Chapter 680: Aerial Suppression

War was probably the only thing about humans that never changed no matter how much time passed. Of course, war itself would change in its form and combat methods as generations passed.

Back in the first generation of Eich, although the power level of those warring on both sides was ridiculously high, everyone fought using the simplest and most direct methods. In fact, many existences on both sides would even fight each other bare-handed. Battles were just like street fights between unarmed hoodlums, with punches and kicks being thrown around everywhere.

But when the eternal Holy War became the main war of the world, the warring species kept changing, and the way of fighting naturally evolved as well. The main fighting forces became infantry, spearmen, shield warriors, witches, curse warlocks, ballistas, and knights’ charges. It was an era of cold weapons and magic.

In “times of peace”, the changes in the species wouldn’t be so evident. The main fighting forces would always be the same. At most, innovation would be limited to perhaps making armor slightly thicker, or improving a bow slightly so that an archer could shoot 10% farther. But, whenever the Holy War arrived, all sorts of new weapons would be invented at an astounding pace, changing the quality of weaponry completely. It was quite common that an ace troop type of an entire country would suddenly be proven useless in battle on the very next day due to an enemy’s new invention. Such was the cruelty of the battlefield. Changes were so massive that it would be easy to think that the enemy had just been going easy on you previously.

In any era of world war, massive changes would appear every year, with new troop types, new fighting styles, new strategies, and so on. Falling behind would mean utter defeat. Since all resources, both physical and all the brightest minds, were focused fully on the concept of war, with thousands of years of accumulation all being used for war, it was possible for anything to appear.

Right now, the Holy War was at its peak. The developments of magical engineering had greatly changed how war would be waged. There would be too many revolutionary examples to list. Countless new troop types and equipment attracted much attention, but the most obvious difference from the previous generation, the most brilliant sparkle of all, would be making aerial troops more commonplace and accessible.

In the past, an entire human kingdom would only be able to afford a single griffin squadron. A medium- or small-sized country being able to afford aerial knights meant that the country was rich. Not to mention, since aerial knights were so expensive and precious, they weren’t used for the sake of direct combat on the battlefield. When considering the high costs associated with them, even if the aerial knights traded for enemy lives at a 1:100 ratio, the rulers would still feel like they had lost out.

Back in the previous generation, it was common for the aerial knights to be members of noble families. Their main work would be scouting and acting as messengers. At most, they would help attack from the sky only if it was considered absolutely safe for them. Thus, aerial knights of the past were considered a reconnaissance troop.

Moreover, even if you wanted griffin knights to attack enemies on the ground, when considering the pitiful hit rate of hitting targets on the ground with arrows, you might as well instead try spitting towards the ground, which would at least disgust the enemy and maybe even affect their morale.

Even back when I’d been Yongye, the expensive aerial knights were considered either scouts or honor guards. My bone dragons couldn’t find any aerial enemies to compete with whatsoever. Also, back when the Mist Kingdom had still been around, the Aurora Knights were considered a super top-level troop type that amazed the entire world.

But now, just several decades later, the entire world had gotten used to how Bardi had expanded their dragon knights by several dozen times over. Ordinary people were now used to airships zooming over their heads as this was the new norm. Anyone who still viewed aerial knights as a decorative troop type would be far behind the times.

“East Mist’s magical engineering technology leads the world! Mist technology is #1 in the world ¹ !”

Cough, let us ignore this engineer who said such strange things. At the very least, the Mist engineers had indeed completed the task I gave them.

Scout planes were patrolling constantly. Our scouts had discovered the beast stampede long before we did, and even if our scouts were mistaken, our engineers were using the large-scale magical radars on our airship, and had already locked onto the illusion face devils’ anti-detection trinkets.

Although the illusion face devils’ monkey paw anti-detection trinkets had the ability to conceal them from the Hero Armlets’ star net detection system, now that we had obtained a copy of the exact item they were using, their anti-detection trinkets were cracked, and even became an easy way to locate their exact positions.

The scouts sent us back memory crystals that transformed into illusionary images that allowed us to see our enemies’ chosen battlefield.

