As General Tilly found himself in a dire situation with a broken sword, Count Turun, grinning menacingly, remarked, “Well then, farewell, you wicked church’s bastard!”
“Cough…” Tilly grimaced at the words, swinging his sword as Turun attacked. At that moment, shouts rang out, “General! Get back!”
– CLANG!
In the next moment, several commanders rushed in, blocking Tilly’s path. Turun, fuming at their sudden interruption, yelled, “You fools! To interfere in a sacred duel like this!”
“We’re out of time for your heretical nonsense!”
“If you want to take down General Tilly, you must get through us first!”
The commanders, squeezing the last of their nearly depleted magic, were buying time. They fought desperately, sacrificing themselves, while Tilly, amidst the soldiers’ uproar, was being forcibly pulled back.
“Let go of me! What are you doing?!”
“I’m sorry, General! But we have no choice now!”
“Your life is the army’s life! You cannot die here!”
“Damn it!”
Tilly, having lost the duel, was humiliated and forced to retreat. Although he was seething with rage and humiliation, he knew he was the Supreme Commander of the Emperor’s Army. He swallowed his pride and reluctantly started to withdraw.
“Damn!”
“General! This isn’t the time to stand around!”
“You must escape! The enemy is already upon us! If we stay any longer, we will all perish!”
His aide, terrified, urged him on. And indeed, the mages under his command were completely exhausted, both physically and magically.
This meant their forces, nearly devoid of mages, were reduced to a tired, battered group of 3,000 ordinary soldiers. On the other hand, the enemy was still unleashing powerful magic, savagely tearing through the weakened allies.
Just looking at how he, who could normally easily defeat Turun, had suffered a total defeat was enough to indicate how dire the overall situation was.
Finally feeling their limits, Tilly shouted in fury, “I order a retreat for the entire army! We must minimize further losses!”
“Yes, General! Army! Retreat!”
His aide began relaying the retreat order.
The beleaguered Emperor’s Army started to flee, while the Bohemian troops, who had been facing them, surged with morale and started to swing their weapons against the retreating foes.
“The Emperor’s Army is fleeing!”
“Let not a single one escape!”
“For Bohemia!”
Amidst the cheers echoing around, the Bohemian troops pursued the Emperor’s Army. At the forefront were the energetic Turun and his soldiers, forcing Tilly’s troops to fight desperately to break free.
The number of soldiers who couldn’t escape and were killed or surrendered was uncountable, but even General Tilly had no way to intervene in that chaos.
Ultimately, Tilly and his surviving troops managed to barely escape, but in the place where the Emperor’s Army had just been camped, only a few Palatinate soldiers and the Bohemian troops remained, celebrating their hard-won victory.
“Wow!”
“We won!”
“For Bohemia! For Count Turun!”
“Damn it!”
Tilly, cursing as he stopped his horse, was relieved that there seemed to be no further pursuit from the Bohemians. In a voice tinged with slight relief and deep despair, he asked his aide, “How many do we have left…?”
“800 mages… and 4000 soldiers.”
“Only 5000 left, huh…”
“I’m sorry… The enemy’s pursuit was too fierce at the end…”
Considering they had set out with 25,000 troops, this was an excruciating loss. Of course, it didn’t mean that over 20,000 of the Emperor’s Army had died. Most had been captured or surrendered voluntarily, while others likely hid in the dense fog, scattering in all directions.
“A complete defeat… a complete defeat…”
Tilly spoke despondently, and his aide and other commanders could not raise their heads in response.
When they initially set out, they had boasted about thoroughly finishing off Bohemia. Now, it was their own army that lay shattered, and in such a situation, they had to worry about returning safely rather than retaliating.
The number of troops had drastically shrunk, and even those who survived were mostly injured.
The proud Emperor’s Army was, in essence, nothing more than a rabble of defeated soldiers.
Seeing their state, Tilly’s mouth started to taste bitter, and he began to reflect on the process of their defeat.
“Was this their plan from the beginning? The Palatinate… even the Bohemian army… was it all just for that one moment?”
If he were to analyze the factors that led to their defeat, there were many, but the most crucial was undoubtedly the surprise attack by the flank unit at the last minute.
The Bohemian army, utilizing 3,000 fresh reserves, had struck at his weary allies.
In hindsight, it was highly likely that they originally intended to penetrate through the fog precisely for this reason.
Thick fog obscured the location and size of the attacking forces, making it impossible for even the battle-hardened Tilly to gauge the enemy’s strength accurately.
Moreover, his own troops were exhausted and ambushed.
In those circumstances, Tilly and the mages had little choice but to react hastily, using their magic liberally to fend off the enemy before them.
“Looking back, this was where I made my mistake. Using magic recklessly without knowing the enemy’s scale was a blunder… I should have considered that they had hidden strength…”
Though the power of magic is formidable, it is not an unlimited resource.
Grade 4 mages can maintain their concentration and physical enhancement for at most 30 minutes. Meanwhile, a Grade 9 High Mage like Tilly could fight all day when at his best, but using high-tier magic during battle he would eventually exhaust his magic reserves.
However, considering the fog obscured the battlefield and the allies were in disarray, it was a decision he regrettably had to make.
From that perspective,
If there had been no fog, or if his troops had not been utterly worn out, the outcome of the battle could have been completely reversed.
In other words, the enemy timed their attack at this moment precisely because they understood the situation, catching Tilly completely off guard.
If the battle had been delayed for a day… no, even half a day, Tilly would have approached the combat with a degree of composure and would not have faced such a dismal defeat.
“Does that mean… I was completely played from the start? Truly impressive… I, Tilly, have been entirely outmaneuvered by the Bohemians.”
As Tilly recognized he had been in the enemy’s palm from the beginning, he felt a sense of admiration for the individual who had orchestrated this operation, while simultaneously beginning to pay keen attention to their movements, continuing his retreat.
He honored the enemy commander as a fellow strategist while vowing that in the future, he would surely repay this grievance.
“Those heretics… just wait. For now, we retreat, but next time…”
