone paid attention to two seemingly normal soldiers. However, it was these two soldiers who continuously weaved through the troops, their killer moves claiming the lives of no fewer than thirty officers at the hands of Vladimir Koff, while the blood of at least twenty more officers was licked by Solonberg’s lance.

This selective assassination inflicted considerable damage on the Storm Infantry Corps. Without the officers’ command and coordination, the soldiers’ efficiency in forming effective defense circles greatly diminished. The Gray Wolves found it easy to spot vulnerabilities and break through, leading to several previously stable defensive groups descending into chaos and ultimately being torn apart.

Shatima, however, was indiscriminately unleashing her killing desire. Even though she also donned the outfit of a Storm Infantry soldier, her behavior was too ferocious and brutal. Like a wild boar crashing into a farmland, her hefty Dragon Spear, a death-scourge to lives, charged towards those distinctly-dressed knights. The knights’ uplifted Knight Spears were no match for this abnormally strong soldier, and in less than half an hour, over a dozen knights had fallen to her Dragon Spear, forcing Mejernov to join the fray and cast continuous defensive buffs on the knights, while also deploying small-scale offensive magic to stem Shatima’s onslaught. Even so, the knights were still unable to restrain this red-eyed maniac.

With troops spread out over several kilometers of road, Carl Libukneisi simply couldn’t grasp the enemy’s intentions in such a situation. He cursed the terrible luck of his troop deployment timing, which had encountered such a once-in-a-hundred-years phenomenon as the migration of a Gray Wolf Pack. Only when an increasing number of officers mysteriously perished did he begin to sense something strange, but by then, at least an hour had already passed.

Finally losing their patience, the Gray Wolf Pack faced an overwhelming number of human soldiers, realizing that completely annihilating such a massive target was unrealistic. Once a few Purple-maned Gray Wolves took the lead in breaking away towards the depths of the forest, the rest of the pack began to loosen. More and more wolves joined the retreat, and within a mere ten minutes or so, all the Gray Wolves had disappeared deep into the forest, leaving behind only the painful moans and groans of the wounded soldiers.

Viscount Saliman could hardly believe his eyes. In just over an hour, more than two thousand soldiers had perished in this unexpected disaster, and the number of fallen officers had reached over eighty—a ratio unimaginable even in war. The wounded numbered more than four thousand, many suffering from frostbite caused by the ice mist sprayed by the wolves. The knights suffered even greater losses, with over one hundred forty from three hundred falling in battle and more than eighty grievously injured. Almost every knight was injured, as if the Gray Wolves took a particular interest in them, nearly crippling the Knights regiment’s combat power.

When this calamity struck, Viscount Saliman could only shrink within the soldiers’ formation and silently pray. He had never encountered nor heard of such an attack by thousands of Magical Beasts and certainly did not wish to perish pathetically without accomplishing his mission, especially not by such lower-tier Magical Beasts—it would be an enormous joke.

Carl Libukneisi calmly investigated the causes of his subordinates’ deaths. Aside from a very few who were killed by the Gray Wolves’ assaults, the vast majority had been slain by lance thrusts, confirming his suspicion: this Gray Wolf attack had been orchestrated by someone. The enemies lurking in the shadows had taken advantage of the chaos created by the attack to carry out assassinations, an utterly despicable act.

Bronin was likewise seething with indignation. Although many of the knights, apart from those killed by the crazed monstrosity, had mostly fallen to the Gray Wolves’ fangs and claws, he did not believe his troops had been so unprepared against the attacks. Surely, the unseen enemy had employed some method to compromise his subordinates’ defenses, with magic being the most probable cause. Yet where did the enemy’s mages come from? Besides Caucasus, were there other enemies joining the strike against Homer? If not, from where had Caucasus recruited such formidable mages, and surely in numbers greater than just one or two?

The overall situation filled Saliman and the two commanders with apprehension. The enemy was not just passively defensive; they had launched the attacks much earlier. They feared that the eight Magicians and seven Knights were likely doomed, having received no communication for so long, it was imaginable what had befallen them.