Roland certainly did not think that the demons had possessed such incredible power 400 years ago. Otherwise, the Witch Empire would have been eradicated from the Earth within a year or two. The truth was, however, that they had ruled the world for a short decade.
After all, it was impossible to compete against the demons with only a few Extraordinaries. Once every outpost was protected by a similar G.o.d"s Stone of Retaliation, the witches would have no chance of survival.
Roland knew how hard it was to carve out such a giant G.o.d"s Stone of Punishment Pillar. The better the condition of the original stone was, the greater durability it had. They had tried to dig out the Natural G.o.d"s Stone from the bottom of the North Slope Mine by shooting at it at close range but had only ended up leaving a few white marks on its surface. The only way to recover the stone was to corrode its surface with magic blood before processing it. Due to the great difficulty in obtaining them, large G.o.d"s Stones were particularly expensive.
Nevertheless, even the G.o.d"s stone in the main hall of the Hermes Cathedral was not that enormous. According to the Ice Witch, it seemed that the pillar had been directly cut out of a Natural G.o.d"s Stone by some sharp weapon. There were only two explanations for this: Either the demons had acquired some astonis.h.i.+ng carving skills or they had developed a more profound understanding of their magic power.
For mankind, neither of them was good news.
"We can tell from the demons" new weapon that they have also been busy over the past 400 years..." Roland tapped the desk. "The third Battle of Divine Will is probably going to be tougher than we antic.i.p.ated."
Roland"s worst fear had come true. Compared to the demons back in the age of the Union, the demons nowadays were not only more cunning but also more advanced in terms of their technology. For example, they had created a hybrid life form such as that crawling monster, which was seemingly used to kill regular combat witches. As the crawling monster can shoot the witches from two kilometers away, the witch army would have no time to use their power to fight back when they realized they were under attack.
Even a scout like Sylvie would find it hard to protect her peers when the enemies started ma.s.s shooting because her ability was only effective within a radius of five meters.
"As much as I hate to admit it, the demons do evolve faster than us." Zooey broke the silence. "If this happened in the Union Age, we would have probably been squashed already."
Roland could easily imagine how slim the witches" chances of survival would be in this situation. They would be double teamed and outnumbered by the Mad Demons on the ground, threatened by the Senior Demons lurking in midair, and also attacked by the destructive new monsters, the witches would be doomed to fail.
The current problem was whether the five crawling monsters were the only ones in possession of the demons or just a very small part of their advance force. Had demons developed any war weapons other than those crawling monsters? If they had, what would they look like and how were they going to deal with them?
Roland needed all of this information right away.
Next came the casualties of the First Army.
Roland already had a rough estimate of the number after the war. There were indeed few discrepancies between his number and the actual statistics obtained four days later. Without a doubt, the low casualty rate was largely attributed to Nana and Lily.
There were 190 people injured and 75 killed in action, and most of the casualties were directly caused by the crawling monsters. It was impossible for the soldiers down in the trench to dodge the stone needles raining down from the sky. Once the needles had penetrated human bodies, they had, pretty much, nailed the people to the trench. In order to transfer the wounded to the shelter, the field medic must have had to pull the one-meter long needles out first. This operation had, consequently, resulted in a large amount of blood loss. Due to the mishandling, many soldiers had died within a few minutes.
Roland would certainly not blame the rescue team. In fact, it was the first time for the field medic to provide a.s.sistance to the war effort, and they had actually bought a lot of time for the wounded soldiers. As Nana was not able to treat so many people at a time, she had had to treat those who had suffered fatal injuries first, leaving those who had sustained minor injuries to the rescue team.
Roland could envision that as the war became increasingly intense, what Nana could do in the future would be increasingly limited. At the end of the day, the First Army would have to solve the medical problem themselves.
"Please bring the ashes of the soldiers killed in action back," Roland said in a low voice. "Graycastle won"t forget them."
"Yes, Your Majesty," Iron Axe replied solemnly.
"So... do you have any plans for the First Army in the near future?" the Pearl of the Northern Region asked. "The enemies definitely did not antic.i.p.ate such a great loss. According to Miss Lightning, the patrolling Devilbeasts near the Taquila ruins have reduced significantly. She only found demons more than 100 kilometers away from the ruins. Further, Miss Sylvie has also confirmed that except for the towering iron monsters, there are less than 1,000 specks of magic glow. In other words, the demons now have very few footholds on the Fertile Plains."
After a long pause, Roland made his decision. "Head back to Neverwinter when all of the wounded recover."
"Are you concerned about the supplies?"
"If we can"t seize the ruins, there"s no point advancing to the north." Roland sipped the tea. "Plus... winter is coming."
Although the Months of Demons did not necessarily arrive during winter time, for people living around the Barbarian Land, winter meant endless snow and an overcast sky.
During the Months of Demons, the First Army not only had to deal with the harsh weather but also watch out for the demonic beasts that lurked everywhere. There was neither any guarantee that both food and winter supplies would be sufficient in Neverwinter, nor was there ample ammunition for the army to wage a multi-faceted war.
Hence, the winter in the Barbarian Land was always perilous.
By the time the ground was covered by thick snow, it would not be that easy to retreat.
"I see," Edith said. "The General Staff will collaborate with Mr. Commander-in-chief and work out a retreating plan."
"Safety is our top priority," said Roland. After he finished the "conference call", Agatha suddenly cut in.
"Your Majesty, there"s another thing that you need to know."
"Really? What is it?"
"Well, the thing is that the Senior Demon defeated by the G.o.d"s Punishment Witches is still alive..."
After hearing the full account, Roland was astonished.
"Is it fine to connect the demon with Camilla?"
The channeling would enable the channeling witch and the demon to share their minds and be fused into one. In other words, the witch would be able to learn what it felt like to be a demon once the two were connected. It was definitely not going to be a pleasant feeling. The soul transfer of the Taquila witches had shown that any transfer would create confusion and that the process was irreversible. As such, it was certain that the clash of the two entirely different living beings would be a disaster.
This reminded Roland of the word "spiritual contamination".
"It"s dangerous, so Zooey and I had a thorough discussion and came up with a relatively feasible way to do this."