Chapter 298 – Raid in the Mist

Chapter 298 – Raid in the Mist
After Gatling’s division was annihilated, Kiram, the Commander of the Orc Middle Army, received the news at the first opportunity.

At this moment Kiram knew clearly in his heart that the two flanks and center blossom tactic he had formulated had completely failed.

Even though Gelodan’s army had penetrated the Platos defense line, facing the reinforcements of Soros Ministry and Grizzly Bear Legion, even if Gelodan infiltrated the back of Harland’s territory, he still couldn’t play his proper role, instead, he would be surrounded by the superior force of the human race, and would fall into the same fate of Gatlin Ministry.

Kiram is an orc general, he can afford to let go, after noticing that the situation has changed, he immediately changed his mind, and ordered Golodan to join the three brigades attacking the swamp basin, withdraw from the Platos fortress, and focus on threatening Harland’s territory from the flanks.

After the orcs changed their strategy, they were soon discovered by the scouts of Harland’s Domain. Now that Harland’s Collar had magical hot air balloons and lion rushing cavalry, even if they couldn’t suppress the orcs in the air, they were no longer deaf and blind and could detect a large amount of enemy information.

After discovering the traces of Grodan’s ministry, Richard immediately ordered Soros to bring his troops to reinforce the Marsh Basin and converge with the Marsh Basin defenders to block the orcs.

As for the guarding task of Grota River County, for the time being, it could only be handed over to the soldiers of the Flying Eagle Legion.

With Grodan joining the orcs in the Marsh Basin, there are now three large armies of orcs in the frontline of Harland’s territory.

One legion of eastern orcs was located in the northern part of Salt Lake County, and was holding against Viscount Rommen and Jennings’ divisions, and the Salt Lake County garrison was about eight thousand men.

In the northern area of the central Hyrule Fort, one and a half legions of orcs had already set up camp and built a strong camp, and this force was firmly staring at the main army of the Harland Territory.

Harland Territory had also stationed fifteen thousand regular troops in this direction to hold back the orc army.

In the western swamp basin area, Grodan was eyeing the area with a legion of orcs, and his opponent was Soros’ ministry plus an infantry brigade numbering close to nine thousand. Two mage towers were constructed in this area, and the orcs didn’t dare to attack after suffering a big loss last time.

With the Gatling’s Ministry completely annihilated and the Grizzly Legion freed up their hands, Harland’s Domain still had more than twenty thousand reinforcements.

These 20,000+ reinforcements are a heavy weight, which can decide the winner of a big battle when it matters.

With the end of the spring rain, a heavy fog suddenly arrived.

Richard stood on the wall of Hyrule Castle, staring dead on at the orc camp, last night he had already discussed with his father William to focus on crushing the Kiram ministry orcs in one fell swoop.

This morning, the sky was foggy, and the soldiers of Harland’s territory methodically organized their attack formation.

March in the Eagle Mountains is relatively silent, the grass has not yet sprouted, the migratory birds have not returned, and the hibernating beasts have just awakened.

Richard came down from the city wall, and because of the low visibility, he could only hear a burst of footsteps.

The fog was so thick that the soldiers could only put out seven or eight meters of vision, and marching in such an environment was not an easy task.

It was as if there was some kind of monster hidden in the fog, an unspeakable uneasiness surged up in their hearts, if they could not hear the footsteps and breathing of their companions, the soldiers were afraid that they would have to let out a cry to dispel the terror in their hearts.

The difficulty of marching in a dense fog exceeds that of marching in the dead of night, and only soldiers with strong organizational skills can rush and march in a dense fog.

Richard was not a person who feared death, having crossed into this obscurantist and barbaric world in his early years, seeing many corpses and blood greatly affected Richard’s mind.

Battle after battle, wound after wound, honed Richard’s will spirit, gradually let him become a real northern border people.

This time when he took advantage of the fog to raid the orcs, Richard was once again at the forefront of the battle, bringing his carefully selected soldiers to act as the first echelon. He gripped the enchanted longsword tightly and slowly approached the trench outside the orc camp.

Although the thick fog covered this sneak attack and gave the human raid a suddenness, it suppressed the power of the long range attack, whether it was a stone thrower or a bow and arrow, it was difficult to aim at the orcs in the fog.

In this raid battle, one could only use one’s shortcomings to attack the enemy’s strengths, and use physical combat to defeat the orcs.

Seeing that the first brigade was ready to take position, Richard violently let out a cry and threw the alchemy bombs in his hands into the orc camp.

Thousands of alchemy bombs exploded in the orc camp, light, fire and smoke broke through the dense fog cage, in an instant the orc camp appeared to have a large number of deaths and injuries, there was a mournful scream.

