Dragon Gods Reign

Chapter 270: Third day

[Ouroboros' End]By the sixth day, Kessen had grown accustomed to being awoken by the sound of signal horns blaring throughout the camp. As if on autopilot, he rose from the simple leather sheet that served as his bed in these times and went through his morning routine. By now, he had figured out that he had to hurry if he still wanted enough time to finish his breakfast in peace, prompting him to rapidly don his uniform and head out lest he be forced to leave his meal half finished and endure the morning assembly hungry.

To his fortune, it worked just as well as the previous day. Barely finishing the flavorless bread they were given as rations before the horn sounded a second time for the day, this time a bit longer, he followed the stream of his fellow soldiers as they rushed to assemble before the commander's tent.

Unfortunately, this stream of soldiers would leave Kessen suddenly standing near the front of the assembled camp, giving him a clear view of the commander’s quarters. And if he could see it, the commander could see him.

Ever since the third day, whispered rumors had spread throughout the camp that claimed to know how the man decided which squads to send to the frontline on each day. Some said that he was punishing any soldier whose uniform didn’t sit perfectly, others claimed it was done by looking at which soldier looked the least weary, while yet again others believed that the commander picked the soldiers that stood at attention with either the most or least discipline. But no matter which one was the truth, Kessen didn’t want to be the factor that determined whether his squad would have a fourth day at the front and he had no idea how to behave to reliably prevent it.

Still, when almost two minutes later the commander strode out from his tent, he had to make a decision. Thus, when the suffocating presence of their camp's commanding officers washed over the assembled formation, he straightened his back as best he could and pushed down the dread he felt, standing at attention with a stoic look on his face.

Whether or not that ultimately was the wrong choice or he had simply been unlucky, Kessen didn’t know. But in either case, after the first row stepped away with seven of the twenty among them having been chosen to march out on this day, the commander had inspected his row and called him and eleven others forward. Yet even as the expressions of Kessen and most of his colleagues that had been chosen fell, the commander was already moving toward the next row.

Ultimately, roughly two-thirds of the camp would stay in the formation, slightly fewer than the previous days, each soldier a part of a squad in which at least one member had been chosen during the inspection. The rest were told the rotation for which squads would be stationed in which watchtower at what time before being dismissed to either assume their position or enjoy the hour or two before it was their turn.

Meanwhile, the squads that had stayed in the assembly marched toward the armory. Barely half an hour later, all thirteen thousand of them were equipped with armor, a shield, and a spear. Like this, they marched out, soon joining with the soldiers from multiple dozen other camps that housed the common soldier of the army.

As the different sections of the army joined together to form a cohesive battle-line, Kessen noticed how much the numbers varied between the different camps. Just two days ago, when he had last been sent to the frontline, this hadn’t been the case yet, and that made him nervous.

He still remembered seeing the broken formation that had marched back into their camp on the first day. The dragons had scorched almost six thousand soldiers just from the camp he was stationed in. In comparison, the four days of battle since had never yielded much more than a thousand casualties among them. And while he suspected that neither number would even be noticed in the massive army his employers had managed to amass, it wasn’t as if the other camps were left untouched by the fighting. So if, as rumors in the camp were, there had been almost a million soldiers in their army, even the rate of losses of their camp meant that around three hundred thousand lives were lost in this battle, though the state of a few of the other camps made Kessen suspect it was even higher than that.

As he stood in formation and watched their foes form up a few kilometers ahead, Kessen couldn’t help but think about how bad those numbers looked. And in exchange for these losses, they had continuously lost territory, and even two of their camps, to the enemy. Even if their foes had suffered similarly for this success, he didn’t like his chances to survive the days. Still, he was smart enough to know that he should never voice that sentiment somewhere that his commander might overhear it.

However, as he watched their foes line up their formation on the opposite end of the clearing, Kessen couldn’t help but reevaluate that decision. At the front, as usual, he could see a formation of humans and, at least he would guess so based on the previous days, a variety of other humanoids. But while these were threatening considering they had beaten back their army on four of the past five days, as long as they again managed a coordinated retreat, he and his fellow soldiers could get everything but the most grievous blow they could dish out healed by their mages. And while the dragons and ritual magic attacks were more lethal, they were far more limited in how many places they could be at once.

