Chapter 99: Full Moon Offensive

“Sakavi, the counterattack plan you submitted earlier—I believe the timing has now matured.” The voice from the high seat was low and calm, yet the air instantly froze. “I ask only one thing: Can all units meet their assigned objectives before the next full moon?”

“Report to Lord Su La De, after our latest assessment, our forces currently lack the conditions to execute a large-scale counteroffensive. The original plan was predicated on the assumption that Duke Sakavi still held full command.”

“Now, the Duke is incapacitated in the short term, the high command is embroiled in fierce factional infighting, and no coalition of forces can be unified—the command and coordination system has nearly collapsed.”

“That is not your concern.” The voice from the throne severed all hesitation, steady yet heavy with absolute authority. “Before you advance, I will ensure every faction in the high command recognizes the situation and fully supports your military operation. And what you must do right now—”

He leaned forward slightly, shadows seeming to press down with him.

“Is to rewrite the counterattack plan. Remember—I don’t want theoretical simulations. I want concrete military deployments on the ground before the next full moon.”

“Yes, my lord!”

…………

The night, meant to be dominated by a blood moon, was utterly swallowed by thick leaden clouds. The outer districts of Agrik burned in lightless darkness, flames clawing through the sky.

Here, the struggle had devolved into the bloodiest hand-to-hand combat. Demonic tides surged like pus rising directly from the earth—twisted forms, claws and appendages gleaming wetly in the firelight, roars mingling with blasphemous syllables capable of shattering the minds of the untested.

The battlefield was sliced into countless small zones. Behind shattered low walls, boar-headed squads held fast to the ruins of a fountain, blocking gaps with weapons and bodies.

Amid burning shacks, demons used their cunning mobility to strike from the flanks, only to be driven back by the boar-headed defenders’ brutal charges. Narrow streets became death funnels, layered with corpses so thick they nearly blocked passage.

On distant rooftops and broken towers, sporadic flashes of gunfire flickered like the labored cough of an asthmatic—goblin sharpshooters attempting feeble fire support, but the extreme chaos of intermingled friend and foe made their explosive rounds hesitant and scarce.

Above, fleeting shadows occasionally darted beneath the cloud base—harpy reconnaissance units. Their shrill cries tried to transmit information across the noisy battlefield, but were routinely drowned by explosions and dying screams.

This struggle differed sharply from the muddy grinds of the salt marshes. Along Agrik’s towering walls, lizardman sorcerers gazed coldly through the smoke, their hands gathering precise, lethal magic.

Whenever demonic siege engines emerged with menacing silhouettes in the distance, or a monstrous abyssal beast tore through the lines, magical strikes from the walls followed like shadows—not broad bombardments, but sharp, accurate, lethal snipes.

Searing lightning beams, instantly formed void ice spikes, or petrified spires erupting from the earth’s depths often disabled key targets with a single blow.

More crucially, a nearly invisible pale green magical barrier, like an inverted giant bowl, enveloped key sections of the wall. Demonic corrosive fireballs, whistling bone spears, and corrupt curse energies were mostly deflected, dissipated, or significantly weakened upon impact.

This powerful defensive ward effectively neutralized the demons’ most lethal long-range counterfire, forcing them into close-quarters attrition—a tactic that significantly degraded their combat effectiveness.

Beneath Agrik’s outer walls lay no open battlefield, but a labyrinth of stacked, tightly connected stone houses. Built of thick granite, these structures were coarse and sturdy; demonic profane flames could not burn them down, only tear and divert the black tide of destruction.

Thus, war was squeezed into narrow alleys, dim courtyards, and winding staircases. The demons’ numerical advantage fractured against the stone divisions, forcing them into the bloodiest, most grueling street fighting against boar-headed defenders entrenched behind barricades, windows, and rooftops. Blood pooled into greasy streams between cobblestones.

Amid this suffocating frontal slaughter, the demonic host also endured another relentless torment: the venomous strikes of goblin mobile corps.

These green figures blended seamlessly with the ruins—emerging from half-collapsed cellar openings to fire short crossbows, dropping ignited white phosphorus jars from connected attics, or suddenly lifting grates from underground drains to stab demons’ thighs with inscribed daggers.

They never engaged head-on, only endlessly harassing, weakening, and sniping—turning every seemingly quiet alley corner into a lethal trap. Even in areas already captured, demons dared not walk alone through narrow lanes.

After three months of relentless, day-and-night assaults, over five-sixths of Agrik’s outer district—roughly six square kilometers—had been soaked in filth and blood. The remaining territory under defenders’ control had shrunk to a lone island of less than one square kilometer, tightly encircled by demonic lines.