The orc chief commander Kiram was the resident general, seeing the thick fog rising, he anticipated the possibility of humans attacking the camp. He had long ago passed down the order in advance, the two orc brigades stationed in the front camp made preparations in advance, clothes without armor to prevent human soldiers from stealing the camp.

But the orcs underestimated the firepower of Harland’s collar, they never expected that the first brigade of soldiers carried six thousand alchemy bombs, and the first wave threw three thousand of them, directly flooding the orcs with powerful firepower.

The two most forward orc brigades were hit by the alchemy bombs and suffered heavy casualties before they even encountered the enemy, killing and wounding close to one thousand four hundred people.

Without starting the battle the casualties were already close to thirty percent, and were about to reach the dilemma of collapse.

The orc army had seen a lot of things, but they had never encountered such a terrible scene.

“Soldiers, the opportunity to defeat the orcs has arrived.

We, Northern Borderers, have countless loved ones at home who were killed, plundered, and bullied by the orcs, and today is the time for us to take revenge.

Please follow Earl Harland’s banner and kill all the orcs, let’s cheer loudly, the glory belongs to Harland’s collar.”

After the brief battlefield mobilization, Richard fiercely swung his enchanted longsword and was the first to launch a charge.

In the thick fog, Richard’s superior archery skills were of no use, but he was also a sixth-ranked warrior, and his ability to fight in a physical battle was also very high. He easily leapt across the seven or eight meter trench, and his longsword slashed down in his hand, easily killing the Minotaur soldier who was in front of him.

The soldiers of the first brigade were experienced, and there were over three hundred veterans with over ten years of military service. This brigade had a large number of professionals, especially in the first squadron, many of the professionals were still acting as squad leaders and other military positions. Even in a physical battle, the combat power of this elite army had already surpassed that of the orcs.

With Richard leading the charge, the professional officers led the charge, their physical fitness far exceeded that of normal people, and they were able to easily jump over the wide trenches and kill the orc soldiers that were blocking them.

In the blink of an eye this Harland territory elite soldiers opened a gap, cut down the wooden fence of the orc camp and burned down many orc tents.

The ordinary soldiers who followed behind, two or three of them carried long wooden planks and built them on top of the trench outside the camp, and rushed into the orc camp right after the officers.

Because of the twelve brigades of orc main force and four brigades of orc auxiliaries stationed, there were about thirty-two thousand orc troops stationed in this camp.

Garrisoning so many soldiers, the orcs naturally had to spread out their garrison, and two kilometers away from the northern part of the Hyrule Fortress, five large camps were densely constructed.

The five camps added up to an area of about a few kilometers, which was a few points larger than the footprint of Hyrule Fort. The one that Richard led his troops to sneak attack was the vanguard camp at the front, and there were about two brigades of orcs stationed in this camp.

The vanguard battalion had suffered heavy casualties from the alchemy bombs, and was attacked by the elite soldiers of Harland’s territory, and was in a low visibility, very depressing fog environment, so it could not withstand the losses and collapsed at once.

Seeing the orcs in the vanguard camp routed, Richard ordered loudly, lit torches in the thick fog to reorganize the formation, and then followed the footsteps of the orcs’ routed troops and attacked the orcs’ middle camp.

Orc center camp is the core of defense, inside stationed four brigades of orcs, there are left and right two battalions of orcs for each other, the location of the camp is also in the middle of the mountainside, said easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Receiving the news of the defeat of the front battalion, the fleeing orcs have already started to mess up their own formation.

Orc middle camp commander Kiram was very decisive, ordered to light bonfires, dispersed the fog, attacked the orc deserters who broke into the camp, and stabilized the formation through brutal suppression.

Orcs were not a race with strong organizational skills, even in wars where organizational skills were extremely needed. The orcs’ organizational ability was always a weakness, and the race seemed to be in chaos at all times.

But the legendary dog-headed man Kiram was an exception, he placed great importance on organizational skills and ruled his army with particular rigor.

The dog-headed people are also the clan with stronger organizational skills among the orcs, even though the dog-headed people’s innate endowment is not good. Adult dog-headed man, generally speaking, the combat power is not comparable to the human twelve-year-old child.

Kiram’s tribe was a dragon vein dogman, he had a powerful red dragon bloodline and a legendary third-order red dragon crystal, through which he mastered a special magic array that constantly transformed ordinary dogmen into dragon vein dogmen.

Even though the transformation efficiency wasn’t high, Kiram had saved up two brigades of Dragon Vein Doghead soldiers.

Dragon Vein Dogheads were born professionals, one tenth of them could also awaken spell abilities, these two brigades of Dragon Vein Dogheads were also the core of Kiram’s ministry’s fighting force.

