Chapter 77: Rout

On one side, the cavalry had been smashed into disarray and no longer possessed anything resembling a proper formation. Their commander was still shouting at the top of his lungs, trying to gather the riders and reform the ranks.

On the other side, Shang Chaozong's force had cut straight through without losing formation. They had already wheeled around and, giving the enemy no chance to catch their breath, came thundering back again.

The contrast was stark: one side scattered and struggling to regroup, the other charging as a single mass. On a battlefield, that difference was fatal. Watching the pounding formation rush toward him, the Wolf Fang Bandits' cavalry commander brandished his spear and screamed himself hoarse.

"Regroup! Quickly! Quickly—"

He had barely shouted twice before terror appeared in his eyes. Shang Chaozong was already charging straight at him with his Saber raised. The saber came down.

The cavalry commander swept his spear up and knocked the blow aside, but behind Shang Chaozong, blade after blade flashed past in one smooth, continuous flow. Follow-up strikes came one after another before he could react. Several wounds opened across his body, spraying blood. He toppled from his horse and vanished beneath the charging formation, trampled into a mangled mass of flesh beneath the chaotic hooves. Their cavalry commander had been cut down in battle.

The formation had not even fully reassembled. Forget charging the enemy; they had not had time to create an effective defensive formation against the oncoming impact. Shang Chaozong seized the opening.

At the very front, he led the Yingyang and Wulie Guards sweeping through like a violent gale and raging fire, carrying a momentum that seemed able to tear everything apart. Riders and horses went down all along their path, screams rising without end. Quite a few of the Wolf Fang Bandits, faced with such a terrifying charge, immediately wheeled their mounts and fled. Their morale collapsed. More than a thousand cavalry, facing fewer than five hundred, endured only two charges before breaking completely.

For Niu Youdao, the sheer force of such a battle was deeply shocking. He had never seen slaughter this iron-blooded before. In his previous life, he had witnessed plenty of armed clashes between jianghu gangs involving more than a hundred men, but compared with this, those fights were nothing more than unruly mobs playing children's games. Even though he knew little about cavalry warfare, he could clearly see the difference between the two forces.

One required its commander to continuously issue orders and adjust positions, making it comparatively loose and scattered. The other moved as one wherever it went, each man cooperating with the others at terrifying efficiency. Wherever the battle standard went, nothing could stand before them. Yuan Gang felt his blood surge hot. His fists clenched and unclenched repeatedly.

"I have to find a way to get the Yingyang and Wulie Guards' training methods..."

Feng Ruonan murmured the words to herself. Fewer than five hundred cavalry had faced more than a thousand and shattered them in two charges. The sight had shaken her just as deeply.

Even she had to admit that if she herself led a thousand cavalry against Shang Chaozong, the outcome would probably be the same. The battlefield gave her no time to think further. Shang Chaozong had crushed the enemy cavalry head-on, and Feng Ruonan immediately caught the opportunity.

She knew very well that on flat ground, cavalry were the most powerful weapon of attack. The enemy's sharpest blade had already been broken by Shang Chaozong. The infantry formation remaining behind would find it extremely difficult to withstand cavalry impact. She swept her spear out and gave the order.

"Left cavalry, attack the enemy infantry's left flank! Right cavalry, strike their right! Pinch them from both wings!"

"Kill!"

The commander of the left wing shouted and led two hundred cavalry forward.

"Kill!"

The right-wing commander likewise led two hundred riders toward the enemy's right flank.

"Full-speed attack!"

Still dressed in her red bridal clothes, Feng Ruonan shouted the command. She swung her tasseled spear and led the four thousand infantry behind her into a full-speed assault.

"The Yingyang and Wulie Guards! No mistake—the rider at their head is Shang Chaozong!"

Xiang Wuren had already pressed his infantry formation substantially closer. He had finally confirmed the target. He had seen Shang Chaozong before. That was one reason his superiors had sent him personally. He pointed toward Shang Chaozong as he shouted. Yan Duo and the others looked grave.

They had not expected Shang Chaozong, the commanding general himself, to charge at the very front. Their original plan had been to wait until the armies became entangled, then seize an opportunity to strike. Xiang Wuren urged them anxiously.

"Take him! Quickly, take him!"

