Badge in Azure

Saleen would rather spend time with the lightning dragons every day than to bother himself with these matters. The current trouble was closely related to the contract he had signed with the Goddess of Myers. The Holy See must be destroyed, so Saleen had to bite the bullet and do it. He had to succeed.

As a huge number of combat equipment was being distributed Saleen was contemplating another issue. He had summoned Banchajanna and Diyabannersa over. These two spirit kings were leading a pretty good life in Metatrin City, however, they had to summon a large number of spirits occasionally for Daniel’s usage.

Since Daniel was already a grade-6 death mage and had a dozen low grade death mages as his subordinates the three kings no longer needed to command the spirits for him.

At the moment, the three kings frequently lodged themselves in Saleen’s library to look for information. Was their previous owner dead or in hiding? If they could not find their owner they would never attain freedom.

“If our owner didn’t die, he can easily destroy the contractual trap set by Saleen and that damned death mage easily given his powers. Following our original owner is better than following Saleen.”

After the two kings were summoned, Saleen carefully briefed them on the things he needed them to execute. Along the route towards Phoenix, Saleen had built a small town every one-hundred miles so that the traveling merchants could take a break. To date, these small towns were thriving already. Each town contained two to three hundred households and there were about a thousand long-term residents.

There were so many people there to ensure the stability of this commercial route. If these people were massacred by the Holy See’s army Saleen could only rely on the marine route to maintain his city. There were five months in a year where his city could not be accessed via the sea though.

He could not just protect Metatrin City. At the moment, Saleen could not deploy a large army to receive the Holy See’s expeditionary army. Even if he triumphed, he believed that the consequences would be disastrous. If there were too many casualties Metatrin City would be doomed.

The best idea would be to withdraw those people in the small towns first.

Currently, Saleen still had four camps worth of manpower. Since the Caucasus people could not be assembled yet, he let Sika take charge of the city’s defense. Four camps of soldiers amounted to forty-thousand people only and including the deployable barbarians, there would only be fifty-thousand men. With these fifty-thousand men, Saleen knew that it was impossible to stop the Holy See’s expeditionary army from advancing.

The fourth and fifth camp had been deployed by Saleen, each camp brought along many chariots and mages. The mission of these twenty-thousand men was to rush to the small towns as soon as possible and fetch everyone back to Metatrin City.

At the borders of Phoenix, two emblem groups from Metatrin City’s sixth camp were laying in ambush beside the mountain road, waiting for the Holy See’s army to pass by. The road there was only about four yards wide, the other side of it was a gigantic slope. These two emblem groups planned to retreat to Metatrin City because they had lost more than twenty percent of their manpower. Of the original two-thousand men, only sixteen-hundred remained, about six-hundred were wounded. In fact, only one-thousand were ready for combat.

The Holy See’s army did not travel on the main road, it was going to use a nearer route to advance and the scouts had discovered this information. Commanders of both emblem groups had a brief discussion, then they decided to conduct an ambush there.

Even though there were many casualties, the soldiers did not lose their weapons and most skeletal warhorses were in these two emblem groups. They were actually supposed to be the last ones to retreat. With these skeletal warhorses, the soldiers basically had their weapons with them. They also carried the weapons which had been abandoned by the other emblem groups ahead of them.

Among these one-thousand people, there was a total of two-hundred large crossbows.

A large crossbow was not a heavy crossbow. Mainly, their long distance lethality was inadequate, but its short distance penetrative ability was great and its cost was cheap too.

There were two-hundred large crossbows while each soldier held one small crossbow in hand. These one-thousand soldiers camped along the roadside and awaited the Holy See’s army to pass by. After expending all their arrows, they would then retreat.

Both emblem group commanders were high grade swordmasters from Sregl Island, they were valiant and ferocious. It was a miracle that they had not sustained an injury yet. Both of them had brought along miniature alchemical crossbows. An alchemical crossbow had great penetrative ability and high accuracy. There was even a chance that the commanders could kill the enemy’s holy masters.

Those holy masters were abominable. As long as a soldier did not die, they could be resurrected by the holy masters. No matter how severely injured the soldiers were, they would regain their offensive ability two to three days later.

Using such treatment methods, these soldiers would not live for long. Those who were twenty years old would not live past forty and if they experienced multiple divine treatments, they would not even live past thirty years old.

This skill was that effective. The sixth camp used crossbows as their main combat equipment. If it was not for the huge number of holy masters within the enemy, the over one-thousand people from the sixth camp who sacrificed their lives would have been exchanged for the lives of more than ten-thousand enemies already. A pity though, the Tanggulasi people who got injured would be able to rejoin the battle in a day or two.

After two rounds of battle the sixth camp began targeting the enemy’s holy masters, but there were too few alchemical crossbows available. Their concealment was not good enough. During battle, the Holy See’s warriors would use their body to block the arrows so as to protect the holy masters.

“Commander, they are here!” A scout dashed over while riding a skeletal warhorse. He charged into the forest by the roadside.

“Get ready!” The commander of the ninth emblem group gave an order and everyone else stopped fidgeting. They adjusted their armor, lugged the quivers, tightened their boots, changed into archer’s gloves, and tightened the crossbow chords.

Even though these two emblem groups had lost more than half their manpower, the psychological state of the soldiers was excellent. Skeletal warhorses were present, so they had a higher chance of escaping from the battlefield. They would only fire arrows this time around. The soldiers who were familiar with war would know that this assault would only serve to lower the enemy’s advancing speed by a little.

Since they were not going to fight to their deaths, everyone’s actions were slow but steady.

The clatter of horses’ hooves could be heard from afar. The warhorses of the Holy See’s army were fitted with metal horseshoes, unlike Saleen’s army which used materials from magic beasts. The clanging from the metal horseshoes was raucous, it could be heard from a great distance away. Thousands of warhorses were running at the same time, it was as though the earth was emitting thunder.

