Volume 9: Home Chapter 296: The Insidious Grassland People
The slowly setting sun was surrounded by fiery clouds, looking like a perfectly cooked egg yolk.
On the earth shrouded in the afterglow of the setting sun, a premeditated and carefully designed attack was taking place.
The Far Eastern Empire does not have the bad habit of the Human Kingdom of arresting young men who were working barefoot in the fields the day before, giving them a rusty, chipped and broken sword, and driving them to charge into the battlefield to serve as cannon fodder.
Well, after all, among all the races, no race is more fertile than humans, and has the confidence to not take human life seriously...
In other words, the young and strong auxiliary soldiers recruited from the Far East did not need to go to the battlefield - the jobs that these ordinary people of the Moon Bear tribe had to do when they followed the army were to serve as servants, handymen, coachmen, porters, etc. Except for a few small leaders who could receive a set of brightly colored leather armor, most of the auxiliary soldiers wore clothes brought from their homes.
It was naturally impossible to expect such battlefield laborers, who were not even militiamen, to have much organization and discipline. The first wave of arrows fired by the ambushing snake tribe did not injure many people. Instead, the chaotic Moon Bear auxiliary soldiers pushed and trampled on each other, causing greater casualties.
After three waves of arrow rain, the formation of thousands of auxiliary troops in this section completely collapsed. Harris acted decisively and led the snake ambush troops to launch a charge.
At the same time as the snake tribe launched the charge, the cat tribe magicians, whose hiding places were more hidden and dispersed, took off into the air one after another.
Although the ambush attack point chosen is the auxiliary position of the baggage battalion at the end of the enemy army and may not necessarily encounter a fierce counterattack, everyone practiced coordination as if they were dealing with a regular army during the drill; while the snake tribe that launched the charge was exposed to the possible long-range fire threat from the enemy, the cat magicians had to provide fire cover for the snake tribe's troops.
The black panther Xiao Rui was wearing chain mail, a visored helmet (to protect against arrows), and holding a magic book with a thick cover. She flew to a height of more than ten meters and nervously opened the magic book-shaped amplifier that recorded more than ten offensive magic runes. She selected one of the pages, pressed her claws on it, and quickly input magic power as she did in previous practice.
The prerequisite for a spellcaster to use magic is that he must use his own mental power to construct runes, drive the magic power with the inherent specific runes, or directly use mental energy to influence the material world, or manipulate natural elements for his own use.
This is not an easy task. The more powerful the magic runes, the more numerous they are, the more complicated the rune structure is, and the longer it takes to construct them. This results in a particularly slow prelude to attack for casters below level three (casters above level three can construct magic arrays and use them to directly condense natural elements to achieve the purpose of instant casting)... uh, this is what Xiao Yun jokingly called "too long a casting time"...
In order to solve this problem, when the cat tribe's magician group was not yet formed, Xiao Yun pulled Mr. Balk and Sean to develop the second-generation magic amplifier: a magic book that can engrave magic runes directly on the pages and can be used by inputting magic power.
According to the Ivory Tower's spellcasting ability classification, the black panther Xiao Rui, who can barely make it into the second-level standard, can complete the casting process in just half a second with the help of the magic book that "records" ready-made magic runes. When she presses her paw on the page of the fireball spell and instantly completes the magic injection, sparks explode in front of her, and each spark quickly expands into a fireball the size of a washbasin, connecting into a line and smashing towards the enemy position!
About fifty meters away from Xiao Rui, the floating leopard released magic one second later than Xiao Rui. The tightly arranged wind blades rushed forward, and it arrived later than Xiao Rui's continuous fireballs and contacted the enemy position faster than Xiao Rui's continuous fireballs. It spun and cut off an overturned baggage carriage!
"Oh yes , Phoenix magic is much faster than fire magic, and is more suitable for covering the charging team." Xiao Rui, who had completed the first fire cover, was finally not so nervous. She used her right hand to flip the magic book in her left hand, found the wind blade page, and pressed her claws on it.
