Chapter 525: War
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
As soon as the Red Flame Battalion entered the shooting range of the crossbows, the wall of light appeared again. Arrows rained on them.
These arrows weren’t very destructive. The thing was, they could be shot repeatedly. They would finally reach the battalion the same way an ant would bite an elephant to death.
Although the Red Flame Battalion was in the fire cloud of their formation, it didn’t mean their defense was perfect.
The rain of arrows could tear the fire cloud apart in a few seconds. The Red Flame Battalion had to figure a way to avoid this.
The fire cloud transformed into wild flames, ignoring the rain of arrows.
The arrows were shot into the flames, but they were burnt down to ashes while travelling through the outer layer.
“No wonder.”
Zhao Wenhao finally realized what was going on. The Red Flame Battalion didn’t need any help because they could destroy those arrows with merely the high temperature of the flames.
Since when had the Cooling Formation become so powerful? And after they’d lost so many men.
Anyway, the Red Flame Battalion came to the thickest of the wall of light smoothly, floating over the city.
The flames transformed again. This time, they transformed into a fierce beast that was spitting fire. Flames, almost like liquid, attacked the city.
The wall of light disappeared, and people heard tragic screams coming from the city.
At the same time, armored soldiers dashed out of the city. Ten-odd men charged forward at the same speed.
All of them were in the Reaching Heaven State. Of course, they had their tactical formation, too. Halfway there, a thirty-foot-high chariot charged down from the sky, leaving tracks behind it that took a long time to vanish.
The front of the chariot was covered with long and sharp spears.
It wasn’t the only one. The same chariots appeared from other parts of the city, detouring towards the Red Flame Battalion.
“It’s the Dragon Rebel Army’s armed chariots!” Zhao Wenhao grew serious. He hadn’t expected to encounter such strong attacks here.
The Red Flame Battalion was too busy stopping the crossbows to deal with the charge of the chariots, so he led the Bright Moon Troop to join the battle.
The Holy Arrow Battalion changed their formation into a drawn bow with three giant arrows, aiming at the three chariots closest to the Red Flame Battalion.
Then the giant arrows. .h.i.t the chariots, but they weren’t destroyed. The shooting only made them tumble in the sky.
The Red Flame Battalion hastened to get themselves out of there as soon as they had the chance. The Bright Moon Troop happened to have arrived, and they moved towards the chariots.
“The Bright Moon Troop!”
“Retreat!”
The Dragon Rebel Army was still the same. They didn’t want to get stuck in the battle. Fighting back while retreating, they gave up the city on fire.
“Don’t chase them!” Zhao Wenhao ordered. Although they were at an advantage, they couldn’t forget about their task.
Some powerful-looking cannons were pushed out of the Bright Moon Troop. They aimed at the city and shot at it.
After a blare, the city walls collapsed first, followed by the other walls after. The whole city soon became ruins.
Jiang Chen wondered why they couldn’t have used the cannons earlier, but he realized it was because of the range of the cannons.
He suddenly missed his Devastator, which was much more powerful than these weapons.
I’m guessing the army wouldn’t allow me to spend too many resources on building things like that anyway.
Jiang Chen shrugged his shoulders. In his current position, he could incur fatal consequences by doing things like that.
“This credit will be given to the Red Flame Battalion!”
After confirming the city had been completely destroyed, he said to the Red Flame Battalion and the Holy Arrow Battalion, “Thirty thousand war merit points for the Red Flame Battalion and 8,000 for the Holy Arrow Battalion.”
It was fair enough to convince people.
The Holy Arrow Battalion didn’t have a second opinion. If the Red Flame Battalion hadn’t destroyed the crossbows, things wouldn’t have been as easy for them.
The soldiers of the Red Flame Battalion were all very excited. Most of them had no idea how it had happened, but they enjoyed the result.
“We exerted only half of the formation’s power?” Qiu Yan said in surprise after experiencing the power of the tactical formation for the first time.
“Yep,” Jiang Chen said. “If we had one more Venerable, the power would have doubled.”
The tactical formation’s power came from every soldier that formed it. It depended on each battalion’s strength as a whole.
The Red Flame Battalion was only one of the eight battalions of the lower troop. If he had the chance, Jiang Chen could enhance the fighting power of the whole Third Legion to a new level.
“Let’s go.”
Zhao Wenhao led the two battalions to advance.
Meanwhile, in the southwest of the basin came a spearhead battalion of the middle troops.
“Here. Deploy the ward!”
The Shadow Pursuing Troop, famous for its speed, often played an important role on the battlefield.
They always received the most credit and were never punished after battles.
That was the reason Zhang Tianyi had chosen to join them.
Even if he did nothing, as long as he stuck with the Shadow Pursuing Troop until the last minute, he would be given a lot of credit, and this would earn him a bright future when he returned to the dynasty.
The current task of the troop was to deploy a monitoring ward in the south.
When the monitoring wards went in all directions, the legion would have all of the information they needed about the basin, including the locations of each city.
However, they heard chariots coming from all around them even before they got the chance to land.
“Ambus.h.!.+”
The chariots of the Dragon Rebel Army flew over just when the Shadow Pursuing Troop blew their horns to warn everyone. There were thousands of them, charging aggressively.
The commander of the Shadow Pursuing Troop was a very thin middle-aged man. His face looked as resolute as an st.u.r.dy rock.
“Defense!”
He gave the order decisively and calmly.
The Shadow Pursuing Troop didn’t have too many people. They had only hundreds of soldiers, each carrying a triangular s.h.i.+eld.
When the commander had given his order, the soldiers flung their s.h.i.+elds out. These s.h.i.+elds danced rapidly around the troops until they connected to each other from end to end to form a perfect line of defense.
At the same time, there were some small holes left between s.h.i.+elds.
The armored soldiers inserted their spears into the holes. The whole troop was like a hedgehog in defense mode.
“Rotate!” the commander ordered. The Shadow Pursuing Troop started to show their formation.
The whole troop was rotating rapidly, too rapidly to be seen clearly. The solid s.h.i.+elds carried endless power, the sharp spears meant to tear the air apart.
The chariots charged down aggressively. Then they fell apart. The soldiers hiding in them were killed ruthlessly by the sharp weapons, each of them badly mutilated.
The Dragon Rebel Army showed their crazy side. Hundreds of chariots kept charging.
The Shadow Pursuing Troop kept rotating. However, under the ceaseless pus.h.i.+ng from the chariots, they were stuck in the air, unable to pull away.
In the meantime, giant stone throwers appeared on the ground.
“Gold stone chariots!”
“It’s a trap!”
The always confident Shadow Pursuing Troop suddenly realized how tricky the situation was. The lieutenants kept shouting.
The commander was the only one able to stay calm. He ordered, “Request reinforcements.”
What bad luck, Zhang Tianyi complained to himself. He had just joined this troop and they had already run into trouble.
Soon, the whole Third Legion received a message from the Shadow Pursuing Troop. The legion certainly wouldn’t allow it to be defeated like this without doing anything.
However, the wall of blue lights had split the basin into parts. Not everyone could come to their rescue easily.
“Whose battle group is on the southwest side?”
A battle group referred to a troop composed of forces from the middle troops and lower troops. This was how the Flying Dragon Dynasty undertook a military operation.