The Empress’s Gigolo

“This huge elephant… is really big!” Ren Baqian muttered to himself when he saw the huge elephant rushing wildly at him from a distance.

At six meters tall, the height of this elephant was equivalent to the height of a two-story building.

With two such elephants running side by side, it was as if a building was being pushed at them, let alone the elephants’ three meters tusks, which made them all the more menacing.

In addition, the elephants’ bodies were covered with rattan armor from the knees up—even the trunks were covered with rattan rings.

Sitting on each elephant was a person, male or female, wearing a colorful cloak adorned with feathers.

From a distance, it was easy to be mistaken and think that there were only two elephants that were coming at them like a wall. In reality, however, there were also two identical elephants behind the first pair.

Ren Baqian took out two flashbangs from his bag, weighed them in his hands, calculated the distance, pulled the safety rings, and threw them forward.

Although it was daytime, the brightness generated was still very intense and the noise was deafening.

The rattan armor on the elephant soldiers could withstand swords, but was useless against the flashbangs that blinded and deafened them.

Even if a human was suddenly attacked, he or she would panic and run amok, not to mention an animal. As long as the elephant soldiers couldn’t figure out the right direction and just charged blindly, it would be enough.

“Lower your heads and close your eyes!” Ren Baqian shouted as he threw the flashbangs.

“Sir, be careful!” Ren Baqian heard this warning from behind just as he lowered his head. He couldn’t react in time and fell backward as an arrow flew over his head accompanied by a gust of wind.

Then, he saw a man standing atop one of the elephants, holding a bow and arrow, and preparing to shoot.

The next moment, he saw a flash and then darkness.

The loud noise made him giddy as he lost all of his senses. He was shocked and didn’t know what had happened.

Similarly, the two elephants and their riders were blinded by the explosions of the two flashbangs.

The huge elephants were frightened, let out long roars, immediately slammed on the brakes, and ran toward both sides of the road in a panic.

The two other huge elephants emerged from behind with a reddish brown long-haired monkey and some Spirit Wheel experts sitting on top.

The monkey bared its teeth, scratched its ears and cheeks, and gave a strange cry. Following this, the few practitioners jumped up very high into the air toward the crowd.

“I admire your bravery for having the nerve to come here and intercept us. Since you are here, you might as well stay. Sooner or later, you will be dead, and this is a nice place to be buried since the scenery is beautiful with mountains and water around.” Xi Wanya laughed heartily and blocked the monkey with a big saber. Qing Ping and Zong Shen blocked the other few Spirit Wheel experts.

The monkey and those few Spirit Wheel experts led the three aboriginals into the distance as they fought. Xi Wanya and company willingly followed along.

Ren Baqian grabbed two flashbangs in his hands as he shouted, “Be careful! Watch out for monkeys in the forest!”

Since the insect and elephant soldiers had appeared, the monkey soldiers shouldn’t be far away.

Ren Baqian had already figured out their plan.

The plan was to deploy the insect soldiers first to force the soldiers onto the road and leave them with no way to flee into the forest and no way to escape through either side. Then, the elephant soldiers would charge at them like a wall while some of the rebel experts would simultaneously tie down Xi Wanya and company.

Even if the elephant soldiers did inflict some casualties and chaos, the damage wouldn’t be too high as there were very few elephants.

The road was very narrow and only able to accommodate two elephants at the front. If they died, they would block the path of the elephants behind them.

Therefore, only four elephants were used to create chaos and divert attention.

Now was the time to reveal their real weapon that could cause serious damage to the aboriginal army and achieve their purpose.

“There are many monkeys on the trees on both sides!”

“Be careful!”

Ren Baqian heard a thunderous sound splitting the sky, felt goose bumps on his body, and somersaulted to the ground from his fork-horned cow. A few sounds rang out, causing the fork-horned cow to bellow and fall to the ground.

Ren Baqian glanced around and saw bone spear after bone spear shooting out from the forest.

Looking toward the forest, he saw brown short-haired monkeys about half the height of a human that seemed to appear on the trees from nowhere. Each of them had a bundle of bone spears tied to their back, which they threw downward as they jumped around on the trees.