The enemies were on a road in a valley. Although the road seemed wide, both sides were actually surrounded by tall mountains. This road also had a bit of an upwards incline, which meant that our knights would have to reduce their speed. As long as the beast stampede blocked off the exit at the top and suddenly ambushed us from both sides of the mountains, it would indeed be possible to annihilate all of our gathered knights.

Our radars also detected illusion face devils on both sides of the mountains, which helped us to piece together their attack plan through circumstantial evidence.

“Go, Senbonzakura… er, I mean Phoenix Planes and Aurora Knights! Little Red, stop slacking off. Have your dragons cooperate with us.”

The Borealis was parked in midair as doors slowly opened on the airship. Fortyish gnome Phoenix Planes and almost 100 Aurora Knights swarmed out from the Borealis, while the dragons with us also started making their move.

I gave an order to the knights on the ground as well, and they stopped and made camp where they currently were. The upcoming battle wouldn’t involve our ground troops at all.

“Eight years ago, if a dragon appeared on one side in a national battle, even if it was only a young dragon whose wings hadn’t grown fully yet, the other side would likely lose all morale instantly. But now, it would be unusual for a battle not to involve more than 10 dragons. Even dragons have become a common troop type…”

On our radar, our dragons were represented by magical dragon heads that glowed slightly. The four red dragons were faster flyers, and had already rushed to the very forefront.

Red dragons would be skilled at aerial battles as well as ambushes. Their fire dragonbreath would be a classical weapon against ground troops. Red dragons, who loved to fight, used their actions to express their desire to do battle… Of course, there was also the matter of their desire for reward money since our payment for hiring their services would be directly related to their combat achievements. The younger dragons would be quite in need of money to improve their personal nests, as well as to help them obtain female dragons’ love… How was a dragon supposed to get married without a nest? Young male dragons actually had the same frustrations as humans.

Meanwhile, the six black dragons flew at a much slower pace. They assumed quite a loose formation, and guarded the Borealis from all sides, acting as the guards for the more “fragile” Phoenix Planes. This was no coincidence, as this was the tactic I had commanded the black dragons to adopt.

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Black dragons couldn’t possibly compare to red dragons in aerial combat capabilities. Black dragons’ melee capabilities were only slightly stronger than those of white dragons, which were considered the shame of all dragons. Black dragons’ corrosive toxic dragonbreath had limited range, and would be slow to take effect. Yet, black dragons were still viewed as a powerful dragons species, which was purely because their natural racial talents were far too powerful.

Magic immunity—the natural enemy of all mages. Of course, it would be impossible for anyone to achieve true immunity to magic. Black dragons being immune to magic was just something said to scare others. Actually, black dragons had a racial talent similar to what dark elves had, a powerful resistance to all magic. But, when black dragons met novice human mages, they would be no different from having actual magic immunity.

The older the black dragon, the stronger their magic resistance would be. Although we had only managed to hire some young dragons and adult dragons, their magic resistance would be more than sufficient to make them immune to all spells seven-circle and below, as well as greatly reduce the damage they would take from any other spell below nine-circles.

The black dragons’ mission was quite simple. They were to protect our other aerial units and act as tanks when necessary. The main forces of typical aerial battles would be heavy crossbows and instantly cast spells and magic scrolls. Since speed was of the essence in aerial battles, the typical circle strength of the spells wouldn’t be high. Thus, these young black dragons would sort of count as indestructible flying fortresses when facing regular mages and aerial foes.

The dragons’ arrival immediately attracted our enemies’ attention, especially due to the red dragons’ draconic might that started emanating from them.

The beast stampede’s aerial forces started gathering in a panic, but the red dragons’ dragonbreath arrived first. The draconic might from being at the top of the food chain would be fatal against the beasts. When in front of dragons, lower-level magical flying beasts could do nothing but shiver in fear, not even daring to fly up and resist.

As for the higher-level magical beasts which barely managed to fly, such as demon vultures, thunderbirds, wyverns, manticores, and so on, they were greeted by either angry dragons or the Aurora Knights’ sudden attacks.

Countless amounts of ice shards suddenly scattered in the air, clouding the flying beasts’ vision as ice spears viciously pierced into their bodies. The magic power of ice exploded within the beasts’ bodies, stealing away their lives and warmth. This was the Aurora Knights’ most commonly used aerial fighting style.