No, what truly scared him were the towering figures that stood behind the enemy army. Doubling the soldiers in front of them in both height and width, they formed something more akin to a wild mob than a disciplined army, with Kessen seeing them shift and move around even from multiple kilometers away. Or maybe it just appeared that way as their individual size allowed him to see their formation as anything but a single line in the distance.

In either case, he wondered what he was looking at. Back home in the universe he came from, the only thing remotely like this had been the occasional aura users that activated what they called an aura avatar either in an attempt to impress women or if they wanted to land a mercenary job with specific requirements. But even then, all looked strained after just a few seconds of this and the figures in the distance were not shrinking even after a minute had passed.

Amid this wondering, Kessen overheard a soldier a few meters to the right suddenly gasp. Turning to look at him just in time to hear him question yet another soldier a little bit too loud, he barely overheard the man say, “Those are ogres?”

And apparently, he wasn’t the only one who overheard it. Because by the time Kessen processed it and finally remembered what ogres were a second or two later, fearful murmurs had already sprung up all around him. Not that he could fault his fellow soldiers. While his home country had managed to push them out of their borders, stories of these massive brutes were still circulated, especially outside of the cities. They told of creatures capable of matching tens, sometimes hundreds, of trained soldiers, each one as ravenous as they were powerful. Wherever they went, they ate people and livestock alike, leaving entire regions ravaged in their wake.

Quickly, such whispers escalated to a general unrest. Soldiers shifted and shuffled uneasily, constantly glancing left and right to observe their colleagues’ reactions. Watching more and more people around him realize how bad their chances for survival just got, Kessen briefly felt hopeful that they might yet escape the impending fight.

However, before he could muster the courage to shout a call for action to his fellow soldiers, a suffocating pressure fell over them. Instinctively assuming that his camp commander was present, he pressed his mouth shut and stood up straighter to ensure he absolutely didn’t stand out negatively.

It took Kessen a couple of seconds to remember that their camp’s commander wasn’t leading them on the battlefield. Instead, an officer from one of the mana user exclusive camps further behind their lines had been commanding their formation these past days. Or rather two, as the woman that had fulfilled that role on the first day did apparently die during the battle, with a surprisingly young man having replaced her from the second day onward.

Only that realization allowed Kessen to break free from the habit that had made him freeze up, though he still didn’t dare to relax his posture. Cautiously eyeing his colleagues, he saw them in a similar situation. Whatever thoughts of desertion or resistance had existed before had likely vanished as quickly as they had for Kessen himself. In its place, he found himself almost sighing in resignation, with only the faint hope of victory preventing him from fully despairing.

Moments later, the voice of his commander rang out from above and snapped Kessen out of these thoughts.

“Keep your discipline or these ogres will be the least of your worries!” The young mana user said with a booming voice, his presence spiking briefly along with them as his mana flared outward in a brief flash.

Immediately, the officers intermixed in the formation echoed the command. Already hearing these distant shouts to his left and right, Kessen was prepared when his immediate superior bellowed, “Tighten ranks! Prepare to march!”

At those commands, all hesitation was forgotten. Across the formation, soldiers of the same unit stepped closer, with each row being slightly offset from the one in front of it. This allowed soldiers to lower their spears down between the soldiers in front of them to form an even denser wall of deadly tips. However, this also made it impossible for Kessen and the other soldiers in the rear of the formation to see the battlefield, leaving them with only the soldiers ahead of them as a guide when they set into motion a minute later.

As he marched blind in the press of bodies with his eyes fixed on the neck of the soldier in front of him, Kessen gripped his spear tight enough that his knuckles ached. Knowing what they were marching toward was bad enough in this case, but not knowing felt even worse. At any moment the command to brace for impact could come, leaving him constantly on edge and twitchy at every sound that wasn’t the clattering of armor and stamping of boots.

Soon, the dreaded command came. “Formation halt! Vanguard, brace your spears!”

Coming to an immediate halt together with the rest of the formation, Kessen steeled himself for the impact. Just as he did, he saw the first glimpses of the army charging at them over the heads of the men in front of him, with the towering ogres visible even to the far back of the formation as they drew close.

Already fearing the worst, Kessen’s fears were still surpassed when the two armies met moments later. Through the dense crowd ahead of him, he watched as the first ogre slammed into the spears. Wielding a massive club that looked as if it was carved from an uprooted tree, the creature burst through the dense wall of spears. As the metal tips struck its body, they sank only a few centimeters into its skin before getting stuck, causing the spear shafts to snap when the ogre pushed through to swing at the soldiers.

