Don't Mess with That Dragon-Chapter 480 - 034 Post-War (Third Update)
The commander’s hat on his head was crooked, hanging slantwise behind his messy, dust-laden hair. His clothes were a mix of gray and black, and some of the defensive magic artifacts in his hands were shattered, with cracks spreading across them.
A wound hammered into his forehead bled profusely.
Utterly miserable.
Torres managed to survive because he was afraid of dying and carried several automatically triggered protective magic artifacts on him.
And surrounding him, there was a group of experienced elite soldiers for protection.
The high-tier bronze elite soldiers, upon the first moment of the attack, channeled their fighting qi, shielding him within it.
It was precisely because of this that Torres narrowly escaped with his life in the final rounds of focused attacks.
However, those elite soldiers were not as lucky.
To protect their commander, they bore the brunt of the largest explosion attacks. Under the continuous bombardment, either their fighting qi was shattered and their bodies torn apart by the artillery, or they were directly struck by the blasts, causing internal injuries resulting in death. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎
At the same time, within the central army, other noble generals gathered around Torres also faced calamity.
Although they also had elite soldiers and defensive magic artifacts, their defense could not match Torres’s.
Under the fierce bombardment, scarcely one out of ten survived, and even those who were alive had been bombed unconscious on the ground.
"Forbidden curse, it’s definitely a forbidden curse! Urgh!"
Torres muttered with vacant eyes, his stomach churning with nausea, bending over to vomit copiously onto the ground.
Although he didn’t die in the artillery fire, the dreadful explosive shockwaves inflicted significant internal injuries.
After vomiting for a while, Torres felt dizzy and lay rigidly on the corpses.
At that moment, the smoke in the air slowly dissipated.
In a daze, in the distance, lines of elite beastman troops, clad in armor and carrying weapons, charged forward with an overwhelming killing aura.
Torres’ vision darkened, and he completely fainted.
...
At the battle of Gourd Valley, the fifty thousand strong army united by the Thirteen Cities was utterly annihilated in one battle.
This news swept through every corner like a storm, shocking all intelligent beings in the nearby regions.
When the news reached Orte City, at a banquet originally celebrating the triumphant return of the army, the once lively and cheerful hall instantly turned silent, and the noble gentlemen at the banquet turned pale.
Seated at the head of the table, one of the masterminds who proposed the war, Viscount Orte, involuntarily dropped the expensive and crystal-clear "crystal cup" in his hand, which shattered with a clang, scattering fragments and staining the floor a deep red with wine.
The person was left in a daze.
He paid no attention to the breaking of the cherished crystal cup sent from Neutral City.
In a banquet, dropping a cup on the floor is considered extremely rude in noble etiquette.
However, none of the nobles present had the mind to concern themselves with Viscount Orte’s loss of decorum.
Everyone was so shocked by the news that they were speechless, their minds blank.
The fifty thousand strong army, even when viewed in the outer areas of the Border Great Wall and even around the Kawa Great Forest was considered a formidable force.
This time, the Thirteen Cities’ joint attack on Neutral City was not a combined force of all pioneer city powers around the Kawa Great Forest. In fact, Neutral City, originating in central Kawa Great Forest, was an outpost established by the Dragon Nest Tribe.
Therefore, the range of Neutral City was quite a distance from Border City, situated deep in the outskirts of Kawa Great Forest.
The thirteen cities united were primarily human city forces situated in the same area as Neutral City.
In regions deeper into the outskirts of Kawa Great Forest, these thirteen cities comprised only about one-fifth of the entire human pioneering forces around the forest’s outskirts.
Nonetheless, the combined fifty thousand strong army from thirteen cities, regardless of where it was placed, was no small force.
Even at the Border Great Wall, among the super-large border trade cities established with military noble support, it would have been impossible to withstand the assaults of a fifty thousand strong allied army without additional aid.
However, that city favored by demons managed to do it!
The entire fifty thousand strong army was wiped out!
Not a single person managed to make it back.
Each noble’s face at the banquet was pale as paper, and within the deathly silent hall, their minds were blank.
Before the army departed, the massive military force filled them with confidence.
The combined might of thirteen human cities was surely more than enough to handle a lowly beastman-established city?
Those lowly beastmen knew only to pillage; how could they possibly be a match for their army?
Thus, after deploying the troops, the nobles stewarding the thirteen cities gathered ahead of time in Orte City, preparing a banquet celebrating the expected victorious return of the army.
However, the actual outcome slapped them hard across the face.
No one paid attention to the party in Orte City fated to be a joke.
At this moment, everyone’s focus in the nearby regions was on Neutral City.
It was a brilliant and glorious victory.
Before the war, nearly no one believed Neutral City could win, not even the merchants, adventurers, and mercenaries within the city, who fled.
But the final result astonished everyone, leaving eyes wide open in disbelief.
The entire fifty thousand-men army was wiped out, twenty thousand captured, with the rest forever left on the plains of Gourd Valley.
The allies who barely escaped with their lives were all wounded, mentally hazy, shuffling lifelessly as they were herded back to Neutral City by dozens of beastmen under everyone’s watchful eyes.
All residing nearby were utterly horrified by the result.
Initially, they contemplated numerous outcomes for the war, the most common being how long Neutral City could resist before being vanquished by the allies of the thirteen cities.
Yet, no one expected such an outcome in the end.
The five-thousand-man army barely made a ripple before being effortlessly obliterated by Neutral City.
Both humans and beastmen, while immensely shocked by the war, were also incredibly curious.
Curious about how the allies lost, curious about the methods used by Neutral City.
As the news spread, some details began to unravel.
Reportedly, on the day of the war,
thunder roared over Gourd Valley Plain, massive explosions resounding continuously, with thick black smoke visible from afar, rising and covering the skies over Gourd Valley Plain.
Post-battle, those who ventured into the plains found the entire land blasted into scorched earth.
Some speculated that Neutral City’s army employed a large-scale Fire Forbidden Curse there.
However, it seemed unlikely.
From the observed magic power reactions on-site and the soil near each artillery crater post-battle, it didn’t resemble the overwhelmingly powerful forbidden curse.
This rendered everyone incredulous,
leading to an even greater fear of Neutral City’s existence.