Dozens of cat magicians provided long-range magic firepower cover at the same time, making the already chaotic Moon Bear Expeditionary Force's auxiliary troops even more chaotic, and they were completely unable to effectively intercept the Snake troops rushing over from the ground; a dozen seconds later, the Snake vanguard troops came into contact with the chaotic auxiliary troops' positions. Obviously, the Snake side only had a few hundred people, but they managed to drive back the Moon Bear auxiliary troops, who numbered thousands...
The magic book can greatly improve the casting speed and magic power of the generally low-level cat magicians, but the magic is still driven by the caster's own mental power. Xiao Rui, who is at most level two, felt that her mental power was gone by at least half after releasing three waves of group attack magic in succession to provide cover for the snake tribe.
So… after the Snake Tribe came into close combat with the enemy, these cat magicians landed one after another, stuffed their magic books into their waist bags, took out their weapons and rushed forward to kill the enemies - they were all transformed warriors, so close combat was no problem for them!
Harris, who was rushing at the front, led the team forward while carefully observing the movements of the enemy's front troops; after repelling the enemy to a certain extent, he stopped, put the dagger back into his waist, drew out the long sword, and chopped fiercely at the unguarded axle of the baggage cart!
The rest of the snake warriors also stopped attacking, and either destroyed the baggage carts or hacked and killed the enemy's six-legged lizards nearby.
In the chaotic formation of the Moon Bear auxiliary soldiers, Bazel, who had been trying hard to maintain order, found that the enemy no longer attacked and was trying to destroy the baggage wagons. He quickly led the auxiliary soldiers who followed him to rush to rescue...
General Wood, the white bear who was not untied and was lying beside the overturned carriage and silently spitting blood, saw this scene and his round eyes instantly became even rounder.
The snakes destroyed all the carriages they could reach, killed the nearest six-legged lizards, and ran away without hesitation, not even bothering with the moon bear auxiliaries; and the cat melee mages who helped with the destruction also took off into the air again, using their remaining mental energy to cast magic to cover the snakes' retreat...
By the time the soldiers in the central army who were not affected by the explosion turned back to rescue, the snake and cat tribes that attacked the auxiliary soldiers of the baggage battalion had already run away without even a trace of them could be seen.
"In less than ten minutes, we lost more than four hundred auxiliary soldiers, more than one hundred baggage carts, and more than ninety six-legged lizards?!" Admiral Andrew, whose head was wrapped in gauze, whose mithril armor was tattered and whose gauze and cotton inner armor was oozing blood, heard about the damage to the baggage camp and stood up from the stone. "It was only ten minutes! Ten minutes! More than four hundred pigs were not killed so quickly!!"
The front army, which was hit by a round of engineering explosives, had more than 200 soldiers killed on the spot and over a thousand injured. Admiral Andrew, who was in the central army but entered the camping site chosen by the front army to check the situation when the explosion happened, was also slightly injured.
It was impossible for an army of 20,000 to move in a group. The front army, the middle army and the baggage camp at the end were more than a kilometer apart. Admiral Andrew, who was dizzy from the explosion, saw the rear being attacked by magic and immediately sent the middle army to help (the auxiliary battalion composed of ordinary moon bears could not resist the magic attack). However, after the explosion, the soldiers of the middle army rushed to rescue the front army and failed to catch the tail of the hateful attackers...
The generals and officers who were not caught in the explosion looked at each other, and everyone had an ugly look on their faces.
"These grassland people are too cunning. I thought they used alchemical explosives to ambush the front army and would attack us next. Who knew they were targeting our baggage camp!" A bearded Moon Bear General said bitterly.
"Yeah, the guys in the auxiliary battalion probably didn't react in time... before being attacked by the enemy, the frightened six-legged lizards trampled and injured quite a few people." Another Moon Bear General sighed.
The veins on Admiral Andrew's forehead jumped, and he slowly sat back on the stone... He also thought that if the enemy ambushed, they would definitely attack the front army that was bombed to pieces, otherwise he would not have moved all the central troops forward.
