Chapter 759

On the long, ancient wilderness road leading to the Central Plains in the south, thousands of sturdy Hequ warhorses and countless fat cattle and sheep were like an out-of-control, yellowish-brown tsunami, galloping and crushing the hard ground.

The dust raised by this suffocatingly massive flood of migration formed a turbid earth dragon in mid-air that connected the sky and the earth, visible even from dozens of miles away.

The originally howling cold wind on the grassland was cut to pieces by the resonance of these ten thousand iron hooves; the air was filled with the heavy panting of livestock and the pungent smell of manure.

This massive movement of troops, which even a blind man could perceive, inevitably alerted a remnant force of a thousand Rouran grain transporters wandering in the nearby wilderness.

The commander of this remnant force was an extremely conceited Rouran noble general who hated Southerners to the bone; he was lurking greedily behind a giant rock on a dangerous hillside known as Luoyan Valley.

His eyes, which appeared exceptionally sharp and filled with malice from years of being polished by wind and sand, stared fixedly at the massive wealth convoy slowly entering the long, narrow valley; his shriveled tongue couldn't help but lick his chapped lips.

"Eternal Blue Sky bless us; I don't know which blind horse thieves these are, daring to take advantage of the Khan leading the main force to fight at Jinshan to run off and rob our Rouran pastures."

The noble general gripped the heavy curved saber in his hand, its hilt meticulously polished from animal bone, and turned to let out a suppressed, ferocious laugh at the Rouran remnants beside him, who were so hungry their faces were sallow and their eyes glowed green.

"These idiots actually dare to drag so many cattle, sheep, and warhorses through this dead end of Luoyan Valley. As long as we block the valley entrance and use our proud horse archery to kill these bastards who don't know death, this immense wealth of warhorses will become our most dazzling stepping stone before the Khan."

The mind of this general, who fancied himself familiar with the terrain, was completely blinded by the gold-shimmering wealth, clouding his most basic military judgment; he delusionally attempted to swallow this elite iron cavalry whole with his thousand-plus remnant soldiers.

Within the narrow section of Luoyan Valley, which resembled the mouth of a gourd, Lu Ming rode his big black horse at the very front of the convoy to hold the line; his keen intuition, honed by years of walking on the edge of life and death, instantly captured the faint movement of several rocks rolling abnormally on the cliffs on both sides.

His eyes, as large as copper bells, narrowed slightly, revealing a cold, murderous aura that saw through every conspiracy.

Instead of immediately raising his arm to issue a defensive order to stop the march, Lu Ming's rugged, violent face pulled into an extremely exaggerated, cruel, and bloodthirsty cold smile that would make one's liver and gallbladder split.

He used his thick fingers to gently soothe the mane on the neck of the big black horse beneath him, which was becoming restless; his deep voice suppressed the terrifying volcanic magma about to erupt.

"Since there are wandering ghosts who don't know death daring to block our path to wealth, then we shall be merciful and scatter their ashes clean in this Luoyan Valley."

Lu Ming tore off the red tassel from his helmet and gripped the iron-forged horse lance, capable of splitting monuments and cracking rocks, with both hands steadily; the sharp lance tip refracted points of deathly light that harvested lives in the sunlight.

"All units, ignore the cattle and sheep; immediately form up for me and crush the bones of these grassland bastards inch by inch under our horse hooves."

Following this domineering military order, the three thousand Xiazhou elite cavalry did not show even a hint of panic.

Like a precisely structured and cold-blooded killing machine, they instantly completed a formation change in the narrow valley; the soldiers pulled down their masks in unison and held their long spears and sabers level in front of their chests, forming an impassable steel forest.

The skirmish erupted amidst the shrill, piercing sound of a Rouran whistling arrow rising into the sky.

The Rouran noble general shrieked arrogantly, leading his thousand-plus cavalrymen wielding curved sabers as they swooped down from the hillside.

But when the distance between the two sides closed to less than a hundred paces, the general's face, filled with excited red flushes, instantly turned as pale as paper, and a shock and despair like falling into an ice cellar surged in the depths of his eyes.

He was horrified to discover that what was charging toward him was not some undisciplined, looting rabble, but a group of iron monsters with extreme physical stamina, both men and horses clad in arrow-proof soft armor.

Lu Ming was like an invincible demon god crossing over from an ancient battlefield; he took the lead and crashed directly into the loose, disorganized charge formation of the Rouran people.

The hundred-jin iron-forged horse lance in his hands swung in a black whirlwind of death; every heavy, unadorned strike brought up a shocking spray of flesh, limbs, and the ear-piercing sound of bones exploding.

