The Empress’s Gigolo

The defeat of the Great Xia soldiers was faster than anticipated.

Previously, Ren Baqian hadn’t really seen the aboriginals battling against the Great Xia soldiers in the open because they had either been defending the city or launching night attacks.

However, according to hearsay, the casualty rate of the Great Xia elite soldiers needed to reach 30 to 50 percent to cause a rout. This scale already regarded the Great Xia elites as a strong army.

The practitioners from the Great Xia sects weren’t obliged to follow orders, but Ren Baqian felt that they were much more courageous and had the advantage of having a lot of members. In addition, they were used to a life of bloodshed and would only collapse if the casualty rate was at least 30 percent.

However, Ren Baqian overlooked the silent psychological pressure exerted by the winged cavalry with their flashing sabers as well as the existing rumors that the aboriginals were superior to ordinary warriors.

In particular, the sight of fellow soldiers being splashed with blood around them as they fell down one by one was especially demoralizing. On the other hand, the other party only suffered slight losses. Apart from a few famous Earth Wheel experts who could compete or even win, most were barely able to cope and fought all out with their lives.

It was under such circumstances that many people realized who their opponents were and thought about retreating.

If the opponents were ordinary aboriginal soldiers, they would still have some hope.

However, with the winged cavalry as opponents, they had no hope of victory.

In addition, they were not military elites who were expected to execute orders without fail. Even the death of Lu Pinghai could make the practitioners in the north rise up in revolt, not to mention the hundreds of Earth Wheel experts here and the corpses everywhere.

Some of the more quick-witted practitioners began to flee.

This action was soon followed by others.

Moreover, many didn’t flee toward the Great Xia camp, but fled northwest in the direction of Great Xia because it was better to conceal their identities than to lose their lives here.

When the casualty level reached about 20 percent, the practitioners from Great Xia began to scatter and flee in all directions.

This 20 percent casualty rate was due to the winged cavalry killing the weaker practitioners very quickly.

Like mortar shells, many winged cavalry warriors pushed off from the ground and launched into the distance.

When fighting in a straightforward manner, the winged cavalry were stronger than those Great Xia practitioners who were at or below the Earth Wheel level. However, the Great Xia practitioners at the same level as the winged cavalry warriors were much stronger.

“Chase them for 500 meters and then return!” Li Qianqiu’s voice resounded.

Ren Baqian aimed with the machine gun for a long time and finally gave up resentfully.

If he didn’t give up, he would be the one who caused the most casualties to the winged cavalry tonight.

After returning from the short chase, each of those winged cavalry warriors sat and cleaned their sabers using strips of cloth cut from the corpses.

Not long after, the winged cavalry in the forest came out as well. With the exception of themselves, no other living humans could be detected in the vicinity.

The Great Xia army was completely annihilated with only a few managing to escape.

This was because the winged cavalry was more familiar with the forest.

It must be noted that the winged cavalry members were mostly recruited from the Sixty Thousand Mountains.

“Has the Great Xia army come out from their camp?” Ren Baqian sat on the floor and asked through the walkie-talkie.

“Sir, they have not come out, but are stepping up their vigilance.”

Ren Baqian grunted and put his head down to the ground. The response from Great Xia was very normal. They would suffer even more casualties if they tried to rescue their soldiers. In the darkness, not only was the visibility limited to a short distance, but the strength of the Great Xia soldiers was at its lowest. On the other hand, the aboriginals weren’t affected by this at all.

Even after knowing that there were only a few thousand aboriginals soldiers out there, they still didn’t dare to make a move.

However, their deaths were simply a matter of time to Ren Baqian.

It would take at least a week to reach the border, and it was impossible for them to leave alive.

Li Qianqiu wouldn’t allow them to leave alive either.

This Great Xia army was tainted with the blood of most of the aboriginal commoners.

Even though Ren Baqian didn’t witness it with his own eyes, he had heard that many strongholds weren’t informed of the attacks beforehand and were instantly flattened.

There were also some cities that had been destroyed.

“Won’t the Great Xia people think of taking revenge?” Ren Baqian looked at the Milky Way in the night sky, heaved a sigh, and turned to Li Qianqiu.

