Abyss Domination - Chapter 77

Chapter 77

Chapter 77 — Whiterun Battle Formation

Translator: SaltyTank

Editor: AyaSnow

 Three days after mobilization, the army finally left the borders of Whiterun and entered the wilderness . The army scouts and adventurers scattered around the main army brought back plenty of intel on the surroundings . A while back, monsters had attacked merchant squads traversing past this region and got their hands on a great deal of the merchants' goods and valuables . After several battles, the ownership of those items changed hands once again . Of course, the adventurers and soldiers had to hand them over to the city after slaying the monsters . Soran also killed some monsters, and his reserve of Slaughter EXP once again returned to 3000 . However, he earned pretty much nothing in terms of loot and money .

 "There's a stockaded village ahead . " Soran looked at the familiar path, and said to Yarse beside him, "I was here when the village got raided by lizardmen . They defended against the first attack, but I'm not sure if they moved away after that . It's probably a lizardman settlement by now though . "

 If the villagers had ultimately decided to stay, Soran was almost sure they would all be dead by now . He signaled Yarse, and the two crouched as they walked toward the river near the stockaded village . Lizardmen liked places with water sources nearby, which was one of the reasons they targeted the village in the first place . When they could barely see the wooden fences in the distance, Yarse took out a cylinder and placed it in front of his eye .

 A monocular?

 Soran stopped and waited for Yarse .

 "Looks like it's already occupied by lizardmen," Yarse said while handing the monocular over to Soran . He then said nonchalantly, "This is just a little plaything made with alchemy . Only 10 Gold Derahls . "

 Glass was not all that rare, but pure glass which was transparent was troublesome and costly to produce . Binoculars and monoculars were alchemic products, with some having enchantments and runes on them . A simple one like Yarse's was relatively cheap, but those with special effects could cost up to hundreds of Gold Derahls .

 Soran received the monocular and looked at the village . He could see lizardmen standing watch on the watchtowers, and most of the houses inside the walls had already been burnt down . The lizardmen had destroyed the houses and built simple huts instead .

 "There's a good handful of them . " Soran returned the monocular to Yarse and said in a low voice, "I don't think we can handle that many lizardmen . Let's go back and hand over the intel to the army . "

 Yarse nodded in agreement, then stowed his monocular away . Adventurers would only engage in a fight if they believed their chances of winning were over fifty percent . A veteran like Yarse would not challenge missions beyond his capabilities; everyone had only one life after all . Even if they won the battle, it was no different from a loss if they suffered from severe injuries and became disabled . Taking high risks too often would not end well, and those who did so would eventually have to pay for their actions . Losing a limb was too costly, and more often than not adventurers would be unable to afford the fees for treatment .

 The two quickly returned to the army camp and reported their findings . Soon, a brawny man who seemed to be an officer came to meet them . He wore full platemail armor and was equipped with a steel shield and gauntlets, leather gloves, a refined longsword, and a short crossbow . Behind him stood fifty soldiers, all belonging to the Whiterun army . They all wore leather armor with metal plating and had shortswords, metal shields, and light crossbows . Whiterun did not have a lot of archers, but almost every soldier knew how to use a crossbow, meaning light infantry could take on the role of arbalists when necessary . Apart from the soldiers, a wizard dressed in a gray robe also came along . Although Soran could not tell his level, he seemed to be above Grade 2 .

 "Whiterun Guard Corps 37th Infantry Division, Captain Hanks here . " The bearded man nodded at Soran and said, "The higher ups sent me to clear out the lizardmen . "

 Due to frequent battles, the armies of this world would almost never turn complacent . Perhaps they may become corrupted, with some soldiers turning to the evil alignment, but their combat strength would still remain .

 Hanks was a decisive person . After gathering his men, he immediately asked Soran’s group to lead the way . Some people considered warriors as "proper warriors" only after they had reached Grade 3, and Hanks only seemed to be a Grade 2 warrior to Soran . However, his equipment was of much higher quality than adventurers’ . Although they were not Rare-grade items, at the very least, the platemail armor he was wearing was still better than poor-quality Rare-grade equipment .

 After an hour or two, the team was now near the occupied stockaded village . Hanks let his men rest for a while, then asked Soran and Yarse, "Can you two take out the sentinels?"

 Yarse and Soran nodded, then crept their way toward the two flanks separately .

 The ranger took out his longbow and made a hand sign to the right before sneakily jumping into a tree . As longbows had great range, Yarse was responsible for taking out the sentinels on the watchtowers . Soran, on the other hand, dissolved into the shadows with his enhanced crossbow in hand . His duty was to take out the two guards near the main entrance .

 Meanwhile, the soldiers were still hiding quietly in the forest several hundred meters away from the village .

 Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

 The sound of projectiles whistling through air reached their ears . Yarse sniped the sentinels standing near the alarms, while Soran killed the guards at the main entrance .

 "Forward!"

 After seeing the lizardmen drop from the watchtowers, Hanks immediately donned his helmet and ordered his men to move out . "Wizard, break the door!"

 The wizard was apparently dissatisfied with the way Hanks ordered him, but he still quickly chanted a spell, and a half-ton stone golem appeared out of thin air . The ground shook every time the golem took a step . The Whiterun soldiers spread out, with their shields lifted upfront, then charged at the village . When they were a hundred and fifty meters away from the front gate, they shifted their shields to cover their upper torsos and took out their light crossbows .