He knew that as long as Shang Chaozong died, even if his own army lost this battle, the mission would still count as a victory.

"Move!"

Yan Duo barked. Dozens of cultivators launched themselves into the air with him and glided toward the battlefield. The instant movement appeared on that side, Bai Yao, who had been watching them closely, sprang from his saddle. Aside from one Golden Core Realm cultivator left behind to protect Feng Ruonan, every Tianyu Sect disciple moved out.

It was not that Bai Yao was heartless toward Feng Ruonan. In a certain sense, Shang Chaozong was simply more important than she was. The two Golden Core Realm cultivators Tianyu Sect had already sent closer to the battlefield reacted immediately. They descended from the air and shouted toward Shang Chaozong.

"Withdraw!"

Both men landed briefly on Shang Chaozong's horse, one foot touching down on either side. Each seized one of Shang Chaozong's arms, lifted him from the saddle, and carried him floating clear of the battlefield.

"Commandery Princess, follow His Highness!"

Lan Ruoting shouted while scanning the chaos around them. Shang Shuqing immediately wheeled her mount around. Still carrying the battle standard, she chased after the drifting Shang Chaozong. Amid the thunder of battle, anyone farther away could barely hear shouted words. The personal guards only knew to follow the battle standard. Wherever Shang Shuqing carried it, their iron cavalry followed. Figures flashed through the air above the battlefield. Bai Yao, charging at the front, met Yan Duo in midair first. They clashed violently. Cold light flashed.

Bai Yao's longsword left its sheath. Yan Duo screamed. His body plunged from the air. Bai Yao planted a foot against Yan Duo's falling back and kicked off, launching himself upward again toward another enemy.

"Loose!"

Xiang Wuren roared. Facing cavalry attacks from both flanks, the infantry had already formed a shield wall. Archers behind the shields released volley after volley. Arrows hissed through the air like rain. The cavalry charging from left and right raised shields before themselves. Now and then, a horse toppled beneath the arrows.

At the head of the left-wing charge, one cavalry officer swung a meteor hammer with one hand.

Boom!

The heavy weapon smashed aside the shields in the first rank. His warhorse crashed straight into the opening. The enormous force of impact tore a gap through the shield wall. Long spears thrust from behind it. The horse screamed as blood sprayed. The officer hit the ground still dragging the meteor hammer behind him and rolled away. He scrambled upright while swinging his shield to knock aside the stabbing spears.

At the same time, the meteor hammer in his other hand swept low across the ground and knocked down a whole row of men. Above his head, the cavalry charging behind him urged their horses into leaps. Mount after mount sailed over him and plunged directly into the infantry formation. In an instant, the gap in the line was ripped wider. The riders behind them poured straight through. The right-wing cavalry broke into the formation in much the same way.

Once cavalry forced their way among infantry, the threat was immense. A man on foot could hardly stop a charging horse, much less a group of cavalry fighting in a coordinated assault formation. They cut forward in a near-unbroken slaughter. Wherever they passed, screams rose without end. Feng Ruonan led her troops forward, ignoring the Yingyang and Wulie Guards circling past them. The moment the enemy formation entered bow range, she gave an order. The deep moan of an ox-horn bugle sounded.

The cavalry already fighting inside the enemy formation immediately began breaking outward. Three thousand infantry on Feng Ruonan's side roared and charged forward at full speed. Behind them, one thousand archers raised their bows toward the sky.

"Loose!"

Arrows whistled upward. They swept over Bai Yao and the other cultivators who were leaping and fighting through the air, startling them badly enough that they immediately dropped to the ground.

In close combat, maintaining a protective aura over the body would slow their movements. Taking a massed volley of arrows without one was no laughing matter. The archers fired rapidly in succession. Wave after wave of black arrow shadows crossed the sky and poured down into the enemy ranks. No one knew how many men were dropped. Screams filled the battlefield. Once the enemy finally reacted and began raising shields over their heads, the deep ox-horn bugle sounded again.

The cavalry on both wings charged back into the Wolf Fang Bandits' formation. By now, the Wolf Fang Bandits' ranks were nearly in complete chaos. Feng Ruonan's three thousand infantry came roaring into them at the same time. The difference in morale had become overwhelming. Men among the Wolf Fang Bandits began fleeing.

