Chapter 217 Eraser I

Chapter 217 – Eradication Battle I
Durham marshaled his troops, straightened his formation, and rushed out of the camp with the orcs.

He led with the dog-heads, the minotaurs in the center, and the boars in the rear. The werewolf cavalry roamed out, and the serpentine professionals acted as reserves, appearing at the most critical times.

Seeing the orcs coming out of the camp, Richard immediately ordered the stone throwers to lighten their counterweights and adjust their range to four hundred meters.

Durham waved his hand violently, and the orc army advanced quickly, his gaze was very sharp, staring dead on the human camp.

Durham knew in his heart that the orcs were far from being a match for the humans when they competed with the humans in long range counter fire.

The advantage of the orcs was close combat, and they could only defeat their opponents in battle by utilizing their strength advantage.

Seeing that the dog-headed man had entered the range of the alchemy bomb, Richard did not intend to attack his opponent.

The Alchemy Bomb reserve was not enough and could only be used to hit high value targets, Richard had already asked the Auxiliary Soldiers who were maneuvering the Stone Throwers to focus on the Serpent-bodied Man.

As long as the snake-bodied people appeared on the battlefield, the alchemy bombs would be directed at the snake-bodied people.

The dog-heads advanced very quickly and entered the archers’ range in about three minutes.

In Harland’s territory, everyone of the veteran soldiers practiced archery and there were quite a few marksmen. There were more than two thousand soldiers equipped with bows and arrows, almost accounting for about half of them.

These veterans had joined the army for many years and were wearing steel armor.

Those who could use bows and arrows were all good in the military. Because of the military skills, archery was the most difficult to practice, the gunplay and swordplay used in actual combat were not really that fancy, often only a few moves, not very difficult to master, and could be introduced in a few months.

Archery level unless their own talent is very high, training a qualified archer usually takes many years.

According to Richard’s experience, soldiers who could practice archery well were not only powerful, but also tended to have a rooted cultivation of breathing techniques, and were also good at using other weapons.

It would take about five or six years to train a good archer with an archery rank of the third order.

The arrows stabbed at the dog-heads with a sharp whistling sound, and several dog-head squadrons were instantly covered by a rain of arrows.

Seeing the rain of arrows coming, the dog-headed men hurriedly raised their shields.

But with the strong bows and crossbows, the dog-headed men’s thin wooden shields could not block them at all.

The dog-headed man squadron leader’s eyes flashed, hot blood splashed his face, and his ears were suddenly filled with shrill whistling sounds that stung his eardrums.

The white light in front of his eyes swiftly passed by his side, in the blink of an eye, the soldiers under his command already had many people hit by arrows and fell down, and the formation had a large piece of vacancy.

“Shoot!”

Before the dog-headed man squadron leader could react, the second round of arrows had already been fired. The dense arrows seemed like sprinkled raindrops, carrying the arc of death and hitting the dog-headed man’s vanguard once again.

This time the dog-headed man squadron leader was unlucky and was shot into a sieve by seven or eight arrows.

Immediately after the third and fourth rounds, after six consecutive rounds of arrow rain, the three dog-headed man squadrons that fought in the vanguard had already suffered more than half of the casualties.

Although the orcs were able to withstand more casualties, such a miserable picture was still beyond the limits of the dog-headed man squadrons.

The fear of death struck the nerves of the dog-headed men all the time, seeing another round of arrow rain coming, the dog-headed men’s vanguard finally couldn’t support it anymore, they cried out wildly, and routed backward unanimously, but they were stopped by the second echelon of minotaurs.

Orc military law is harsh, the minotaurs are not polite to the dog-headed people routed soldiers, immediately escorted them up to be executed.

When Durham saw this scene, he immediately had a bad thought in his mind. He had participated in many wars, and such a swift and powerful long-range attack still shocked Durham.

Such a large number of divine archers, Durham had only seen them in the backbone brigade of the main human legion, and he really couldn’t figure out why there were such elite soldiers under the command of a small Viscount.

Durham didn’t understand at all that the military force of Harland’s territory had been established for nine years.

For nine years Richard had intermittently invested millions of gold coins in resources in the army. For nine years, this army had not suffered any major losses and had been developing in a virtuous manner.

Nowadays, the Harland Territory’s several main infantry squadrons, with combat power second only to the Wraith Cavalry, were far more than ordinary infantry squadrons.

Although their numbers were small, they were indeed called an elite force.

The first echelon of dog-heads routed down, and the second echelon of minotaurs rushed up.

Ice-cold arrows kept shooting out, sending a whistling sound in the air, and black dots fell from the sky as the minotaurs scrambled to raise their large shields, protecting their forms firmly.

The minotaur was powerful and held a very fine shield, covered with a layer of cooked iron on the outside, six or seven centimeters of elm wood on the inside, and a leather lined grip on the innermost layer. Unless an enchanted bow was attached, it would have the kinetic power to penetrate such a heavy shield.

Harland’s territory had hunted quite a few high-grade magical beasts, and the territory could also produce some blood steel, and over the years, it had saved hundreds of enchanted bows and crossbows.

These enchanted bow users were all divine archers, their archery skills had generally reached the third rank, and seven or eight of them had even practiced to the fourth rank.

A third-order archer was already a one-in-a-hundred expert, with almost no arrows going anywhere and arrows biting into flesh.

