Chapter 162

A day after the attack, the situation became clear.

“About eighty percent were affected.”
“It’s because it was an indiscriminate attack, and we were not prepared.”

Halm said with head in his hands.

It was a disaster. A third of our men had been killed, and about half were wounded so badly that they wouldn’t be able to return to battle.
The attack hadn’t even lasted that long, and yet the whole army had collapsed.

“Where’s General Miralda?”
“She returned to the main camp. She intends to return tomorrow with her troops.”

Many soldiers were wounded, and we didn’t have enough medicine in the camp.
We also needed more people to treat them.

“Should she really be splitting up her army now? Won’t there be another attack from the Celestial World?”
“They would have used an immense amount of holy power for the last attack. It’s unthinkable that they would attack again so soon.”

“I see.”
“Regardless, it’s not like we aren’t expecting them to attack again. And so we will abandon this place and set up a new camp elsewhere.”

“Abandon this place?”
“We weren’t expecting them to attack from the sky. So we’ll probably set up the new camp in an area that isn’t as open.”
That was another of the reasons that people were being sent from the main camp.

As for my own corps, about half of them had died.
The rest were fine. Uninjured. But that was only because everyone who had been hit had died.

It turned out that Ogres were not only weak against magic attacks, but holy power attacks as well.

I thought back on what had happened.

It was two days ago that some soldiers on patrol found the stakes of holy power. It had been a complete coincidence.
And when they searched farther, they found another one in the forest.

When the soldiers on patrol had first found the stake, it had not turned into a pillar of salt yet.
With this information, we knew that they were both sent during the same day.

At that point, Halm strengthened the defenses, as there was a possibility of an attack from the Celestial World.
He had sent a messenger to the main camp.

According to General Miralda, who was at the main camp, they had found yet another stake of holy power near the main camp during this time.
That’s why the Generals expected the main camp to be attacked, and they had been on their guard, just like us.

No one slept that night, as things remained tense. It wasn’t until the sun came up that things started to relax a little.
The stake had turned into a pillar of salt, and it had become less likely that the enemy would attack. Only, that’s when they really did.

As for the main camp where General Miralda was, it was around midnight, when we were still tightening security, that Halm’s messenger arrived.

It wasn’t just the main camp, but stakes of holy power were sent around Corps Commander Dyle’s camp as well.
Miralda considered this new information.

They were sending out stakes of holy power over a wide area. Perhaps there were even more that they hadn’t found yet.
They would have to be even more cautious now.

Apparently, once the sun started to rise, she had suddenly felt a current of holy power from far away.
And so Miralda came out alone and flew towards it in the sky.

“Alone… The General sure is reckless.”
“She must have felt that she could handle it by herself.”

“Well, she is very strong. I’ve sometimes run off and left my men behind, so I understand how she feels. …Still, I’m surprised that she was able to feel the current of holy power from that far away.”

“She probably wouldn’t have noticed if it was only the stakes and the tear in the sky. But they made a barrier. Barriers made of holy power stretch high into the sky. And of course, she was on her guard more than usual. And so a barrier that removes mana would attract attention from someone so powerful.”

“Now that I think about it, I felt like I was weakened when the barrier went up. Is that what they do?”
“Indeed. From the size and numbers of the celestial spears, the General was able to calculate the effect. She said it likely affected about twenty percent of your mana.”

When residents of the Celestial World came to the Demon World, their abilities were nearly halved.
That’s why they made bases and tried to fill them with holy power.

In the most recent attack, they had made a barrier instead of a base. And so the effect was limited.

For residents of the Celestial World, if their power was usually at a hundred percent, it dropped to fifty when they came down here.
But creating a barrier like they did allowed them to raise it to about seventy percent.

On the other hand, we people of the Demon World had our abilities lowered by twenty percent.
So it was no wonder that it had been difficult to move.

“The damage was so great with this attack. Could anything have been done to reduce it?”

That was what I was wondering.
Ten Ogres had died. If there was anything we could have done, I wanted to know.

“It was a very different kind of invasion than normal. So I doubt it.”
“What are the invasions usually like?”

“They open a hole in the sky and a vanguard unit is sent. If this advance party succeeds in gaining control of the surface, the real invasion will begin. If not, then they will retreat.”

Apparently, there were people in the Celestial World who had low holy power. And they were unleashed into the Demon World like disposable pawns.
And since their holy power level was already low, they were not weakened that much even when they came down here.

It was such people who would suppress the land below and create a ‘point’ to make their foothold.
This point would slowly widen until it was big enough to make a barrier, and then eventually a base.

It was only after this base was created, that the main residents of the Celestial World descended.

“So this was a very irregular incident.”

“Indeed. We weren’t prepared for a full-on attack from the sky. And we hadn’t expected to fight within a barrier.”
So that’s why they had no countermeasures.

Now that I thought about it, it really was strange for the enemy to send ‘boss level’ soldiers from the beginning.

“The General must have been very surprised then.”

“She was flying towards us in the sky when she saw the powerful barrier. And so she understood the situation immediately. She was able to break the barrier by returning to her original form…but things would have been very bad if she was delayed even a little.”

The surprise appearance of the barrier had made things difficult even for Halm.

“But they retreated as soon as the barrier was destroyed.”
“It was probably because they had grown weaker as we regained our power. And they must have realized that someone had come and destroyed the barrier. It was an impressive retreat.”

General Miralda appearing here by herself had saved my life.

And thanks to the survival training, the other races that came with me were also safe.
I shuddered to think about what would have happened had they been with me.

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Makai Hongi