The Dragon Vein Dogheads had a clear hierarchy between the upper and lower ranks, the higher officers ordered and the lower ranks carried out without hesitation, and the slaughtered orc routed soldiers exceeded six to seven hundred in a matter of moments.

Such a terrifying scene instantly subdued the orcs.

After stabilizing their positions, the orcs began to light bonfires to disperse the fog, in this foggy environment, lighting bonfires was not an easy task. Even though there was a lot of dry wood in the orcs’ camp, the moist air prevented the flames from burning and consumed the heat of the flames.

Seeing that it was difficult to build a fire, the orc shamans took action one after another, only to see them release a fire attribute spell, and in a flash, a blazing fire rose up in the orc camp.

The blazing fire rose into the air, vaporizing the nearby water vapor.

At the same time, the Orc Shaman immediately released a Dissipate Fog spell, dispersing the fog into the distance.

In just a few minutes, the dense fog near the orc camp had been reduced quite a bit, and the visibility reached sixty to seventy meters.

Richard had just approached the orc mid-camp with his soldiers and immediately noticed that the dense fog was gradually weakening. He gasped softly and looked around, several tiny wounds had appeared on his body, the sharp stabbing pain stimulated his already tired nerves, keeping him awake at all times.

The fog had thinned, but the blood lingered in the air.

Richard cast a Heal Minor Wounds spell on himself to stop the blood loss, and watched as the Dragon Vein Dogheads formed a formation, his face growing a bit grim.

It had been ten days since the siege of Kiram, and the two sides had fought several tentative battles.

Richard and Sophia had even briefly exchanged hands with Kiram once, impressing both sides with each other.

The Wraith Cavalry of Harland’s Collar had also battled the Dragon Vein Dogheads.

Seeing that there were no more bargains to be had in the orc’s center camp, Richard immediately ordered to stabilize their position and slowly retreat backward.

In today’s battle, taking advantage of the fog surprise attack, Harland’s Collar had gained the upper hand, hitting two brigades of orcs and wiping out more than three thousand of them, while the casualties on his side were no more than four hundred at the most, with only a hundred or so soldiers killed in battle.

Seeing that the first brigade rushed too far forward and broke away from the protection of the army, Richard decided to take the good with the bad and stop being greedy for credit.

The first brigade was about to retreat, but Kiram refused.

Today, the orcs suffered a big loss, seriously affecting the morale of the army, Kiram saw the first brigade position forward, decided to use superior force to eat this enemy.

The two Dragon Vein Doghead brigades quickly ran out of the camp, in order to make sure that nothing is wrong, Kiram decided to personally lead the troops, the
The first brigade was the most elite infantry of Harland’s territory, and the vast majority of the soldiers were seasoned veterans. They knew that at this moment, they must not expose their backs to the Dragon Vein Dogheads.

The Dragon Vein Dogheads’ marching speed was very fast, if they continued to retreat at this time, they would be surrounded by the Dragon Vein Dogheads halfway, and when they fought in retreating formation, the casualties were bound to be very heavy.

Even though they had already fought a battle and consumed a lot of physical strength, the first brigade of soldiers quickly transformed into a defensive formation.

The sun gradually rose, the fog became thinner and thinner, and visibility became higher and higher. Many soldiers immediately removed the strong bows on their backs and shot out a feathered arrow to kill the Dragon Vein Dogheads.

At the same time the first brigade of soldiers took out the remaining alchemy bombs ready to be thrown, the alchemy bombs that Harland territory had in reserve, there were about 20,000 of them, 8,000 of them were distributed in the hands of the frontline garrison in Grota River County, Salt Lake County, Swamp Basin, and Praetorius, and the rest of the 12,000 were partly in the hands of the soldiers of the Fortress of Hyrule, and part of them were in the bottle of Star Glory of Richard.

In order to fight this surprise battle, Richard made a lot of preparations in advance, mobilizing six thousand alchemy bombs and distributing them in the hands of the first brigade.

In this battle, except for the bomb throwers, the ordinary warriors were all assigned two alchemy bombs, and the intensity of the firepower was already very impressive.

After three rounds of arrows, a large number of Alchemy Bombs were thrown at the Dragon Vein Dogheads military formation.

The attack on the orc camp had consumed three thousand alchemy bombs, and the remaining three thousand were all greeted on the heads of the Dragon Vein Dogheads.

Even though the Dragon Vein Dogheads were powerful and fast, they were limited by the level of magic and industrial capacity of the orcs, so it was impossible for them to have sophisticated weaponry.

Seeing the Alchemy Bombs coming, they could only use their wooden shields to fend them off. Even though the Dragon Vein Dogheads were all professionals, the losses in a split second were very heavy.

As far as the naked eye could see, there were more than seven to eight hundred dead and wounded.

Seeing his elite troops lose so much, Kiram stared in disbelief.

(End of chapter)