Chapter 454: Infiltration of the Water Source (3)
Major General Orca, a master of defensive warfare, has come to the forefront, and the siege has slowed the Leviathan's momentum.
And there was a master of offense who didn't miss a beat.
"Pushishishi...."
Sade. The former Marquis de Sade, Cédric de Sade, Ang-gajumang.
His eyes twinkled with amusement.
"I suppose it's my turn from here."
Marquis de Sade looked back at Major General Orca.
"You had trouble with my attack about forty years ago right? I think I'll use that tactic."
"Hung. Wasn't it ultimately blocked by my defense at that time? So you were captured."
"That's because we were vastly outnumbered, you old man."
After a lifetime of fierce battles, the two enemies joined hands.
Marquis de Sade was a man with a genius for tormenting and making others suffer.
Master of mercenary warfare who, forty years earlier, had challenged the entire empire with a coalition of only forty-seven families and had come close to decapitating the Emperor.
Marquis de Sade is also a descendant of the prestigious House of Sade, a family that has been prominent for generations.
He was also a man who received overwhelming support from survivors and successors from defeated countries that fell or were forcibly merged.
"Marquis de Sade, I will follow you!"
"Just give me the command!"
"We will be with you even in death!"
"Ooh! the glory of the past is being recreated!"
The soldiers from the former defeated nations, who didn't mix like water and oil despite being part of the same alliance, threw their full support behind Marquis de Sade in his name.
Vikir nodded at the sight.
'It's worth saving ....'
Before he regressed, he had heard Major General Orca, a fierce defender in the last days of the war, mutter.
'Sade, if only he were alive, the Human Alliance wouldn't have been pushed so far.'
A demonic brain that rivaled Dantalian in military strategy and Belial in mercenary skill.
If Marquis de Sade had been alive to fight the War of Destruction, he would have been the perfect complement to Orca's weaknesses in specializing in defense.
If even his lifelong nemesis, Major General Orca, lamented this, he would have been a great addition.
Vikir decided to take him out alive when he escaped from Nouvelle Vague.
"Pushishishi- I thought the Warring States Period was over and we'd never see such a fun war again, but here we are again, and it's so wonderful, I'll live long to see it!"
'The Strong Survive,' which was the spirit of the times throughout the Warring States Period, and the Marquis de Sade, who can be said to be the embodiment of the spirit of the strong survive, was smiling maniacally at the demon and his minions.
"Come, brave young men, follow me!"
Sade raised his whip, and a maniacal cheer erupted from behind him.
The post-war generation, the resentment and sense of defeat of being from a defeated nation, prisoners and prisoners of war from all corners of the country, united under the banner of Marquis de Sade.
kwakwang!
The gates of Tochka opened and Marquis de Sade led his soldiers out to sweep away the poisoners.
peo-peopeopeopeopeopeopeopeong!
The whip, which started moving like a giant snake, cut all the poisonous people in half within a few dozen meters in front of it.
"Pushishishi! Kill them all!" Sade divided the men who followed him into eight groups.
The Eightfold Formation, which wiped out the demons of the Usher family at once, has been transformed again.
The Life Gate(生門), the Enlightenment Gate(景門), and the Open Gate(開門) that kept them alive.
The Injury Gate(傷門), the Surprise Gate(驚門), and the Rest Gate(休門) that cause serious injury.
The Stop Gate(杜門) and the Death Gate(死門), where you will surely die.
... But in Marquis de Sade's maniacally laughing reimagining, there was no sign of a live path.
Every gate is a death gate. A jar of malice with no way out.
Marquis de Sade's whip had driven the poisonous people thoroughly into the pit of death.
The spearmen moving according to the formation, the shieldmen behind them, and the archers at the rear changed their formation according to the whip and pushed the poisonous people.
Tudor, Piggy, Sancho, and Bianca watched from the ramparts, their jaws dropped.
"Wow, you can use soldiers like that."
"It seems very different from typical tactics."
"It is. I can't believe you can push your soldiers to such desperate lengths."
"... Why is he more poisonous than the poisonous people?"
Basically, a typical local war begins with a fight for cause.
After a bitter argument, the warriors declare war, agree on a time and place for the battle, and fight only while the sun is shining, returning to their camps at night.
The warriors would fight one-on-one, or they would divide their armies into two wings, with offensive forces on the right and defensive forces on the left, with the victory decided by whoever could destroy the other's left wing first.
The ethics and unwritten rules of warfare were to take as few casualties as possible and not go to the other extreme, as captives would later be enslaved or ransomed.
...Of course, all of this was completely foreign to Marquis de Sade here.
"Kill them all! And you too die! Pushishishi! If you fight too shyly, I will cut off your head myself!"
