NOVEL NEXT Chapter 369: 365 -
Ten Days Later
By midday, the air over Tournelle was thick with the stench of blood and churned earth.
The thawed ground had been broken into a sucking mire by thousands of boots, hooves, and the weight of the dead as the summer rains began to set in over the Western portion of the continent.
The first Francian counter-invasion wave had collapsed exactly as Julius expected — shattered against the disciplined Romanus wall.
But this being their home nation, the second and third quickly came one after the other.
Peasant levies for the most part, pulled from villages, towns and cities and pressed into military service by the noble, or encouraged to stand up and fight for their nation the heroine Sain Joan.
While the Romanus lines bore the brunt of the human wave tactics they managed not to break.
For weeks since Julius left the front, the lines had not advanced much, and not at all in some regions.
The Francians had no strategy beyond weight of numbers, but weight was enough if you threw enough men into the press.
Romanus needed reinforcements, and Julius was bringing them.
The legions marched before he'd even set out from the Eternal city, but after only a few days his Praetorian guard reached and met up with the advancing legions, with the Emperor taking overall command of the march.
Not being harassed or stopped as they march across Germania, the force reached the occupied zone of Francia.
A few Romanus forts now spotted the land.
Julius sending two of the legions off to reinforce further north, accompanied the remaining legions to go to the nearest frontline as soon as they could.
~
Their arrival couldnt have been more perfect, as they reached the frontline, Julius ordered his men to charge.
No grand strategy this time.
Just simple fear tactics.
The southern front was in severe risk of collapse with the defenders only a hair away from breaking ranks and routing from the field, giving back hard won lands.
When the cavalry struck, it was like the hammer falling upon the anvil of the spear wall.
The peasant mob crumpled inward, bodies crushed and torn beneath hooves and iron.
As the praetorians and Julius ripped through the Francian flanks.
The legionaires were close behind, charging in to pull focus away from the fortifications, and relieve the exhausted defenders.
Hours passed in the kind of grinding slaughter that sapped even Julius's patience.
The Francians fought with the desperation of men who knew they had nothing left to lose.
Each charge left the field littered with bodies, but as long as they could drag another thousand from the villages, the fight would not end.
By late afternoon, Julius had dismounted, walking the front with his sword unsheathed.
Blood and mud spattered his greaves, the weight of the day's killing pressing behind his eyes.
A stone, thrown from somewhere in the field of dead, clanged off his pauldron.
He didn't flinch.
Just calmly approached the source of the tossed stone, raising his bloodied blade up before dropping it down, and in a smooth motion decapitating the peasent who'd tried feebly at that, at assassinating an Emperor on the field of battle.
"She's made them so bold..."
Julius muttered to himself.
He'd known what she was capable of, the lore of the game spoke of her power of charisma to lead the masses achieving amazing feats against a greater host, but to be on the opposing side of that power.
It was like facing of in a war against zombies, just an endless never ending horde hell bent on their total destruction.
~
With the days battle over Julius and his men pulled back within the fortifications to take up their new posts and help however they could.
Julius was attending a military council meeting to get an update on the current situation at the front, while giving the commanders updates from Romanus as well.
"And how many have we lost?"
"Light. But… constant."
Constant.
That was the word.
Not a rout, not a victory — just a steady bleeding of men into the earth.
A wound that would not close.
Romanus had limited men when fighting abroad, and already tens of thousands were engaged all across Francia in the East, South and West of the nation.
Each loss was felt, as it meant their ratio of being outnumbered rose higher still.
With Julius arriving with reinforcements to bring their numbers up to higher than when the war first started once more, the generals sighed with relief, but worry still shrouded their faces.
Even if collectively they had 100,000 forces commited to this fight, they were spread out to far, waging a three front war with Francia, trying to swallow it whole.
The most active eastern front was the only one to receive reinforcements, though as far as Julius was concerned, only the eastern front mattered.
The Western front was a diversion, but with brittania now also invading from the north, their distraction is not needed anylonger.
As for Elheat and his southern front, if worse came to worse, they would pull back to secure there new holdings in Achae while defending the border using the existing fortifications, and allied Germania's to hold them back.
This would allow Francia to divert pressure onto Julius and his men in East but, this battle would not last for too much longer if Julius had anything to say about it.
His boosted power being the reason.
Julius had dove straight into battle and even with the battle itself lasting for hours, Julius had not drawn his trump card, wading through the battlefield like a god of war with nothing but his own simple steel swords clasped in both hands as he reaped lives left and right dualwielding on the frontline.
If he encountered a Francian commander or general, he'd need to draw the Heavenly demon rain and buff his powerlevel to the max, but against commoner forces his basic power level of 75 was more than enought to contend with them, whose power levels were lucky to reach the 50's.
Reaping mens lives as if he was a farmer swinging a scythe harvesting wheat.