Chapter 449: Chapter 2.168

Securing the backpack tightly around my belly and shoulders, I nodded towards Hannah who ordered the five hundred and two men strong army to advance. As we were only a few kilometres away from the river separating the human and demon realm from each other, we made our way there with ease. But even though it was by no means a difficult part of our journey, I could visibly see the others getting more and more tense. The jokes in the beginning had stopped halfway and all conversations died down once we had the river in front of us.

Methodically, as if they had trained them time and time again, our heavy armoured men secured the riverside while the mages did their work by freezing the surface of the river. Around a hundred and fifty metres separates us from the other side, which meant security for us, but also difficulty in crossing.

Luckily for us though, the river was rather slow at this place which meant it was possible to cross it nonetheless. But I thought the normal methods of wading through river was too dangerous for obvious reasons. And so, our only way was to freeze the surface which also would allow us to retaliate better.

It took them around half an hour to create a pathway for us and a few scouts – the idiots included - were sent out to test its stability. Apparently, it did hold, but it was also wetted by waves spilling onto the ice repeatedly.

Then, a few of our heavy armoured troops crossed the river to create a bridgehead on the other side and with their weight, it was basically proven that I didn’t have to fear it breaking apart under me.

“Louis, Luna … let’s go.” I said as it was our turn to cross the river and made my way towards the ice. Further ahead, I noticed Hannah looking back at me with justified worry and I hesitated a long time before I made my first step onto the creaking ice.

“Are you alright?” Luna asked, just as worried as Hannah was.

“I’m just worried about slipping a little.” I admitted while avoiding any abrupt movements.

“Here …” Luna said and extended her hand towards me. Thankful, I took it along with Louis’ as well. Hand in hand, we walked over the slippery bridge which was wetted with water. At least the soles of my shoes were high enough so that I didn’t have to feel any water at all.

Still, the creaking of the ice was nerve wrecking for me, which Luna and Louis definitely must have noticed, even thought they didn’t comment on my trembling.

But at last, even I managed to get solid ground underneath my feet again without losing consciousness, or any other accident happening at all.

Quite proud of myself, I let go of both of their hands and made place for the others behind us to cross the river as well.

“Louis, sent out your birds.” I said. Closing his eyes, he concentrated a little before small bird appeared in his hands which then flew away quickly, scouting the area from afar.

“Something is weird …” Louis admitted, holding his breath for a little while.

“What do you mean?” I asked as soon as he opened his eyes once more.

“It’s like something is blocking my link to them.” He said, creating a few more birds with apparently the same result. Once these birds traveled further than a few metres, they apparently turned into normal birds and didn’t relay their vision to Louis anymore.

“I see. Luckily we have this here.” I said, nodding towards the hot air balloon carried by six men.

Waiting a little bit longer, all of the army Finally crossed the river and Hannah sounded the horn to advance. Just as we had trained so often, we advanced in a wedge formation with the scouts ahead of us, the Hannah’s troops in the middle while the adventurers held out flanks. There wasn’t much of a rearguard with only a hundred nimble adventurers around me, but we had scouts in the back as well. This way, our vulnerable centre was protected from more or less all sides, while we made our way through the thick, suspiciously empty forest for half an hour.

“That’s weird.” Louis said, looking all around him and listening closely, a few birds a flying at the edge of his link range to improve his vision.

“What do you think, Luna?” I asked, looking over to her who was listening intensely to every sound he could hear. There were the sounds of metal boots stomping onto the ground, humans marching in metal amour but certainly not the sounds of demons or many animals.

“They are trying to lure us in, aren’t they.” Luna said, not even needing to activate her magic to figure that out.

“Correct. Sound the horn to halt at once.” I said towards the person responsible for relaying my orders. Shortly afterwards, the horns resounded through the forest and the subdivisions replied with the same sounds.

“Prepare the balloon.” We needed intel. That was for sure. I had hoped Louis could help us with that, but the enemy apparently found a way to cancel out magical communication.

And finally, Albert’s hard work came to fruition as magical stones were placed into the apparatus. Slowly, the balloon on top of the casket filled with hot air while we just stood around doing nothing for a little while until Hannah came back.

“I could take a look as well.” Hannah proposed, quite bummed out that she didn’t have a chance to shine.

