57 The Plans of Demons

As the days passed, the army advanced steadily. A few skirmishes of demons had been beaten back without too many losses. However, those were only small victories of little consequence. At the end of the day, those attacks had merely been the demons probing the human army. Now, it was about time for a major battle. The army was advancing on the central objective for this campaign.

The demons had built a network of towers to handle the distribution of Red Mist to their armies. The central hub of their network was located here. The demons used it as their primary storage facility and routed their mist through here to reach the other towers. The major base the demons had here was critical to their war effort. Now that the human army had moved to threaten this base, the demons would have to pull back their forces to defend. Now, the decisive battle would be forced and the fate of the war would be decided here.

The army was well prepared for the attack. The landscape was scouted and all the possible avenues of attack were noted. Everything from the trenches, the machine gun nests, and the positioning of the cannons was all planned. The commanders had put their best efforts toward making this battle plan.

In the backlines, there was a large metal behemoth. It was the Warhound Prototype tank that had been given to Zero. She wanted to be a part of the battle and insisted on commanding the tank. Steven had been quite opposed to this, as he didn't want Zero to risk herself in a dangerous battle. Zero was not pleased by this. She was very determined and eventually Steven acquiesced to her demand after she presented her reasons. The tank, with its thick armor, was likely the safest place on the whole battlefield. Also, the tank would only be used as a reserve for when things got really bad. Steven was a bit comforted by this as the situation was a bit safer, but he couldn't help but worry while he was in the command tent. He couldn't help but occasionally take glances outside to make sure the tank was still fine, even though logically a tank wouldn't just disappear in a few short minutes before the battle even begins.

It was around midday when the army had finished setting up and the attack was about to begin. The demons had already prepared their forces and were leading an attack. The cannons begin firing, softening up the lines of the demons. Occasionally, a few Spider Demons had appeared, but they were quickly dealt with by the cannons.

A flock of around a hundred Devilbeasts had split up into groups and attacked simultaneously. The anti aircraft guns did their job, firing their bullets in constant streams up into the air. A vast majority of the Devilbeasts were killed by the guns. However, with most of the flock dead the hit rate began to decrease as the scattered Devilbeasts were harder to hit. Still, the defenders managed to down a few more before they reached the camp. The small force of Devilbeasts had become a shell of their former self after the anti air guns killed most of them. Still, they landed to try to do some damage.

The initial spear throws from the Mad Demons managed to take out a few soldiers and temporarily forced a cannon crew to run away. However, there were enough soldiers and God's Punishment Warriors left back to protect the cannons and anti air guns. After landing, the Mad Demons had fought a losing battle against the defenders who outnumbered them vastly. A veritable hail of bullets streaked through the air to kill the demons and the God's Punishment Warriors were an unmoving shield blocking the advance of the Mad Demons. Finally, the remnants of the attacking fliers were eradicated.

The battle was going well, Steven noted. Too well. The amount of ground forces attacking them was quite paltry. Surely the demons had more than just them.

Soon, two more demon armies were spotted on the flanks. It seems that the demons had split up their forces prior to the attack and were trying to overwhelm the humans on all sides. "Looks like this was the demon's plan", thought Steven to himself.

The cannons had to begin splitting up their fire amongst multiple fronts. With the slackening of the cannon bombardment, the demons were better able to approach the lines of the human army. Still, this was not enough. Even as more demons were able to approach, the machine guns began tearing them to shreds. Even the remaining few that did manage to make it through would be successfully occupied by the pikemen in front while the riflemen could continue to fire with impunity.

The battle did not seem be going well for the demons. Eventually, the lines of demons began thinning and soon they had all been killed. Steven was baffled, as were many of the commanders who were standing in the command tent confused. "That was it?", Steven said. "Where was the Senior Demon? Surely he would have participated. And the numbers of demons seemed too few."

Everyone was nervous, but from the looks of it, there weren't any demons around. They began bombarding the demon base. Without any further resistance from the demons, the base was destroyed. The commanders cautiously sent a scouting force of infantry forward to investigate the ruins. The scouting group returned, reporting that everything was clear.

A more careful investigation was done, while the army remained vigilant of their surroundings. Something wasn't right. From investigating the remnants of the tower, it seemed like there was very little Red Mist stored there. Even considering possible error with the calculations, it would still be far less than what would be expected. The demons had already moved away most of their stores. The question that lingered in everyone's mind was why.

"It is clear the demons are not here", Steven said. "They have abandoned the base. The real question is, where are they?"