When its weapon struck, the strike literally lifted the soldiers off the ground and flung them into the back of the formation. Barely scrambling out of the way as one of his colleagues’ broken bodies crashed down where he had stood moments earlier, Kessen’s gaze briefly lingered on the gruesome aftermath of the ogre’s attack. Swallowing heavily at the sight, his morale only plummeted further when he looked back up, only to see the ogre already having carved his way through half the formation ahead of him.

Quickly lowering his spear in a likely futile attempt to ward off the creature, he stood his ground with shaky legs and met its onslaught. Just as it battered away one of the soldiers two rows ahead of him, he thrust forward. Though his spear found its mark and struck the ogres’ head, the futility of his actions was confirmed when he felt it jerk to a stop at what was likely the creature's skull.

With this, Kessen now found himself in front of an angry ogre. Hastily abandoning his spear and moving backward, he almost fell from shock when the massive club slammed down a mere meter ahead of him, shaking the soil and turning two soldiers who hadn’t retreated in time into a bloody smear on the ground.

With the next step, Kessen then found himself running into a fellow soldier back first, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Watching with wide eyes as a sweep from the club sent another four soldiers flying, he was then forced to roll to the side as the next swing missed him just by a hair's breadth.

At that moment, a pair of hands suddenly seized Kessen. Briefly freezing in fear, he let out an audible breath of relief when they dragged him back to his feet just in time for three soldiers to push past where he had lain.

Aiming their spears at the ogre, the three jammed their spears into the creature's shoulder and pushed. Even as one of the weapons snapped, the other two forced it into place just long enough for four more soldiers to seize the moment and thrust at the ogre's shoulders and knees.

However, even pinned down by six spears, the ogre was still a danger. As it struggled against the counterattack, one of its hands shattered the only spear lodged in its left shoulder. Before a new soldier could fill the gap, the ogre was already throwing its weight into the opening and lunging at a soldier that had just joined the encirclement. Grabbing him with its massive hand, it threw the unfortunate man at one of the soldiers holding the spears, turning both projectile and target into a bloody mass.

Before it could continue its onslaught, new soldiers joined the encirclement. Two spears were thrust at the back of the ogre's leg, forcing it onto one knee. At the same time, two aura users rushed into the formation. The first quickly slashed at the ogres’ torso from the front, cutting a bloody gash from shoulder to hip. However, he seemed to have underestimated the ogres’ tenacity. Because before the man could retreat, the creature swung its arm his way. Hitting him in an impact that caused a shockwave to wash over the vicinity, it sent him sliding across the ground.

Still, this left an opening for the second aura user. Dashing in from the side, she brought the spike-tipped hammer she wielded up in a wide swing that struck the ogres’ side. Immediately, a spasm shot through the creature's body as it keeled over in pain. Frantically lashing out in response, its arm still graced the woman as she pulled back, throwing her off balance.

But that was also the last act of this particular ogre. Just as Kessen briefly feared that the creature might recover, two particularly brave soldiers rushed at it from the front and aimed at its head. Though one missed amid the thrashing, the other spear sank deep into the ogre’s eye, causing the creature’s movements to abruptly still, with only its right arm still twitching slightly. A moment later, the first aura user then put an end to even this, bursting forth from where he had slid to a stop and decapitating the ogre with a furious roar.

Seeing the creature collapse and its head roll across the ground, Kessen cried out in jubilation. All around him, fellow soldiers mirrored his celebration, briefly allowing them to forget the devastation still happening around them.

However, the two aura users quickly put a stop to it by flaring their presence.

“The battle isn’t over.” They reminded, turning to move to the next fight themselves mere moments later.

Quickly, Kessen and his fellow soldiers turned to look at the rest of the battlefield. All around them, they then saw ogres thrashing against the spear wall. Wherever they looked, tens of dead comrades lay scattered on the ground. Only occasionally did even a single dead ogre lie with them, giving them a good idea of how it was going.

At that moment, their officer appeared from behind. “You heard them. Those that still have their spears, prioritize keeping the spear wall intact. The rest, aim for legs and tendons of any ogre that pushes into our formation. Do whatever it takes to immobilize them. Now go!”

With that, Kessen threw one more glance at the over two dozen dead that killing one ogre had cost them, briefly sighed, and then moved back toward the fighting.