On the western borders of the Echo Dominion Empire, the fourth battle is yet to be fought. The troops from the Echo Nexus Empire did not cross the border. They did not step into the Echo Dominion Empire.
"What is happening?" Asked General Josh.
On the Western fronts, Scott was appointed as the Commander's role while Josh was given the vice commander's role. Scott had 1,000,000 troops under his control. Among the one million, 500,000 of the troops were the Istarin troops.
Around 200,000 Istarin troops belonged from Scott's first division and were archers. The majority of the 200,000 archers were mostly dark elves. Unlike other kinds of elves that can mostly be found in The Celestial Terrain, dark elves can be found on all continents of this world. This is because there is a sort of racism against all dark elves by other elven species. Also unlike other elves who preferred to live in the wild and along with nature, dark elves can adjust themselves rather very quickly and live alongside humans and other races without any physical or mental problems.
As the Istarin Empire grew, more and more dark elves who lived in the Dying Isle continent came and joined the military under Scott's division. Scott had managed to turn a large number of dark elves who previously were slaves into powerful archers of his division by repairing with mana crippled hearts with Julia's help.
On the other hand, Josh's squad was mostly made up of beast race people. He almost had bought his entire division with him. He had around 250,000 beast soldiers in his 4th division. The 4th division was made to train beast men into soldiers. Beast-man does not really need the training that humans and other races need. As beast-men, their bodies are filled with power, and superior.
Most of his division's members were half-beast and half-humans. These were the people whose ancestors had somehow reproduced with beast-race men or females. Some of them totally lost their beast-race features and the gifts that a beast-race man possesses. They looked almost no different from regular humans. As the beast-race gene in their system almost disappeared as their parents reproduced mostly with humans; which eliminated beast-race genes from their system over time. While some of them retained their beast-race traits but had lost their beast-race features such as tails or whiskers. Maybe with the next generation, they will completely lose any connection to the beast race.
The rest 50,000 were made up of troops from other divisions. A few thousand came from Amber's division. Around ten thousand came from Eleanor's division. Around thirty thousand came from Henry's division.
Like from Nathan's Shadow guardian division, a few hundred troops were sent. Their main job was to infiltrate, gather information, torture the enemy, and most important of all scout. Scouting was a very important job. Without scouting, there is no way of knowing from where the enemy was going to attack them. Or the location of the enemy.
A good scout can bring valuable information. And valuable information can change the tide of the war.
As the Echo Dominion Empire shared its borders with its greatest enemy and rival on the west, the Emperor always kept around half a million troops in the nearby cities that can be deployed at any given time if the Echo Nexus Empire were to attack.
The Echo Nexus Empire often held military drills near their borders. Oftentimes, the enemy troops even entered their Empire. Although the troops never went 1 km away from the borders, it still kept Daxton on his guard.
At one point, Daxton was even thinking of building a giant wall across the long western borders. The giant wall would start from the coastlines and would end near the Glouto Mountain range which extended to the borders of the Echo Nexus Empire in the west. However, the plan only remained as an idea as Daxton's Prime Minister calculated that around 10 billion gold coins would be needed to complete such an ambitious project.
According to an estimation, it would take more than 40 years to complete the project. These two factors made Daxton give up on this idea. 10 billion royal gold coins wasn't a small amount even for the Echo Dominion Empire. Taking out such a large amount of wealth would leave the Empire in a net of debts from which they can never escape. In his opinion, instead of spending such a huge reserve of money on a wall, even if he spends around 10% of that sum on his Empire's military, the results would be far better and quicker. Thus, Daxton increased the military budget.
The Istarin troops along with Josh and Scott had teleported near one of the border cities. It has been a few hours since they have been waiting for the enemy to attack. In these last few hours, the news of the Mystic Spring Empire, the Methia Empire, and the Qeyesha Empire losing their battles had managed to reach their ears. The positive news boosted the morale of the 1 million troops.
"Reporting! Sire, the enemy has stopped marching."
"What?" Josh interrupted the Scout who was one of the shadow guardians.
Scott gave a silently cold glare to Josh that instantly shut his mouth before looking at the scout. "You continue."
"The enemy stopped at their borders. They are yet to step on the Echo Dominion Empire." Hearing this Scott and Josh looked at each other.
"Thank you for your hard work. You can leave now." The Scout nodded hearing Scott's words. After bowing his head to both generals, he quickly left the tent.
Currently, all the soldiers were resting in their tents or filling their stomachs so that everyone would be at their 100% when the battle begins.
"What do you think?" Josh asked. Josh wasn't that good at thinking. Being a lion-man, he was more better at swinging his greatsword than using his brain. This thinking stuff and all was left to Scott. This is also why Scott became the Commander.
"I think Lucas has ordered them to stop."
"Why do you think he would do that?" Josh asked without thinking.
Scott stared at Josh in silence for a few seconds. He looked at Josh in great disappointment. This made Josh pissed. Being a Lion Beastman, Josh was hot-blooded. It was very easy to provoke him.
"Now what's with that look?" Others might not know it but all of the Istarin troops knew that there was a rivalry between the 1st Division and the 4th Division. Josh's division is mostly made up of beastmen or half-beastmen who love to eat meat and wine on the other hand, is mostly made up of dark elves that prefer to eat vegetables. The members of Scott's division are mostly calm and collected.
Neither elves nor beastmen get along with each other. And the often heated argument or debate between Josh and Scott had taken things to the point where the division's members were rivals.
"I am just disappointed in you. If only you stopped eating so much meat and wine, your rotten brain might start to work again." Nathan replied while shaking his head and giving Josh a pitiful look.
This made Josh feel as if Scott was looking down on him. Josh sat down on the chair next to Scott and snorted while folding his arms on his chest. "Hmph! Eating meat and wine is 100 times better than those tasteless green leaves that you eat every single time. This is why I am so much stronger than you."
Scott sat on the empty chair and then closed his eyes as he calmly replied to Josh. "Don't talk about taste when the only thing that you ever eat is meat and wine. And besides, you're not stronger than me. The last time, we fought, I managed to defeat you in a fair fight."
Remembering the battle that he had with Scott around a week ago, Josh felt his anger increasing. While Josh's words did not affect Scott. All of Scott's words stabbed Josh. He was unable to remain calm.
"Just as I fell to the ground, you also fell down. So this is not your win."
"I fell down after you did so it was my win. If you're not convinced then after this war we can fight again."
Hearing this Josh grinned before taking out his greatsword. "Why wait till the end of the war when we can fight now? Or Are you scared of me?"
Scott also took out his bow and looked at Josh. "Who said I was scared? Let's fight now." The heat in the tent had reached its maximum limit when someone entered the tent without their permission.
"Josh and Scott, how many times do I have to tell you two to stop arguing? There is no point in this." Aditya felt exhausted seeing Josh and Scott holding their weapons and facing each other. This isn't the first time such a thing has happened. Though Aditya wouldn't admit it, the rivalry between division one and division 4 makes things very interesting around the Dragon Palace.
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