Capítulo 1110: Unfamiliar Faces
Litrakq cracked her neck as she stepped outside of her tent, still chewing on a knight’s ear.
The cartilages crunched in a most satisfactory manner under the pressure of her teeth, a most blissful sensation as the act of devouring humans also stimulated her composite bloodline, nothing much had happened yet, but she could feel that sothing was brewing within her…
Looking around, she could see the battle still raging on, there were no piles of corpses, however, she had assembled a cleaning crew that went around to collect bodies as they accumulated, regardly of whether it was the remains of human, elf, or dirt-blood.
The only piles of cadavers were the ones within the camp, but unfortunately, many of them were rotting, the remains of enemies were often gobbled up first, but there were just too many corpses overall, even the ravenous dirt-bloods were unable to devour it all.
But that was a good thing, actually.
It showed that their food reserves were unending, this was not sothing they needed to worry about in the least.
‘Mmh…’ still, Litrakq could see that the battle was not showing any signs of ending soon, the opposing army was proving more resilient than expected, during previous battles, the humans had tired much faster than this, and also, the arrows of the elves seed to not be anywhere close to going out of stock.
But she knew that she still had the advantage.
Litrakq had not just gotten herself many more troops and placed fortified camps all around the jungle, in the ti between her conquest of the Jungle-Mountain, and the arrival of the humans and elves, she had not been idle in the least.
An underground space had been dug out into the mountain itself, and there, she had placed many dirt-bloods, although they could certainly serve as soldiers if push ca to shove, it was not their duty.
They had co accompanied by their ‘coworkers’.
To put in simple terms, those dirt-bloods were breeders, their mission was to produce offspring as quickly as possible, this was a position you only earned if you proved yourself sufficiently fertile, and you would even acquire special vials whose purpose was to enhance those capabilities.
Pretty much all of the breeders were females, and pretty much all of the ‘coworkers’ were males.
It was just more efficient that way, the amount of ti in between being fertilised and the birth was much shorter for a female dirt-blood than it would for a human or elven woman, every waking second of both day and night, Litrakq was earning herself new soldiers that she could send to the frontlines, in terms of drafting efficiency, she doubted that anyone else could match her.
This constant cycle was allowing her to replace her losses and keep up the pressure.
Of course, this couldn’t permit her to produce new elites as that required training and attention, but it did make it possible to preserve the elites she already had available, and sotis, a dirt-blood would be born with better capabilities than normal, in the chaos of the battlefield, that counted them as pseudo-elite, or so she said.
In any case, the commander was feeling quite refreshed right now.
Although it might not seem like it, she was exerting herself constantly as well, pumping out her energy to her troops without stop, the link she shared with other dirt-bloods had only strengthened as ti went by, and now, she can know in real ti if soldiers need a little boost to make it through, naturally, this was quite draining on her reserves.
But she had found a little trick, human knights, since they could wield fighting spirit, could help quickly recover her inner energy, which was why she carried a bag full of body parts, Litrakq needed to be eating and gorging herself nearly constantly, keeping herself at maximum capacity at all tis, so even if there was an ergency, she wouldn’t be caught with drained energy reserves.
‘I really should find myself a mage to eat… A little mana wouldn’t hurt my diet’ she thought to herself with a smile, rubbing her chin as climbed over the giant dirt-blood, using him like a platform to get a better view of the battlefield.
She was quite fond of this fellow, it was just a sha that he was unable to speak much at all, his vocal cords were defective, but that was fine, he did not need a voice to fulfill his duties.
“My guts are telling that they are scheming sothing” that, and she was noticing odd movents in one of the enemy camps, now, it could an nothing in particular, but Litrakq preferred to always plan ahead with a contingency against the worst case scenario.
So her big weakness was failing to identify what would actually be the worst case scenario of any given situation.
So far, she had done very well as she had never suffered big defeats, her track record was pristine as a commander.
The battlefield looked about the sa as usual, a ss of tangled bodies.
Dirt-bloods fought savagely, leveraging superior numbers as well as their own unique traits.
Humans fought in formations, their teamwork impressives as sotis, even regular soldiers could push back the stronger dirt-bloods.
And the elves were in the back, firing arrows without rest, on the front, the elves were mostly from Wind-Swept Ravine, so they were especially deadly, murderous winds were on their side at all tis.
Sothing still felt odd.
Litrakq couldn’t quite put her finger on what was causing that sensation, but she was definitely feeling it.
“Be on guard” she told the elite soldiers serving as her bodyguards, eyeing the surroundings attentively.
The elves had already tried to shoot her down from afar multiple tis, but they had never been successful.
Her connection to the nature of this bio allowed her to see sneak attacks of this sort coming ahead of ti, so unless they brought out elves from the Unseen Woods, no arrows would have a chance of reaching her.
But fortunately, the Unseen Woods was far away, and as far as Litrakq was aware, the elves there were still completely surrounded by a dirt-blood army…
‘What could it be… What could it be…?’ no matter how hard she tried, the commander was not finding anything unusual or suspicious, but the sensation of unease only grew as ti passed.
Litrakq frowned, her eyes landed upon the dirt-bloods carrying or dragging corpses from the battlefield back into the camp… Not being a fool, she had naturally ordered them to always make sure an enemy corpse was truly dead by not just checking, but stabbing them in the throat multiple tis just to be sure.
But right now, an idea just went through her mind.
‘What if…?’ her eyes fell upon dirt-blooded remains that were being brought back.
Diversity was very strong amongst their ranks, even dirt-blood from the sa clan could look completely different from one another, new clans had arisen, and mixtures that belonged to no clans had beco commonplace, not to ntion the handful of rare cases that rose up every so often, of which Litrakq was a part of…
But still, despite that enormous diversity, she knew them all by heart, whenever a new kind was established, she would be made aware of it, whenever a special case was born under her jurisdiction, she would go and see the newborn for herself.
Right now… She couldn’t help but nothing that quite a few corpses, so being dragged back right now, and so already in piles, they were unfamiliar to her, combinations of traits that she hadn’t heard off, far too many abhorrent mutants than there should be, and even traits that belonged to animals instead of monsters…
‘Clever bastards’
As she nearly always did in such situations, she showed no reaction whatsoever and acted with utmost nonchalance, even her bodyguards, who spent much ti right by her side could not see through the act.
And thus, the commander reached for sothing on her belt like it was the most natural thing to do, in fact, it looked like she was going to grab a piece of flesh from her bag, but no.
She grabbed one of the horns fastened to her belt, and before anyone could put two and two together, she blew air straight into it.
Now, at a glance, this was not odd, she did so several tis a day, horns was how she communicated with her troops, different horns made different noises, and thus, ant different things.
This one she had never used yet, but the soldiers in the camp sprang into action imdiately, having had the aning of each horn drilled into their minds.
This was the horn that indicated that the camp had been breached, and the way Litrakq blew air into the horns served as another pattern that ant that the camp had been breached by spies or assassins, in short, a stealthy breach.
Curses erupted as dirt-bloods that were supposed to be corpses sprung up back to life, their monstrous figures soon falling right off, revealing humans and elves alike.
“We will be adding a new lesson for soldiers after this, learn how to recognise their own kind…”
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