Book 9: Chapter 59: First Gate (2)

“RETREAT!”Bjorn’s roar sounded over the battlefield.Commander Ragnor’s head snapped back, his eyes reddened with rage. “Did I say to retreat?!”Bjorn responded with a savage chop to the back of the young ‘commander’s’ neck. Although nepotism was clearly rampant among the Ragnors, it didn’t mean there were no fail safes. The task of keeping the Uidah in check was too important to the war on the Pakals to leave to this bumbling idiot alone.He was no match for Bjorn. He likely didn’t even realize what happened before his world went dark. In truth, this was already the fourth time Bjorn was forced to do this.Alidor coldly watched as the Ragnors scrambled to retreat.In the martial world, there were very few people who had Dyon’s acknowledgement. Among them was Alidor. There was a reason he was the de facto Command in Chief of the Mortal Alliance army when Dyon wasn’t present.As an intelligent individual, Alidor knew that there were deeper secrets behind the demise of his Guatama Clan. It was simply logic. How could two Clans who co-ruled end in one so suddenly having a massive upper hand on the other?Alidor was too young back then and didn’t understand enough about the Clan affairs. As a result, he could only speculate, he had no way of knowing for sure. But he would be willing to bet his life on the fact there was a third party involved.Now, whether that party was the Ragnors, the Pakals, or maybe some other unknown power, he had no idea. But… What he did know was that he had no intention of letting any of them off.“Forward!” He roared.Suddenly, the Mortal Alliance army that only seemed to know how to fight on the ground launched into the air, pushing forth with another bloody massacre.It didn’t take a genius to figure out Bjorn’s destination. He believed the only way he’d be safe would be to reach the next tower and flip a disadvantage into an advantage.Unfortunately, since he knew that, how could Alidor not?In their maneuvering, the Mortal Alliance army had constantly retreated in a bid to feign weakness and surround the Ragnor army. Now that the Ragnors were retreating, they were now realizing just how deep into the Gravity Tower’s domain they had entered.They tried to retreat as quickly as possible, cutting through the flat dry plain as best they could, but they could only be demoralized after seeing their enemies shooting into the skies.While Thralls continued to allow themselves to be killed, would the Karls react in such a way? Of course not. Unlike their Thrall counterparts, despite being mere foot soldiers as well, the Karls still had matters to live for.It was as though history was repeating itself right before Bjorn’s eyes.The Karls suddenly began to lash out against their Thrall counterparts.“You spineless bastards, fight back!”“Cowards!”The Karls practically dried their mouths of liquid spewing out every insult they could think of. In the end, they even tried to appeal to empathy, to get the Thralls to think of their children and wives. But how could they know that even that wouldn’t work?Some of the Thralls laughed in the faces of the Karls. They finally felt it, some modicum of satisfaction in their dreary lives.‘Ha.’ They thought. ‘You need our help but we won’t raise a single finger.’The human psyche was a complex thing. Maybe the Karls knew that it wasn’t the Thralls to blame, but rather the trash Commander who gave them the command to charge. Or maybe it was even worse than that… an infectious disease that rotted their lands to the core. But still, in the end, they chose to blame the Thralls, to lash out at them, even.Alidor watched these matters from the sky coldly, inwardly shivering at the depth of Dyon’s knowledge and scope of his briefings.The wars to conquer Ragnor Gates would not be easy. The initial assault levied by Alidor took out less than 5% of their army. Bjorn reacted quickly, forcing them to retreat.Under normal circumstances, Bjorn would likely have to give up another 5-10% of his army in a retreat to the next Tower, leaving about 90% of the army.Of course, though these percentages were small, we were talking about tens of millions of warriors in this given battle. Giving up 10% of them was giving way to the deaths of millions. But, in the grand scheme, it was a miniscule number for a territory which had orders of trillions of people.Understanding this truth, Alidor would never choose to pursue the enemy. He would first regroup, consolidate their gains, before planning the next attack.However, Dyon emphasized that he must strike swiftly and decisively, and that he had to chase them down and grind them away.Before, he had questioned it. Was it even possible to understand the psychology of such a large group of people so easily? Yet here it was… Before his eyes.Bjorn grit his teeth. It would be helpless if he didn’t take action. “On me!”The elites of the Ragnor Army who responded sluggishly to the Commander’s orders snapped awake immediately to Bjorn’s call.“Looks like it’s our turn.” Two dazzling beauties with violet hair and sapphire eyes appeared to Alidor’s sides, their sexy figures writhing with excitement. Dyon finally let the Dream Panthers loose.