Chapter 1146: Chaotic Orders
The water flowed with a tinkling sound, the wooden ladle lay sideways, and that basin of green leaves still hadn't returned. Tonight's dinner was as simple as ever.
Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi ate faster than usual. For the former, this was a rare occurrence.
From this, one could imagine how important the dossiers they were about to read and the matters they were to discuss tonight truly were.
The dinner plates on the table were cleared away. An Hua brought green orange water for them to rinse their mouths, along with steaming hot towels.
In the corner of the side hall, dossiers were piled like a small mountain. The few they needed to look at had already been selected and organized.
The night was deep, the hall silent. Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi stared at the dossiers in their hands, saying nothing for a long time.
They had long known the final outcome of that battle, but only now were they seeing many of the details.
No one had expected that the Prince of Xiang would silently abandon the thirty thousand soldiers in the right camp of the Western Army and sneak alone to the vicinity of Nuo Ri Lang Peak.
Taking advantage of the mutual devastation between the Demon General and Wang Po, he leaped out from the sun and launched the most decisive attack of his life.
If this ambush had succeeded, his unauthorized departure from the camp would have been a trivial matter, and he would have gained the greatest merit of the war so far.
Whether the Prince of Xiang wanted to use this merit to exchange for Chen Liu Wang's departure from the capital or for honors like an iron exemption plaque, it would have been very easy.
Perhaps it was precisely this thought that drove the Prince of Xiang to make such a reckless and fearless move.
Unfortunately, he still underestimated the Demon General's strength.
Wang Po was severely wounded and could no longer fight.
The Demon General was indeed quite injured, but he wasn't burned to death by that blazing sun.
The darkness in the valley became his weapon at the critical moment.
Those who witnessed that scene were struck speechless.
Unwilling to retreat just like that, the Prince of Xiang turned his ambush into a direct assault.
The Demon General, at the cost of his mount, the Inverted Mountain Tusker, fled from the top of Nuo Ri Lang Peak.
Standing atop the dead Inverted Mountain Tusker, the Prince of Xiang watched the Demon General fleeing north, his confidence reignited, and the assault turned into a pursuit.
This chase stretched over six hundred li, but he still couldn't kill the Demon General, because the Black Robe had set up a formation there, along with four high-ranking demon generals waiting for him.
If the Li Mountain Sect Leader hadn't arrived in time, the Prince of Xiang might have died on the spot.
Even so, the Prince of Xiang and the Li Mountain Sect Leader were still surrounded.
Suddenly, a huge kite flew across the sky.
……
……
No one knew if Xiao Zhang was injured or where he had gone.
Just as no one knew where Zhe Xiu was now or what he was doing.
Some people were used to fighting alone.
Since the war began, this was the most magnificent battle among Saint Realm experts, and it ended here.
The demon race suffered heavy casualties. Of the four high-ranking demon generals who besieged the Prince of Xiang and the Li Mountain Sect Leader, only two survived. They also lost one member of the Council of Elders and one prince.
On the human side, no experts fell, but Mao Qiuyu and the Taoist Nun Huairen were severely wounded, and the Li Mountain Sect Leader's injuries were especially grave.
Gou Hanshi said, "My master has returned to Li Mountain to recover. The other seniors also need some time to rest before they can return to the front lines."
Saint Realm experts are hard to kill, unless they are surrounded or face an existence of a higher realm like the Heavenly Sea Holy Empress.
But if the injuries are too severe, they are forced to halt their advance. Wang Po was the same.
In Chen Changsheng's view, this was the Black Robe's intention.
Even at a terrible cost, he wanted to temporarily neutralize the human Saint Realm experts, preventing them from acting at full strength at least before winter.
Without Saint Realm experts, the human army's advance would be greatly hindered. Compared to the original plan, their already slow progress would be delayed even further.
When the human army finally reached the foot of Snow Old City, would the swirling snowflakes give them any chance?
Using the deaths of two Saint Realm experts and two high-ranking demon generals to buy a dozen or so days in the overall strategy—this kind of decisiveness was not something ordinary people possessed.
