Death Sworn

The 37th unit was now fully reorganised and prepared to charge down the hill. With Commander Reana leading the charge, the group formed a massive arrow formation.

The 37th unit soldiers led the charge with the additional 62nd unit men behind them, increasing the width of the arrow formation further back. The sight of so many people rushing down the large hill was quite something.

Just a single misstep could cause a catastrophe to snowball out of control. The commander realised this earlier, which is why she ordered each group of soldiers to maintain a certain distance away from the other groups. This way, the formation wouldn't fall apart if someone tripped and fell down the damp and steep hill.

Fortunately, it seemed like luck was on their side this day. Nobody fell out of the hundreds of soldiers, at least, nobody had fallen by the time Deon reached the bottom of the hill. After reaching the bottom, he stopped paying attention to those behind him.

By now, Deon and the others at the front of the group were close enough to the enemy encampment that they could hear the enemy soldiers shouting. They could also see them organising their ranks to prepare their defence.

Deon prepared himself as he saw that the enemy had already sent out multiple lines of troops past their outer defences. The troops ran out towards him and the others, finally resulting in the first clash.

Bang Clash Bang!

Sounds of metal against metal rang out through the air. Deon dodged the sword strikes from these soldiers using the swift leaf spirt, side stepping and easily dodging each attack. He then summoned the ancient demon spirit and formed a sword.

Chi!

He slashed down and cut a pitiful enemy soldier in half. The surrounding soldiers showed shocked expressions, but there was no fear in their gazes and they immediately turned to target Deon.

Chi Chi Chi!

Deon stabbed through two soldiers in one strike, then cut through the third's throat and removed his head. The powerful swinging motion of the sword caused the fallen soldier's blood to splatter across his adjacent comrades, coating their shocked faces in layer of red.

After cutting down the enemies around him, Deon gained some room to breath. He quickly looked around and tried to assess the situation, but found that he was lost in a sea of bodies and blood. Screams rang out through the air, both sides had been whipped into a frenzy and slaughtered one another viciously.

Of course, not everyone was so valiant. Deon saw a new recruit from the corner of his eyes. He recognised this person from the 37th unit. Back at the camp he had acted tough and talked about how he would definitely take the head of an enemy captain, yet now, he stood frozen in fear.

Deon briefly saw the unmoving young man get stabbed through the chest by a spear, before the sea of bodies covered up the scene once again.

He couldn't find the commander or other captains, he was simply too small to see past those directly around him. After cutting down another soldier viciously, Deon frowned.

This didn't feel right. He felt certain that something was off about this situation, but he wasn't given the chance to think it through properly.

At this moment, the 5th and 62nd units made their appearance. The 62nd unit could just about be seen further down the camp, Deon made out a long and thin stream of people waiting their turn to make it to the front. This unit would need to break through the enemy defence and enter the camp if they hoped to achieve anything.

Luckily, the appearance of the 5th unit helped them to achieve exactly that. The powerful unit of soldiers released blood curdling war cries as they valiantly charged down the mountain from a few hundred feet away. The enemy's attention was distracted for a moment, which allowed the 62nd unit and part of the 37th unit to break through.

They continued the charge past the fallen enemy soldiers, crossing the last fifty feet and making their way towards the wooden fence defences. Spiked wooden poles had been impaled into the ground and pointed towards the soldiers. Those on the Kingdom of Restari's side narrowed their focus and braced for impact, preparing to either jump over or go around these spikes to avoid being pierced through.

With an assault of this scale though, it was inevitable that there would be some losses.

Whoosh!

Deon of course would not allow himself to die so stupidly.

He leapt into the air, using both his bronze class muscle strength along with the swift leaf spirit to gently land on the tip of the spike with his left foot. After lightly placing one foot down, he then jumped over the enemy fence and landed in their camp.

Doing something like this in a fully reinforced camp should normally be impossible, but it had been less than two days since the Fan Kingdom established this small base.

As the line of remaining Fan Kingdom soldiers positioned just outside of the camp finally crumbled, more and more of Deon's unit poured in. After the 37th unit, the 62nd unit troops behind them also funnelled inwards.

Looking to either side, Deon could now see that the 62nd unit to his right and the 5th unit to his left had also broken into the camp. The soldiers were met with a low number of shaman enemies, along with a barrage of rifle fire coming from deeper inside of the camp.

Getting rid of these riflemen was the obvious course of action to hasten their progress into the camp, many of the soldiers charged in crazily with this thought in mind.

Deon held back, only killing those who came to him as the frown on his face grew deeper.

"Deon, what's wrong, I need you to join the charge inwards!" Commander Reana found him standing there with a weird expression amidst the chaos and called out.

He slowly turned towards the commander, who hadn't noticed anything strange, then looked back towards the chaos.

This…had been far too easy. They had lost a few men, but these losses were minimal for an assault of this scale. The number of troops they met outside the camp was also too low, whilst each of their individual and group strengths was pathetic.

And now, not only was the number of Fan troops within the camp way below the estimated 1,000, but the majority of them were only ordinary riflemen…there were hardly any shamans.