“Secrecy is a weapon. If they don’t know you can fly, they won’t expect it.” I stated quietly and followed the hot air balloon as it lifted itself up from the ground, only held in position by a long rope we used to steer that thing.

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Quickly, the first paper plane, this time a non magical one came flying downwards and was brought to me quickly afterwards.

“Forest – no movement.” Were we wrong? Or did the demons want to invite us further into their territory? “Luna?” I asked swiftly.

Activating her magic quietly, she made use of it for a little while until blood ran out of her nose.

“No idea. They could have already trapped us, but if the way back is still open … I really don’t know.” She admitted while rubbing her nose a little.

Tapping my finger against the seethe unsure, I bit on my lower lip and made the decision to advance. Quickly, Hannah excused herself to get back to the front and the horns were blown once more. Several people were pulling on the rope to drag it with us for several hours upon no end. No more messages arrived us from the ballon, meaning the scenery didn’t change at all.

Luckily, we did find an overgrown street a little while later which made it easier to pull it with is.

But then, while our shoes walked across the old stones, the signal to halt resounded from my left, quickly followed by a notification that the enemy was spotted. Still, several minutes later, no notification of battle resounded, but a messenger looking rather shocked.

“There is … the whole forest is infested with spiders.” Spiders? Well, we couldn’t advance through that, could we?

“Set fire to it and get closer to the centre. We are moving around it.” I proposed which was directly accepted by the messenger. As soon as my orders were relayed to the rest of the formation, we carried on like before while ignoring the spreading fire to our left. Luckily the wind blew westwards, so the spiders nest was burnt nicely while we didn’t have any issues.

Half an hour later, we had circled around the nest and the horn in the centre signalled a spotted enemy, and then a commencing battle right away. A magical paper plane reached us after a minute or so which revealed the size of the enemy.

3. Three goblins. Or … goblin like creatures. Because they certainly weren’t. A few minutes later, one of these creatures was bought in front of me, tied and held onto the ground by Hannah herself.

“What is this?” She asked, but I didn’t have any answer myself. All I could say was that this was a chimera. It had a goblin head, vampire teeth and a tail which ended in a stinger.

“We … might be in trouble.” I admitted, looking at that demon in worry until I nodded towards a nearby warrior who beheaded the thing with an axe. “There may be more races than we …” I stared, but stopped and tilted my head in wonder. “… get the heroes back in formation and search for a clearing. We need to take a break.” So far, there weren’t many problems in this invasion, but that was only surface. The dragons had shown us we were easily targetable and thus, their actions didn’t make any sense. They could have drawn us into battle already, chiselling down our numbers steadily. But they didn’t do so.

They chose to go another route. A route I would take as well if I had the opportunity to do so.

The army sprang back into action swiftly with Hannah and the idiots at its tip until we found a large clearing inside the forest thanks to the hot air ballon. On there, several scouts directly swarmed out to secure the perimeter but I called all of them back.

“Count all men.” I commanded and looked at my surprised subordinates who slowly did what I asked them to. Minutes later, they came back with a rather surprising number.

Five hundred and two. The same number of people we set out with.

“The healers shall heal everyone.” I commanded loudly with immediate effects. Three people drew their weapons and started attacking others around them right away. At first, there was a lot of confusion in our own ranks which costed us the lives of six men until the impostors were bought down.

“Why fight if you can infiltrate … right Aska?” I whispered quietly, looking at the man in front of me who tried to take my life. His skin was definitely human, but the rest certainly wasn’t. Yellow goo filled his whole body from the inside, painting a very grotesque picture to see as he was decapitated.

“Where did these men serve?” I asked into the round of commanding officers and noticed one lifting his arm.

“They were scouts on the left flank.” Spiders … how much I hated these. I had no clue this was even possible, but they must have been turned into this by their bite.

“Inspect the other scouts. We are moving in ten minutes.” I commanded straight away, hopeful to get as far as we could for as long as they left us alone. Five minutes later, we had found one more on our list we had a few more on our list we needed to write off as poking them with a needle revealed their yellow blood.

But at least we were prepared for their aggression, meaning no more men were lost with that.

We started off that day with around five hundred and fifty men, lost around forty because they didn’t want to continue after witnessing the dragons, and fourteen to the spiders.

“We are off to a great start.” I whispered, signalling the others that the time was up. 485 more pawns left to use.

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