Chapter 483 - 428: Fight to the End, Humanity

The combined number of Demon Beastmen and Transcendents in this Half-Beastman contingent was likely forty, nearly double the number of Transcendents under Leech’s command.

However, thanks to Jonney’s presence, that twofold gap was closing over time. With every Demon Beastman or Mad Beastman that fell, the enemy’s strength weakened, but Jonney himself would not be defeated.

"ROAR! ROAR!"

Two chained Mad Beastmen crushed two cavalrymen who couldn’t get out of the way in time. They also trampled several of their own smaller Half-Beastmen before charging toward the mercenaries.

The mercenaries at the front knew they couldn’t escape. But the battlefield was too chaotic, and with no one in command, they didn’t know what to do.

Some raised their shields, others pushed back into the crowd, and a few just held their swords and screamed...

"Shield wall!" a crisp voice shouted.

It was Lisu Muma.

After one charge, she had noticed the commotion among the mercenaries. Realizing they were leaderless, she had returned to take command.

Upon hearing her cry, the mercenaries, who had been scrambling around like headless chickens, instantly found their resolve.

They scrambled to form a shield wall.

The Mad Beastmen arrived with earth-shaking tremors and roars. They collided, and the shield wall shattered!

Some twenty-odd mercenaries were sent flying by the Mad Beastmen’s massive fists.

Two other mercenaries were unlucky enough to be snatched up by a Mad Beastman. It shoved one into its mouth and, with a sickening CRUNCH, bit his head clean off, helmet and all. As blood dripped from its maw, the Mad Beastman casually tossed the headless corpse aside.

They were treating this place like a buffet.

Dying at the enemy’s hands wasn’t so terrifying, but being eaten alive as food was a different kind of horror.

"Shield wall!" Lisu Muma yelled again.

More and more mercenaries raised their shields and rushed forward.

They now understood one thing: there was no option to surrender and be taken prisoner. Defeat meant becoming food.

Their ranks were still chaotic, nothing like rigorously trained soldiers, but their sheer numbers were a huge advantage. Besides, these men lived on a knife’s edge; every mercenary possessed their own brand of ruthlessness and decisiveness.

It wasn’t that they were afraid to fight to the death—they just wouldn’t unless their backs were against the wall.

Row after row of shield walls formed. When the Mad Beastmen swung again, the wall held, but the mercenaries in the front rank were taking a terrible beating.

They had to block with their shields from the front, while the row behind them blocked any path of retreat.

All they could do was hold their ground!

"Archers, fire!"

Lisu Muma’s strategy was simple: the front rank would hold while the rear rank fired.

Her voice didn’t carry as far as Leech’s, so the number of mercenaries who heard the command and were able to fire was not large—only about a thousand men.

A thousand arrows rained down like a waterfall, blanketing the Mad Beastmen.

For a moment, the air was a chaotic flurry of arrows.

When the volley ceased, the Mad Beastmen’s bare bodies were bristling with arrows.

At a glance, their fronts were so densely packed with shafts that they were completely obscured, looking more like giant targets riddled with arrows.

The corpses of two Mad Beastmen crashed to the ground.

Meanwhile, Leech had already landed his Horse-headed Eagle and charged deep into the enemy ranks, where he was now locked in a fierce struggle.

The Horse-headed Eagle Rocket was a magnificent specimen. Warhorses looked a size smaller in comparison, and Wargs seemed downright miniature before it.

As it galloped forward on its talons and hooves, wings beating, not a single Warg Rider could withstand its unstoppable charge.

"ROAR!"

A Demon Beastman with matted dreadlocks blocked Leech’s path, gripping a great-axe with both hands.

’Leech had already noticed that Mad Beastmen made up the bulk of the enemy forces. As for Demon Beastmen... besides the archer, this was only the second one he’d seen.’

The Demon Beastman dug its feet into the blood-soaked sand, its eyes crimson. It looked ready to meet Leech’s charge head-on.

’Leech couldn’t have asked for more. Someone wanted to block a frontal charge from him and Rocket? He doubted anything below Palace Level could pull that off!’

The Horse-headed Eagle pushed its speed to the maximum.

They collided!

The Dragon-Slaying Sword slammed against the great-axe. The weapons seemed evenly matched in weight, but Leech was wielding his with a single hand, proving his superior strength—and that wasn’t even counting the power and speed of his Horse-headed Eagle.

The great-axe went flying. As expected, the Demon Beastman was sent flying as well. Rocket’s speed didn’t diminish in the slightest. It overtook the airborne Demon Beastman, pinned it to the ground with its talons, and with a single peck, punched a hole in its forehead.

It had seemed formidably strong, yet it couldn’t even last a single exchange.

Leech glanced back at his own forces, but the situation was far from optimistic.

He watched as his personally trained firearm Cavalry were torn limb from limb under the assault of three riderless Wargs. He also saw a Transcendent mercenary who had recently joined him get his head crushed by a Mad Beastman.

Their only advantage, it seemed, was the presence of the Palace Level Corpse Ghost, Jonney, who was steadily closing the gap between the two armies.

Even Leech found himself struggling when suddenly besieged by three or four Mad Beastmen. Wargs would seize any opening to harass him, leaving him exhausted just trying to cope. Fortunately, both he and Rocket possessed top-tier defenses, so enduring the attacks wasn’t a major issue.

Gradually, after the slaughter reached a certain point on both sides, they reached a tacit understanding and began to retreat, putting distance between them.

The Soldiers rejoiced at having survived the calamity.

But Leech couldn’t relax. He knew the Half-Beastmen were only retreating because a thousand-strong force was about to arrive from the western sand peaks. And after half a day, a two-thousand-strong Half-Beastman legion would also arrive to put a decisive end to this battle.