1365 Not Giving In Part 2 (1/2)

What Saleen intended to do was crazy and seemed dangerous. Rafel was powerless to persuade him otherwise, so she just let him do his thing.

The Floating City continued flying toward Nature City. News from all sides came flooding to him: The Holy See army had reached Qin's borders.

Since Lex had just ascended the throne, morale was high. There were also many northern nobles who relied on Saleen's Nature Faith. The mages were ready, and the holy masters from Nature Faith were on hot stand by.

Healing powers of holy masters of the Nature Faith surpassed even those of the Holy See. Border fighting was about the begin. Saleen gave an immediate order for the army to back away as much as possible.

He did this because the Holy See came with the objective of destroying his nation.

Saleen had a hunch that the Holy See was better prepared than all their previous expeditions.

Those who were about to attack the borders were mere vanguards. If they couldn't break through, more holy masters would have been sent as reinforcements until they pulverized the most elite enemy troops stationed there.

Believing that such sacrifices were irrational, Saleen moved the elite troops back to where Nature City could cover them instead of having them fight the Holy See forces head-on.

After issuing the order to retreat, Saleen prepared to send supplies to the frontlines, which consisted mostly of one-time-use consumables, such as poor-quality alchemy bolts and low-level magic scrolls.

Both would have inflicted substantial damage on the Holy See forces nonetheless and kept expenditures low. In truth, if there were no powerful professionals on the other side, those one-time-use consumables would have played a pivotal role in shaping a battle's outcome.

After putting part of his demon army down from the Floating City halfway to Nature City, Saleen headed toward the borders to support the retreating armies. The Floating City stopped about 800 kilometers from the border.

About 80,000 Qin forces were already retreating. The army consisted mostly of veterans. With the north in shamble and many nobles disbanded, Saleen took those forces in and assigned them to Nature Temple's knight's corp.

They were treated as auxiliary forces instead of actual knights.

Saleen took about 300,000 such forces at the north. Because the nobles they originally served had either died in battle or deserted, Saleen got to pick those professional soldiers up cheap.

They were capable of doing little but fight, however. They made poor farmers, poor merchants, and even poorer mercenaries: Their only use was to serve on the frontlines and kill his enemies.

In addition, none of those Qin people would have surrendered. If the armies they served in crumbled and there was no one else to take them in, those soldiers would have simply gone off to become robbers and bandits in enemy territory, doing their utmost to inflict maximum damage.

Also tagging along were also holy masters of Nature Faith; this is what made it easy for Saleen to contact them. He summoned them up to the Floating City and asked how things were going down there, finding the fighting to be lukewarm.

The Qin border was originally drawn according to terrain. A few places were open to attack and all the fortresses, which were very strong, were built after the Tanggulasians last attacked.

There were fewer than 30,000 vanguards in the Holy See's forces and more than 100,000 Blood Knights. If they entered the plains of Qin, they would done a lot of damage.

For the time being, though, there were no such concerns. Those Blood Knights wouldn't have been capable of fending off attacks from the Floating City in the plains.

What a relief! Saleen had the holy masters return to the army. The Holy See's main forces were still gathering at God Grace Duchy. It would have taken them more than half a month to pass through Kroraina.

That wouldn't have been a problem for the army he had taken in. Not even the scattered soldiers would have been in much of a threat.

The Holy See forces were being extremely cautious with their advance. Saleen's forces would have been safe as long as they retreated. Saleen pondered the situation and found that the west side of Qin, which he had taken, would have definitely clashed with the Holy See.

Now that Lex was probably on bad terms with Golden Plains, he didn't know whether to advance or retreat.

Had he stopped there, the vanguards would have only advanced into Qin territory after the main forces of the Holy See had arrived. It would have been a very long wait and if he were to actually do this, he might as well have declared that he was taking over the responsibility of fighting that battle.

On the other hand, if he retreated, the Golden Plains would have been required to deploy their forces.

Whatever. I'll keep Nature City safe before addressing the problem with the kids. We'll think of how to deal with Golden Plains later. Saleen stopped the Floating City from advancing further at that thought, commanding the army below to move closer to Nature City.

Saleen decided not to fight the Holy See for the time being until he found his children.

That's not to say he was completely unprepared, however. There were still several wide passes leading to the northern plains. Although it would have been impossible to choke the enemy's advances there, he was could lay traps.

Saleen left 30,000 bug angel units at three places. All those Bug Angel Warriors were imps who had fallen asleep within their Bug Angel Armors and were buried in the mountains. Demons barely emitted any signs of life while sleeping.

That, coupled with the fact that Saleen had added golden granules, which were acquired from purifying the black vortexes and were attribute-less materials, the aura emitted from the armors were blocked outright.

If there was no one to awaken the 30000 Bug Angel Warriors, they would have stayed in hibernation for the year. They were used as decoys during an ambush. Those were the most elite troops Saleen had been able to deploy.