Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 1385 - 1378: Master Without a Name

Chapter 1385: Chapter 1378: Master Without a Name

In this battle, the Dongsheng army suffered at least two thousand casualties, a quarter of whom were cavalry. The Demon Clan army fared no better. Because of the Dongsheng army’s brave assault, the Demon Clan army suffered over a thousand casualties.

Yunji understood that this would be an unprecedented campaign and winning this war meant declaring that two-thirds of West Outer Heaven had been fully reclaimed. Therefore, even at the cost of ten thousand lives, she would grit her teeth and continue to persist.

The Demon Clan army quickly regrouped and adjusted their formation. Meanwhile, on the Dongsheng side, because the artillery fire had not ceased, the retreating soldiers were rallied yet again to prepare for their next offensive, which was to be carried out by the reserves, exceeding ten thousand in number.

Lacking a cavalry charge this time, the soldiers could only jog forward amidst artillery and bullet rain. Covering the distance of over three hundred meters was enough time for the Demon Clan army to fire a round of artillery and line up for a volley.

Soon, the direct-fire infantry guns of the Demon Clan army opened fire on the Dongsheng army and simultaneously, mortars from the rear pounded the Dongsheng army attempting an assault on the Demon Clan lines.

Solid cannonballs combined with shot and Fragmentation Grenades inflicted severe casualties on the densely arranged Dongsheng army. Now, the biggest trouble for the Dongsheng army was that they hardly had anything to withstand the powerful impact of the shells; they could only pray for good luck.

After a round of artillery fire, the reorganized Kyushu infantry lines advanced again and fired in unison at the commander’s order. Accompanying the continuous deafening roar of gunfire, a pungent fog shrouded the area directly in front of the infantry lines.

Bullets rained down on the Dongsheng army with almost every volley, several hundred of Dongsheng soldiers fell. The deafening cries of battle were once again filled with harrowing screams.

As the enemy rapidly closed in, the infantry adopted a quick-loading technique sacrificing power and range for rapid fire. This method, although sacrificing power and range, still posed a lethal threat to the increasingly close Dongsheng soldiers.

During these one or two years of battle in West Outer Heaven, facing the continuously advancing firearms of the Demon Clan, the Dongsheng army also began to reluctantly enter an era of long-range warfare. Their commanders no longer dared to stand within the firing range of the artillery; the command systems of both sides basically maintained a distance of about one kilometer, to avoid firepower.

Despite the war transitioning into an era of long-range warfare, the weapons and equipment of the Dongsheng army still lingered in the era of cold weapons and close combat. This created a generation gap in terms of weaponry with the Demon Clan, and especially after the loss of their generals, their only remaining advantage was completely nullified and they were utterly crushed by the Demon Clan.

Besides the widening gap in weapons and equipment, the critical issue was the ideological flaws within the Dongsheng army itself.

The Dongsheng army, invaders of West Outer Heaven, were undoubtedly the butchers of the Demon Clan. They simply could not find a valid justification for this, and in Luo’er’s words, they waged a war without cause.

To outsiders, waging a war with no apparent cause might not seem serious, but the adverse effects caused by this issue would not manifest immediately. Instead, they would gradually escalate and spread as the war continued, akin to cancer cells, eventually leading to the worst possible scenario.

During the Vietnam War in the 1960s, American troops struggled for ten years, many suffering from psychological disorders, and the U.S. forces achieved nothing, losing many lives and incurring countless military expenses in vain.

This is the consequence of waging a war without cause; soldiers do not know why they are fighting. Thus, when the battle becomes a stalemate, as the slaughter becomes numbing, these soldiers tend to develop psychological disorders. These include, but are not limited to, war-weariness, combat stress reaction, and mental breakdowns.

Back in West Outer Heaven, the soldiers of the Dongsheng army faced this exact scenario. They did not know why they had come to West Outer Heaven to slaughter these Demon Clan people, unrelated to them. They did not understand what this war meant or what they sought to gain after so many deaths.

They only knew their comrades were disappearing one after another, living in fear every day. Faced with the members of the Demon Clan and the angry accusations of their enemies, they had no response.

Subjective initiative is abstract, but it is also a phenomenon that objectively existed, unable to solve psychological problems, unable to figure out exactly why they were fighting, these Dongsheng soldiers easily fell into confusion.

On the contrary, the members of the Demon Clan, Luo’er acutely realized the importance of propaganda. Hence, over the years, there was constant propaganda against the invaders, even assimilating those who were originally immigrants from the Kyushu of the Dongsheng Empire.

With Luo’er’s prolonged propaganda, the members of the Demon Clan realized that the Dongsheng Empire was the main culprit behind this disaster, and the nobility that occupied West Outer Heaven were the ones orchestrating these calamities.

Once they understood this, the members of the Demon Clan did not even need mobilization; they would willingly fight bravely for the early and peaceful liberation of West Outer Heaven.

This was why the line infantry of the Demon Clan fought so ferociously. Even later on, the line infantry comprised of Kyushu residents were incredibly brave, often defeating the Dongsheng troops thoroughly.

It could be said that because the Dongsheng troops had no righteous cause from the day they set out, their defeat was foreseeable. However, victory after victory in battles plunged everyone into unprecedented joy, greatly delaying the spread of this sentiment.

Now, as the Demon Clan began their counteroffensive, the Dongsheng troops kept retreating step by step. Even when they severely damaged the Demon Clan’s troops, they could regroup and come back after a year. This continuous defeat had started to rapidly spread negativity.

In fact, by this point in the war, the Dongsheng troops were already at their limit. Although they still had tens of thousands of troops and the backing of the Nine Thousand Battalion from the nobility, the soldiers’ negative psychology had reached a peak. If they did not retreat soon, more problems would arise.

Under the relentless shooting of the line infantry, the charging Dongsheng troops suffered heavy losses, with over a thousand casualties just during the charge.

In the fog-blanketed battlefield, the line infantry could not see what was ahead, but the commanders of the Demon Clan saw clearly. Seeing the Dongsheng troops getting closer, he decisively ordered a charge.

When the Dongsheng troops were about to enter the still lingering smoke, the commander of the Demon Clan issued a counter-charge order. With a sonorous call to arms, the line infantry roared through the smoke, charging at the Dongsheng troops with their bayonet-tipped muskets.

The soldiers of the Dongsheng troops watched in horror as these once-fellow countrymen emerged from the fog, screaming ferociously. For a moment, many felt an inexplicable wavering. However, this quickly stopped as, in the moment of their hesitation, the bayonets of the line infantry had already pierced their armor and deeply entered their bodies.

A fierce hand-to-hand battle unfolded again, but this time the Dongsheng soldiers were not as combat-capable as before. They only resisted for about twenty minutes before leaving behind more than three hundred corpses and fleeing in disarray, supporting each other.

The line infantry was about to pursue, but soon they heard the drum signal to regroup the troops. Though discontented, these strictly disciplined soldiers followed the battlefield discipline and began to orderly retreat and regroup.

At the same time, the artillery of the Demon Clan opened fire again towards the distant Dongsheng troops because their next round of combined cavalry and infantry charge was already being prepared.

As the battle reached this stage, both the commanding general of Dongsheng and General Yunji of the Demon Clan were caught up in a frenzied atmosphere, continually engaging and battling on this field, competing over whose troops could fight longer and endure more.

Since accompanying the troops as observers, this was the first time Cheng Ziang and others had witnessed such a battle. The fighting, initiated by the Demon Clan’s troops, lasted for over six hours. Both sides engaged and disengaged repeatedly, and with each contact, countless lives were lost.