These were the vanguards from Holy See, usually, there would be three-thousand cavalrymen. Of the three-thousand cavalrymen, there were one-hundred heavy cavalrymen who were clad in holy armor. This type of armor was extremely lightweight, suitable to be put on for a long time.

The remaining cavalrymen were mostly light cavalrymen, their combat method was to fire bows, while their main weapon was the Tanggulasi scimitar. The heavy cavalrymen needed to work with the auxiliary troops as their equipment was transported by the large chariots, they usually followed the main body. It was the same case for the infantrymen. Tanggulasi had many places for rearing horses, so even the infantrymen could travel on inferior horses.

This time around, many soldiers participated in the expedition. The pope’s order was very insistent. On average, each expeditionary soldier had one horse. Other than the infantrymen who traveled in chariots, each cavalryman was allocated two warhorses.

Before entering Phoenix the Holy See’s army had lost a massive number of warhorses. Due to their high traveling speed, many warhorses died because of exhaustion. Only a place like the Holy See would disseminate orders which were hated by their military.

The expeditionary army replenished their warhorses in Loulan before continuing on the journey. In the battle with Lex’s army they lost another huge quantity of warhorses again. No matter how powerful the holy masters were, they could not save the soldiers and horses altogether. Many warhorses died because of ineffective treatment.

Be that as it may, this colossal army still managed to cover over one hundred miles per day. If this army was made up of only cavalrymen then this speed was extremely slow, but this was a mixed army where infantrymen consisted two-thirds of the total manpower.

These people only had one agenda; Metatrin City. The pope’s order was very simple, to go there and destroy the city.

It was actually very risky for one-thousand people to wait by the roadside to ambush three-thousand cavalrymen. Only one-hundred of the cavalrymen possessed holy armor, the rest were clad in light armor. There were not many holy masters who would be the targets the crossbowmen were looking for either.

The vanguards of Tanggulasi’s cavalrymen charged into this mountain road, their speed was maintained around twenty miles an hour. The horses’ physical strength could still be sustained at this speed, but if the speed was raised to sixty miles an hour, only a skeletal warhorse could sprint at this speed for a long duration. Even if a skeletal warhorse was used it would get crippled after running at sixty miles an hour for a long time.

When the first two-hundred cavalrymen were about to enter the ambush area, the commander of the ninth emblem group did not give the attack order. He instead allowed these two-hundred cavalrymen to pass through. Very soon, the main body swarmed into this tapered passageway. At this point in time, the trusted soldiers of the commander blew their war horns.

“Fire!”

Two-hundred arrows pierced through the air. No matter what, the soldiers of the sixth camp had undergone a few months of training. Their main training subjects did not include close combat, all efforts were focused on honing their arrow formation in battle.

Three seconds later, the second wave of arrows was fired. Another three seconds later, the third wave of arrows was launched.

For the first two-hundred people, the sixth camp had used the large crossbows. They caused over one-hundred enemies to tumble over, but handheld crossbows were used for the enemies at the back which had less of an effect. Those over one-hundred enemies had to be dead. Those who got struck by the handheld crossbows would not end up intact even if they had received treatment from the holy masters though.

The largest magnitude of lethality came from falling off the warhorses because these people would be trampled by the warhorses coming from behind.

“Enemy attack! Enemy attack!”

“In the forest!”

The Holy See’s cavalrymen began to be flustered, but their commanders began barking orders at them. The cavalrymen at the rear wielded circular shields to block their bodies, then they charged into the forest. The forest was not very dense, but it would not allow a warhorse to gallop through it either. The moment the cavalrymen entered the forest, they immediately leaped off their horses. Wielding their scimitars in one hand and a shield in the other they started surrounding the Qin people who had ambushed them.

Awaiting them was the offensive by the crossbows. Even though the range of a handheld crossbow was short, a location like this forest was the battlefield where a handheld crossbow could unleash its might. In an army deployed for field battle, their handheld crossbows could not do burst shots. Their lethality was much stronger than a consecutive-fire crossbow.

Since the Tanggulasi cavalrymen were holding circular shields, they could not protect their whole body. The soldiers from the sixth camp fired arrows at their lower body. The battle zone only spanned for dozens of yards and these dozens of yards caused an immense casualty rate for the Tanggulasi people.

The first wave of attacks from the large crossbows took out over one-hundred cavalrymen, while the next wave of offensive by the handheld crossbows injured more than five-hundred cavalrymen.

“Retreat, retreat!” The commander of the ninth emblem group bellowed. His trusted soldiers immediately blew a different rhythm using their war horns.

The Tanggulasi people dashed into the forest in a raving fashion, they still had the upper hand in terms of numbers. The vanguards and the rear army could arrive here in at most two hours, or even in an hour. As long as the Tanggulasi people pestered their enemy, then one-thousand of Saleen’s soldiers would be wiped out.

Ignoring all injuries, the Tanggulasi people approached the crossbowmen, causing the two emblem group commanders to immediately have the notion of escaping. Before setting off, Saleen had instructed the ten emblem group commanders to lessen the number of casualties while helping the soldiers to be familiarized with the battlefield and lead the soldiers back to Metatrin City.

Without the holy masters, the enemy’s idiotic way of combat would result in all three-thousand cavalrymen getting killed. The presence of holy masters only resulted in at most one-hundred people dying while the rest could be saved though. This situation would perpetuate if the battle continued, the cavalrymen would use the circular shields to protect their vital organs and use their number advantage to get closer to their enemies. Saleen’s soldiers did not even have the opportunity to use their cutlasses to kill the Tanggulasi people who had fallen to the ground.