Chapter 21: Price of Victory

The longer the senior demon officer continued chanting, the more violently the infernal energy gathered around him.

Koda felt the pressure building even from the edge of the battlefield. The air grew hot, the ground trembled, and the crimson clouds above the battlefield began to churn. Runes of burning red light spread across the officer’s armor, illuminating the horns that curled from his skull.

Whatever spell he was preparing, it was far beyond the ordinary fire magic used by the lower-ranking demons.

Koda narrowed his eyes.

That much preparation had better produce something terrifying.

The officer finally raised his weapon toward the sky.

The clouds split.

Countless blazing spheres appeared overhead, each containing a massive chunk of molten rock. Their fiery trails spread across the heavens, turning the battlefield into a sea of red light.

Then the meteorites fell.

The first impact shook the earth.

BOOM!

A towering pillar of fire erupted in the center of the battlefield, swallowing demons, elves, treants, and centaurs without distinction. Before the flames could settle, another meteorite crashed down nearby, sending burning fragments flying in every direction.

Then another.

And another.

The battlefield became an inferno.

Koda threw himself behind a jagged slab of black rock as a wave of scorching air swept across the ground. The impact rattled his bones beneath his armor, and burning debris scattered around his hiding place.

"Are you insane?" someone screamed nearby.

The voice belonged to a demon whose lower body had been crushed beneath a fallen boulder. Before Koda could decide whether helping him was worth the risk, a second explosion swallowed the unfortunate creature.

Koda clenched his teeth.

The officer was bombarding his own army.

There was no mistake about it. The meteorites were falling directly onto the densest concentrations of combatants, including the infernal troops struggling against the elven forces.

The officer had chosen to sacrifice his weaker soldiers to inflict greater damage on the enemy.

It was ruthless.

It was also effective.

The treants forming the elves’ defensive wall were reduced to burning trunks. Centaur captains disappeared beneath collapsing rocks, while dwarven warriors were scattered by the explosions. Even several silver-winged knights were caught in the expanding waves of fire.

The demons suffered just as horribly.

Little imps, hellhounds, long-horned demons, and lesser spirits were obliterated by the bombardment. Their bodies disintegrated into ash before they could even escape.

Koda watched a familiar group of demons vanish beneath a falling meteorite.

He felt no particular grief for them. Most were strangers, and many would have gladly killed him for a handful of essence.

Nevertheless, watching an officer slaughter his own troops so casually left a bitter taste in his mouth.

So this is how the powerful treat expendable soldiers.

The final meteorite struck the center of the battlefield.

The resulting explosion carved an enormous crater into the scorched earth. Flames rolled across the ground, devouring everything that remained within its reach.

For several seconds, the entire battlefield fell into a strange silence.

Then the surviving soldiers began screaming again.

The elves had suffered terrible losses, but the infernal army had been devastated as well. Thousands of combatants had been reduced to corpses, ashes, or unrecognizable fragments.

Yet the officer appeared satisfied.

He lowered his weapon and laughed, his chest heaving as he struggled to recover from the enormous expenditure of magic.

"Fools!" he roared toward the elven commanders. "You thought you could ambush the army of Lord Vaelric and walk away victorious?"

Koda remained behind the rock, studying the officer.

The man had clearly spent a tremendous amount of infernal energy. His breathing was heavy, and the runes covering his armor had dimmed considerably.

Even so, Koda had no intention of approaching him.

A weakened high-ranking demon was still a high-ranking demon.

Besides, the battle had not ended.

A cold voice answered from across the burning battlefield.

"Do not celebrate too early."

One of the elven commanders stepped forward, his wooden staff glowing with green-gold light. The two druid commanders beside him raised their own staffs.

The first druid completed his incantation.

Lightning tore through the smoke.

A thick bolt struck one of the abyssal demons fighting a green wyvern. The creature convulsed as electricity engulfed its body, then collapsed into ash.

Before the survivors could react, another bolt struck.

Then another.

The druids unleashed lightning in rapid succession, targeting the high-ranking demons battling the dragons. Every strike disrupted their movements, and the green dragons seized the opportunity to tear into their opponents.

One demon lost an arm.

Another was struck across the chest and thrown to the ground, where a wyvern’s claws crushed its skull.

The senior officer’s expression darkened.

"Protect the commanders!" he shouted.

Several surviving high-ranking demons moved to intercept the lightning, raising barriers of infernal energy. Their defenses absorbed some of the attacks, but the druids continued casting.

The officer could not stop every bolt.

And then the elven commander in front completed his spell.

"Rise, fallen warriors! Your battle is not over!"

