Chapter 849: Testing the Tactics

Garcia, commander of the Penitence Squad, lowers his telescope and chuckles.

"Heh... They must have no high-ranking fighters left if they are sending squads padded out like this."

Janet, commander of the empire's squad, chuckles as well. "The enemy has already used up too many of the high-ranking fighters hidden in this region."

"It is Peace Haven's turn. Looks like Alesha is leading the interception herself."

They watch the tall female knight lead the elite Wind Raider Cavalry in a charge that scatters the sabotage squad.

She then swings her greatsword and cuts down a Grand Knight Rank river bandit with ease.

Janet sighs in admiration. "Henwell really is something. It has been less than twenty years."

"He has already reached Glory Rank. We can only look up to him now."

"Even the guard he recruited from the Marquess of Nothing back then can now stand alongside us."

Garcia, a Paladin, shares a name with the fallen commander of the Sixth Legion, also known as the Death Herald Legion. They are different men.

He is an old acquaintance of Henwell's, one of the few senior figures in the church who has a favorable opinion of him.

Janet, an Iron Knight of the empire, is much the same. Both men have frequently spoken in Henwell's favor within the Western Federation.

In private, they also get along well with Henwell and keep in regular contact.

Many of the industries Henwell has supported have ties to the two of them.

They fought side by side at Sunflower Fortress, after all. Theirs is a bond forged in life-and-death battles.

When Pabos was born, the two men defended Blood Hill Manor through the bloody fighting on that rainy night. It was their way of repaying Henwell for saving their lives.

Alesha, deputy warband commander of the Wind Raider Cavalry, is another professional Henwell recruited from the Marquess of Nothing back then.

Her elder brother Leician entered Sunflower Fortress with Henwell, only to become an expendable piece in the marquess's plans.

After Leician lost his left arm, Henwell protected him from the church and the empire.

Leician now commands a warband in the Iron Wall Legion. More than a decade later, he is a veteran Grand Knight, though he will probably need more time before breaking through.

Of the two siblings, Leician is a capable commander, but his talent for advancing his own strength is limited. Otherwise, he would have risen through the ranks alongside Henwell.

His younger sister has much more talent for training. Tall and powerfully built, she handles a greatsword with remarkable skill.

Alesha's command ability, however, is poor. A battle involving a thousand soldiers is already her limit.

Otherwise, with her strength, she would have become a legion commander long ago.

As the various units have expanded, the Wind Raider Cavalry, the Military Intelligence Office's military strike force, has grown to six thousand.

That leaves Alesha in an awkward position. Many of her former subordinates now outrank her, while she remains in the same post.

Still, as one of Peace Haven's few female professionals, Alesha holds a special title, just like Windsor of the Lord Iron Guards.

Both are guardian knights to Melissa, the lord's wife. She occasionally calls on them to accompany her on inspection tours.

Melissa even personally arranged both their marriages.

Even many legion commanders must treat the two women courteously because of that connection.

Alesha's limited ability to command formations often brings her to missions like this: small forces that need a high-ranking professional to keep the situation under control.

After easily killing all three Grand Knight Rank saboteurs, Alesha stops fighting.

Her subordinates slowly pull back as well. More than twenty calamity creatures remain surrounded in the center.

The other squads wonder what they are doing.

Then a small squad of cavalry arrives near the encirclement.

Fifteen soldiers dismount and take up their weapons, then enter the encirclement through a gap opened by the Wind Raider Cavalry.

The soldiers form up, then charge the remaining elite river bandits.

After watching for a while, Garcia frowns. "There are only two Battle Knights in that squad. The rest are at Knight Rank."

"Their coordination is good, and they know how to fight. But the enemy still has eleven Battle Knights and outnumbers them overall."

"Why take such a risk? Are they testing new tactics for Peace Haven, or some new weapon?"

The moment he finishes speaking, Janet exclaims beside him, "Huh?! How did they do that? Those monsters seem much weaker now!"

A moment ago, several soldiers in the squad worked together to kill an opponent at Battle Knight Rank.

As though that were a signal, two more enemies of the same rank fall shortly afterward.

Garcia carefully senses what is happening. "Their fighting-spirit link is unusual. It can suppress the enemy to some extent!"

"So Peace Haven seems to be testing a new tactic. This must be a fighting-spirit link developed specifically against calamity creatures."

Janet smiles. "Henwell really is an interesting man, coming up with something like this."

Within the next few minutes, the remaining calamity creatures are killed to the last.

The Peace Haven soldiers return to their warhorses and leave the area, heading back to the Southern District warband.

They are Akta's squad.

Henwell transferred the Beacon of Civilization from himself to the Bloodstained Black Phoenix Banner.

That made it easier for Akta's squad to activate Civilization Aura. Much still needs to be tested, however.

They were sent to the Southern District and attached to the Southern District Staff. A dedicated team helps arrange battles of varying intensity for them.

They face different enemies in different environments, collecting useful data as they go.

Operation Dried Fish gives them plenty of test cases.

After Akta's squad completes this battle, more intelligence arrives in the Five Forts area.

Powerful extraordinary fluctuations have suddenly appeared at Palm Tree Lake.

The next day, the report is confirmed. Large numbers of Subterranean River Bandits appeared in Palm Tree Lake overnight.

A substantial proportion are elite troops.

Twenty thousand enemies are not enough to make Pabos and the others back down.

But the extraordinary communication that follows from the Western Federation leaves them grim-faced.

It turns out that last night, the Subterranean River Bandits used long-range mass teleportation magic to transport large numbers of troops from a calamity cavern to Palm Tree Lake.

Normally, the Western Federation's high-ranking spellcasters would act at once to disrupt teleportation on that scale.

Last night, however, the Western Federation did nothing and allowed the enemy to keep teleporting troops.

The Western Federation explains that it was not deliberately letting the enemy through.

Its spellcasters traced the teleportation's extraordinary fluctuations back to the enemy spellcaster force.

The empire's spellcasters made the necessary arrangements and opened a spatial portal.

The Western Federation did not send professionals through on a decapitation strike. Instead, the Penitence Priest Corps carried out the attack, with Juventus, the Paladin Prelate, at its core.

The instant the portal opened, the corps hurled a divine punishment spell through it.

Even a conservative estimate suggests that more than half of the enemy spellcaster force was killed.

The high-ranking spellcasters guiding the spatial coordinates, in particular, are certain to have died.

The victory is impressive. But now Pabos and the others must face a large calamity bandit army with considerable fighting strength.