Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 416 Game
Southern part of the ice field, three hundred and twenty miles west of the town of Slovens.

In the temporary camp, Hilbert was counting the latest day's casualties. Levi and Celine were sitting beside him. The atmosphere in the big tent was quite solemn.

"Our troops are less than 9,000 strong," Hilbert signed his name at the bottom of the final calculation and stamped it with the seal left by Lucia. "Since the southern expedition, our troops have only lost soldiers in battle. From the west of the Giant Cemetery, only one in a hundred people in the entire southern region remain. There is no condition for replenishment at all."

Leville sighed, "It can't be helped. Compared to the eastern region, the civilians in the south have suffered even more unimaginable misfortunes. First, there were several tragedies of civil war instigated by the giants, then there were the battles between the Samir clan and the northern nobles, and then there were the massacres, transformations, and lootings for food reserves by the new giant dynasty. If there were any survivors, they were transformed into one of the 600,000 giants."

"In addition, there are non-combat casualties," Serin said, feeling particularly depressed. "When an army is alone and deep in the enemy's territory, the problem of food and water can be solved by looting, but if the war lasts for a long time, the supply of medicine and bandages will be difficult to sustain. These days, I have been responsible for treating the wounded, and I have personally seen many soldiers who should have received treatment lose their lives due to insufficient medicine or the lack of divine power of the clergy."

Compared to her calm and almost cruel sister, Serin's emotions are not that deep. Especially in front of her comrades who have entrusted their lives to her, she occasionally reveals a hint of confusion and vulnerability.

In elite forces like the Scorching Sun Legion and the Storm Knights, anyone who can become a hero is by no means a coward, but bravery and fearlessness cannot be equated with ruthlessness. When they witness young lives buried forever in the ice and snow, a silent pressure will still creep into their hearts unknowingly.

Since the Giant King personally led an expedition to the southern region, the oppressive feeling brought by the nearly 200,000 enemy main forces was far beyond the comparison of the previous unorganized guerrillas.

Callelius did not care about the gain or loss of a single soldier, a single city or a single place. After suffering several minor setbacks in the early surprise attacks, he divided the remaining troops into several legions of 20,000 to 30,000 people, and strictly limited the advance speed of each troop to prevent his subordinates from being greedy for merit and advancing rashly, giving Lucia an opportunity to take advantage.

After all, both sides knew that before causing enough casualties, it would be meaningless for Lucia's 10,000 troops to break through the encirclement, and they would sooner or later freeze to death in the wind and snow. Therefore, as long as they advance steadily and step by step, it will be difficult for Lucia to seize the opportunity to defeat them one by one.

It is not easy to achieve this level of command over such a large-scale force on a battlefield spanning thousands of miles. It requires at least a powerful commander with absolute dominance, several generals with extremely high military qualities and strict execution of orders, and a large number of soldiers with strong wills and extremely high individual qualities.

Otherwise, facing an enemy army that is almost invincible on a small-scale battlefield and has won consecutive battles, even a legion of 20,000 to 30,000 people can easily be defeated in a hurry, thus triggering a chain reaction and losing the initiative of the entire battle.

But these conditions are exactly what Kaleris and the Giant King's Court have.

Under the command of the Giant King and the six ancestors, the 200,000-strong army was like a ruthless iron hand that maintained a constant speed and force, slowly gathering towards the 10,000 Southern Expeditionary Army in the center. Even though the two were thousands of miles apart at the closest moment, the suffocating feeling of oppression had already surrounded every member of the Southern Expeditionary Army.

In recent days, in order to gain time and space for infiltration, Lucia has personally fought more than once.

At times like this, he could only temporarily hand over the command to a legion commander, assisted by two other legion commanders, while he fought alone for thousands of miles, constantly colliding with enemy legions, looking for opportunities to kill generals, or releasing groups of star beasts to create chaos. When the opportunity was right, he would release the Esti meteorite to cause casualties, and then escape with one strike.

Relying on the overwhelming advantages in individual combat power and speed, this style of play created great difficulties for the giants' march, and Lucia also earned a large amount of runes.

But Calerius seemed to have anticipated this. Except for a little confusion during the initial transfer of the army, the giants quickly completed the redistribution of high-end combat power. The six ancestors and the first generation of giants were evenly distributed to each legion. Although none of them could deal with Lucia alone, they could delay long enough for other ancestors to come to support.

From then on, the time Lucia had to launch a single surprise attack on each enemy force was severely compressed. In the situation where the enemy outnumbered us, he could not be delayed, let alone get hurt, so the results of the surprise attacks became increasingly limited. The remaining ones were completely within Callelius' expectations.

So from a God's perspective, the two sides have been in a delicate state of balance after the initial test, but the longer the stalemate lasts, the more advantageous it will be for the royal court, which has more troops, larger territory, and more supplies.

If the encirclement is reduced to the point where there is no room for penetration, Lucia will lose; if the southern expeditionary army is reduced to the point where it loses its frontal combat power, it will lose; if any of the fronts of Sol or Frozen Lake is accidentally lost, it will still lose.
It was this terrible pressure that made the three battle-hardened legion commanders feel a little unbearable.

The sound of wings breaking through the air was heard, and Lucia landed directly in front of the big tent, opened the door curtain, strode in, glanced at the slightly gloomy faces of the three people, and said with a smile: "The war has just begun, why do you all look like you have lost the battle."