A general hesitated and whispered: "Admiral, there are too many wounded... Is it——"
"No." Andrew interrupted him flatly, "This is already the heartland of the grassland people. Leaving the wounded here is tantamount to handing them over to the enemy!" The admiral took a deep breath, his eyes wide open, "These shameless grassland people dare not confront us head-on, and only dare to use some sneak attacks that are not up to standard. We should slow down, move forward steadily, and push them to their lair step by step!"
"Yes, Admiral!" Several generals responded in unison.
Admiral Andrew let out a long breath and turned to look at his chief of guards: "Bring Bazel up here. I want to question him."
"I've already said it, we didn't betray the empire!" Bazel, who was tied up like a bread roll again with iron chains, cried out in injustice when he saw Admiral Andrew. "These grassland people are very cunning. They must have known that you entered their territory and that you would never believe us, so they pretended to give us freedom and let us out at this time!"
Hmm... Bazel, who had suffered too many losses, guessed it right this time. An army of 20,000 people walking on the grassland would be very conspicuous. It was indeed because of their entry that Huoyan City released the prisoners of war...
Admiral Andrew said nothing, but stared at Basel sternly, as if he wanted to see through him with his eyes.
Bazel was also a subordinate of the admiral. He felt very aggrieved when he knew that the other party would not trust him so easily. "Yes, we are not like prisoners of war at all, so the grassland people are not worried that we will return to the army and attack them after we are released! It doesn't matter if they continue to treat us as spies, but I hope that the admiral can understand that these grassland people are indeed very insidious and cunning, and their means of warfare are definitely not just frontal combat!"
"Bazel," Admiral Andrew said in a deep voice, "Tell me, what other tricks do you think these grassland people will use?"
Bazel knew it was time to show off, so he quickly told the story of what happened to him, Wood's two-bear coalition, and Aubrey's black bear army last fall...
Admiral Andrew's solemn expression gradually changed, and the Moon Bear generals who were listening were all stunned - could a war be fought like this?!
After Basel finished telling Andrew about their miserable experiences, Andrew was silent for a long, long time.
Under Bazel's expectant gaze, Admiral Andrew raised a question: "Since you have not betrayed them and will not be used by the insidious, cunning and vicious grassland people, why should they take the risk of releasing you?"
Bazel was silent.
He thought about this question now, and after the front-line troops suffered the baptism of explosions and the baggage camp was attacked, he vaguely guessed the answer.
But I can’t tell!
Bazel had no doubt that if he told Admiral Andrew that they were there to "propagate" their "prisoner policy" on behalf of the steppe people, the admiral would probably be so cruel as to kill all the "former prisoners", including him...
So Bazel was thrown back again to keep Wood and Aubrey company - in the form of a roll.
Wood & Aubrey watched Basel being thrown in, and their hearts sank.
"Basel, didn't you tell Andrew what happened to us last year? Those hateful grassland people obviously wanted to deal with Andrew in the same way they dealt with us. Didn't you remind them?" Aubrey said with an unbearable look on his face.
Bazel struggled to sit up, expressionless: "Andrew asked me why the grassland people were willing to risk releasing us at the cost of having more enemies."
Aubrey moved his mouth and turned his head away silently.
Think about it, if he were Andrew... After getting the answer to this question, Aubrey would definitely eliminate the hidden dangers that could shake the morale of the troops.
Wood, who had been silent, said faintly: "Admiral Andrew has not yet entered the grassland people's territory. I guess they know the marching route of the army ."
After a pause, the White Bear General continued, "Knowing the whereabouts and marching speed of the army, and sending us to this route, we will have to travel for several days before we meet up with the army. Perhaps those grassland people can also calculate it... The Snow Wolf Warriors always do arithmetic problems that assume various situations."
"What do you want to say?" Aubrey looked at Wood.
"I want to say, with their baggage carts destroyed, six-legged lizards killed, and many wounded soldiers slowing down the army, how much will they be weakened by their insidious and hard-to-defend-against tactics before they reach Fire City?" Wood said with a look of despair on his face.
Bazel closed his eyes weakly.
Aubrey, who had a vague premonition but was unwilling to admit it, turned pale.
"Perhaps, the 'role' we can play will be greater than we imagine... for the grassland people." Wood smiled bitterly.