He didn’t know the species of these monkeys. They were so strong that the bone spears could penetrate the fork-horned cattle from tens of meters away. The spears that missed and landed on the ground ended up with one-third of their length buried into the dirt.

“Sure enough!” Ren Baqian understood clearly. He threw two flashbangs at the elephants in front. Then, he took a bunch of flashbangs from the bag on his fork-horned cow, threw them to his guards, and shouted, “Throw these into the forest!”

More than 20 flashbangs were thrown, blinding a large number of the monkeys that were in the forest. While some of them shrieked and fell down from the trees after losing their balance, the rest of the monkeys were shocked and quickly fled as they screamed in terror.

“Captain Gong, don’t let the winged cavalry go inside the forest. Use the bone spears!” Ren Baqian shouted.

The bone spears thrown across by the monkeys were hurled back at their original owners, and one by one, the blinded monkeys fell to the ground.

Ren Baqian strode to the carriage of the empress and saw shattered bone spears in the vicinity. These spears had been smashed by the guards.

Ren Baqian asked vibrantly, “Your Majesty, were you disturbed?”

The curtain was parted by Hong Luan. Inside, the empress was lying on her side and holding a cup of wine. The sun shone on the cup, and a lifelike phoenix was seen on the engraved cup.

The empress glanced at Ren Baqian, “Will this type of battle give me any problem? Go and handle your own affairs.”

Her eyes showed some appreciation and joy.

Ren Baqian was no longer a weakling that needed to be protected like before.

He was starting to become capable of taking charge now.

“Yes!” Ren Baqian replied. He knew that the empress would be fine, but he still needed to show his concern.

Subsequently, Ren Baqian checked with his people and found the casualties to be minimal.

Although these monkeys were strong and much stronger than ordinary people, they were far from the level of a Human Wheel expert.

These monkeys might have had a chance to win if they were facing an army in disarray, but the insect soldiers didn’t have much of an effect because their secret was uncovered. Moreover, the huge elephants were also routed by a few flashbangs. Due to the fact that Ren Baqian correctly anticipated these attacks, the monkeys were facing an almost intact army.

The flashbangs blinded many of them, and the rest fled. Many bone spears were hurled, but only ten or so unlucky soldiers were hit by them. A few received some scratches, but the overall damage was small.

After taking stock of the situation, Xi Wanya and the others came back.

“Those as*holes ran away rather quickly!” Qing Ping scolded.

“Not even one is left?” Ren Baqian asked casually. He observed that the three of them were unharmed.

Upon learning about the incidents that occurred after they left, they asked about the casualty numbers and looked at Ren Baqian approvingly. In times of need, this fellow was indeed reliable! No wonder the empress was so enamored with him. However, they still felt that the most beautiful flower in Dayao was planted on a pile of cow dung.

“The snake that I saw last time was also around. I was almost bitten by it this time!” Zong Shen said.

“It is a Mangshan!” Lin Qiaole wasn’t around, so Ren Baqian corrected him on her behalf.

“Haha, that girl!” Hearing this, they were reminded of Lin Qiaole and laughed in succession.

Hong Luan appeared beside them in a few moves and said in a clear and melodious voice, “Protector General Xi, the empress said that it is time to set out!”

After traveling for more than two hours, they came to a place near a hill.

“Sir, there are marks left behind by the elephant soldiers—at least one or two hundred of them!” a baihu reported.

Ren Baqian followed the baihu behind the hill and saw many messy footprints. It looked like they had stopped here not too long ago and were getting ready to launch a sudden attack once the aboriginal army arrived.

The elephant soldiers might have been forced to retreat because the aboriginals had suffered almost no losses in the forest. The other possibility was that they had discovered that Ren Baqian had a weapon that countered the elephant soldiers.

Ren Baqian saw these marks and pondered deeply.

These huge elephant soldiers were enormously big and strong. If one or two hundred of them were to charge at their army, it would be like a mountain falling on them.

If they were to confront each other with the elephant soldiers in front of their army, the aboriginals would suffer great losses even if they won the battle.

Fortunately, he had enough flashbangs to restrain these huge elephants.

However, after wiping out the Six Doors, he desired to obtain the method of training these elephant soldiers.

These animals were equivalent to this world’s tanks!