Chapter 260: Taking in the View

The pressure on Quemu was immense.

It was not merely reflected in the fact that he had been forced to his knees. More than anything, it came from the vast, crushing momentum Tian Wujing imposed upon him—so overwhelming that Quemu could barely breathe.

Tian Wujing was like a mountain.

The instant he arrived, he smashed Quemu straight into the dust.

Then, in the next moment, the mountain vanished and became cloud and rain.

The Kunwu Saber turned in Tian Wujing’s hand. Thunder softened into rain and dew, an earth dragon twisting into a slender green snake. The saber’s edge hooked sideways and pulled back.

Quemu had only just exhausted his previous burst of strength and had not yet drawn up another.

He felt both arms swell painfully.

In the blink of an eye, the iron-spiked club in his hands had actually been dragged aside by Tian Wujing’s saber.

The previous strike had been a storming wave smashing against the shore.

This hook was the morning breeze beneath a waning moon.

Between hardness and softness, Quemu felt like a lamb in the hands of an expert butcher, its hide, flesh, and bones being handled with effortless familiarity.

This was supposed to be a clash between the commanders of two armies.

Yet the scene had somehow become absurdly one-sided—one man moving with unhurried ease, the other barely able to defend himself.

“ROAR!”

Quemu let out a furious bellow.

His knees drove upward and his whole body hurled itself backward.

It was the correct choice.

This was not retreat.

It was simply the only way to avoid being butchered by Tian Wujing’s very next saber strike.

The savage warriors behind Quemu were stunned to see their leader driven back directly by the enemy commander.

Even so, they charged forward with ferocious courage.

First, their momentum was already committed. There was no longer any room to turn back.

Second, everyone understood that no matter how powerful a person might be, once caught amid the blades and spears of a chaotic army, even the strongest could become terribly fragile and die with frightening ease.

But the Jingnan cavalry behind Tian Wujing had already charged in from both sides.

With practiced horsemanship, they avoided the sweeping paths of the enemy’s blades, then exploited the reach of their cavalry lances to punch straight through their opponents.

The riders following behind were astonishingly nimble atop their horses. Even wearing armor, they twisted and shifted in the saddle with remarkable agility.

Li Fusheng had once said that the essence of warfare lay in “strong soldiers and powerful horses.”

It was a very incomplete statement.

Yet within certain limits, it was brutally practical.

The mounted archery and horsemanship of these savages might not compare to the barbarians, but it was hardly poor.

The real problem was that an ordinary savage tribe might possess only a few dozen complete sets of armor.

Common tribesmen, never mind wearing armor themselves, might only get the chance to touch an old suit when helping some noble within the tribe maintain his equipment.

That was the gap between generations of warfare.

By now, Yan’s elite cavalry had long since learned how to exploit every detail of armor and weaponry—their width, thickness, length, hardness, everything—to increase their advantage in close battle.

Many savages, meanwhile, did not even possess a proper suit of armor.

The two battle lines finally crashed together in full.

In an instant, no one could count how many riders were thrown from their horses or how many bodies were pierced through by weapons.

Blood became the cheapest color on the battlefield.

Tian Wujing did not continue pursuing Quemu.

At least, he did not deliberately pursue him.

Under the Kunwu Saber, savage warrior after savage warrior fell.

Not one could stand against him at close quarters.

It was almost as though Tian Wujing had simply let Quemu go.

But more accurately he did not believe whether the enemy commander lived or died would have any effect on the outcome of this battle.

Zheng Fan’s side was considerably messier.

During the initial collision, when riders were fighting side by side on horseback, things were actually easier.

With the strength of a Seventh Grade Martial Artist, Zheng Fan could handle himself with relative ease.

What was truly dangerous were attacks that came from some blind angle—someone suddenly rushing out from the side and using the momentum of his horse to slash or thrust at you.

Against that sort of attack, even an expert could die if he let his attention slip for a moment.

Yet amid all this chaos, Zheng Fan was somehow still able to notice such details.

He could fight the savage in front of him while keeping enough awareness to watch his surroundings.

City Defender Zheng suddenly felt that he truly had been tempered by the battlefield.

Inside his armor, the Demon Child kept shifting position from one side to another.

After being the first to advance several times in succession, whatever he might truly feel inside, at least for now father and son were enjoying something of a honeymoon period.

So the Demon Child was also working himself to the bone making sure this father of his did not get himself killed.

In the past, the Demon Child had been much calmer.

Even when Zheng Fan went onto the battlefield, several Demon Kings would deliberately stay near him and protect him.

A’Ming in particular had shared much of the burden.

But A’Ming was not here now.

Neither were the other Demon Kings.

The Demon Child alone had to carry every last one of his father’s disasters.

The first impact between the two armies did not immediately produce a clear victor.

But put another way the result had already been decided.

Tian Wujing’s Central Army numbered only four thousand cavalry.

Yet after smashing head-on into nearly ten thousand savage riders, it had not yielded an inch.

Then the cavalry on both wings plunged directly into the battlefield.

