...
When Anna walked into the underground temporary command center, the atmosphere in the room seemed rather heavy.
Seeing her arrival, everyone stood up and bowed to her, "Greetings, Your Highness!"
Tie Axe even knelt on one knee and said, "You've been startled. Failing to see through the enemy's scheme and being caught off guard by the devils is my dereliction of duty. I am deeply sorry."
"You don't need to be like this," Anna waved her hand. "Just treat me as an ordinary person who cares about the war. I'm just here to ask about the situation. This attack... is everyone alright?"
Despite becoming the Queen, she was still not very comfortable in such situations, especially when she saw Wendy, Agatha, and others bowing to her. Although she had never mentioned it in the past and rarely expressed her inner thoughts in front of the witches, she actually liked the feeling of being sisters in the alliance.
And the same was true of this attack on the camp—from the very beginning of the battle, she had been surrounded by God's Punishment Witches and guards and sent into the underground shelter. She would have preferred to fight alongside everyone, like during the Months of the Demons in the past.
However, Anna knew that since she had accepted this identity, some things could only be kept in her heart.
She only hoped that her appearance would reassure everyone.
Tie Axe hesitated for a moment, which was rare for him. "Your Highness, the situation is not good."
"Can you tell me about it?"
"Of course, we were just discussing this." He looked at Philin. Sylt, who nodded and opened the notebook in his hand.
"According to the statistics reported by the medical team, more than two hundred soldiers of the First Army died in the night attack, and nearly seven hundred were injured," Daybreak Morning Light said in a deep voice.
"However, due to time constraints, this is only the most rough estimate. The actual number of casualties will definitely increase further, after all, Nana Wawa xiaojie... cannot take care of so many wounded."
More than two hundred people—this was the second-highest loss only to the battle against the Church. And that was a decisive battle concerning the fate of both sides. This was only the first battle after the Northern Expedition, and the First Army was still a long way from the ruins of Taqila.
No wonder Tie Axe looked troubled.
Anna had seen the scene in the wounded soldier camp, with soldiers covered in blood lying in rows on the ground, the air filled with a thick smell of blood and incessant moans of pain. With Nana Wawa's magic, it was impossible to heal all the wounded in one breath. For those with severe injuries such as broken limbs and ruptured internal organs, she could only heal five or six people a day at most. Therefore, in order to save more people, she had to save her magic and use it on the most critical areas.
For patients with pierced lungs or cut intestines, she would only heal the fatal wounds to the organs. Those with less serious problems would have their skin sutured by the medical team after being given purified water; the severely injured would be left with open wounds until the next day for further treatment. During this time, the wounded relied on potions made from Sleeping Fern and Winter Flower to endure the excruciating pain. As for whether everyone could survive until the next day, or whether the drug might have similar addictive properties to Dream Water, these were no longer issues the medical team could consider.
In such a depressing environment, it was not easy to accurately allocate magic to the areas in need of urgent treatment. It was hard to imagine that the little girl who used to learn to read with her and faint at the sight of blood had grown to this point.
"I will advise His Majesty Roland to try to persuade Lady Sper, the Marquis of Fallen Dragon Ridge, to support the front line," Anna replied slowly. "With her there, the medical team can save more people. By the way, how did the devils approach the camp so silently?"
"I think... the enemy must have exploited the blind spots of the Magic Eye." Sylvie looked a little dejected. "The previous dispatch of Terror Beasts for reconnaissance was probably just to test the range of my detection, and I didn't realize this at all..."
"We should have thought of it sooner," Agatha blamed herself. "After the Battle of Hope Slope, the devils became aware of Sylvie's existence. Those Terror Beasts determined the approximate distance of the Magic Eye through our alert responses. Afterwards, the army gathered at the edge of the furthest distance and launched a surprise attack on us under the cover of night. The timing was just when Tower One Station had just landed, which was also the weakest moment in the camp's defense."
