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Chapter 343 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-11-14 19:50:54 +0000 UTCRich was in a horrible condition. He had multiple wounds that were slowly bleeding, and they were only doing that slowly because he was using energy as bandages. He couldn’t drink another healing potion as he was already at his limit, so drinking more would do more harm than help.
Yet, he still continued to stand ready to once again fight if the enemy's top hitters decided to do anything against him or the army to his right that was currently fighting. The battle had been extremely exhausting, and all he wanted to do was go see the healers and rest a little bit.
Slowly, the sun started its march downwards, yet the battle didn't stop for quite a while. The United Freeholds had done the best they could, but even with their preparation, the enemy's luck advantage started to show.
Not in the form of them being able to kill more or push back the legion, but it mostly manifested in the higher than expected weapon destruction the United Freeholds army was experiencing. They had expected this, but not to such a degree, so the entire United Freeholds army had been forced to slowly give ground, to switch up the frontlines a little bit, and bring in new weapons.
When the retreat was finally called, everyone who was fighting was thoroughly exhausted, yet the dead were left in the field, and the United Freeholds' morale sank as they knew that they wouldn’t be able to retrieve those bodies. When both armies had separated for a decent distance, Rich finally stopped giving his boost, which he had been keeping up the entire time, which made many collapse in total exhaustion.
With the ability Rich had, it didn't take long to figure out their losses, and a few others had abilities that helped determine the enemy’s losses. The low numbers were the reason Rich was able to stay calm while standing next to the battle.
Mainly, it was just an ancient battle by Earth standards; almost none of the fantastical elements were put to bear to cause deaths. The United Freeholds lost 6% of their soldiers, while the Western army lost 17%. The numbers were good enough for Rich.
Scouts were set up and people were ordered not to take off their armour as everyone who could, got a little bit of rest. Rich finally made it to the healer's tent where, promptly, the head healer they had been able to get exclaimed, “How are you still alive or even awake?” Rich didn't say anything until he lay down on the healing slab.
“Don’t put me under. Also, keep in mind that I might need to rush out of here at any time, so make me as battle-ready as possible whenever I’m here.” The head healer wanted to argue, but he didn't. He had seen only briefly, but he had seen the battle between Rich and their enemy. If Rich wasn't there fighting, they would all be already dead.
The head healer had come to the United Freeholds from Verdia as he was one of their many refugees. Usually, that city would have welcomed a healer of his calibre, but the kind of abilities he had access to made him somewhat unconventional, and it was important for him to put his patients to sleep whenever using his abilities.
These abilities were extremely efficient and even helped keep the body's healing limit down. The problem was that they were painful if a person was awake. And when you reached a certain rank, it came with a decent level of paranoia, especially for those who lived in the world of arena battles.
So, he jumped at the opportunity to get away from there, only to find himself on a battlefield needing to heal someone without putting them to sleep. The head healer knew that Rich was aware of how his abilities worked.
He wasn’t going to argue with him, no matter how much he wanted to, but he took a moment to gather himself for what was about to happen. To his surprise, Rich didn't cry out for quite a while, but when he finally reached the biggest wound, the one on the right side of his stomach, Rich did cry out when he started to fix it.
The legion stayed for only four hours before orders were given, and they started to march towards Aldermarch. It didn’t take the enemy long to understand what was going on, but they couldn't cast the spell once again that would prevent the other armies from leaving.
They simply didn't have the materials required for such a spell to be cast a second time. So, the leader and the remaining elites charged forward to try to stop them from leaving, yet Rich once again stood between them, and a short battle once again started.
This time only one died, while Rich was once again wounded before they had to separate. Rich ended up once again on the healing slab of the head healer while they continued to retreat. The next time, the leader and elites came again, but this time there was also a larger contingent of the army with speed boosts trying to catch up.
However, they found it hard to pursue as they were constantly peppered by arrows. They couldn’t protect themselves well, as the United Freeholds' mages were able to achieve an upper hand because they didn't have to protect their own soldiers so much.
Sometimes the battles were larger, sometimes smaller, but the full armies never engaged each other like they did in the first engagement. Most of the battles were between small groups of soldiers, but the most devastating fights were between Rich and the enemy leader and his followers.
Their battles destroyed large areas of forest during most of their engagements. The enemy leader continued to pull on the black thread every engagement until his body couldn't handle the amount of power he put through it. He continued to grow frustrated that they couldn't end Rich and that they continued to lose their own.
Rich, however, wasn’t unscathed, and every fight he looked more terrible than the last. The head healer did his best, but even he was finding it hard to accept what he was doing to Rich. Yes, he was keeping him and them all alive, but as they continued to get closer to Aldermarch, the treatment got worse and the damage Rich received was beginning to truly get bad.
During the fighting retreat of the United Freeholds' army the Frontier's Collective was engaging in the battle near Aldermarch that had started. They were up against the southern army, the largest army Aetherhold had, even if it mostly consisted of the least trained soldiers.
Still, an enemy army of 17,000 against the 10,000 of the Frontier's Collective army was a tall order for anyone. They had at least one surprise to give. Francis had arrived not long ago, bringing with him some legionary fighters that were trained to use the siege weapons they brought.
With them, they should be able to start to hold and then later wear down the enemy army before everyone could combine. The southern army tried one massive assault, but the siege weapons shooting grape shots were too much to handle, so the battlefield transformed not into large army-against-army battle, but a place for smaller probing attacks.
Like that, they would need to hold for probably more than a month, if not more, as no one knew exactly how fast the United Freeholds army could get here while fighting off the Western army trying to engage it.
The Aldermarch situation improved when the Calverley made it there. They were ahead of the Bravenhold army, which was going to make it there a bit sooner than the United Freeholds army. The retreating battle had not been kind, even if they were almost at the end of their journey.
Not only that, but the Southern army had been continuously reinforced with new recruits who were all ready for the final battle. The Southern army was also boosted by the remnants of the Eastern army. Everyone had to thank Goose for that piece of information.
As it currently looked, the final battle would have the Triple Alliance ahead on soldier numbers, but not by any significant margin. However, the alliance strongest soldiers were quite ragged after a long march while constantly fighting.
Their numbers had dwindled quite a lot after losing almost 30% of their fighting force. They had been able to kill off almost 50% of the Western army's fighting force, but no one was pleased about what was going on.
During this time, Rich was constantly fighting. On good days, there was only one fight, but it was quite common to engage the enemy at least two or three times. They knew that they were winning, slowly, but Rich was slower and slower every fight.
It was their last chance to kill him as they were now too close to Aldermarch, but they were certain that they will be able to finish off Rich when one of the strongest enemy fighters had been able to actually get halfway through Rich's left arm’s bone, and the hammer user being able to brake five ribs.
It was at this moment that they finally had to fight against Rich's call of the ancestor’s ability, which gave Rich enough time to recover a little bit and, with the surprise, kill another of the enemy fighters.
That was the final fight, as they were now close enough that the United Freeholds army was able to get combat support from Aldermarch and the armies stationed there. The end result was that Rich was able to whittle down the enemy's strongest fighters to only six, including their leader.
He would now have a little more time to recover before the final confrontation between all of the armies would happen, and when he would finally be able to kill that frustrating bastard whose name he still didn’t know and would make sure no one else would.
Comments
daniel wingborg
The Aldermarch situation improved when the Calverley made it there. Calverley -> Cavalry
