Chapter 1158: Casualty

Ge Situ realized that something was wrong. He took over the conversation and said, "What's the point of all the talking? With us working together, do you think you can get past us?"

It was difficult to say whether it was an illusion, but the lips of Haimi's mask seemed to arch up into a cold smile. She said indifferently, "I only had a thirty percent chance at first, but you arrived too late. That demonkin idiot has been gravely injured, it's a wonder if he has seventy to eighty percent strength left. What makes me curious is that the idiot has never seen me before, unlike you and I who have exchanged blows in the past. Why did you stay back for so long? And you purposely took action so late."

Mori's expression changed immediately. He had never sensed anyone nearby up until Ge Situ appeared in front of him. Apparently, the man was hiding his traces.

Ge Situ said furiously, "You were just a lass back then, there's no way you'd be the same now."

"Didn't the lass put up a pretty good fight?"

Ge Situ knew this matter would only shame him the more he tried to explain. He opened his palms, revealing flashes of sanguine lightning between his fingertips. "There's no point in talking, let's fight!"

However, he had just finished opening his palm when an arrow appeared on Princess Haimi's bow. This projectile was jet black, almost as though it could absorb all light around it, and its contrast with the surroundings was the only sign of its existence.

Ge Situ's hair stood on end. "The seventh arrow!"

His voice hadn't even trailed off when the black arrow began its flight and, in the blink of an eye, appeared behind him!

The vampire let out a loud scream, drifting away in an extremely complicated trajectory. He actually couldn't spare any attention for Mori or the army of ten thousand behind him.

Mori was stunned by the unexpected development.

Haimi removed her mask to reveal an indescribable countenance. She looked only twenty, almost as though the years had not left a single trace on her face. It was just that her exquisite face was fairly pale—no one knew whether it was because she had remained hidden beneath the mask for too long, or if she had suffered some injury. However, the two sad but beautiful streams of blood flowing down from the corner of her eyes proved that her condition wasn't too great.

She turned toward Mori and said, "Do you know why I removed my mask?"

Mori's expression was serious, and he knew there was no way the reason was a romantic one. He asked while devoting all of his attention to guarding himself, "Why?"

"I said I only had a thirty percent chance of getting through, right? But after injuring you, I now have sixty."

Mori said cautiously, "And then?"

"And if I put my life on the line, the probability is a hundred percent!" Haimi retracted her smile and produced another arrow!

Mori was shocked out of his wits! He knew that the princess had paid a steep price for shooting that seventh arrow just now, and there were only two left. However, he had no intention of testing their might. Ge Situ had already fled, so he wasn't about to pay with his life here.

"Wait!" Mori raised both his hands in an attempt to say something.

But there was no way Haimi would heed his call. She gradually drew her bow to the end.

Seeing that things weren't looking good, Mori simply turned to flee, and Haimi didn't fire at him in the end.

With Ge Situ and Mori both gone, the morale of the dark race army below was easily imaginable. The Imperial vanguard stopped their attack at just the right time, allowing the Evernight defensive line to retreat in a hurry.

The Empire didn't disrupt or chase after them. The Eastern front's primary objective was to complete the rendezvous and not to kill the dark race forces. The enemy unit was fully outfitted and entrenched, only lacking a commander. If they were to become desperate and decide to fight to the death, the Imperial army would be stalled once again.

Haimi stood with her bow in hand until the Evernight forces had retreated. "Go." She said as she returned to the warship. The princess had donned her mask once more, hiding all her emotions from the masses.

The Imperial eastern route once again took off. They rolled through the defensive lines and began traveling along the edge of the continent.

...

The central route, on the other hand, was a different scenario.

Zhao Jundu's forces split into several waves and attacked in tandem. He would be at the forefront of every battle, raising troop morale and cementing their will to die for the cause. They charged through with invincible momentum and made straight for Whitetown.

Since Zhao Jundu was leading the charge, the Empire naturally attached great importance to this warfront. Duke Wei oversaw the route personally, acting as the main pillar. When Duke Doer showed up, Duke Wei naturally took over the duty of facing him, and the two eventually fought their way out into the void.

Without a duke-grade expert to hold the line, there was no way the Evernight forces could withstand the assault of the Zhao clan's private army. Their defenses crumbled one after the other, and the entire central region was soon cut up into pieces. If it wasn't for the Misty Wood acting as a natural barrier, there was no telling how bad their warfront would fare.

In the series of assaults, Zhao Jundu discovered a side of him that used to be eclipsed by his powerful combat strength. He realized that he wasn't inferior to the Empire's first-line generals in terms of command talents. His acute instincts would always allow him to find the weakest point in the enemy defensive line and demolish them in one charge.

On the other hand, the Evernight soldiers had all realized that their hold on the void continent was now lost. No one was in a battle-hungry mood as they were thinking about how to survive; even their desire to defend wasn't quite firm.