Meanwhile, the cultivators who had been forced down by the arrow volleys were swallowed by the charging mass of three thousand soldiers. Blades and spears came at them from every direction. The independent cultivators swung their weapons continuously. Sword qi erupted. Blades of qi swept outward. It truly was sword qi like rainbows and saber qi crisscrossing the field. Each strike sent men flying and inflicted astonishing casualties. Yet against the flood of soldiers surging around them, even that meant little.

One cultivator forcibly blocked a Tianyu Sect disciple's sword, only for several long spears to stab into him from behind. He threw back his head and gave a miserable roar, twisted around, and struck down a cluster of soldiers. A heartbeat later, the mass of blades and spears crashing toward him buried him completely. The soldiers behind simply trampled over his body and kept charging. Feng Ruonan pointed her tasseled spear forward.

The thousand archers beside her lowered their bows, seized sabers and spears, shouted for the kill, and charged the enemy formation too. By then, Shang Chaozong's riders had already returned to her side. Bai Yao had cut down more than a dozen independent cultivators in the melee before bursting out of the chaos. He immediately doubled back at speed, chasing several independent cultivators gliding toward Feng Ruonan.

The two Golden Core Realm cultivators who had carried Shang Chaozong back nodded toward the Golden Core Realm cultivator protecting Feng Ruonan, then launched themselves into the air to intercept the attackers. But each man could only stop one opponent at once. Three others slipped past them and continued toward Feng Ruonan. Feng Ruonan remained calm. She gave a slight gesture. One hundred cavalry stationed around her raised bows. Bowstrings snapped. A dense volley shot toward the approaching cultivators.

The three cultivators struck out repeatedly in midair with palm force, blasting clusters of incoming arrows away.

"Crossbowmen! Fire in waves!"

At almost the same moment Feng Ruonan issued her own order, Shang Chaozong shouted as well. The Yingyang and Wulie Guards immediately snatched the crossbows hanging from their saddles. Hundreds of men fired in rotating waves, keeping the attackers from closing quickly and buying time for Bai Yao to return. Seeing the murderous Bai Yao racing back toward them, the three independent cultivators immediately scattered to either side and fled. They knew the opportunity was gone.

With several rising and falling bounds, they escaped toward the depths of the open wilderness. Morale on Xiang Wuren's side had completely collapsed. The rout came like a landslide. No matter how many times Xiang Wuren shouted, he could not stop it.

"Damn it!"

He hammered a fist against his own chest. A thousand cavalry. Ten thousand elite troops. And they had been beaten this badly! He had never imagined his thousand riders would prove so utterly incapable of withstanding Shang Chaozong's men.

Knowing the situation could no longer be saved, Xiang Wuren fled with a dozen or so riders amid the soldiers running wildly for their lives. A cavalry force was already pursuing them from behind. The independent cultivators still fighting saw the army collapse. Bai Yao had returned to the target as well.

Knowing there was no longer any opportunity, the remaining five or six independent cultivators immediately broke away from their opponents and fled through the air in different directions. The Tianyu Sect disciples did not pursue. They quickly returned instead to protect the principal figures.

Only after the defeated troops had scattered into the mountain forest, beyond any hope of being gathered again, did Feng Ruonan finally sound the gong to recall her forces. The battle standard had begun tilting sideways. Lan Ruoting, standing nearby, reached out and steadied it. Then he looked back. His expression changed in alarm. Shang Shuqing was swaying as though she might fall at any moment.

Only then did someone cry out, "The Commandery Princess is wounded!"

Shang Chaozong whipped around. He rushed over and spread his arms, lifting Shang Shuqing down from her horse. Only when he checked her did he discover a long gash across her back, apparently cut by some unknown sharp weapon.

Her clothes were already splashed with other people's blood. Unless someone looked closely, it was impossible to tell she had been wounded herself. Shang Chaozong had spent years on battlefields. One glance was enough to recognize the symptoms of excessive blood loss. His sister had never said a word. She had simply kept enduring, refusing to let the battle standard fall. Shang Chaozong's eyes reddened instantly. He threw back his head and roared hoarsely.

"Cultivator!"

[End of Chapter 77]