Every time they thought of this, Chen Changsheng and Gou Hanshi felt a sense of wariness toward the young Demon Lord, and even a hint of respect.
The most terrifying was still the Black Robe.
Looking back at the events, he must have calculated all the details before and after the battle between the Demon General and Wang Po.
He predicted which human experts would appear, and even foresaw that the Prince of Xiang would leave the Western Camp without authorization.
It could only be said that his understanding of the human heart had reached a terrifying level.
If the war around Nuo Ri Lang Peak had ended like this, the Black Robe could have at least declared victory in the second phase of the campaign.
But in fact, he lost.
The human army broke through the demon race's second line of defense earlier than expected.
Before summer had fully ended, the three cavalrymen at the very front had already glimpsed the outline of Snow Old City in the distance.
Because during the Battle of Nuo Ri Lang Peak, some unexpected changes occurred on the battlefield.
The most important person in determining victory or defeat was the human army's commander, General He Ming.
Everyone thought that General He Ming's appointment as commander was a product of political compromise, or perhaps a chaotic order from the impulsive minds of the Emperor and the Pope, this pair of master and disciple.
Moreover, just like in the war hundreds of years ago, ordinary soldiers—except for the Black Armored Heavy Cavalry—had little impact on the war's outcome, unless you were Wang Zhice.
But General He Ming played a very important role in this war.
That day, when the battle was at its most intense, the grasslands stretching hundreds of li before the mountain were entirely a battlefield for Saint Realm experts.
General He Ming placed his central command tent at the very front. This seemed like an unwise decision, especially at that moment.
The battles of Saint Realm experts and the aftershocks of their terrifying power could also cause great harm to ordinary soldiers.
Protected by formations that blocked the auras of the Saint Realm experts, the soldiers kept fighting back against the demon wolf cavalry, but the situation had become very dangerous. The howling wind, like an invisible plow, tore through tents and sent stones flying, leaving countless soldiers bloodied and battered.
The central command tent was ripped open with a huge gash. Wind and sand poured in constantly. The tallow candles had long gone out, leaving only the night pearls to emit light, illuminating the dim maps. General He Ming stared at the map, his expression extremely calm, issuing orders one after another, and the messengers would dash out.
Each charge of the demon wolf cavalry brought them closer to the central command tent.
During the last assault, the massive alpha wolf was less than two li from the tent.
Ye Xiaolian looked at General He Ming's profile, her expression complicated.
She had repeatedly suggested retreating, but General He Ming never agreed.
What puzzled her even more was that after a certain order, even the Holy Light Crossbows, which were responsible for suppressing the wolf cavalry's charges, had become much sparser.
The sword formation composed of over three hundred disciples of the Southern Stream Academy was stationed just outside the camp.
Even if the wolf cavalry charged in, or even if that prince from Snow Old City who was fighting the Grandmaster outside the camp attacked, she was confident she could protect this general.
The problem was, how many Southern Stream Academy disciples would die?
Just as she was pondering these questions, General He Ming suddenly asked one.
At that moment, everyone in the tent found the question very strange.
"Where is the Demon Race's Pingbei Camp?"
A staff officer hesitated for a moment and replied, "Reported two days ago, they have left Cong Province."
"Just left Cong Province, huh."
General He Ming sighed, looking very regretful, and said, "Too far away. We'll have to do it ourselves."
Ye Xiaolian was very puzzled. Even if the demon race's reinforcements had arrived long ago, could they appear to save you now?
Stories of tens of thousands of cavalry charging out of a canyon were just stories after all.
Unless, like the demon race, you set up formation passages hundreds of years in advance, it was hard to pull off such an ambush in a world where red eagles and demon vultures flew together.
"After they finish fighting, it will be our turn."
General He Ming looked up, his gaze piercing through the torn tent roof and landing on the sky.
There, thick black smoke swirled, massive figures loomed faintly within, and bright sword lights seemed to come from another world.
That was the world of Saint Realm experts.
Ye Xiaolian still didn't understand what General He Ming meant.
She instinctively looked toward the darkest corner of the tent.