744 Bitter Defea (1/2)
When Bardi Emperor Halent told me about the situation on Bardi's frontlines, I felt almost as if he was telling me a terrible joke with how fast he told me things. I really wanted to laugh, but couldn't, which felt so aggrieving.
\”You didn't receive my information?\” I inquired.
After my secret agreement with Undead Emperor Sandro, I had sent my ally Bardi information on the undead, telling them much about the undead army's actual internal situation. I couldn't understand why things had gone so majorly wrong even after my informational assistance.
Halent sighed as he shook his head in dejection.
\”It was precisely because we learned that the five Undead Emperors weren't unified, with one of them missing and two of them only pretending to fight us, meaning that only two Undead Emperors are our true mortal enemies, that we made up our mind to eliminate this threat once and for all.\”
Although it might sound rather ridiculous, the combat situation had gone like this: Bardi felt that they had a tremendous numerical advantage, so they closed their eyes and turned on auto-battle mode, letting all soldiers attack by themselves, and then Bardi typed GG and admitted defeat.
Was this foolish? Or suicidal? Or foolishly suicidal?
Bardi had actually tried to calculate standard troops' numerical advantages when fighting against Undead Emperors! Bardi had tried to use the strength of numbers to overwhelm the enemy. What actually happened was that Bardi had attacked with multiple army squadrons in a rush, and then was completely annihilated by forbidden spells and ambushes. Bardi's forces on the frontlines were utterly annihilated to the point of having to retreat 300 kilometers in a single day. They suffered massive losses and a great blow to their morale. That was also why Halent had made my arrival into a piece of political propaganda for raising everyone's morale.
Moreover, all of this had happened while the Undead Emperors were still not unified.
I gradually learned more details about what had happened from Halent.
Only the two enemy Undead Emperors had attacked.
Undead Emperor Anina, the \”Long-sleeping Witch\” from the Darkness Plane, and Undead Emperor Shupnus, the \”Undead Wizard\” from the Deathmist Plane. They were both relatively younger Undead Emperors. Neither of them had any outstanding combat achievements before, at least not in the mortal plane.
It could be said that everyone underestimated these two Undead Emperors compared to the other three far more famous Undead Emperors who had invaded.
However, these two were still Undead Emperors, existences who had achieved the impossible. They weren't known little because they didn't have the power, but rather because they hadn't needed to show their true power.
Neither of the two had used any surprising strategy at all. They used the classical strategy that all undead mages would use: an undead sea followed by support magic from behind.
However, their magic power was far beyond that of any ordinary undead mage.
They first intentionally allowed their own undead army to be eradicated by Bardi, which lured the Bardi forces deep into their territory. They then launched an ambush once a tremendous number of human warriors and several dozen dragons had entered their chosen location.
The two Undead Emperors then combined their powers at spellcasting and successfully opened up a dimensional tear, connecting the mortal plane to a Death Plane, which caused a torrential amount of negative energy to pour out and slaughter all the living. The scene had been incredibly horrendous to behold.
Such a spell was somewhat similar to back when Aso had sacrificed his life in order to forcefully connect the mortal plane to the Death Planes, opening up a permanent portal. However, the dimensional restrictions were much weaker now since the Holy War had started, so with two Undead Emperors working together, along with already having prepared enough sacrifices for the ritual, their chosen ambush location was instantaneously corroded into a land of death.