Some tacticians sensed that Zhao Jundu's strategic skills had once again improved. The forces under him were never given any form of relief, and regardless of their surrounding situation, he would only advance without the slightest bit of flanking or retreat.

Fortunately, at the rear, Indomitable was being run by Zhao Xuanji. Thus, the supplies never stopped rolling in to replenish the main army. Wherever Zhao Jundu's army passed through, he would defeat all obstructions with invincible momentum, leaving little room for those strategists to do their job. Additionally, there were two smaller groups from Zhao Weihuang and Zhao Xuanji's army that served to protect Zhao Jundu's flanks.

In this manner, the central void continent quickly became the Zhao clan's playground. The eastern route—led by the Imperial clan and all the others, including the Greensun Zhang Clan—was pushed into the western route.

This was a rather strange distribution. Some people tried to analyze the reason, but no one could make head or tail of it. All they felt was that there were too many people from the Imperial family and the Zhao clan.

Although the Imperial family and the Imperial Guard had always led the charge in national battles, the void continent war wasn't really at that scale. Besides, the Imperial family's territories were mostly on the Qin continent. With the Longevity Monarch on the verge of death, they would have to take up a defensive role once the guardian heavenly monarch had passed. How would they have enough personnel on the mainland if they send so many people here?

...

Back in Whitetown. The entire city had changed beyond recognition—there were only a handful of tall buildings left as most noticeable structures had been leveled by the dark race cannons.

The city had been reduced to ruins, and its streets were lined with corpses until there was no soil left. Thick smoke lingered in the air, but there weren't a lot of flames at this point; there wasn't much left to burn.

Since the beginning of the battle, Romier had slammed the city crazily with heavy cannons. This kind of violent bombardment was indeed effective. At the very least, most of Song Zining's cannon units had been destroyed. Qianye and Song Zining didn't feel that much of a heartache because they had almost used up their ammunition stores.

They didn't have time to feel heartache, either, because the dark race army charged up as soon as the bombardment was over. Romier initiated eight assaults in a single day. Although all of them were repelled, every corner of the city was scarred with traces of battle.

In a room of a dilapidated building, Qianye was leaning against a wall, smoking. This was a rare luxury on the current battlefield. Song Zining was covered in dirt and soil, almost as though he had dug his way out from somewhere. He sat down in front of Qianye and muttered, "Ah, that was tiring! Don't those fellows feel anything about losing so much cannon fodder?"

"How many men do we have left?"

"I'll tell you later, give me a cigarette. I've used up mine."

Qianye groped around on his body, but there was none. So, he simply passed his current half to Song Zining. The latter couldn't care about hygiene or whatnot at this point. He sucked deeply on the smoke and said in a satisfied tone, "For some reason, I feel like smoking whenever I fight..."

After finishing the cigarette, Song Zining put away his domain and said, "We have about ten thousand men left, but there are only a couple hundred fresh reserves. Their attacks are too desperate, something is wrong."

"We only have ten thousand left?" Qianye knew that they had suffered grave casualties, but the numbers went beyond his expectations.

Song Zining's view was different. "I think Dark Flame will be going bankrupt after this war."

This time, Qianye and Song Zining had brought forty thousand soldiers from the neutral lands. Apart from the ten thousand remaining on stand-by aboard the airships, the remainder were all garrisoned in Whitetown. They had lost almost half their forces in a single day, a testament to just how fierce the battle was. Be it defense or offense, a casualty rate of this degree would've caused the army to collapse if they were in the neutral lands.

In the chaotic battle, even Qianye and Song Zining were powerless to take care of those ordinary mercenaries. The titled enemy experts, throwing themselves forward like ants biting an elephant, was enough to keep them busy.

Thinking about how over ten thousand soldiers had died in this small piece of land, Qianye felt everything was almost unreal.

Song Zining patted his shoulder. "Don't think too much. This is war. We lost over ten thousand men, but the enemy has lost three, four times the number."

The most distressing thing for the dark races was that the humans multiplied too fast, almost as fast as their slave soldiers and cannon fodder. Comparatively, their slave soldiers couldn't be trained into high-ranking warriors or titled experts. Although only a small number of humans could awaken daybreak origin power, almost all of them could be trained to use weapons. This meant that at an actual warrior-level, the humans were quicker to replenish than the dark races.

Hence, any battle where the human casualties were smaller than the dark races' was an acceptable outcome. The dark races had lost several times the number of soldiers in the assault on Whitetown. The battle accomplishment here could be considered glorious by any measure.

It was just that Qianye's frown never relaxed.

On the distant warship, Romier felt dark clouds gathering on his forehead as he looked at the casualty report. After a long while, he said, "That means, we've lost fifty thousand soldiers in just one day?"

A count said cautiously, "That's including the ones who are missing."

"Trash!!!" He slammed the report on the count's head.