Chapter 2258: Chapter 2258 The First Victory
Ye Liuyun’s soldiers were seasoned veterans of the Dark Legion.
The reorganization and integration of the troops went smoothly and they quickly adapted to each other, meeting the training requirements in terms of coordination.
Only then did Ye Liuyun order the army to set out. However, they did not march on foot. Instead, they boarded the warships forged from Black Gold, allowing the soldiers to familiarize themselves with the controls of these vessels.
The provincial governors sent by Ruan Haotian were confined to a cabin by Ye Liuyun every day. The room was shielded from divine sense detection and guards were stationed to ensure they could not move freely. They had no idea what was happening outside.
Some even feared that Ye Liuyun’s bold move of traveling by warship was suicidal and they worried they would be dragged down with him.
Two days later, the warships were stowed away and the army resumed marching on foot. The overseers were shocked to discover that they had covered four days’ worth of distance in just two days.
It was clear that Ye Liuyun’s warships were at least twice as fast as ordinary ones.
Ye Liuyun sent his clone ahead with Devil beasts like the Long-tailed Glede, Twin-headed Easgle and the Mantis, along with black gold golems, to scout the path. Meanwhile, he had the Devil Vine burrowed underground in advance to assist the clone in eliminating the enemy’s hidden sentries.
He then assigned three hundred soldiers to escort the one hundred overseers, moving slowly at the rear, while he led the main force ahead.
The fifty thousand foreign race force on the western front were resting, confident in their numerical superiority. The human race rarely organized counterattacks involving tens of thousands of troops.
Moreover, their position posed no immediate threat to any human faction on the battlefield, so they never expected a large-scale ambush.
When Ye Liuyun launched his attack, many of the enemy’s elite warriors were still in the midst of cultivation or deep in slumber. They were caught off guard and swiftly devoured by the Devil Vine’s sudden assault.
Ye Liuyun tried to minimise his own energy expenditure by deploying the Devil-sealing Stele to suppress the enemy’s experts.
Some even tried to persuade their minor commander, Han Mo, to lead them in an escape attempt. But Han Mo shook his head, his expression grim. "Haven’t you noticed? This army’s tactics and coordination are formidable. Their formation attacks are not something we can easily overcome. Besides, they outnumber us three to one, and they have warships that can chase us down. The odds of us succeeding are slim. If we fail to escape, they’ll label us deserters, and that’ll give them even more reason to kill us."
War chariots and golems rampaged through the enemy’s camps, while alora crystal cannons bombarded the resting troops, leaving them disoriented. Some enemies attempted to break through the encirclement, only to be mowed down by the volleys of energy cannons mounted on the the Beastmen’s gilded armor.
The leaders of the foreign races were swiftly eliminated by the Devil-sealing stele and devil vine.
Those foreign race experts who managed to slip through the cracks attempted to break out, only to be annihilated by the formations of the Beastman troop. Some of the stronger ones tried to attack the war chariots, but their efforts were futile against the chariots’ impenetrable defenses and they were hunted down and obliterated by the relentless machines instead.
The battlefield was a cacophony of explosions, foreign races’ roars and howls. Yet, the Beastman troop continued to tighten their encirclement, methodically closing in on their foes.
In this brutal conflict with the foreign races, there was no room for prisoners. Both sides would fight to the last man.
From a distance, the group of detained overseers could hear the sounds of battle raging ahead and their hearts were filled with dread.
This kind of large scale confrontations with the foreign races were not something they were accustomed to. Most of their previous skirmishes had been guerrilla-style engagements.
Some of the soldiers secretly communicated through their divine senses, whispering among themselves. "Ye Liuyun is out of his mind! He’s willing to sacrifice these twenty thousand soldiers rather than apologize to our grand commander!"
"Exactly! What a waste of these twenty thousand lives! How long could they have held out against the foreign races? Now they’re all going to be wiped out in one swoop!"
"Sigh! It doesn’t matter who becomes the Prince of God or the grand commander. In the end, it’s always us soldiers who suffer. We’re just pawns in their game!" The soldiers lamented in hushed tones.
Some even tried to persuade their minor commander, Han Mo, to lead them in an escape attempt.
But Han Mo shook his head and grimmed. "Haven’t you noticed? This army’s tactics and coordination are formidable. Their formation attacks are not something we can easily overcome.
Besides, they outnumber by threefold and they have warships that can chase us down. The odds of us succeeding are slim.
If we fail to escape, they’ll label us as deserters and that’ll give them even more reason to kill us."
Thus, the hundred or so men had no choice but to remain as prisoners, awaiting for Ye Liuyun’s orders.
After several hours, the sounds of battle gradually subsided. It was only then that the soldiers of the Dark Legion, who were guarding them, received their orders to march the prisoners forward.
On the battlefield, the Beastman troop had already unleashed their fury upon the majority of the foreign races and then they charged forward themselves to revel in the carnage.
There were only a few thousand remnants of the foreign forces remained. Those were left for the Dark Legion soldiers to practice their skills upon.
The Beastman troop had been withdrawn into the spatial world by the clone while the Devil-sealing stele and Devil Vine had already been retrieved by Ye Liuyun.
The Dark Legion was under Yuan Hao’s leadership to take over from the Beastman troop to continue encirlced the remaining enemies.
Han Mo and the soldiers thought they were being sent to their deaths.
They trembled as they asked. "Are we going to fight too?"
A minor commander of the Dark Legion sneered seeing their fear. "We’ve received orders that the battle is nearly over. You lot are considered ’overseers,’ so you need to witness the results firsthand."
"What? It’s ending? Who won?" The soldiers interjected.
"Isn’t it obvious? When has our Dark Legion ever lost a battle? If we had lost, would you even have the chance to see the results?"
The soldiers of the Dark Legion rarely spoke during missions, let alone divulged any information. But the ignorance of these men made the commander unable to resist saying a few more words.
He then fell silent without uttering another word and escorted them towards the battlefield.
The soldiers could not believe that in just half a day, their twenty thousand troops could defeat fifty thousand of foreign races.
"Could it be that the foreign race army has relocated?"
They secretly speculated whether the foreign race army had already left this area for rest and recuperation.
But when they arrived at the battlefield and released their divine sense, they discovered Ye Liuyun, his clone and Yuan Hao leading some early nighth realm soldiers, finishing off the last of the foreign race. It was clear that they were using them as practice.
The perimeter was tightly secured by squads of soldiers from the Dark Legion, forming an impenetrable barrier.
The foreign race encampment lay in utter ruin, with corpses scattered across the battlefield.
The sight left the soldiers utterly dumbfounded.
"Did they really win?"
"All fifty thousand foreign race were wiped out?"
Ye Liuyun and his clone had honed and elevated their sword intention during the battle, leaving them in high spirits.
As the fighting subsided, Ye Liuyun and Yuan Hao along with their men, retreated with their bodies covered with blood. Spotting the arrival of the "overseers," Ye Liuyun instructed Yuan Hao to hand them a sound transmission talisman, ordering them to report the outcome to Ruan Haotian.
Upon hearing Ye Liuyun’s demand, Han Mo promptly complied and delivered an accurate report to Ruan Haotian as instructed.
"You’re not under Ye Liuyun’s control, are you? Did you sign a master-servant contract with him?" Ruan Haotian was skeptical as his tone laced with suspicion that Han Mo had fallen under Ye Liuyun’s control.
