Chapter 486: This Is the Undead Scourge

Chapter 486: Chapter 430: This Is the Undead Scourge

“My lord, we have 5 Demon Beastmen and 51 Mad Beastmen dead.”

Just as Leech had guessed, the Half-Beastman legion didn’t care about the deaths of over a thousand dwarf half-beastmen, and they weren’t even too concerned about the deaths of the Mad Beastmen.

It was the deaths of the five Demon Beastmen, however, that soured the expression of the Half-Beastman noble, Kaqi.

The Demon Beastmen were a crucial part of Kaqi’s forces.

With Demon Beastmen, he could easily raise a new army upon returning to the Panbo Continent.

The death of every single Demon Beastman was a great loss.

“First, we occupy the desert. I remember there’s a Buffalo Count there. We’ll seize his territory and establish a route from the coast to here,” Kaqi’s voice was hoarse, as if the rage in his heart had scorched his throat dry.

The operation so far had not gone according to plan; he had never expected to suffer such losses.

After all, according to the intelligence he’d received, experts at the level of Demon Beastmen and Mad Beastmen were rare on the Lu Leiyi Continent. A single territory definitely couldn’t muster thirty of them, yet he had brought two hundred!

“My lord, about our cooperation with Prince Lu Leiyi…” a Demon Beastman asked quietly. “He wanted us to…”

Kaqi snapped his head up to look at the Demon Beastman, his voice rising to a sharp cry, “Cooperation with the humans? Don’t think I don’t know what he’s planning! He claims he wants to work with us, to help him seize the throne and become King, and then grant us territory. But in reality, he has other motives. The only reason he dares to work with us is that we’re all alone on this continent after crossing the sea!”

No one was a fool. Kaqi and many other Half-Beastman nobles had guessed Prince George’s intentions. No matter what his scheme was, the humans would surely turn on them after they had served their purpose.

Coincidentally, the Half-Beastmen had also decided to play along, dispatching an expeditionary force to this unfamiliar continent.

As an ambitious Half-Beastman, Kaqi was not content with trivialities. He hoped to conquer a swath of territory for himself, earning sufficient merit and honor.

The death of the other Half-Beastman noble who had traveled with him was an excellent opportunity, allowing him to seize sole command.

Kaqi’s plan was to use the forces at his disposal to sweep across most of the Lu Leiyi Continent, ideally pushing straight to the royal capital. However, he knew that while taking the capital would be easy, holding it without reinforcements would be incredibly difficult. Thus, his initial goal was to take the desert, then continue north to occupy either Linta Bay or Golden Wheat Field.

As for the losses from the clash with Leech? It was only five Demon Beastmen—not too great a loss, especially since the enemy’s Transcendents were almost completely wiped out.

From the very beginning, he had never taken the minor lord of Mama City seriously. His caution in battle was merely a matter of personality.

「At the crack of dawn.」

With a tacit understanding, both sides donned their armor, raised their shields, and readied their long blades.

The Wargs seemed to smell the blood from yesterday’s battlefield, shaking their heads restlessly and forcing the dwarf half-beastmen to constantly pat and soothe the mounts beneath them.

Kaqi was already standing atop a hastily constructed high tower, flanked by the remaining Demon Beastmen.

They had no intention of participating in this battle. With the remaining 109 Mad Beastmen joining the fight, plus an army of nearly three thousand worthless dwarf half-beastmen for cannon fodder, they truly couldn’t imagine how they could possibly lose.

Kaqi didn’t even give a second thought to the cannons that had blasted the Half-Beastman army to pieces the day before. Even with artillery support, the enemy had still paid a terrible price to barely kill a thousand of his troops. Now, he was sending out all his forces—enough for a clean sweep!

Besides, Kaqi could contact the Panbo Continent right now and have them send more dwarf half-beastmen.

But he preferred to send word back only after achieving a breakthrough. Otherwise, his plan to secure early military achievements would be dead on arrival.

Kaqi raised his head slightly and gazed into the distance, where he could see the square formations of Soldiers arranged below Mama City.

His gaze shifted to the sky, where an ant-sized figure bobbed up and down.

A smile touched his lips.

Kaqi was quite interested in the Human Lord who had managed to forcibly annihilate a thousand of his troops. According to his original plan, the war should have ended when he arrived with the last batch of the Half-Beastman army. It seemed there had been a slight hiccup; the enemy was still putting up a desperate resistance.

Kaqi enjoyed watching his prey struggle.

He raised his hand and gave a light wave.

The Demon Beastman to his left raised a mammoth ivory horn taller than he was, puffed out his cheeks dramatically, and blew with all his might.

“WOOOO—!”

The horn released a deep, resonant sound that filled the ears of more than two thousand Half-Beastmen.

The Half-Beastman army officially began its advance.

Meanwhile, Leech, clad in plate armor, circled the sky on his Horse-headed Eagle. He too had heard the distant horn. The Half-Beastman legion was charging toward his position, resembling a colony of ants on the move.

There were no more schemes to be had in this battle; all that was left to compete with was pure, hard power.

He had no intention of using Mama City’s walls for defense. Against hundreds of Mad Beastmen possessing immense strength, no wall, no matter how sturdy, could withstand their assault. It would only trap his forces inside the city.

“Isis!”

A calm voice echoed in his mind, “I am here.”

“Have all the corpses and Corpse Ghosts prepare for battle,” Leech said. “The targets are that group of Demon Beastmen on the high tower.”

‘To catch the thief, first catch the king. Kill Kaqi, and this battle is over.’

Isis’s reply was perfectly calm. “Understood.”

Leech wasn’t surprised, as he had encountered a similar attitude from the Water Nymph before. At least a Palace Level Corpse Ghost could still communicate. An Extraordinary Corpse Ghost, on the other hand, was like trying to get blood from a stone—utterly devoid of any initiative.