Reincarnated Hero System - Chapter 1178 - 1178: The March, The Clash
Neither side was planning for a prolonged battle stretching over days or weeks.
They had more to lose in that scenario, so their plan was to end everything as quickly as possible.
The Demonic Hand aimed to activate a modified version of the World Magic: Spell Number 7: Dimension Gate, connecting it to Gozon at the far side of the galaxy, and make it wide and powerful enough for legions of demons to pass through.
The Tarse Defence Coalition’s objective was to prevent that from happening.
Their goals were clear-cut.
The moment the Demonic Hand realised Seith had been compromised and Deram and Xolgren encountered the automation in the Wild Lands, they mobilised all their forces across Tarse.
The march across the desert to the site where they intended to cast the spell began.
At the same time, the Tarse Defence Coalition’s forces also started their march, soldiers moving out from the border cities of the Wild Lands into the desert.
Over several days before the march began, they had been steadily approaching the border cities, soldiers hidden in trains, Veiled Legends arriving aboard airships, and similar preparations unfolding.
The Regional Chiefs who had turned traitor immediately revealed their intentions the moment the Demonic Hand’s Fifth Division began moving, declaring territorial war on the surrounding regions with the aim of forcing the Sandfire Palace to divide its attention and forces between the Wild Lands and the internal unrest caused by over 5 Regions simultaneously declaring war on nearly a dozen others.
However, Empress Cayenne had already anticipated this, sending soldiers into the Regions surrounding the traitors’ domains, positioning them where attacks were most likely.
So when the Demonic Hand forces hidden within Tarse charged out to strike the surrounding regions, they were met by the Tarse Army, led by several Warlords.
While Cayenne handled that, Emperor Lloris deployed several of his clones along the Wild Lands border, making public appearances to mobilise the forces of the fortresses that lined the walls separating inhabited areas from the uninhabitable.
This completely ruined the plans of the Demonic Hand operatives who had eliminated and were impersonating several key Generals in these fortresses, as they had intended to use their positions to control the troops, delay responses, and create confusion, but they couldn’t do that because the Emperor appeared in person and issued a direct mobilisation order.
After all, the soldiers of the Tarse Army answered to the Emperor as their Supreme Commander, and he was the one who appointed their Generals.
Lloris immediately deployed Living Legends into the fortresses, sending them after the impostors and forcing them to reveal their Demonic Human powers as they tried to escape.
The discovery that several Generals were impostors shook the army’s command structure, but Lloris took control and ordered the fortress gates opened to allow the rest of the army to march out into the Wild Lands, instructing the border troops to follow, so they could thwart the nefarious plans of those who had killed and impersonated their Generals.
Morale remained high even as they moved through the deserts, particularly for the divisions under Generals who had been assassinated by the Demonic Hand, divisions that had deeply respected their commanding officers.
The march to the centre of the Wild Lands took several days, even with Army Magic spells enhancing speed, stamina, and recovery, because the number of troops involved easily numbered in the millions.
While that was happening, Evan went over his plan to stop the Disaster with everyone once more, then had them all move into their assigned positions.
All the core members of his group and other vital participants in the plan, such as the Veiled Legends, Tarse Warlords, Holy Knights, Grand Mages, and others, all wore Bluetooth-like devices around their ears so they could communicate and coordinate with each other.
Evan had the Heroes move throughout the Wild Lands to attack specialised Fifth Division units sent to attack nomadic tribes and turn their blood into fuel for the World Formation.
As for Evan himself, he went to blow up additional energy hotspots.
His actions sounded like terrorism, but since he had permission from the landlord that was ‘Aidos’, he didn’t hesitate even slightly to nuke them all, reducing every demonic human nearby to ashes.
He destroyed two hotspots and damaged three times as many energy veins, disrupting the planet’s energy flow not just in the Wild Lands region, but across Tarse as a whole, significantly increasing the time and energy the Demonic Hand would need to strengthen the Dimensional Rift.
After several days of marching and two days of rest, the armies of the Demonic Hand and the Tarse Defence Coalition finally came into view of one another.
Warlords, Great Swordsmen, Grand Mages, Holy Knights, Beast Keepers, and Military Generals all stood at the forefront of the Coalition Army, their presence alone boosting the morale of the troops.
On the Demonic Hand’s side, the Senior Members of the Fifth Division and the High-Ranking Demons summoned through the Wildcard Protocol stared them down.
It was the forces of several nations on one side, and several Demonic Hand divisions on the other.
No words were exchanged between them.
The Senior Members of the Demonic Hand roared as they assumed their Demonic Fusion forms, and tens of thousands of fighters joined in the cry, shaking the earth beneath them.
The Coalition Army’s leaders didn’t just watch. Understanding the importance of morale and fighting spirit, they rallied their forces as well.