“Simply kill all those who are thinking of revenge. Kill them until they dare not think about it.” Li Qianqiu grinned cruelly, displaying the characteristics of an aboriginal.

In Ren Baqian’s eyes, Li Qianqiu was quite a good person, but to outsiders, all the aboriginals were seen as cruel and bloodthirsty.

“Your enemy is my hero!” Ren Baqian sighed and then tossed the matter aside.

He used to think that life was precious in the past.

He always considered himself a good guy who helped old ladies cross the street, was friendly to others, and helped when he could. However, he didn’t actually do any of these things.

Yet, he still considered himself a good person.

Only the heavens knew when he had started to think that life was just a phase or simply a term.

When the 3,000 soldiers returned, everyone prepared to head south to attack the other two units that were lying in ambush, but they received news that these two units were instead returning back to the camp.

Great Xia originally intended to leave some ambush soldiers in order to launch a pincer attack when Dayao attacked them at night, but Great Xia never expected themselves to be put in such a vulnerable position. Therefore, they decided to call those two units back.

When the aboriginal soldiers in the south discovered that the other party was heading back to their camp, it was already too late, so they could only watch them do so.

“The night has ended. We will come again tomorrow night,” Ren Baqian yawned and said.

In one night, he had knocked out one seventh of the Great Xia army and scattered the sect practitioners. Now that Great Xia was setting up their battle formation in the camp, there wasn’t a need to continue.

As it was nearing dawn, the two aboriginal forces finally reunited.

Since those 3,500 soldiers were originally from the Protectorate of the Center, it was a smooth affair when Li Qianqiu resumed command. Apart from the mounted scouts and the sentinels, the rest went to sleep.

There were no tents to speak of.

When outdoors, the aboriginals took the sky as their blanket and the ground as their bed. The wet and cold nights completely didn’t matter to them at all.

Ren Baqian slept in his clothes for a night and woke up the next day with a bumpy forehead, but blazing eyes.

These damned mosquitoes.

After a good meal of roasted livestock, everyone chased after the Great Xia soldiers. Shortly after the enemy had just pitched their tents, Ren Baqian and his people arrived a few kilometers away from them. They barbecued some meat before continuing with the night attack.

…

Ren Baqian and the rest of the aboriginals waited for several hours. It was midnight when they reached the outskirts of the Great Xia camp.

“Sure enough, they are waiting for us!” Ren Baqian said after looking with the night vision device.

Although the Great Xia soldiers weren’t grouped into military formations like they were last night, the peripheral tents were all empty while there were big patches of heat signatures inside the camp as they waited to ambush the enemy.

It was densely crowded inside the camp with tens of thousands of soldiers standing around like idiots. Ren Baqian felt that they were asking to be bombed. He immediately launched mortar shells at areas that were densely crowded with enemies.

There were some upheavals following the explosions, but they were soon suppressed.

Boom, boom, boom!

After seven or eight explosions, the confusion in the Great Xia camp could no longer be controlled. They didn’t even see the enemy, but with every explosion, men and horses were thrown off their feet.

“Sir, what should we do?” A group of commanders were gathered in an area inside the Great Xia camp.

“Fight our way out!” someone suggested.

“Fight our way out? Seeing the smoke from afar during the evening, at least six or seven thousand barbarians are likely gathered and waiting outside. It would be suicide if we ventured out at night,” another commander countered with a frown.

“It is also a dead end if we stay and wait. Our morale will soon plummet, so we might as well go out and kill some barbarians!” another commander said anxiously.

The timely sounds of explosions acted as footnotes to his words.

The entire group was facing a dilemma.

Whether they ventured out or not, it was damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

If they ventured out, the aboriginals would be waiting. Plus, in a night battle, the outcome was already known.

If they stayed, they would be passively taking a beating. Even though the enemy couldn’t be seen, the soldiers were already in turmoil. If they waited longer, the soldiers would erupt in chaos even before the enemy came.

They were all nursing a grievance—this battle was too frustrating because they could not move forward or retreat. They had never fought such an unfair battle before.

“Wait!” Finally, a man in the center said, “I don’t believe that their special weapons will not run out.”

After a short time, this person reached the same conclusion as Wu Shenghou.