Lord of the Sky City-Chapter 845 - 827: War God!

Rocky, who had begun to pay attention to the situation in the Kalhan Region, quickly discovered that the situation was exactly as he had anticipated.

According to the intelligence released by the Shadow Alliance in the following days, the armies commanded by Marshal Manstein encountered a massive counterattack from the Demons after occupying three cities. However, the reports from the Shadow Alliance remained optimistic, considering this a common occurrence in counteroffensive battles and compared it to the two defensive battles that happened in Marta City, deeming the Demons’ counterattack as not worth worrying about.

These reports were obviously for the general public. Moreover, the two defensive battles in Marta City were based on a strong city defense, while the defensive battles in the Kalhan Region were completely different. Therefore, Rocky could not believe these reports from the Shadow Alliance. To get firsthand battlefield intelligence and authentic battle reports, he had to spend extra money purchasing additional intelligence from the Shadow Alliance.

The content of this intelligence was completely different from previous reports.

According to this intelligence, there was no doubt that Marshal Goodley was embroiled in a tough battle. Only a few days after the three cities were occupied, the Demons launched a counterattack, which was much fiercer than the previous one in Marta City. Tens of thousands of Demons surrounded the three cities almost overnight, creating an impenetrable siege.

The preliminary statistics from the Shadow Alliance indicated that the total number of Demons surrounding the three cities exceeded 100,000, meaning each city faced at least 30,000 Demons. It’s important to note that the three cities Marshal Manstein occupied were not large; they were just ordinary cities, weak in both size and defense capabilities. It was almost impossible to withstand the Demons’ attacks under such circumstances.

Sure enough, four days after Rocky received this intelligence, new information arrived, indicating that one of the three cities had already fallen, and the occupying troops were driven back to the skies by the Demons!

On the second and third days, new battle reports followed, stating that the other two cities had also fallen in succession!

In three days, the cities occupied by Goodley’s forces were recaptured by the Demons. From the time he occupied the three cities to when the forces had to retreat, only about a week had passed.

Seeing these reports, Rocky sighed, feeling baffled. Why would Marshal Manstein, known as the God of the Imperial Army, make such a mistake? How could he be foolish enough to occupy cities on the Kalhan Plains, just adding to the losses!

Although the Shadow Alliance’s reports did not disclose the extent of the Allied Forces’ losses in this series of tug-of-war, the losses must have been significant. Whenever a defense battle is based on a city, ground troops must be deployed, and if the defense fails, even if the forces can return to the skies, the defending troops’ losses would certainly be heavy. freёnovelkiss.com

Therefore, it could be said with certainty that Manstein’s strategy this time was a failure, which left Rocky very puzzled.

While he was struggling to understand, two new battle reports came from the front line.

The first battle report came from the Blue Snow Peak Region, where Lord Wilton, leading the forces, had successfully secured a foothold at the base of Blue Snow Peak. After occupying two cities and fending off several waves of Demons’ attacks, the most challenging morale phase had passed, so His Excellency the Holy Knight’s next step was a steady advance, gradually taking back control of the Blue Snow Peak Region.

The second report came from the Kalhan Region. After losing the three cities successively, Marshal Manstein did not give up. After a brief adjustment, he launched another attack on the ground and astonishingly retook the three recently lost cities.

When Rocky saw these two pieces of news, he felt a headache instantly. Holy Knight Wilton’s news was positive and didn’t need much further explanation, but what on earth was Marshal Manstein doing?

Having already failed once, why was he still entangled with these three cities? Wouldn’t he soon fall into the same quagmire again this way?

Not only did Manstein’s decision puzzle Rocky, but others were equally bewildered. Manstein’s loss of three cities was the first failure the Allied Forces suffered since the start of the Third Counteroffensive War, and now he was repeating it. This caused a lot of dissatisfaction with Manstein’s decision, especially as Wilton was making sweeping advances in the Blue Snow Peak Region. Many believed that the battles commanded by Manstein were really not living up to his status as the God of the Army, with some radical opinions suggesting that his command should be replaced by someone else to lead the offensive in the Kalhan Region.

For a time, voices of discontent with Manstein were rising one after another, and many could vaguely foresee his another failure, but what happened next surprised everyone.

Because just as Manstein recaptured the three cities again, the Shadow Alliance released data that detailed the number of Demons Manstein had eliminated.

Over 200,000 Demons were wiped out in the three-city offensive and defensive battles!

Seeing this figure, outsiders thought the Shadow Alliance was glossing over to cover up for Manstein, but Rocky finally figured out the purpose of Manstein’s actions.

It turned out that the old Marshal was using this strategy to sweep through the Demons!

Indeed, Manstein was really eliminating the Demons’ living forces with this method.

As mentioned earlier, his primary strategic goal in the Kalhan Region was to annihilate the Demons, but everyone thought he would spread his troops out in a net-style sweep, which was not the case. Manstein did not let the Allied Forces take the initiative to attack; he chose to let the Demons come to them!

That’s why he occupied the three cities on the Kalhan Plains. These cities’ strategic positions were awful and were indeed under immediate siege by the Demons after being occupied, but this was exactly the situation he wanted.

Marshal Manstein used this method to entice the Demons to launch attacks actively, thereby achieving a faster annihilation efficiency.

Of course, his approach would certainly result in some losses, and in the eyes of some who didn’t understand, pursuing the rate of Demon annihilation at the cost of unnecessary sacrifices might be questionable. Even some commanders within the Allied Forces thought so, deeming it a reckless act not pleasing in strength or outcome.

But when Rocky finally understood Marshal Manstein’s purpose, he couldn’t help but give a thumbs-up, secretly praising him as indeed the God of the Army!