Lord of the Sky City-Chapter 850 - 832: The Demons’ Sneak Attack

The Allied Forces originally believed that, after occupying the three major regions, capturing the Myriad Snakes Region would not pose much of a problem. For one, with all previous strategic objectives accomplished, they could concentrate their troops. For another, time was on their side—Marshal Mannstein’s unforeseen speed in occupying the Kalhan Plains meant the Demons were utterly incapable of assembling a large force in the short term.

Yet, the development of this battle completely caught the Allied Forces off guard—or rather, it gradually veered off course, becoming increasingly irregular.

Initially, the Allied Forces advanced with formidable momentum, capturing nearly half of the region in a little over a week. However, when they tried pushing further, they encountered strong resistance from the Demons.

A tremendous number of Demons continuously appeared in the Myriad Snakes Region. Previously, the Allies could conquer a city in a single day, but with the sudden surge in Demonic numbers, days could pass without capturing a single city—the sheer quantity of demons within the cities made them impossible to clear out within a day.

As the pace of advancement slowed, pressure on the captured cities began to mount. The Demons continuously launched counterattacks on these cities, and the frontline cities repeatedly exchanged hands in prolonged tug-of-war battles, culminating in one city being completely destroyed amid the conflict. This underscored the intensity of the fights.

Such fierce combat completely exceeded the Allied Forces’ calculations; by their estimates, the Demons would still need another one or two months to assemble forces of this scale capable of resisting their offensive. But now, how had this happened? Why had so many Demons suddenly appeared in the Myriad Snakes Region?

The Demons’ unexpected actions disrupted the Allies’ plans, yet they refused to change their strategy. The Myriad Snakes Region had to be taken; only by doing so could they have true foundational security and launch further offensives—without it, all effort would be pointless.

Under these circumstances, the Allied Forces immediately mobilized large numbers of troops to the frontlines to enhance their combat strength. No matter the cost, the Myriad Snakes Region had to be seized.

This strategy was, of course, correct—when faced with vast numbers of Demons, especially at such massive scales, no clever tricks would suffice. Crushing them with overwhelming combat power was the best solution. Fortunately, for the Allied Forces, this wasn’t particularly difficult. From the onset of the war to now, the Allies had achieved victory after victory, suffering minimal losses. Both their troop numbers and morale were at their peak, rendering a direct confrontation with the Demons far from daunting.

Thus, hundreds of Sky Cities were redeployed to the frontlines under the orders of the military headquarters, including Karina, which had already undergone repairs.

Rocky naturally paid close attention to the Allies’ current predicament, as he too was curious about why the Demons were able to assemble so quickly. To keep a close grip on the war’s developments, he relied both on intelligence from the Shadow Alliance and war reports from Karina at the frontlines.

From the Shadow Alliance’s intelligence and Karina’s personal accounts, it seemed the Allies’ situation wasn’t quite as severe. At least with reinforcements arriving, the frontline had stabilized. As for the key contributors, the Rune Battleships were foremost among them.

As the Allied Forces encountered resistance in their assault, the Kafka Empire quickly dispatched numerous Sky Cities equipped with Rune Battleships to join the battle. These Sky Cities soon became the brightest stars on the battlefield—the Rune Battleships unleashed devastating firepower, boasting ranges far beyond imagination, delivering crushing blows to the Demons. They repelled multiple Demon counterattacks on captured cities, stabilizing the Allies’ position and once again demonstrating the strength of these modern warships.

However, compared to the spectacular performance of the Rune Battleships, ground combat remained much more challenging. This was the key issue preventing the Allies from breaking the deadlock in the battlefield. Once the battle descended into prolonged tug-of-war conflicts, the sheer and unexpected numbers of Demons caused the Tank Armors to increasingly struggle.

The experience of two previous counteroffensive wars made the Allied Forces acutely aware of the importance of ground combat. As a result, prior to the war’s onset, both the Three Great Alliances and other cities had deployed large numbers of Tank Armors—particularly derivative models manufactured by Sigma and Uranus. These were heavily relied upon in earlier combat for ground operations.

It must be admitted, while Rocky’s technological breakthroughs might have surpassed Sigma and Uranus, their technical expertise—especially their production capabilities—remained top-tier. The derivative Tank Armors they designed proved highly effective on the battlefield, where previous ground wars had been dominated by these models, often paired with conventional Void Magic Armor.

However, no matter how excellent these derivative Armors were, the inherent shortcomings of Tank Armors were unavoidable. When the Allies held absolute advantage, these flaws might not have been apparent. Yet, once they lost their edge—especially with the sudden, massive influx of Demons—these weaknesses became glaringly evident.

In the face of tens of thousands of Demons, close-range Tank Armors were utterly incapable of resistance. Their large frames made them extremely vulnerable against attacks from all directions. While a one-on-one fight might be achievable, in one-vs-many scenarios, they were quickly reduced to scrap metal. It’s no exaggeration to say that had it not been for the stellar performance of the Rune Battleships in providing nearly unimaginable supportive fire for ground combat, the Tank Armor-dominated ground forces would have collapsed long ago.

As a result, with the ineffectiveness of ground forces, the Allied offensive was impeded. Not only did this waste the valuable time procured by Marshal Mannstein, but the timeline for capturing the Myriad Snakes Region also became uncertain.

And if this wasn’t bad enough, worse was on the horizon—after half a month of stalemate, something dire occurred. A large number of Demons suddenly appeared in the already-occupied Kalhan Plains!

The abrupt appearance of these Demons shocked everyone!

"Where did these Demons come from?"

In Gulie City, the City Lord’s Hall had been converted into a war room. As the frontline commander, Marshal Mannstein wore a grim expression as he posed the question. Unfortunately, no one could answer him—no one knew where these Demons had come from.

The generals present, along with some City Lords, had just fought alongside Mannstein in the Kalhan Plains campaign. This made the situation feel all the more unbelievable. They had already done all they could to annihilate the living forces of Demons in the Kalhan Region, so how had so many new Demons appeared?

This made no sense at all!