"Even so, it's not anyone's fault," Daybreak Morning Light comforted. "To deceive the enemy, we would have to deliberately ignore the approach of the Terror Beasts. But this itself goes against our usual training. Even if we knew in advance that the enemy was going to do this, it would be difficult to get thousands of soldiers and even more ordinary workers to pretend perfectly. In other words, the enemy would have tested this distance sooner or later. Even if they hadn't ambushed us at Tower One Station, they would have waited for us at Tower Two or Tower Three Station."
"If I remember correctly, the range of the Spider Demons should be around two to three kilometers, and they crawl slowly. The time from outside Sylvie's vision to entering the range shouldn't be short. Was it not discovered just because of good luck?" Anna asked puzzledly. "I don't know much about marching and fighting. Please don't mind if I'm wrong—the First Army has its own means of reconnaissance, right? For example, the hydrogen balloons that often rise in the camp."
"Your observation is truly insightful, Your Highness," Tie Axe said with a hand on his chest. "In short, the First Army's wartime intelligence sources are divided into three layers. In addition to Sylvie, Lightning, and Maggie xiaojie, the last layer is the army itself. However, when facing devils, this layer can only be used as a supplement and for emergencies."
After listening to the commander's explanation, Anna finally had a basic understanding of the First Army's intelligence system. In the battles to unify the Kingdom of Graycastle, this system had not encountered any problems. But when the opponent was changed to devils, an unbridgeable gap was placed in front of the army.
That was, whether they had two legs or four legs, they couldn't run faster than a Terror Beast with wings.
This meant that once they exceeded a certain distance, the scouts basically had no return. Not to mention sending back messages, even preserving their lives was a luxury. The Terror Beasts that could hide in the clouds and wait for opportunities had an absolute advantage. Coupled with the flat terrain of the Fertile Plains, it was almost like an eagle hunting chickens.
This led to the third layer of the intelligence circle being greatly compressed, and they couldn't even assist Sylvie—the flying devils could enter the Magic Eye's detection range at any time and hunt down the soldiers on the outer circle, while they had no rescue capabilities at all.
A word involuntarily appeared in Anna's mind.
A word that Roland often mentioned and would reveal a complex expression when he did.
"Air supremacy."
——Only the side with air supremacy can truly control the initiative of the war.
In addition, he would also say some inexplicable things, such as black ribbons, Akiyama, and so on...
Anna shook her head and suppressed these distracting thoughts. "If we follow this explanation, the Spider Demons should have already entered the third layer's alert range... Is it because of the night?"
"Poor visibility at night is only one reason, Your Highness," Philin. Sylt answered her. "According to the analysis of the staff headquarters after the fact... those deformed monsters were probably waiting for us there from the beginning."
Anna blinked in surprise. "You mean... they were buried underground in front of our route in advance?"
"That's right, that's the only way to explain why those behemoths appeared within range almost silently." Philin said with a solemn expression. "I asked Sylvie xiaojie, scanning through obstacles would greatly increase magic consumption, and the range would also be greatly reduced. Now that I think about it, those Terror Beasts were not only testing, but also attracting Sylvie xiaojie's attention—as long as she kept monitoring the sky, she wouldn't have the magic to take care of the changes underground."
So the devils were able to accurately strike every corner of the camp under the cover of night?
If it was a standstill against a standstill, the difficulty would indeed be reduced a lot, and the black curtain that Sylvie saw should not have been concealing the direction, but concealing the moment when the Spider Demons crawled out from underground.
The enemy was not only quick to react to the First Army's tactics and intentions, but also exceptionally proficient in the use of magic. The thought of fighting such an opponent was indeed extremely棘手.
No wonder the atmosphere in the command center was so heavy.
This was not a good trend to continue.
If Roland were here, what would he do?
Just as Anna was about to say a few words to encourage everyone,
Edith suddenly chuckled.
"What's wrong? It's clearly a great victory, but you all look like you've suffered a defeat?" She shrugged. "Did I walk into the wrong room?"