Yet their offensive had finally shown signs of fatigue and exhaustion. The true turning point, however, did not come from the defenders’ attrition—but from the celestial rhythm above: the full moon of the Red Moon Plane would appear tonight in the dark.

This crimson full moon appeared only once every half-year. It was the long-awaited opportunity Sakavi had waited for. When the moon reached its zenith, all magical elements across the plane would surge to their peak, churning like a tidal wave.

The ambient elements would exert their strongest repulsion against the corrupt entities of the Abyss. Demonic power would be suppressed, summonings would grow difficult, and low-tier demons might even be burned by moonlight.

As the demonic host pressed its final strength against the defenders’ crumbling lines, an unusual rumbling echoed from the forgotten, filthy depths of the sewer labyrinth beneath the battlefield.

It began as a muffled, rhythmic pounding—like a heartbeat from deep underground—mixed with the screeching grind of metal armor against stone. Then, several large sewer exits, long ignored or deemed insignificant by the demons—passages wide enough for siege engines—exploded outward as their rusted grates shattered!

Boar-headed heavy cavalry, clad in thick plate armor, their only visible features crimson eyes and bared white fangs, surged forth like vengeful spirits risen from the other side of hell, trampling through sewage and mud. Their mounts—massive, fog-breathing great boars with short, thick hooves—struck the stone ground with thudding, hammer-like impacts.

The emergence of this underground iron cavalry utterly exceeded the demons’ tactical expectations. They tore through the earth from the deepest, most central point of the battlefield. In the instant they burst from the tunnels, the steel flood had already split into several lethal wedge-shaped arrows, driving straight into the densest, most exposed rear and flanks of the demonic lines.

The terrifying impact was laid bare. Armored war boars smashed and trampled every fleshly obstacle with monstrous strength; spiked maces shattered demonic bodies at point-blank range; great axes, swung with the momentum of the charge, swept through entire ranks of unprepared demons, crushing and cleaving them apart.

Iron hooves trampled, flesh and bone turned to pulp—wherever this fresh force advanced, it carved bloody, ragged corridors through the dense demonic formations.

The demonic command structure was shattered by this sudden rear assault. Frontline demons, sensing pressure behind them, involuntarily halted and scattered. At that moment, the hidden goblin mobile corps launched their own fierce offensive.

As the deputy commander of the Abyssal Lord Marjash, stationed at the front, the demon lord Goraton was no mere brute driven by savagery. His crimson eyes had coldly surveyed the entire battlefield, having already anticipated every possible counterattack—including threats from below.

As the armored cavalry surged forth like rust-colored pus from the sewers, Goraton stood atop a desecrated bell tower. He did not rage. His bone-plated face even flickered with a grim, almost “as expected” expression.

Almost before the defenders’ cheers could rise, his voice—mixed with sulfur and thunder—exploded directly into the consciousness of every high-ranking demon through the Abyssal Pact:

“Crush them.”

The order was brief, cruel, unquestionable. The next instant, the battlefield’s atmosphere twisted. Several shadows far larger than ordinary demons rose from deep within the demonic lines. Legendary demon lords, radiating suffocating power, personally led the countercharge.

Elite units—high-tier Frenzied Demons, Abyssal Guardians, Infernal Wyverns—charged like the black tide’s vanguard, meeting the steel flood with equal ferocity, crashing head-on into the few advancing iron arrows.

Yet this was precisely what Sakavi had intended. As a commander steeped in large-scale warfare, he never wasted energy on endless waves of cheap, inferior demons. Those expendable assaults, in his view, were nothing but a childish delay tactic.

His true prey had always been the high-ranking demons hidden deep within the ranks—the backbone of the entire demonic war machine. Those powerful abyssal lords and massive demons were the true skeleton.

Now, the heavy cavalry’s charge from the sewers was not merely a counterattack. It was a cold, sharp bait—a precisely calculated sacrifice.

Sakavi intended to use the wounds torn open by this force, the chaos it created, to force—or even lure—the demons’ precious high-tier combatants into the battlefield prematurely, exposing them to pre-set killing zones.

Of course, even if Goraton now saw through Sakavi’s scheme, he had no choice. The Abyss’s law was cold and direct: the defeated become fuel for all.

If he now withdrew his high-tier forces out of fear of loss, allowing the iron cavalry to rupture the line and collapse the front, he would face Marjash’s reckoning regardless.

And to seek aid from the Abyssal Lord who ruled all, while the battle’s outcome remained uncertain, would be nothing less than declaring his own incompetence. In the Abyss, failure itself was not the worst punishment—exposing one’s uselessness was.