War horns sounded across the battlefield, and flags waved everywhere as the Coalition Army took up charging formations.
The Demonic Hand’s army assumed defensive formations to hold the line and prevent the Coalition Army from reaching the designated location.
As both sides raised their weapons and powered up their artillery, Deram watched the scene in silence. Beside him, Xolgren sipped from a glass of wine, his left eye blank as he observed the land about to become a battlefield through the eyes of his summons.
The demonic humans scattered across the area waited quietly for the battle to begin.
The Living Legends of Tarse rode out on their mounts, with the Legends from the GWE and GEE lined up beside them.
From a distance, Lloris’ clone grabbed a megaphone enchanted with several sound amplification spells.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and then lifted the megaphone.
[CHAAAARGE!!!!]
The Tarse Coalition army moved immediately, the ground shaking as hundreds of thousands rushed forward.
The Living Legends led the charge, while the Senior Members of the Demonic Hand roused their energies in response.
Within a minute, the front lines of both sides, superhumans running at several dozen metres per second, collided.
The waves of fighters crashed into one another, instantly breaking each other apart.
Those at the forefront were crushed and slaughtered, whether they belonged to the Coalition Army or the Demonic Hand.
Within seconds, hundreds had lost their lives, explosions tearing apart the desert ground, sand mixing with bloody wounds and wide-open eyes, while screams of joy, agony, and madness echoed together.
Lloris frowned as he watched through a Farsight spell, but he kept his composure.
Losses were expected.
They had to stop the Demonic Hand in the Wild Lands to prevent Tarse from being turned into a sea of flames and its citizens from being subjected to the rule of the Gozonian demons.
His eyes landed on the Holy Knights sent by the Holy Kingdom, who had offered unconditional support from the beginning, their golden rose symbols catching his attention, reminding him of the boy responsible for their presence.
Turning back to the battlefield, he ordered the dragon riders into the skies, clashing with airborne demons and tearing each other apart with bright, violent bursts of magic.
Wind and Earth mages were having the times of their lives as they were in their element…literally.
The desert environment worked to their advantage, allowing them to expend far less magic to create walls of wind and columns of stone that obliterated everything in their path.
Stragglers from the destroyed Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Divisions, along with forces from the Seventh Division of the Demonic Hand, charged forward, meeting the combined mages from the different nations.
Sparks of magic flew in every direction, explosions tore through the ground, and the air was filled with the cries of combatants as weapons of all kinds collided, the earth shaking beneath the tens of thousands of superhumans clashing at incredible speeds.
The Living Legends who had led the charges slowly fell back, and soon the average level of the foot soldiers clashing across the land began to rise.
Level 300s and 400s started entering the battlefield in increasing numbers, and just as the fighting reached the point where Level 500s were about to be deployed, the bright sunny skies suddenly darkened.
The clouds parted, and several dozen rocks crashed down from above, ignited in flames as they tore through the atmosphere at supersonic speed.
Legends immediately took to the skies to intercept the meteorites, but the Wild Card Protocol High-Rank demons flew up to block them.
Then the first group of Veiled Legends that Evan had contracted shot into the air to prevent the foreign High-Rank demons from interfering with the Legends’ efforts to stop the meteorites.
The skies erupted with bright flashes of light as the battles unfolded, and any stray shots that fell to the ground wiped out hundreds of troops instantly.
Demons had wings, allowing more of their units to be airborne, unlike the Celestials, Humans, Elves, and Beastkin of the Coalition Army. To counter this and level the field, Joanna led the Grand Mages of Kasteblum in casting gravity and flight-negation spells that grounded some of the High-Rank demons.
Foot soldiers were ordered to fall back and clear space to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, as several Veiled Legends immediately pounced on any High-Rank demon that crashed to the ground, their battles carving craters hundreds of metres wide in an instant and sending shockwaves rippling far beyond.
Level 500s and 600s were deployed on both sides, not to fight each other, but to distract the opposing Level 700s and create openings for their own Level 700s to land fatal strikes.
Time passed this way, and the violent clashes that had crushed the frontlines settled into a strange lull.
Deram Hester stood at the backlines of the Demonic Hand’s forces, watching the skies where explosions rang out consecutively.
His gaze shifted south, sensing approaching existences, then dropped to the ground beneath his feet with a faint frown.
Sighing, he turned to face the Senior Members standing behind him and then commanded,
“Begin.”
They nodded and sent out messages to the other Senior Members across the battlefield, flags raised as the Demonic Hand played a card the Coalition Army had expected them to hold for later.
Failed Demonic Humans.
Those who hadn’t adapted to the infusion of Demonic Factors into their bodies and souls, broken by it and reduced to mindless beasts rampaging across the battlefield.
Deram looked up at the sky again.
This time, the black irises surrounding his brown slit pupils glowed with the light of spatial law energy.
