Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 1777: Chapter 566: Entering Guangning, Reprimanding Yuwen Dao

“In the two great battles at the Bone-Eroding Path, of Cai Qiu’s two hundred thousand troops, more than half were Town Guard soldiers, each with strength above 10 Earth Digging, and that was the core reason the first battle on the southern flank suffered such heavy losses!”

Hou Bing was currently coordinating with Yuwen Yong to jointly deal with Cai Yunzhou. The famed Cai Qiu Sword Saint truly possessed extraordinary power. If the two of them did not work together to pin him down, letting Cai Yunzhou rush into the battle formation below, he might not completely reverse the current situation, but inflicting massive casualties on the Xia Army soldiers would be all too easy.

Of course, his and Yuwen Yong’s goal was only to contain; killing him was definitely impossible.

Thus, while restraining Cai Yunzhou, Hou Bing had been using the corner of his eye to keep track of the battle below. Seeing the twenty thousand Xia Army troops on the northern side singing all the way as they advanced, cutting into the heart of the Cai Qiu Army’s formation, his expression immediately relaxed.

At the same time, he also figured out why, in the southern battle at the Bone-Eroding Path the night before last, the Xia Army’s losses far exceeded anything before.

The Town Guard soldiers of the Four Vassals all had strength above 10 Earth Digging, whereas in Great Xia, the only forces currently at that level were the Cloud Jiao and Long Wu Numbered Armies, plus a Dragon Forbidden Captain. The rest—even the top-ranked Dragon Slayer and Tiger Leopard—had average soldier strength only above 6 Earth Digging.

One must know that in that southern battle, of Cai Qiu’s two hundred thousand troops, more than half were Town Guard soldiers. In terms of individual soldiers alone, they surpassed Great Xia by far.

Fortunately, Great Xia was defending, and on top of that Yuwen Dao had temporarily transferred over more than a hundred thousand Earth-digging Realm cultivators to support. With the Lord present and fourteen Beast Emperor Puppets on the field, otherwise, whether they could have held that night would truly have been uncertain.

As for the seventy thousand troops stationed at Guangning Mountain, earlier he hadn’t dared send scouts for close observation. Only now, after fighting his way in and roughly sensing them, did he realize that the soldiers’ strength was generally only above 6 Earth Digging, with a small portion even below 6 Earth Digging.

In other words, this army stationed at Guangning Mountain was merely Cai Qiu’s lowest-grade County Guard Army. Considering that the previous great battle had already drained much of Bai Shui County’s overall military strength, it was highly likely this seventy thousand were temporarily cobbled together by Cai Yunzhou.

“Absolutely thrown together—the level of this battle formation is worlds apart from the Cai Qiu forces that participated in the two Bone-Eroding Path battles! Heaven itself is helping us, hahahahaha…”

Like Hou Bing, Yuwen Yong was also observing the situation below. Seeing the Cai Qiu Army being beaten into retreat step by step, his own forces breaking through the camp from the north and already linking up with Hou Bing’s army on the eastern side, while the ninety-thousand-plus rebels on both wings were completely scattering the Cai Qiu troops, he couldn’t help bursting into elated laughter.

Yuwen Yong’s laughter instantly tore through the entire battlefield.

Cai Qiu’s Xianyang Level experts numbered at least twenty. Yet facing tens of thousands, after killing for a while, they could only ascend into the sky to evade.

Even the sky was not necessarily safe, because behind them the Xia Army’s Divine Machine Crossbows had already been quietly set up and were continuously shooting rapidly at them.

“Hahahahaha…”

Yuwen Yong’s laughter sounded unbearably grating to Cai Yunzhou’s ears. His face flushed red, the Heaven-pulling Sword Technique in his hand driven to the extreme, and his killing intent toward Yuwen Yong and Hou Bing surged to its peak.

Clang…

It was just a pity that although his sword edge struck the two countless times, to the point of nearly destroying all the armor on their bodies, no matter what he did he simply could not pierce the Skin Membrane beneath their armor, let alone the flesh and bone beneath that.

“Cai Yunzhou’s strength is at least above 28 Jun. If not for the Dragon Shedding Armor, even together we probably wouldn’t be his match!”

From the corner of his eye, Yuwen Yong glimpsed the Dragon Shedding Armor beneath his cuirass and frowned slightly.

His Basic Strength was only 7 Jun. Counting Holy Pattern and Martial Arts, at most he could exert about 12 Jun of power; Hou Bing was even weaker, with Basic Strength only 5 Jun.

In a direct confrontation, even with the Dragon Shedding Armor counted in, the combined strength of him and Hou Bing still would not match Cai Yunzhou. But at this moment the Xia Army was in full unstoppable momentum. The two sought only to contain Cai Yunzhou and naturally would not meet him head-on. Instead, they stayed in the low-altitude zone, relying on the giant crossbow arrows fired by the Divine Machine Crossbows and the assistance of the low-flying soldiers, constantly harassing Cai Yunzhou and preventing him from influencing the battle below.

The Xianyang Level forces deployed by Great Xia for this battle were of course not limited to just the two of them. Lu Yin, Hou Ying, Zhang Qingyuan, Meng Yi, Hong Guang and others were all present. Like the two, they didn’t go all out against Cai Qiu’s Xianyang Level experts, but merely disrupted them, denying them any chance to enter the main battlefield below.

Originally, a camp raid sought a swift victory.

Yet the current situation was exactly the reverse.

Cai Qiu, certain that Great Xia would not continue advancing north, simply hadn’t transferred any more troops over. Thus the seventy thousand stationed at Guangning Mountain had absolutely no external reinforcements.

Great Xia was different. Every Xia Army soldier knew that the Xia Army’s main force was currently camped at River Valley Village fifteen kilometers to the south. So the longer they fought, the more advantageous it was for them.

The Lord might well have already received the news and was watching from the sky right now.

With that in mind, the Xia Army soldiers naturally charged and killed with even greater fervor.

By contrast, Cai Qiu’s soldiers on one hand saw their formations collapsing in wild rout, and on the other knew the Xia Army’s main force was nearby. As time slowly passed, their hearts grew ever more despairing, their fighting spirit visibly dissipating at a speed almost tangible to the naked eye.

“Guangning Mountain… will be lost as well…”

At this moment, Cai Yunzhou’s heart was also dominated by despair. Watching the carnage befalling the Cai Qiu Army, a grayish-white flicker passed through his pupils, as if he could already see his uncle Cai Qiuhu’s furious outburst.