Golden light descended upon the battlefield.

Koda stared as the radiance spread across the crater and settled over the bodies of the fallen elves.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the corpses began to move.

A centaur captain’s chest rose as it drew a ragged breath. A treant whose trunk had been split by the bombardment began pulling its broken limbs together. Several fallen warriors lifted from the ground, their wounds closing beneath the golden radiance.

One by one, the dead returned to life.

The senior demon officer’s laughter died instantly.

For the first time since the battle began, genuine alarm crossed his face.

He had sacrificed much of his own army to destroy the elves’ forces. Now the enemy commander was restoring a portion of those losses.

Koda understood the problem immediately.

The elves had lost hundreds of soldiers, but their commander had resurrected many of them, including the melee fighters best suited to tearing through the demon army’s remaining ranged troops.

Meanwhile, the demons had no equivalent means of recovery.

Their fallen comrades could not simply be called back. Many of their souls had already returned to the Abyss, beyond the reach of ordinary battlefield magic.

The officer’s devastating attack had not secured victory.

It had merely changed the balance of the battle.

The resurrected elves surged forward.

With most of the weaker demons dead, the survivors had little protection against the renewed assault. Elven warriors rushed the infernal archers, while the centaurs charged through the gaps in their formation.

The remaining high-ranking demons fought desperately, but their numbers continued to shrink beneath the combined attacks of the druids and wyverns.

Koda watched a green wyvern descend toward his section of the battlefield.

Its emerald scales reflected the surrounding flames. Powerful wings beat against the air as it opened its jaws and released a stream of corrosive green mist.

Several demons screamed as the acid spread across their bodies.

Koda’s instincts screamed at him to run.

But running in an open battlefield would only make him an obvious target.

He had to find another way.

A centaur captain charged toward him, its weapon raised. Koda stepped aside at the last moment, caught the creature by the throat, and drove his bone talons into its neck.

The centaur staggered.

Koda tightened his grip, using the creature’s struggling body to conceal himself from the descending dragon.

The green mist arrived.

Pain exploded across his scales.

Koda released a strangled scream and dropped to the ground, dragging the centaur down with him. He twisted beneath the corpse just as the dragon’s breath swept across the area.

The acid hissed against his armor and seeped through the gaps between his scales. His flesh burned wherever the corrosive liquid made contact.

His Devouring Origin stirred instinctively, but Koda suppressed it.

Absorbing unfamiliar energy in the middle of an acid attack was a gamble he could not afford.

Instead, he endured the pain and remained motionless.

The dead centaur’s body covered most of him, while the surrounding corpses concealed his outline. He deliberately chose a place where fallen elves and demons had accumulated, making it difficult to distinguish one body from another.

The tactic was disgusting.

It was also considerably better than dying.

Nearby, several lesser demons attempted to fight the dragon. Their bodies were coated in green acid, and smoke rose from their melting flesh as they charged with desperate fury.

The wyvern barely acknowledged them.

One sweep of its claws sent two demons tumbling across the ground. Another blast of corrosive breath engulfed the survivors, reducing their bodies to ash.

Koda kept his eyes shut and his breathing shallow.

He could hear the wyvern moving nearby. Each heavy footstep sent vibrations through the ground.

Then the footsteps stopped.

For one terrible moment, Koda thought the creature had noticed him.

Instead, a distant roar drew its attention away.

The wyvern spread its wings and took flight, leaving the ruined section of the battlefield behind.

Only when the sounds of combat shifted farther away did Koda dare to look through the gap between two corpses.

The elves were advancing toward the surviving infernal commanders.

Their formation had recovered, and their resurrected warriors were pressing the demons from multiple directions. The senior officer was still alive, but the cost of his Meteor Shower had become painfully clear.

Koda slowly released the breath he had been holding.

He had survived the bombardment, avoided the dragon’s direct attention, and remained beneath the notice of the advancing elves.

For now, that was enough.

He would not charge into a battle between powerful commanders. He would not risk his life trying to rescue soldiers who might kill him the moment they discovered his weakness.

His priority was survival.

The moment an opportunity appeared, he would escape.

Until then, he would remain buried beneath the dead and observe the battle’s final stages.

There was still something to gain from this disaster. Fallen warriors had left behind scattered equipment, essence-bearing remains, and resources that might prove valuable once the fighting ended.

Koda’s gaze shifted toward the distant infernal commander.

You can sacrifice your army if you want, but I refuse to become another corpse in your calculations.

Another explosion shook the battlefield.

Koda pulled the centaur’s body closer and remained still.

The battle was far from over, and his chance to escape had not yet arrived.