But the thing that bothered Deon more than anything else, was the expression on the faces of the Fan soldiers. These soldiers were clearly fighting a losing battle, their numbers and individual strength were far too weak to compete with their opposition, meaning their only ending would certainly be death.

So why did all of these soldiers appear to be so fearless? Some of them even smiled as they were massacred, it was a taunting smile that was weighing down on his mind.

Finally, as Deon saw the remaining Fan Kingdom shaman troops hurriedly retreating, everything came together in his mind and he understood what was happening.

"Commander, it's a trap!" He yelled towards Commander Reana hurriedly.

"Huh?" She paused and frowned. "That is what we believed previously, but-"

"All of these soldiers are death sworn, they're luring us deeper into the camp! We need to retreat right now!"

The commander showed a blank expression for a moment, before she turned towards the camp and reassessed it properly. Her eyes slowly widened, until she completely paled and an expression of shock plastered her face.

"ALL KINGDOM OF RESTARI SOLDIERS RETREAT RIGHT NOW! THIS ENTIRE CAMP IS THE FAN KINGDOM'S TRAP, I REPEAT, ALL SOLDIERS RETREAT!"

As the commander's voice rang out across the area, Deon stumbled backwards and his eardrums nearly burst from the intensity of her voice.

'That's definitely some sort of spirit.' He thought wryly.

The soldiers across the camp paused and looked at one another. This was a direct order from the commander, so even if they felt confused about why they were suddenly falling back after coming this far, the men of the 37th unit did as instructed and ran back out from the camp.

At this point, Deon was able to breath a sigh of relief. He had been worried that the commander might not listen to him, forcing him to choose between running directly into the trap, or retreating and being labelled a deserter.

Now that the 37th unit was pulling out, he was able to mix into the crowd. He still remembered his role as a vice captain though, so he continually yelled out urgently, reminding the others that they needed to hurry it up.

"Commander Reana, what is the meaning of this, why are you deserting the battle?!" Commander Falcon, commander of the 5th unit, noticed the commotion and arrived by Commander Reana's side.

Commander Reana scowled deeply, obviously not caring to argue with this person right now.

"This camp is a trap, the enemy soldiers are all death sworn, they're luring us into the centre. I suggest that you have your men retreat too." Commander Reana didn't have time to explain everything so made her point as concisely as possible.

The 62nd unit men under her command also retreated, something that didn't go unnoticed by Commander Leonard. The young male commander noticed that the other two commanders of this mission were conversing hurriedly, so he made his way across to them hastily.

"Commander Reana, what proof do you have that this is an ambush? Are you not just trying to conserve your forces whilst leaving the dirty work to my unit?" Commander Falcon frowned.

"There's no time for this bullshit." Commander Reana growled aggressively. She glanced towards Commander Leonard who appeared besides her and looked bewildered, then repeated herself one final time. "This is a trap, the majority of the enemy soldiers are death sworn, just look around you!"

With that, she finally joined the retreat and urged the soldiers and captains under her to retreat with greater haste. Commander Leonard furrowed his brows. Ignoring Commander Falcon, he quickly reassessed the battlefield for himself. Feeling like Reana was right and that something was off with this situation, Commander Leonard didn't hesitate to order a full scale retreat of his own men. He even had them join the rapidly moving 37th unit to speed up the retreat.

Seeing that Commander Reana was now backing out personally, Deon let out a breath of relief, it was now acceptable for him to retreat without damaging his reputation.

He had already dropped back to the fences to assist with the retreat by cutting the wooden defences apart, but he still felt a powerful looming danger that he couldn't quite explain. Perhaps it was an instinct that he had honed in the underworld trial, but he felt that even at the outer perimeter of the camp, he was still in the midst of this danger!

Not to mention that these supposedly 'hastily' erected 'basic' defences were unusually difficult to disassemble, making Deon feel like they were all just cattle, being herded into a large pen for slaughter.

"I will take it from here Deon!" Commander Reana called out as she reached the outer perimeter. She waved her hand and created a spear of golden light.

Whoosh!

Bang Bang Bang!

Three sections of fencing were torn apart in an instant, increasing the width of the flood gate and allowing the soldiers to escape with greater haste.

Deon hesitated for a moment. The more he helped out now, the greater his merit would be later on. He didn't care about the 5th unit that was continuing with the assault, but if he could save more 37th unit soldiers, he would certainly be rewarded. That said, this situation made him feel uncomfortable…just what was the nature of the impending trap exactly?

"Vice Captain Deon, retreat right this instant, that's an order!" Commander Reana suddenly roared out, loud enough for half of the battlefield to hear. Deon shrugged internally…well, if she insisted.

"Yes Commander!" Deon saluted, then made sure to help more soldiers escape as he retreated himself.

Just a minute later, after he had made his way half way up the hill, Deon saw that Commander Reana was hurriedly retreating with the last of the 37th unit troops. The commander was extremely capable, she even nearly caught up to him with her extreme speed. Deon turned to face her and was about to say something, but suddenly…

BOOM!

A ball of flames engulfed Deon's field of view, the entire Fan Kingdom camp exploded!