In just a single exchange of blows, the powerful mid- and high-level flying magical beasts started falling down like snowflakes.

In the past, it had actually been a mistake to use Aurora Knights against ground troops. Rather than using them to ambush ground troops, it would have been far better to take advantage of their ice magic and heavy armor for aerial troops to have them gain tremendous advantage in the sky.

Unlike flying magical beasts which fought simply based on their instincts, the Aurora Knights were used to fighting in organized squadrons due to their training. They constantly maintained their formation and ganged up on one magical beast at a time, using their numerical advantage. Whenever they met an especially tough high-level magical beast, they would simply go around it and leave it to the tough-skinned dragons to deal with.

Our combat training for the Aurora Knights had especially emphasized using allied dragons as meat shields for dodging attacks. Dragons were tough-skinned enough to ignore all regular arrows and magical attacks. This was a truly shameless strategy.

Currently, each of our dragons had two small teams of Aurora Knights around them, around eight to ten knights in total. This would be a basic aerial unit.

The Aurora Knights’ cooperative tactics were well-practiced. They created large blizzards to affect the enemies’ vision and flight, created ice armor and ice walls to defend against the enemies’ attacks, and would suddenly ambush the enemy by hiding behind the dragon’s back or wings. Their ambushes were successful in constantly causing magical beasts to drop out of the sky, directly clearing patches of sky.

The most evident part was that in the red dragon teams, the red dragons were the most powerful attackers of all, slaying everything before them. The black dragon teams were much slower as the black dragons were mostly playing the role of tank for the Aurora Knights.

This was a battle where one side relied on strategy and tactics, while the other side relied on only bestial instincts. Or, rather than calling this a battle, perhaps it could be called total suppression.

The magical beasts, which only relied on their instincts, were utterly lost. They were facing enemies they couldn’t resist. Dragons roars, draconic might, and the howls of pain from other beasts all urged the remaining beasts’ instincts to escape as quickly as possible. No matter how much the illusion face devils urged them from below, large numbers of flying magical beasts were now fleeing from battle, even though they still outnumbered the dragons and Aurora Knights by more than a 10:1 ratio.

At this moment, now that we had taken control of the battle, the more fragile Phoenix Planes finally entered combat to begin their work.

This time, their mission was the same as when they faced the demon wave. They tossed down various bottles and barrels filled with our “special stimulant” that had been modified and improved since last time. Soon, due to the stimulants, the beasts started rampaging chaotically amongst themselves.

This was a foundational difference between how both sides battled, as well as the difference between intelligent creatures and wild beasts. We had far more advanced tools and potions that countered them, along with actual combat strategy. The victor had been determined from the very start.

Our improved potions’ effects started acting quite rapidly. The beasts’ instinctive viciousness and desire to breed were greatly stimulated. Since they were still on the ground, the only other target they could vent on were others in the beast stampede. The entire beast stampede became a teeming horde that battled against itself.

Since we had taken complete control of this battle, the Aurora Knights and dragons began their next round of aerial attacks, but they soon discovered that the damage they could cause was quite insignificant in comparison to the havoc wreaked by our “potions”. Thus, the knights and dragons focused fully on protecting the Phoenix Planes as they replenished their “ammunition” and continued to toss down potions.

The Phoenix Planes returned to the Borealis about four or five times to replenish their potions. At the end, the beast stampede waiting in ambush was almost completely annihilated. Even though it was winter, the smell of blood could be sensed from quite far away. Magical beasts’ corpses were littered everywhere. It would likely be impossible for us to discover the illusion face devils’ corpses strewn behind them on this utterly chaotic mountain.

Moreover, since the illusion face devils also died to the beast stampede that they were supposed to control, the remaining beasts started running away in all directions now that their controllers were dead. We obtained a total victory with almost zero losses to our side.

And yet, I couldn’t be happy at all.

“…We’ve wasted an entire afternoon here, and used up more than half of our special potion stock. Those bastards don’t know how to conserve ammunition at all! The most troublesome part is that our enemies now know the path we’re taking. There will definitely be something else waiting for us ahead.”