Chapter 1743: Battle [5]

Frankly, when only three different influences had been roped into August's plan to save Arulion, it didn't seem like the scale was that big.

However, that was only if one didn't understand the scale of those three influences.

Starting with the smallest of them, August's people from Bastille.

Essentially the entire sect followed him to the Heavenly World. All of the people he'd brought in from different parts of the world, all of the subsidiaries that followed them, and all of the brothers, sisters, and mentors August had spent his year with decided to see broader horizons under his command.

There were hundreds of thousands of them. Sure, not all of them were combat-ready, but that didn't matter. They were not assigned to a combat-centric task in the first place.

If even the smallest influence who wasn't going to engage in combat was made up of so many people, then what about those who were actually fighting on the frontlines?

The Wood Dragon Clan was the smaller of the two. With almost ten million members from the Revell Clan and its subordinates, they were a fighting force that didn't have problems with tackling the forsaken dragons alone.

Still, they had help from dragons that the world had never seen, dragons who lived and died in the seas and rarely ever showed themselves to even their own kind on the land.

The Sea Tribes were easy to underestimate. Since their size was never expressly mentioned, one might believe that they weren't that robust. After all, such a large number of people couldn't have submitted themselves to August in just a few months.

That kind of logic was partially true. Indeed, not all of them chose to follow August.

Their highest elites, however, did. After seeing his lineage and realizing that the destiny of the Azure Dragon was going to unfold in this era, they obeyed the promise of their ancestors and chose him as their Lord.

The people who followed them naturally did not object, as they trusted their leaders' judgement. That was how August got a hold of thirteen clans and their subordinates, a force that could cover the seas and had hundreds of millions, if not billions of members.

Obviously, not all of them surfaced. Only the best came to August's aid. Still, their numbers already exceeded those of the Wood Dragon Clan by manifold.

These forces had come together to lay siege on a single influence, and that obviously didn't bode well for their enemy.

In the time that they'd been part of the war, which was a little over two weeks now, the Sea Tribes had started to attack the western region where the forsaken dragon clans made their stronghold.

Their numbers exceeded the other side, and the Sea Dragons had a particularly berserker-like tendency that allowed them to sacrifice themselves without qualms.

Perhaps it came from their insane reproductive abilities and crowd mentality. They didn't see themselves as individuals until they reached a certain level of power, and rather than being mourned, they'd be celebrated in death.

In just a short period, they managed to gain back a large portion of the land and push the core forces of the enemy into an edge of the kingdom.

Meanwhile, the Wood Dragon Clan spread through the rest of the kingdom. While slaying the stragglers of the forsaken dragons, they focused on healing everyone who could be healed.

Most of the enemy forces had retreated to their stronghold on their king's orders. Those who remained were only those who were too far indulged in killing to understand reason.

In fact, the destroyed cities that were left in place of the once-bustling cities were overrun by forests. The less injured had already joined the effort to find and save anyone else in the vicinity. Those who had injuries that were closer to fatal were enveloped by the trees and naturally healed by the forest's vitality.

From the looks of it, the forsaken dragon clans wouldn't be able to withstand their conjoined efforts for a very long time.

Other than their leader, Hendricks, and a few hundred of his men, there weren't many who could threaten such a large influence.

It just went to show how easily this war could have been ended if the Holy Clans had taken any initiative to actually confront the threat.

The problem that August's people encountered was actually opposition from a third-party force.

It was as if those clans wanted to show people how vile and disconnected from reality they were. Nobles from all different factions sent their people after the members of the two new dragon clans, aiming to erase them and rid the kingdom of their influence.

It seemed that the power they showcased came off as a threat to those who sat atop ivory towers. They didn't like that their citizens were shouting the names of others, and their response...?

Naturally, it was the elimination of those they deemed their enemies.

There was nothing more tone-deaf than trying to kill the people who were trying to save your nation for you, but that tended to be the characteristic of these kinds of forces, no?

Regardless of anything else, since their integrity was threatened, they decided to fight.

That, by the way, was something they refused to do even when their citizens were being slaughtered left and right.

To protect the people while fighting forces on two sides was extremely difficult. If it wasn't for the nobles deciding to fight, the war would have likely ended already.

Nevertheless, the movement of the noble clans was an expected event. August already planned for it.

See, he wasn't just trying to end the threat of the forsaken dragon clans.

He was making a bid for the kingdom, trying to wrestle it from the control of the Holy Clans.

However, dealing with the nobles was a bit different.

Surprisingly enough, that was a job given to the Bastille people.

They had split into two groups that spread out around both the central area of Arulion where the True Dragons lived and the outer regions that contained the dragonkin.

Their job was to set two different arrays. Once they were in play, this war could be considered ended.

It was a similar strategy to what August and his friends used in the heir wars, but on a much larger scale and in a much more serious circumstance.

If it weren't for Raul's clanmates, who were expert formation masters in their own right, then it would have been impossible altogether.

While they laid the arrays to defeat the nobles, their two allied influences were to take care of the forsaken dragons and stall for time.

And, of course, if they wanted to avoid the fallout from everything they were doing, then August needed to properly claim the crown and become the heir to the throne.

All of the moving pieces perfectly aligned just as August hoped they would. The only problem left...

...was now his own situation, wasn't it?

After all, August's consciousness was not in Arulion anymore. It had traveled far, far away and detached from his body.

His body which was currently on a knife's edge, just seconds away from death.