Chapter 68: The Price of Victory

Chapter 68: The Price of Victory The battle for Sector 28 turned from a tense standoff into a one-sided, brutally efficient slaughter. Alyssa’s army, caught in a perfect pincer movement, their greatest asset – the high ground and their silver arrows, neutralized, shattered like one of their own crystal golems. Chloe’s Shadow Strikers were a whirlwind of silent, brutal efficiency on the catwalks. Her Goblin Snipers loosed volleys of black-feathered death, their arrows finding throats and eyes with chilling precision. They eliminated the remaining silver-arrow archers before they could even notch a new volley. Down below, my main force, led by a furious Isabelle, crashed back into their ground troops like a tidal wave of pent-up violence. BOOM! CRACK! BOOM! The cavern became a percussive symphony of sonic booms and shockwaves. Reina’s fists were meteors, striking with such force that the Crystal Golems she hit didn’t just break, they exploded into glittering dust. Fenris’s claws were lightning, tearing through enchanted armor as if it were parchment. And Isabelle’s dark blade, Dáinsleif, was a whisper of death that cut through armor and flesh with contemptuous ease. The Crystal Golems and their goblin support, so formidable moments before, were overwhelmed and pulverized. The enemy line didn’t just break; it evaporated into chaos and terror. Within minutes, the only ones left standing were a handful of their commanders, their Bloodkin. A stoic-looking Ice Golem, its crystalline body now cracked and chipped: a panicked-looking Dark Elf captain, her elegant bow held in a trembling grip: and a few others. Seeing the battle utterly, hopelessly lost, they did the only sensible thing: they turned and fled back towards their own lines, abandoning their lesser troops to their fate. "Commander, your orders?" Isabelle’s voice cut through the din, sharp and clear. Her Wrecking Crew was already moving to pursue, to run down the fleeing enemy leaders and finish the job. It was the obvious move. The killing blow. The logical conclusion to a successful battle. "Let them go," I said, my voice echoing in the sudden, ringing silence of the chamber. A wave of confusion rippled through my commanders. I could feel it through my connection to them, a psychic record scratch. They stopped their pursuit, turning to look back at me. "My Lord?" It was Isabelle who asked, her tone laced with a respectful but clear bewilderment. "They are the enemy’s command structure. Her Bloodkin. If we eliminate them now, her army will be headless. She will be crippled." "Precisely," I said, stepping out from behind my cover and surveying the carnage with a cold, satisfied gaze. "And a headless army cannot be sent back into the meat grinder. A crippled queen cannot be baited into making another mistake. Think, Isabelle. Think like a queen, not just a warrior. Think like me." I walked over to her, my voice dropping so only she and my nearby Bloodkin could hear. Pixia, ever the diligent student, zipped out from my pocket, her tiny holographic screen already running simulations. "The Proclamation of War," I began, my voice a low, conspiratorial purr. "It freezes her CP regeneration, correct? She cannot create new troops. Every single soldier she loses is a permanent loss, for the next thirty days at least. She is playing with a finite number of chess pieces." Isabelle nodded slowly, a flicker of dawning understanding in her intelligent eyes. "Her Bloodkin are her most valuable, most expensive assets," I continued, a teacher lecturing his star pupil on the art of cruelty. "They are her queens, her rooks. If we kill them, she loses her best commanders, yes. But if we let them live, if they run back to her, disgraced and defeated, what is she forced to do?" Pixia, unable to contain herself, chimed in, her voice buzzing with intellectual excitement. "She will be forced to redeploy them, my Lord! To save face and maintain pressure on our forces, she must send them back into battle. But she will know they are valuable and now marked by us, so she will be forced to assign a larger contingent of her remaining finite forces to protect them on their next sortie. By letting her commanders live, you are forcing her to increase the stakes of her next attack. You are forcing her to risk more of her dwindling army to protect the few assets she has left!" I smiled. It was a sharp, fanged, and utterly chilling expression that I was becoming quite fond of. "It’s not mercy," I explained, my gaze sweeping over my assembled commanders. "It’s economic warfare. It’s psychological torture. We’re not just killing her soldiers. We are forcing her to bankrupt her own army. Let them run. Let them tell their Queen what happened here. Let them bring back the fear, the shame, the story of our trap. And then, when she sends them back with twice as many guards, we will kill them all. We will make her sacrifice her own army, piece by piece, until she has nothing left but her pretty crystal throne." The understanding that dawned on my commanders’ faces was a beautiful thing to behold. It was a mix of awe, respect, and a healthy dose of fear. They were beginning to see the game as I saw it...not as a series of brawls, but as a complex, brutal, and deeply satisfying puzzle of a grand strategy. "Understood, my Lord," Isabelle said, her voice now holding a new, deeper level of respect. She sheathed Dáinsleif with a soft, final click. "The hunt will continue another day." We had won the battle, but more importantly, we had seized control of the war. Alyssa was no longer my opponent. She was my puppet. And I was just beginning to pull the strings. --------------------------------- For ten long, grinding days, the war against Queen Alyssa had been a masterclass in tedium. It was less a glorious conquest and more a slow, agonizing process of chipping away at a mountain with a toothpick. My elite teams, the Wrecking Crew and the Shadow Strikers, were performing flawlessly, their small, brutal victories carving up the outer sectors of her crystalline fortress.