Liang Cheng, commanding the Rear Army, seized the opening as well.

At exactly the right moment, he led his troops forward from behind and crashed into the battle.

Human strength had limits.

No one could say these savage warriors lacked courage.

But once both flanks were cut apart and another organized enemy force charged directly into them from the rear, courage alone could no longer reverse the battlefield’s sudden collapse.

Many savage warriors were accustomed only to tribal warfare.

Each side gathered the warriors of its own tribe and allied tribes, charged once, and the victor took everything.

At most, they might add a night raid, an encirclement, or some other maneuver that anyone who had spent time waging war would know.

But anything more detailed anything involving truly precise division, coordination, and control of the battlefield even if they could understand the idea, they could not execute it.

When the savage warriors saw companions beside them being knocked from their horses one after another, when they realized that Yan cavalry were suddenly charging through them from front, rear, left, and right, fear and bewilderment began suppressing their courage.

Then, little by little, those emotions filled their hearts completely.

Not many broke immediately.

Not many fled.

But after being cut into scattered fragments and repeatedly struck by intact Yan formations, whatever resistance they could still offer became painfully feeble.

Quemu, who had been knocked from his mount by the Marquis of Jingnan, had only just picked up another saber and was preparing to rejoin the fighting when he sharply sensed that something was wrong.

He had never experienced anything like this before.

When he fought the Jin people, the Situ Clan’s troops could certainly be fierce, but they were nowhere near this precise.

For a long time, Quemu had believed the only differences between the Jin armies of the Situ Clan and his own savage armies were that the Jin had better equipment and more men.

And the facts had seemed to prove him right.

As the number of warriors beneath the King increased, and as they acquired more armor through capture and their own production, they had begun defeating Jin armies.

But the force before him now was the same army that had maneuvered across a thousand li in ten days and destroyed six hundred thousand Jin troops.

If they could move freely across a battlefield spanning a thousand li, then dissecting a small local engagement like this with a butcher’s precision was hardly surprising.

Quemu swung his saber and hacked down the horse of a Yan cavalryman.

Then he decapitated the Yan soldier who crashed to the ground.

Yan blood splashed across Quemu’s face.

Yet he felt no pleasure at all.

He raised his head.

Somewhat blankly, he stared at everything around him.

How had they lost so quickly?

Yes.

How had they lost so quickly?

That was the question in the hearts of countless savages.

They were clearly fighting with everything they had.

The blood in their hearts was clearly still burning.

Yet none of it could stop the collapse unfolding around them.

Many savages were not trying to flee.

They did not even consciously want to retreat.

But once trapped inside this suffocating battlefield, they reacted like drowning men, instinctively struggling to break free just so they could breathe a single mouthful of fresh air.

First the formation scattered.

Then, defeat became unavoidable.

The scales had already tipped completely.

The despair spreading through the battlefield tormented every savage still alive.

Angda’s left arm had already been hacked off.

Yet he continued fighting.

He could feel the comrades around him growing fewer and fewer.

The situation was getting worse by the heartbeat.

Then, Angda saw that gilded figure.

Gritting his teeth, he urged his exhausted warhorse toward it.

Was he going there to kill that man?

Or was he begging that man to kill him?

Angda himself no longer knew.

Before the battle began, he had already told Quemu that if they could avoid fighting, they should.

Now the result had proven his warning correct.

The iron cavalry of Yan were still every bit as powerful as before.

But Angda felt no satisfaction at having been right.

Only bitterness filled his heart.

He never reached Tian Wujing.

Tian Wujing had already lowered his saber.

He calmly surveyed everything around him, like an artist admiring an oil painting he had only just completed.

“BANG!”

A figure suddenly hurled itself into Angda and knocked him from his horse.

Angda’s saber was knocked aside.

But in the very next instant, he pulled a dagger from inside his robes.

At this point, perhaps the only thought left in his mind was that if he had to die, he would at least make his death worthwhile.

Then a stone shot out from the chest of the Yan armored soldier who had tackled him.

It struck Angda directly on the wrist.

The dagger fell from his hand.

The Yan soldier raised his saber in both hands.

With an almost ceremonial motion, he drove the blade straight down into Angda’s chest.

At such close range, even the armor Angda wore was nearly useless.

“PFFT!”

Angda’s body shuddered.

His eyes opened wide.

Blood streamed continuously from the corner of his mouth.

He did not look at the face of the Yan soldier who had killed him.

Instead, his gaze wandered across the battlefield.

Searching.

Searching until at last, he saw the black dragon banner.

It was still flying.

Once, they had been followers beneath that banner.

Once, they had been students beneath that banner.

And yet the truly despairing thing was this: the students had returned after completing their studies, just as they were preparing to make achievements of their own and their teacher had suddenly arrived to bury those former students completely.

The light in Angda’s eyes slowly faded.

At last, it vanished entirely.

Zheng Fan panted heavily.

He climbed off Angda’s body.

Then, he still remembered to turn his head and look toward the Marquis of Jingnan, not far away.

And the Marquis of Jingnan was taking in the view.

[End of Chapter 260]