 The interior of the village went into an uproar after the lizardmen realized they were being attacked . Archers immediately climbed onto the watchtowers and began firing away at the soldiers .

 Ting! Ting! Ting!

 A dozen arrows flew toward the Whiterun soldiers, but they continued to press forward . Their shields effectively protected them against the projectiles, causing many of them to skitter or bounce off their shields .

 The stone golem could not even be bothered with protecting itself against such puny attacks . It walked directly to the front gate and began slamming it with its fists . In just under a minute, the stone golem shattered the wooden gate .

 "Take battle formations!" Hanks lifted his shield, slowed down, and shouted, "Whiterun Tactic!"

 The fifty-man team immediately split into groups of five, each with three standing in front and two standing in the rear . The vanguard unsheathed their shortswords and charged with their shields in front, and the others followed while reloading and firing their crossbows repeatedly . Hanks lifted his shield up high and shouted a war cry, then joined his men in their charge . Even though he was wearing full platemail armor, his speed was still close to that of hundred-meter-sprinters back on Earth . He ran straight through the entrance, slamming into a lizardman warrior with his shield and sending it flying .

 The wizard stayed back, with no intention of engaging in battle; even the golem stopped moving after destroying the gate .

 The Whiterun soldiers quickly took over the main gate . After slaying another three lizardmen, Hanks returned to his men and yelled, "Regroup!"

 The soldiers formed a square formation, with those standing on the outermost layer defending the formation with their shields and swords, while those in the middle fired their crossbows . They maintained the formation regardless of what happened . They did not rashly pursue the retreating enemies, but instead slowly moved forward while slaughtering any lizardmen they came across . Whenever anyone got hurt, the soldiers would immediately pull their injured comrade to the rear of the formation . Even Hanks got hit by a few arrows, but they were ineffective against his armor . He returned fire with his crossbow, then guarded his head with his shield .

 After overcoming their initial panic, the lizardman warriors began to gather . Against the armored soldiers, archers were relatively useless and could not deal much damage . As such, the lizardmen decided to charge and engage in close-quarters combat .

 "Defensive formation!" Hanks shifted his stance and lifted his shield, then roared, "Charge! Shield bash!"

 The soldiers regrouped to form a horizontal row . They lowered their crossbows and lifted their shields and stood still . When the charging lizardmen were only thirty meters away, they responded by roaring together and rushed at the monsters . They slammed right into the lizardmen with their shields, bashing them .

 The sounds of collisions and groans resounded throughout the village . The soldiers on the flanks began to narrow the formation, forming rows of ten . They slowly pushed forward while blocking attacks with their shields and retaliating with their shortswords . Almost like harvested wheat, the lizardman warriors dropped to the ground one after another . However, the damage dealt was insufficient to end their lives . As such, the soldiers in back rows dealt the final strike on the barely surviving lizardmen one by one .

 Like a sturdy wall, the soldiers repelled the waves of attacks by the lizardmen one after another . There were dozens of lizardman corpses on the ground, but the fifty-man formation was still going strong . None of them panicked, and they marched on at a steady pace . They did not retreat when the lizardmen attacked, nor did they speed up to pursue the monsters when they fled . They simply closed in on the lizardmen, slowly forcing the monsters into a corner .

 Yarse met up with Soran on the flanks . The ranger unsheathed his sword and looked around . "The Whiterun guards started training to use shields in combination with shortswords when they were in the militia . This degree of attack is not enough to break their formation . Let's sneak in from the sides and kill the lizardmen's leader . "

 They could hear the soldiers roar together . They stopped every thirty steps, making their advance slow, but that was enough to corner the lizardmen . Even with just one-third the numbers, they were forcing their enemies back . Any lizardmen that attempted to attack them were either stabbed or shot to death . After every wave of attacks, there would be a dozen more lizardman corpses on the ground, while the soldiers remained unfazed .

 With the number of archers steadily decreasing, the pressure on the light infantry acting as arbalists was almost non-existent . They could freely fire away at the monsters, further lowering their numbers .

 Perhaps unable to stand the pressure anymore, a lizardman warrior who seemed to be stronger than the others roared, then led ten of its brethren and attacked from the flanks . It attempted to attack from the side of the formation where defenses were weaker .

 Hanks yelled in response, "Throwing axes!"

 He took out a short axe, only twenty centimeters long, from his back, spun it in his hand, then threw it to the front . Within the square formation, twenty soldiers who seemed to be especially well-trained all took out axes from their backs and threw them on Hanks' signal .

 Half of the charging lizardmen dropped dead on the ground . The one leading the charge was the first to fall, with five axes embedded in its body . Other lizardmen tried to jump into the center of the formation, but they were dead by the time they reached the ground .

 The monsters’ morale finally plummeted to the point that they completely lost their will to fight . They started to flee out of fear .

 From the moment the soldiers breached the gate till the end of the battle, not fifteen minutes had passed . The Whiterun soldiers only marched five hundred steps inside the village, but it was enough to kill, or more precisely, slaughter all the hundred or so lizardmen . Only seven soldiers were lightly injured in the battle, most of them struck by arrows .

 It was a complete massacre—a merciless slaughter by a well-trained army against a mob of monsters .