"It's completely within our expectations that the war has reached this point. The Giant King's Court is not a bunch of idiots, and neither is Kalerius. After we lose the initial information advantage, this is how the war should be."

"To put it simply, we need to break the impasse." Lucia came to the front of the sand table, drew her sword and gently tapped the seven chess pieces representing the giant army. "And the way to break the impasse is also very simple, that is, to attack the enemy where they must be rescued."

The three generals gathered around, and Serin said, "Concentrate our forces to defeat the opposing legion, and it would be best if we could kill one of the founders?" Lucia glanced at her, thinking that this woman and Professor Serin were indeed worthy of being sisters. The solutions they proposed at critical moments were full of a beauty that was so simple that it was violent.

"The direction is correct, but the timing is wrong. It is known that each of the ancestors not only has basic abilities far superior to the first generation, but also possesses a special forbidden spell ability. In the absence of sufficient intelligence, it is too dangerous to rashly bet the entire army on a single decapitation opportunity."

"More importantly, this is undoubtedly the tactic that Kalerius is most wary of. We don't need to check to know that he must have put a lot of thought into the distribution of high-end combat power in each legion, just to prevent us from suddenly killing one or two of his capable subordinates. As I said before, every battle should be fought on a battlefield where the enemy is not prepared as much as possible."

"Attack the enemy where they must rescue." Hilbert pondered for a moment, his eyes lit up, and he looked at the pass at the southern end of the sand table, "Your Highness means, Lord Fortress?"

Leville suddenly understood and said, "Yes, even though they know that our 10,000 people are behind the scenes, the Southern Regiment's defense in Lorde should still focus on the southern line. Otherwise, if a big enough flaw is exposed in the direction of Asia, no matter what contact they have with some rebels in the court, the dynasty will definitely send troops from Rodel to the north to retake the northern border."

Having followed Lucia for so long, the three of them knew that His Majesty Radagon probably wished that Lucia would die in the North.

Therefore, Leville's subtext is that once the flaws of the Giant Army are exposed to a certain extent, Rodel's Northern Expedition will no longer be just a military issue, but a more sensitive political issue.

The Northern Expedition Army and the Giant King's Court fight to the death, and the New Party reaps the benefits. This must be the result that the New Party most hopes to see.

As a second best option, if either the Northern Expedition Army or the Giants fails, they can inflict a certain degree of damage to the other side before their death, thus reducing the difficulty of the dynasty in regaining the northern border. This is also acceptable.

But for the outside world, it was one thing to suddenly receive the news of the failure of the Northern Expedition and the death of Lucia when they were thousands of miles away, out of touch and out of reach. It was another thing entirely that the giant army in the direction of Lord Fortress was attacked from all sides by Lucia, and Rodel could attack the north at any time to support the Northern Expedition but refused to go.

Neither the New Party nor Radagan can shoulder this responsibility.

Therefore, regardless of whether the New Party and the Giant King's Court have reached any mutually beneficial agreement behind the scenes, when Lucia does strike the Lord's defense line, the Golden Dynasty must move north.

In other words, in order to prevent the Golden Dynasty army from moving north, the fifth ancestor Vikia and his southern regiment must be tied to the Lord's defense line, and they must build a defense to the south with an attitude of "no matter how many troops of the Golden Dynasty attack, I will remain unmoved". Only by defending the southern line to the point where no one can break in, can Kalia and the Ancient Dragon Dynasty temporarily accept the result of letting Lucia fight alone in the north.

Under this situation, the northern defense of Lord Fortress became a natural flaw facing Lucia.

Currently, the defense focus of the Southern Corps has to be on the south, and only 10,000 troops are deployed on the northern front. To hold on, they rely on the fortifications built to the north during the Golden Dynasty's management of Lord, and on the support of the giant army in other directions.

While opening this "big hand", Calerius deliberately arranged two legions of 30,000 people in the direction of Lord, and assigned the sixth ancestor Ophelia and the eighth ancestor Heldiron to take over, and let their marching speed be kept at the slowest level among the seven legions, in order to prevent Lucia from attacking Lord suddenly. At the critical moment, these two legions can support each other with the Lord defenders and block all possibilities of Lucia going south.

"We need to move Ophelia and Heldiron away." Serin thought for a while and quickly came up with a new tactic.

"First, attack Amodia in the southeast, then turn the whole army to the northwest and attack the enemy's western commander, Moserlo. Show an attitude that you will not give up until you kill him, and attract all the nearby legions to the northwest. Now suddenly attack Lorde in the south - if you can break him, that's better. If you can't break him, let the royal court be nervous. Take advantage of the opponent's hasty mobilization to find an opportunity to kill an ancestor!"

Well, this ancestor still has to be killed!

But this time, Celine's plan met Lucia's idea of ​​"right time".

"Prepare according to this plan. In the first phase, I will harass the outer areas to buy space for you to retreat after the feint attack on the Amodia tribe. In the second phase, we will meet up and attack Mocero directly," he arranged. "This time, Serin will lead the entire army. You two should cooperate well."

The three generals all understood His Highness's painstaking efforts to cultivate their commanding abilities, so they had no objections and saluted in unison, saying, "I obey your orders!"

(End of this chapter)