Book 5-3.5
The three thousand warriors had already allowed Pareia to create the distance and mend their formation. It would not be easy to catch up to them and disrupt their movement. A thick sand breeze was created in the 450 meter distance between the two groups.
After chasing Pareia for a while, Venersis felt an unexplainable shock in his forehead. The reason he was able to be called a War God was because he was able to see the entire battlefield at once, and because he had this monstrous intuition that helped him recognize dangers before they happened.
Venersis looked around. There did not seem to be anything out of the ordinary other than the enemy’s oasis up ahead.
In fact, there was just a straight line toward the oasis. It even seemed possible to follow that line to charge right into the oasis.
‘What are they thinking? Are they just idiots?’
Venersis could not figure out the source of his discomfort, but his intuition was continuing to send him warnings.
“All units, slow down.”
The lead warriors looked at him with confusion once he gave that order. It was because even they felt like they could push straight forward and take the oasis at once.
However, Venersis trusted this intuition that had been with him for twenty years.
“All units, slow down.”
The lead warriors thought it was weird, but they chose to follow Venersis’s order.
The Shuarei’s unit started to slow down, and when Pareia turned their pirmas around to change from a retreat to an attack, the warriors in the front of the Shuarei unit suddenly disappeared underground.
The warriors behind them saw the group falling into the ground, but they could not stop the momentum of the pirmas and fell into the ground as well.
Your view is limited on top of a running pirma. In addition, it was worse when there was a lot of warriors in front of you. That was why the Shuarei warriors were falling into the trap one after another.
By the time Venersis and the lead warriors caught on to the trap, a lot of warriors had already been injured.
“How?”
One of the Shuarei’s lead warriors let out a shocked question.
It was terrible. There were fallen pirmas all over the place and other pirmas had stepped over them. There seemed to be more warriors killed from being stepped on by their own allies than the trap itself.
“Unbelievable.”
One of the Greatest Warriors let out a shocked statement. How did this suddenly happen?
This was the exact route that Pareia had used to retreat. It was not possible to create a trap in just a couple seconds. It was possible that they had created multiple traps in advance, but Pareia’s main force was a large group as well. It would not be that easy to change direction.
It was a type of magic, and after taking a look at the terrain, Venersis was able to figure out the secret of this magic.
Pareia had used the height of the area and the sand hill to create an optical illusion.
When Pere first found this line, he had discussed it in great lengths with the other Greatest Warriors and even tested it out himself. The results were very successful.
If you leave some distance and follow this line, it creates a blind spot that the person in the back is unable to see. Even if the person in the front changes directions by a little bit, it still looks like they are moving in a straight line.
That was why Pere had created a trap in that blind spot in advance, and the results were a success. Unfortunately, the Shuarei slowed down their movement so they were unable to deliver the type of damage they thought they would be able to deliver.
Either way, the Shuarei were in a state of chaos, and their formation was breaking apart. Pere was in the lead of the Pareia warriors to use this opening to seemingly want to pay back for their earlier retreat.
They split into two sides as they approached the Shuarei.
There seemed to be a trap prepared in the central area.
‘I made a mistake.’
Venersis could not help but accept the fact that he made a mistake. He decided to chase after the enemy even though he knew the enemy had some type of plan, and he didn’t stop to verify the danger when his intuition clearly told him something was wrong.
The silver lining was that he had ordered the unit to slow down.
“Greatest warriors and lead warriors quickly gather the warriors. Ombrella will follow behind me with the gathered warriors while Butaka will gather the other warriors and solidify the central area and fix up the formation before retreating.”
Venersis quickly gave orders before looking toward the Desert Sword behind him.
“It was my mistake. We will need to defend against the enemy with our lives.”
The Desert Sword warriors did not even blink at Venersis’s request for their lives. They just picked up their shamshirs.
Venersis and less than one hundred Desert Sword warriors charged toward Pareia’s unit. Their goal was to buy time for the warriors who had fallen into a state of chaos so that they can fix up the formation.
On first glance, it seemed impossible, but Venersis knew that he and the Desert Sword had the strength to do such a reckless maneuver.
They started to cut through the charging Pareia’s formation in a straight line. Although they may be lacking in number compared to Pareia, this charge was strong enough to create an obstacle for over half of Pareia’s warriors.
Pere ordered another Greatest Warrior to continue to chase after the Shuarei. It was true that they had successfully managed to pull the Shuarei into a trap, but the damage was minimal. They needed to use this chaos to cause a lot of damage. They must do this.
They had lost a lot of warriors in this chase. If they could not cause a lot of damage right now, they would be the ones with the disadvantage as time went on.
They would not have to feel rushed if the Shuarei charged after them at full speed, but since they lowered their speed, they could not even use half of the traps they had planned in advance.