Sade's maniacal mercenary style was pushing his soldiers to the edge of lethality.
chalalag- peopeopeopeopeopeopeog!
Watching him on the front lines, wielding a single whip and slaughtering poisonous army left, right, and center into hundreds of pieces of flesh, one could not help but think that even the demon himself would not fight so brutally.
Watching Marquis de Sade in action, all of the Night Walkers learned that the old ethics of warfare must be abandoned when dealing with Leviathan, or even demons.
The enemy is not human.
This realization was fresh in the minds of the younger warriors.
Marquis de Sade had thoroughly re-established the mindset, a seemingly simple but crucial element of warfare.
" ...You're still a crazy old man, no, you've become even crazier in solitary confinement."
Looking at Marquis de Sade, Orca clicked his tongue and said.
"I wish the old man had been killed by the poisonous people at this point, but he's more human than demon, so it's right to help him. Rear guard, support!"
Orca, too, took up his club and raced out the gate.
Soon, troops and vigilantes from each of the Houses began to gather outside the gates to drive the poisonous people back.
Pupupupupupupug!
Countless skewers rose up from Marquis de Sade's side.
A red-haired woman smiles over the skewered poisonous people.
"Old man. I like your fighting style, would you care to teach me?"
Morg Mu Camus. She was showing great interest in Marquis de Sade's tactics.
...kwakwang!
An entire vein of gold was pulled out of the ground.
A giant golden hand struck the poisonous people on the other side.
"Let's use our momentum to strike deeper!"
Sinclair. She, too, was on the other side of Camus, helping Marquis de Sade.
And even now, flaming arrows were flying everywhere, burning away the plague fog, and countless arrows and longspears were destroying the Poisonous People.
"Pushishishi- That's it, they're retreating. If we chase them any further, we'll be overrun by reinforcements, so retreat!"
Marquis de Sade called his soldiers back with eerie timing.
Camus retrieved the skewers with a sad look. Sinclair also pulled her magic back with sword-like timing and retreated.
More poisonous people arrived as reinforcements, but by then all the Allied soldiers were back inside the gates of Fortress Tochka.
* * *
The outpost at Leviathan was a victory for the Allied forces at Tochka, thanks to the division of forces between Major General Orca and Marquis de Sade.
Major General Orca's meticulous preparation and experience in countless maritime battles, coupled with Marquis de Sade's ghastly counterattacks and retreats, resulted in a victory for the Tochka Alliance.
... But the real war had not yet begun.
The siege against the poisonous people has completely exhausted all of the priests who exuded holy power.
It was doubtful that they would be able to hold off the Red Death tomorrow.
The soldiers had also been moving around vigorously, consuming more water than usual.
Tomorrow, they would indeed run out of drinking water and holy power.
There was no way to stop the second and third wave of the poisonous people attack.
Dolores said after taking a walk around the castle.
"I think they're going to try to dry us out. They've got layers and layers of siege nets outside the walls, and they're going to pick a day when the sun is shining."
At this rate, they might not last three days, let alone a week.
Eventually, Vikir had to make a decision.
"We'll go to the water source and draw water."
Leaving Tochka's security to Major General Orca and Marquis de Sade, Vikir himself would go to the water source and build a waterway.
Minpin marked a few X's on his map and handed it over to Vikir.
"This is the terrain of the water source I predicted. If you blow up the area I marked, the water will probably fill up to the moat at Tochka."
But Chihuahua seemed uneasy that Vikir was going to such a dangerous place.
"There are poisonous people of the Leviathan family out there, and it would be impossible to break through their siege lines. With the way things have changed, shouldn't we just give up on the water source...."
"No, we can't. We don't know, but the average refugee can't afford it anymore. We need to secure the water source."
Vikir knows he has no choice now that all-out war with Leviathan has begun.
Soon, an expedition to the water source is organized.
With the exception of Major General Orca and Marquis de Sade, who must defend the fortress, Vikir's supporters have gathered together.
Morg Mu Camus.
Dolores Lun Quovadis.
Bourgeois Ju Sinclair.
Don Quixote La Mancha Tudor.
Usher Poe Bianca.
Sancho Barataria.
Piggy.
A group of eight people, led by Vikir Van Baskerville, organized the expedition.
The goal: to draw water from a volcanic lake on the opposite peak.
"It would be suicide to lead an army. We can't afford to leave the fortress unguarded, so we'll take a small group of trusted friends to break the siege."
Everyone nodded at Vikir's words.
The plan is to sneak past the Leviathan's surveillance under cover of night.
Tudor, who was wearing an explosive belt on his stomach, asked with a very nervous expression.
"So. When are we going?"
Everyone looks at Vikir with a common question.
Vikir, gazing out into the night sky, replied with his usual casual demeanor.
"Now. Right now."