BXBX NOVEL Chapter 467 Next Steps
Looking out at the mounds of corpses around them, both Marcus and Mrazivý felt as if there was a cold pit in their stomachs.
Mrazivý even began to feel a bit ill, seeing the blood and viscera all over the place.
Certainly, they were both no strangers to death, having killed people themselves before.
But this level of carnage was on an entirely different level.
Though while Marcus and Mrazivý were far from feeling great about seeing the scene in front of them, Argus had an almost jovial feel about him.
Still, he did well to hide his elation, and after a few moments said, “We should hurry up and meet with the other leaders that survived. There is a great deal we need to do now that we have won the first battle against the kingdom.”
After saying this, Argus prompted Marcus and Mrazivý to follow him back to their command center.
Procuring a boat, their group quickly began heading through the canals and towards the castle where the liberation headquarters currently was.
Yet as they continue on, the sights of dead bodies seemed to go on for quite some ways, until they made it around a kilometer away from the city’s wall.
Once they reached this far, the damage from the battle dropped off exponentially, and other than the eerie quiet and stillness, the city looked completely normal..
Naturally those that had not participated in the battle had locked themselves in their homes, leaving the city seeming like ghost town.
However, as they approached the castle, unlike the city itself, there were hundreds of people moving around hard at work to make sure that their recent victory did not go to waste.
Heading inside to meet up with the remaining leaders, the three of them were quickly led by Knox who Lyra had sent to guide them.
Soon, they made it to the room where the other leaders were waiting and what they found was a bit disheartening.
Immediately it was noticeable that nine of the twenty-six leaders were no longer among them, having died in the battle.
Also, those that were here all looked worn and haggard, and Marek was actually still undergoing healing from Tesia.
Looking at him, Marcus now knew that the attack that Argus had not blocked for Marek to get the drop on Cibor, was far worse than he had initially let on.
Currently Tesia was using her healing magic to regenerate Marek who had six noticeable slashes across his body.
The worst of which had taken off about a third of his head.
Of course, along with this his chest had been gouged out and, his stomach was slashed open in two places.
Then to finish up he had also lost his left leg and right arm.
Truly he looked worse than even Marcus had after his final clash with Felica.
It seemed a miracle that he was alive, and without Tesia hard at work regenerating him, he probably would not have any chance of living.
Yet before Marcus could do anything else, Lyra ran up to him and gave him a big hug, grateful that he had survived.
Of course, Marcus was equally happy to see that Lyra was still alive, especially since he was only fighting to make sure she did not die.
After that, Lyra noticed Mrazivý who was staring at her curiously, and was about to say something, when Argus interrupted, saying, “I understand that we are all happy to see each other alive, but we have a lot to discuss right now.”
Nodding his head Marcus agreed with Argus, and motioned for Lyra to retake her seat while he took his.
However, before anything else progressed, Francis who was staring at Mrazivý said, “Wait, before we get into anything, we cannot have some outsider listening in.”
Voicing their agreement, the other leaders naturally had no clue who Mrazivý was, and even though she walked in with both Marcus and Argus, they were not willing to trust her to the extent of discussing their plans in front of her.
Sighing Marcus turned towards Mrazivý and said, “M, would you mind waiting outside for now? I promise I will introduce you to everyone and give you an update later.”
“Yeah, I understand.” Mrazivý said reading the room.
Once Mrazivý had gone, Marek who had just finished being patched up for the most part by Tesia, had a grim expression on his face counting the missing leaders.
“First, let us take a moment to mourn and honor those we have lost. Today many valiant fighters and even the civilians we promised to protect lost their lives to fight for their ideals.” Marek said as he lowered his head.
Quickly everyone else followed suit, and once a few moments had been paid to those that died today for their cause, the true meeting began.
“Now we have successfully repelled the kingdom’s forces and dealt a heavy blow to them. We have confirmed the deaths of twelve elite mages and five great knights, one of which was rank number six Felica, who Argus finished off. We also disabled or destroyed a number of their mobile strongholds, as well as Francis and his sky troops bringing down the Aerial Castle.”
Marek then looked over a sheet of paper in front of him and sighed before saying, “As for casualties, currently we estimate that we lost around a third of the forty thousand that we had stationed in the city, while the kingdom’s forces lost about forty percent of their two hundred thousand. Yet it pains me to say that the highest causalities come from the citizens of Valenhart. At the very least around one hundred thousand of the common citizens are believed to have fallen in battle.”
Clenching his fist Marek was obviously quite furious that so many had died, especially when he had promised to protect them.
Yet instead, the people rose up to fight, and truly it was their contribution that allowed the liberation army to win this battle without more losses to their forces, and worse damage to the city.
“Yeah, but how did they get access to our surplus weapons. They should have been locked up and only an officer should have been able to take them out in that quantity. Someone must have given out those weapons.” Lochlan one of the great knights freed from the Sky Citadel said.
The other leaders quickly latched onto this topic as well, since without those weapons, the more than hundred thousand civilians would not have jumped into the fray and gotten themselves killed.
“I did it. I took out the thousands of extra stores that Borealia sent us and let the people that wanted to protect themselves have access to the means to do so.” Argus said, not a tinge of regret or remorse in his voice.
Of course, as much as everyone else wanted to admonish him for this, it was hard to do so, since their victory may have been much harder, if not impossible without the aid of so many people joining the fight.
Certainly, individually none of them made a great impact, but their unyielding resolve and sheer numbers had overwhelmed the kingdom’s army and prevented them from breaching the city in many areas.
Though Lyra who was the leader of this city and the ruler of its people, could only glare at Argus, since his selfish actions had caused the deaths of far too many even if it had helped them to win.
“Argus, I understand why you did this, but you should not have acted on your own. You should have at least passed this by me.” Marek said, doing what he could to admonish Argus.
Lowering his head towards, Marek, Argus gave a silent nod of submission, though Tesia who had been staring daggers at Argus, could tell he had no remorse for all of the deaths he had caused.
Still, just by arming the citizens he did not force them to fight, and to fully rebuke Argus’ actions would also be to disparage the resolve of the people that fought bravely for their home.
Moving on after discussing the casualties, what they needed to do next was the most pressing topic.
“Right now, we have just shown that we can take the kingdom head on. I say we quickly gather all of our forces and strike the capital while they are still reeling from this lose.
“No, we need to shore up our base here. We only one because we were the ones on defense. If we target the capital, we will not have any chance of victory.”
“I agree, we do not have a chance at an offensive right now. We were just barely able to win this battle, and the capital has its own forces that never leave, only meant to protect the city and the king. Not to mention that along with Cibor, we would have to face the rank two great knight who is nearly as strong.
Bickering like this went on for quite a while as the leaders shot out ideas about what their next approach should be.
Though, most agreed that it would be best to stay on the defensive for now, since even though they had dealt a heavy blow to the kingdom, they had not gotten off unscathed.
Eventually after nearly half an hour Argus finally spoke up again and said, “Hm you are all thinking too small. We just showed that we can defend a major city against a full invasion force from the kingdom. Now is the time for us to quickly bring more territories and cites into our fold until all that is left is the capital.