The World Dragon's Heir

Chapter 443: Join The Defence

Using a barrier to keep the militia safe didn’t sound nearly as fun, so Dominic took a moment away from throwing to make a new batch of mortars with a much larger explosive radius.

They wouldn’t have the power to reliably kill a Hobgoblin at longer ranges, but the shrapnel would tear apart Goblins with ease.

{Duke Dominic, do you have a radio? We need a situation report.} A voice crackled from the speaker.

General Alator held up the microphone for Dominic to speak as he dumped mortars into his storage bag.

{We are on the outer edge of the attack, working our way to the leadership position. Currently engaged with Goblins. Situation is stable.}

{Understood. Units are moving to support.}

Dominic started to throw his new batch of shrapnel mortars into the Goblins, starting with the group coming from the side.

The longer that they could avoid being surrounded and bogged down, the better.

However, they wouldn’t be a problem much longer.

A volley of cannon fire exploded among the Goblins, shredding hundreds at a time, as a support airship was sent to their position.

"Now we’re talking. Amie, focus forward, I will work with the airship to keep the others from pinning us down."

One airship was not going to be nearly enough for the task, and now that they were getting closer to the battle, the enemy didn’t have to extend themselves to attack, which meant their forward formation was less effective, and they were slowly shifting to form a circle.

A large one, as they needed room for over a dozen trolls to fight, but the outcome was inevitable.

Alator gave the orders, shifting the troops as Goblins swarmed around their position, and Amie’s gunshots came to a halt as she brought up an [Area Barrier] around their position, keeping the Goblins from charging past the spears.

"More bright ideas?" She asked.

"How strong is that barrier?"

"You are not throwing grenades on our own position. Pick another method."

Dominic shrugged. It should have worked.

"The back ranks of the horde have already been thinned. Just let Dave keep cutting them down, and we will be free again in a moment."

Throwing fragmentation mortar rounds into the horde helped with that, but Dominic could hear from the radio that the monsters here were getting too thin to continue the bombardment, and the airship was about to move on.

Sure enough, the Goblins were forced to group on one side of the formation, as they were dying too fast if they attacked individually.

That gave the formation a chance to spread out a little, with Amie expanding her barrier.

And only minutes later, she lowered it and returned to shooting with [Fireball] spells attached as the spearmen pushed out and spread into an offensive arc.

They had been training for that movement since the first day they got spears, and today they got the chance to prove its worth to themselves. They weren’t highly equipped professional soldiers, but they could do this.

With increased confidence came reduced hesitation, and the practice was showing them the best ways to kill Goblins.

The militia followed Dominic’s lead as he blasted the Goblins off their flanks and focused the attack on one point again. They were moving forward again, headed for the mages.

But not alone.

On their right, an Axbridge army unit was also moving through the monsters, and soon the two groups would meet, forming a longer spear line.

He couldn’t see the map of the battlefield, but from the airship reports, it sounded like the horde had been forced off most of the city now, and they were being corralled around the barrier full of mages, which was now under attack by airships.

The mages didn’t have the range with their magic to fight back when the airships were thousands of metres away, letting ballistics drop cannon fire on top of the barrier.

All they could do was wait for the monsters to run out and the Wistover forces to reach them.

"Wagers on whether they break before or after we reach the shield?" Amie asked as she saw a clear path to the enemy commanders.

"Support on the left." Dave shouted, turning Dominic’s attention.

There was a whole unit of Trolls coming, not Daves, ones from the village in many sizes, armed with makeshift weapons and reclaimed weapons from other monsters.

"Support on the right, too." Amie agreed.

Dominic could see blonde hair and shining armour in the unit with more Daves, so it should be Princess Alexis and her guards, along with the town guards.

The battle had turned, and now the monsters were being forced back to their portals.

Dominic could already sense the headache that rebuilding all these farm houses and replanting fields would be. Especially in the rainy season.

But as he blasted his way through the Goblins, he noticed that the houses looked intact.

With the monsters under the control of the mages, they hadn’t targeted the farm houses, only living things. So, the biggest threat to the farms was stomping feet and some asshole who tossed explosives everywhere he went.

As long as the farmers had mostly made it to safety, the rebuilding process shouldn’t be too bad.

The leader of the Troll village waved as his group came to join Dominic’s and Dave waved back with a huge smile on his face.

"The boss gave us lightning." The troll declared as the reinforcements joined them.

The village chief laughed and nodded. "He gave us a village."

That was a generous way to put it. Dominic had just agreed not to mess with them as long as they didn’t settle too close to town, where it would panic the locals.

But the Trolls were far more civilized than he had expected, and they had even come to the rescue of Wistover without being forced, or even called.

"Come to the back, and I will hand out good weapons from the dead monsters." Dominic shouted before the new group could get into combat.

If they were going to fight for the Duchy, they could do it with good weapons.

After the battle was over, Dominic would make full armour for Dave, then the trolls wouldn’t have as many issues with Goblins attacking their lower body. But they were so happy with their spiked clubs that he didn’t have the heart to tell them to switch to a magical weapon.

He did have hundreds of Minotaur blades left, after all.