Pere personally led three thousand warriors to clash head on with Venersis and the Desert Sword. He needed to buy time for Pareia’s warriors to attack the Shuarei’s warriors who had not had time to fix up their formation.
“Yiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa~!”
Pere let out a shout as he clashed with Venersis.
While Pere and his warriors were barely managing to fend off this War God and his subordinates, Pareia’s main forces made contact with the Shuarei who were still in a state of chaos.
The yellow sand started to become painted red once again. This red sand was fitting the name of the Crimson Desert.
As Pareia was giving the Shuarei a lot of damage, the number of warriors under Pere’s command was starting to shrink. These Desert Sword warriors really were shockingly scary. Their numbers did not dwindle much at all.
At the same time, there was another change. They could hear a shout coming from the oasis.
Pere and Venersis both looked toward the oasis at the same time.
Whose flag is it?
Venersis started to smile. It was Buchord and the Shuarei’s 5,000 warriors.
Venersis did not know what kind of scheme Pareia was planning, so he had ordered Buchord to take 5,000 warriors and go around to the left to attack the oasis.
Once this happened, the one to feel a sense of urgency was Pere. Since all of the warriors were out here, there were only a couple hundred warriors left in the oasis.
Pere was hesitating whether he should stop attacking the Shuarei and return to the oasis or continue to push forward and defeat the group in front of him before trying to take back the taken oasis.
“It’s one thing for me to not pay attention, but can you really afford to be distracted right now?”
Venersis’s monotone voice could be heard as the sound of the air being cut appeared.
Pere realized where he was and lifted up his shamshir with one hand to defend against this shining shamshir in front of him, but he could not get into proper form and his shamshir was flung into the sky.
“I cannot kill a warrior without his weapon. It was a great plan, but it had too many openings.”
Venersis spoke as if he was scolding his son or a subordinate warrior, before turning his pirma around to return to the Shuarei unit that was being overwhelmed.
“Pere-nim.”
Pere was in a short state of fear and only snapped out of it when one of his subordinate warriors shouted toward him.
He then quickly received the shamshir and rushed toward the battlefield once more.
“Ah!”
Pere let out a groan after seeing the battlefield.
‘Is Venersis some type of God? How did this formation become alive the moment he returned? Was I out of it for that long?’
The battlefield where Pareia had been overwhelming the Shuarei had somehow turned even.
The oasis side was quiet as well, which probably meant that it was already taken.
‘If this continues, I don’t know what will happen if we are attacked from both sides.’
The moment Pere was thinking about that, Greatest Warrior Hamkipia approached him.
“We need to retreat now. If we are attacked from behind, we will not be able to do anything. We may have lost the oasis, but we were pretty even in the fight itself. We need to swallow our disappointment and retreat.”
Pere shook his head at Hamkipia’s words. They may have fought an even battle, but the results was that it was their complete defeat. But there was nothing he could do about it.
Pere looked around. They may have been fighting evenly, but their formation was still solid and the warriors’ morales were high, so they should be able to retreat without taking much damage.
“All units, retreat!”
Once Pere ordered in a loud voice, Pareia’s warriors immediately started to back away. Venersis also did not give the order to push Pareia further. They had also received damage, and he had successfully taken the oasis which was their goal.
Pere clenched his teeth looking at Venersis who was leisurely commanding over the battlefield.
He had thought this would be an overwhelming victory, but they had just ended up losing the oasis. It suddenly made him remember Runa’s words about only launching a defensive attack.
‘I have lost all face.’
Pere put his head down in shame.
‘I guess it makes sense. It wasn’t like Runa was worse than me that he could not defeat Venersis.’
Pere suddenly realized that Runa had been unable to defeat Venersis no matter what type of strategy he implemented, even with the terrain and numbers advantage.
Still, Pere could not give up.
‘For sure, I will win next time.’
While Pere was filled with despair, Venersis was already thinking about the next battle.
‘Just one more. If we can take the Thick Bushed oasis, we will take the advantage in both the offense and defense.’
The Thick Bushed oasis was crossroad for the quicksand river. The Shuarei and Pareia were on either sides of the quicksand river. The tribe that held control of this oasis was able to take the advantage when it came to strategies and supplies. This was the reason Venersis had spent a lot of effort and shed a lot of blood to recklessly take this oasis in the past.
In addition, Pareia’s esteemed Desert Runner port was located in the Thick Bushed oasis. If they managed to take this oasis, Pareia would not be able to freely use the quicksand river for a while.
Venersis was planning to take this oasis at all costs.
End of chapter.
Next up:
The Unification of the Eastern Desert
The battle that will go down as a legend.
The blood became a river and the moans rang through the heavens.