Fourth rank archery was even one in a thousand, able to hit a swinging willow branch from three hundred meters away. Even the eagles in the sky could not avoid this kind of terrifying archery and could be easily shot down.

These hundred or so divine archers were almost the backbone of the Harland territory.

More than a hundred divine archers used enchanted bows and crossbows, and each round of shooting caused the orcs to suffer heavy casualties, killing and wounding around a hundred people.

Even though the orcs held up their shields and wore armor, they still couldn’t hold out for too long against the killings from the enchanted crossbows. Seeing that the casualties had increased, the minotaurs accelerated their speed, and after taking a lot of casualties and entering the firing range, they used stone throwing ropes and threw stones at the human army formation.

The minotaurs had a lot of strength, and the stones thrown by the stone throwing ropes were not small in terms of killing power.

But throwing stones is far less accurate than shooting arrows, so the exchange ratio is very disadvantageous.

In order to avoid greater casualties, the minotaurs could only continue to accelerate their pace and fight close combat with the human soldiers.

After five to six hundred dead and wounded, only about half of the six squadrons of more than a thousand minotaurs remained.

At this moment, the distance between the two sides was only a dozen meters.

“Forward.”

The Minotaur commander unsheathed his command sword and shouted furiously as he slammed into the first brigade.

Seeing the orcs rushing to the front of the line, the soldiers could even see the hot breath the orcs exhaled. The veterans of the first brigade didn’t mess up at all, shooting their last round of arrows almost right in the orc’s face.

The lethality of shooting arrows against the face was extremely strong, and this round of feathered arrows almost killed the orcs that rushed at the front, opening up a big gap in the orc army formation.

After shooting the last round of feathered arrows, the veterans inserted their enchanted bows and crossbows on the ground, pulled out the enchanted long swords on their waists, and took the initiative to block the front.

The divine archers in the territory wore enchanted armor on everyone. Many of them wore Brute Force Armor on their bodies, and they unleashed their Brute Force Arts.

Seeing that the orcs were about to charge up, the magicians of the mage group struck out one after another.

The Harland Mage Association was all out for this battle, with the junior apprentices participating in the healing group, and the middle and senior apprentices following the magicians, responsible for releasing spells.

In an instant, more than two dozen spells were released.

These spells had attack spells as well as control spells.

In an instant, fifty or sixty orcs were killed or injured, and over a hundred minotaurs were restrained.

In war, once movement was restricted, it was simply impossible to survive. The orcs that were restricted by the spider web spell and grease spell immediately died under the swords and arrows.

The second echelon suffered heavy casualties, and the third echelon of boars had already killed them.

The reason why the orcs were charging up one echelon at a time, using the grease tactic.

Mainly because of the small size of the camp that Richard repaired, too many soldiers simply can not swing, the soldiers in front will block the attack route of the soldiers behind, crowded together easy to become the target of the archers.

The boars charged very fast, and soon filled the gap left by the minotaurs.

Seeing that the killing power of the mage group was so strong, Durham decided to take his own soldiers and attack the human mage group.

Richard observed the battlefield and never made a move. Seeing Durham aggressively killing up, Richard held his Lightning Staff, invested ten points of mental energy, and used the powerful four-ringed magic Lightning Spell.

With ten points of mental energy, the power of the Strong Lightning Spell was already no weaker than a high ranked magic, and with the addition of the Thunderbolt Staff, the power of this one magic was slightly more than even a nine ring magic.

Not only were lightning spells destructive, the speed of the attack was also fast.

Durham couldn’t dodge in time and was struck by this spell, instantly his qi and blood surged and his body went numb.

If it wasn’t for his high magic resistance, this spell would have killed him.

Despite surviving the powerful lightning spell, Durham’s forehead was already a scorched mess, and even his internal organs were almost cooked by the powerful current.

Seeing that Durham had suffered a serious injury, the Orc Shaman hurriedly released a healing spell.

Powerful life energy entered his body, Durham finally escaped, seeing Richard raise his lightning staff once again, Durham’s scalp went numb and immediately hid behind the guards.

Both sides began to fight short-handedly, and the snake-bodied professionals also organized their formation, ready to engage in battle.

Although the Snake-Bodied Human Professional army was powerful in battle, their weaknesses were very obvious, moving at a slower pace, unable to catch up with the human elite soldiers, and easy to be targeted and restrained.

It was difficult for such an army to fight independently, if the Snake-Bodied Man Squadron was allowed to engage the Harland Territory’s First Squadron, the First Squadron could easily use kite-flying tactics to kill all of the Snake-Bodied Man Squadron.

Even Soros alone, riding an Iron Horned Horse and holding an Enchanted Bow could easily defeat his opponent.

Therefore, the snake-bodied man squadron, because their weaknesses were too obvious, did not have the ability to fight independently and could only fight with the main force of the orcs.

Although the weaknesses were obvious, the serpent-bodied man’s melee strength was very strong, and Richard didn’t dare to let the serpent-bodied man break into the formation at all.

Once in melee combat with the snake-bodied people, casualties would be difficult to control.

Even if an elite infantryman like the 1st Squadron fought in a physical battle with a squadron of snake-bodied professionals, the casualties would become so heavy that Richard couldn’t bear it.

So immediately, he passed down the military order for the auxiliary soldiers to launch the alchemy bombs.

(End of chapter)