Chapter 202.4

The battle between the forces of Pena and the goblins led by the Goblin King began when the brilliant body of the god of fire was at its peak.

The forces of Pena, who have been advancing steadily until now, took full advantage of their superiority in numbers to attack the goblins without pause.

That was exactly what the Goblin King had been fearing. A relentless attack without pause.

After all, no matter how strong they were individually, without the numbers, they would eventually exhaust their strength and be killed.

It also so happened that the place where they’d made camp was in the plains with no nearby forest. With the enemy already before them, they couldn’t even set traps as they pleased.

In fact, the Goblin King had already judged that they had no choice but to limit their movements, so they could only quietly wait for the enemy to arrive.

Pena’s force of 20,000 came pushing toward them, while the goblins that lay in wait stood only 3,000 men strong.

As Pena’s forces charged straight toward them, Gi Gu’s forces met them.

As the Goblin King’s subordinate with the biggest horde in the Forest of Darkness, Gi Gu Verbena had more rare goblins under his command than anyone else.

Goblins of the noble class and above were permitted to have their own horde. And Gi Gu had the most rares, boasting a staggering number of 25 goblin rares.

Of the goblins under his command, many were of the special southern variant with longer arms, but even those southern goblins had different classes, from beast tamers to druids.

Gi Gu, who possessed the biggest horde in the king’s army, charged alongside Gi Jii the battle demon to attack the enemy right from the front.

In response, the enemy humans cast spells, forcing the goblins to take a step back to dodge. At the same time, however, the rare goblins under Gi Gu’s lead attacked.

The enemy forces had gathered into one lump and were attacking them, but they couldn’t move like Gi Jii’s regiol, which moved as if it were one organism.

The mixed army that was composed of various clans attacked the goblins.

Gi Gu’s southern subordinates took full advantage of the three-man-cell strategy by moving with their predetermined groups of three to let the spells shoot past them, and then break formation to attack the mixed army.

One goblin would deflect the spear swung by an adventurer, while the second would swing his spear toward the adventurer’s feet. When the adventurer lost his footing, the last goblin would thrust his long sword into the space between his armor to finish him off.

The southern goblins have always been numerous, so in exchange for being weak individually, they fought much better than the Gi Goblins as a group.

They could use their long arms to attack the enemy from outside their range and their smaller stature made them much harder to hit.

As Allen watched the battle become much more difficult than expected, he looked for an opportunity to strike.

Allen has led many small platoons until now, but this was the first time he would be commanding such a big army. That being said, the vice-commander of the Blue Knights couldn’t possibly be an incompetent fool.

“Don’t do anything reckless. Just focus on exhausting the enemy.”

Allen desperately pushed back the desire to quickly end this battle. A habit he was prone to. He did well considering he also had to endure the nerves that came from holding all 20,000 lives in the palm of his hands.

Allen would immediately order a clan to step back when they started losing momentum and substitute them with a new clan. At the same time, he took advantage of their numerical superiority by ordering a part of the clans to expand toward the right flank. By doing so he would be able to gradually surround the goblin forces.

The goblins had to defend against that, so they couldn’t use their full power to crush their forces from the front.

The adventurers also had healers among their ranks. The healers were given a much bigger reward and were ordered to heal everyone without discrimination.

As Allen carefully attacked, he started to feel the heat emanating from the sweat on his forehead.

“Good. At this rate, we will be able to defeat them!”

In response to Pena’s tactics, the goblins also fought by taking turns.

One platoon would be sent to the front, then when they were tired, they would be brought back and replaced.

When the Goblin King saw that Gi Gu Verbena was starting to tire, he brought out Gi Zu Ruo’s platoon next.

“Gi Gu, retreat to the left flank! Gi Jii, retreat to the right flank! Gi Zu, Rashka, it’s your turn to fight!”

Giving orders was easy, but the execution was difficult. Regardless, however, the Goblin King was able to make it work by going out into the front lines himself with the platoon under his direct command to scatter the enemies.

When the Goblin King stepped out to fight in the front lines himself, for a moment, they were able to push the enemy back and were able to use the chaos during that moment to quickly substitute platoons.

“The weak do not interest me! Only death awaits those who stand in my way!”

“Turn me into a blade! (Enchant)”

The curved sword of Gi Go Amatsuki the Sword God and the great sword clad in the black flames of the abyss plowed through the humans.

The Goblin King wanted to keep up that pace and destroy the rest of their enemies, but the wall of 20,000 soldiers before him left him with no choice but to step back.

It was as if a powerful unrelenting wave kept crashing against them.

Even the Goblin King’s momentary success was only accomplished because he had seen through the weakness of the clans’ attacks.

The army before them was nothing more than a mixed army of clans with poor coordination, so the goblin forces that have been fighting for a long time now were much stronger as an army.

They worked better together compared to the enemy.