Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 922: Difficulties

With a third of their number devoting themselves to defense, the rest of the Dragoons were unable to completely overwhelm the mercenaries who outnumbered them. Or at least that would be the conventional wisdom. This expectation was completely overturned by the weapons carried by the Dragoons. With these armaments, it was almost like their numbers were doubled and this made for a very powerful offense being leveled against the army of mercenaries.

After the first two waves of Dragoons, a third and fourth swept past, these ones wielding gusts of wind and jets of water. Their numbers were smaller than the first two, as these elements were not as powerful offensively on their own. The gusts of wind could slice and cut as they carried a sharpness to them, but for the same amount of energy it wasnt as good at causing damage as pure flames or ice. The water attacks were similar, carrying an impressive physical force, but this was still not as destructive as pure flames. Yet, these two elements were great when used in conjunction with the others. After the initial pass of the four different attack types, they got a look at the weaknesses of the mercenary groups. The Dragoons with Wind Blastids followed the Fire Blastids and used the wind to fan the flames, improving their power. The same happened with the Ice and Water Blastids. They doused the mercenary groups with large volumes of water, creating a perfect medium to be frozen which multiplied the effectiveness of the Ice Blastids.

Faced with such an immense volume of elemental attacks, the smaller mercenary teams immediately decided to retreat. The majority of the mercenary army was actually made up of smaller teams and they were suffering far more than the larger more powerful teams. Unfortunately, the larger teams had put themselves on the perimeters of the army and when the smaller teams tried to flee, the larger ones started to threaten them.

The Dragoons werent the smartest on their own, but the Airships were all equipped with the communication equipment that kept them in constant contact with their generals back in the Lang Clan. They immediately noticed the reticence of the smaller mercenary teams and ordered the Dragoons to focus upon the large mercenary team that seemed the weakest. The entire force of Dragoons converged upon them, attacking in waves until the team collapsed. This was one of the groups being propped up by a Core Formation Cultivator.

This single leader was brunting the attacks leveled towards his whole company. This was fine for a while, but the constant waves of attacks overwhelmed his reserves and he was forced to reduce his area of protection. A fifth rank Cultivator could never really run out of energy, but his recovery rate couldnt keep up with the massive expenditure of defending a whole army. When this strong leader had to become more conservative, the rest of his company had to either flee or suffer terrible damage. The Dragoons were directed to clear a path, sweeping down from above and then spreading in two directions to form a wedge through the middle of the weakened mercenary company.

After clearing a path, the Dragoons conveniently spread out to the side, turning their attention to two of the other large mercenary teams, preventing them from reinforcing the opening in the line. Seeing that there was now a wide open path available to them, the small mercenary groups took advantage of it, fleeing from the battlefield without wasting any more time.

The large teams were infuriated and went on the offensive. Not only was this enemy not matching their expectations, now those little groups were looking down on them and ignoring their prestige. This affront caused them to change their attitude and their counterattacks cut down swathes of Dragoons from the sky. Mercenary teams were formed to make money, and they were always seeing the greatest profits from the least risk. The smaller teams had already decided that this was not a fight that they could win easily and so the risks werent worth it. The larger teams would claim most of the reward, so why should they shed the most blood? These larger teams were treating the small groups as cannon fodder, letting them whittle down the enemy while they preserved the strength of their own teams. Now that they were fleeing, the powerful groups had to commit more resources and suffer losses if they wished to remain in the fight.

Dragoons were cut down by the hundreds, but that didnt stop them from retaliating. The winged warriors charged in towards the larger mercenary teams and had no problem with sacrificing their own lives as long as they took a few others with them. Trading lives with the enemy was not something mercenaries did. What profit was worth death? How could they keep taking jobs if they were constantly having to hire new members? While theyd been furious at the smaller teams for retreating so easily they soon started to collapse as well.

The first of the large teams to flee was the one that had already suffered heavy damage to form an escape route. This was somewhat expected and the others continued to fight on, but as soon as the second of the biggest teams began an ordered retreat, the floodgates opened. Even if some of them wished to push the fight, they werent strong enough on their own to keep going. If they didnt flee as well then they stood no chance of resisting. The Dragoons had already proven they were willing to sacrifice themselves to take a few mercenaries with them, so if the mercenaries tried to fight against them with smaller numbers they were pretty much guaranteed to fail.

The Dragoons didnt stop the mercenaries from retreating, but they werent about to let them go without paying a price. They focused their attacks around the carriages and larger vehicles. Larger teams had to bring more supplies to support their numbers and like most they usually used Storage Chests to transport the bulkier basic supplies. Forcing them to leave behind their larger and slower assets didnt steal the bulk of their riches, but lacking so many basic supplies would certainly cause them some discomfort. The actual goal of this action was not just to cause some pain to the mercenaries, but also to recover the weapons theyd used to siege their airships. These huge ballista and their ammunition were expensive Magical Tools and could be studied to help them develop some effective counters.

Since Thousand Treasures had decided these weapons were good counters to the Lang Clans Airships then it would be in their best interest to protect against them. The Dragoons harassed the retreating mercenaries enough to give them time to recover all the discarded assets. Then they did the same thing with the fallen Dragoons and the crashed Airships. They fashioned large nets from rope to carry supplies. Large groups of Dragoons flying together could haul a large amount of weight. They abandoned the prior route that would take them directly back to 10,000 Wave Province. Instead, they found a place in the wilderness to stop and enact some hasty repairs to get as many Airships functional as possible. With this done they went towards the nearest of the Prosperity Companys locations to rest and resupply properly.

News of this battle with bandits spread through the Kingdom, which did no favors to the bandits that had group names quite similar to those of the mercenary companies involved in the fight. The Lang Clan had taken a hit, but it also showed the power of their new weapons. The rumors of a charge of twelve thousand causing twenty thousand to flee made many curious to see how, but the Lang Clan was not yet selling these weapons to the public.