The extremely unreasonable, terrifying weight and kinetic energy of Lu Ming and his horse easily tore through the Rouran people's already fragile defense line like wet, broken paper; he forcibly carved out a dark red alley of flesh and blood through the enemy formation with corpses.

The Rouran noble general attempted to use the hit-and-run horse archery tactics that grassland cavalry were most proud of to drag out the fight; he twisted his body on the horse's back in extreme distress, trying to draw his heavy bow.

Lu Ming didn't give him the slightest chance to catch his breath or open up any distance.

At that moment, the big black horse erupted with terrifying, extreme explosive power; its four iron hooves dug deep pits into the ground, and its entire massive body crossed several yards like an arrow released from a string, closing in on the side of the general.

The muscles in Lu Ming's arms tore through his outer coarse cloth sleeves from the excessive force; the massive iron-forged horse lance, accompanied by a piercing sonic boom, smashed down violently from above.

This strike, heavy as Mount Tai, directly shattered the curved saber the general tried to use to block, and along with it, smashed his skull—wrapped in a felt hat—into pieces, just like smashing a ripe watermelon.

The remaining force of the lance smashed fiercely onto the spine of the Rouran warhorse; the horse let out a shrill, miserable cry and was directly crushed to the ground by this immense force.

This Rouran noble general, who had been so arrogant just a moment ago, was smashed into a pool of blood-colored meat, where one could not distinguish torso from viscera, in this short encounter.

The instant, tragic death of their commander completely shattered the last courage of the thousand-plus Rouran remnants; this blocking force disintegrated rapidly like snow under the sun.

The surviving Rouran people threw away their weapons and cried out, trying to climb the steep cliffs on both sides to escape, but they were caught up by the red-eyed Xiazhou elite, who mercilessly poked countless transparent blood holes in their backs with horizontal sabers and long spears.

This one-sided slaughter, which had no suspense, lasted no more than half a stick of incense; those Rouran remnants who didn't know death all turned into inconspicuous, broken, withered bones on this path of massive wealth transfer. Lu Ming didn't even bother to take a second look, waved his hand, and led the team to continue galloping south.

And while this one-sided massacre was taking place, the scene cruelly switched to the Rouran main force retreating eastward.

The biting, bone-chilling cold wind from beyond the frontier rolled up sand and dust, lashing mercilessly at the Rouran soldiers who were covered in wounds and had lost their armor and weapons.

A suffocating aura of decay permeated the entire marching column; the painful groans of wounded soldiers and the weary neighing of warhorses intertwined, and the atmosphere, suppressed to the extreme, was simply mournful.

Yun Geti, like a walking corpse that had lost its soul, lay listlessly on the back of a warhorse that was equally gaunt and bony.

His face, covered in wind, frost, and blood, was as pale as paper; listening to his subordinate generals report that the Turkic people had no intention of pursuing, his riddled heart was still pathetically fantasizing about a last shred of survival.

"As long as we can hold on to our last breath and retreat to the Heishui Horse Grounds, relying on the tens of thousands of warhorses and sufficient grain supplies hoarded there, we can recuperate for three to five years and make a comeback!"

Yun Geti muttered to himself with his dry, shriveled lips, trying to use this delusional hope to anesthetize his nerves, which had been completely shattered by defeat.

Just on this extremely desperate journey home, several remnant soldiers covered in black ash and blood suddenly stumbled onto the horizon.

Seeing the tattered Rouran royal banner, they acted as if they had seen a life-saving straw, rushing through the outer guards, tumbling and crawling, and kneeling heavily before Yun Geti's weary horse hooves with several thuds.

"Khan, it's all over; the roots of our Rouran people have been completely severed!"

The leading remnant soldier cried heart-wrenchingly; he used his dirty hands to beat the cold mud, throwing out the bolt from the blue that would cast the entire Rouran tribe into the eighteenth level of hell in an extremely cruel manner.

"The Heishui Horse Grounds have been completely looted by an elite iron cavalry flying the Zhou State banner; the garrison commander inside was nailed to a pillar by a short spear."

The remnant soldier trembled violently from extreme terror, his voice shrill like a night owl crying blood.

"All fifty thousand premium Hequ horses were snatched away by them, and even the cellar of the forging camp was dug three feet deep; hundreds of blacksmiths and unopened iron ore are all gone."

This sentence was like a heavy, powerful club, smashing solidly onto the back of Yun Geti's head.

His eyes, which had originally been devoid of spirit, instantly bulged to the extreme; the scabs on the corners of his eyes were torn open again, and bright red blood flowed wildly down his withered cheeks.

"Fifty thousand warhorses, all gone; our weapon forging camp has also been taken."

A very unpleasant, wheezing sound, like a broken bellows being pulled, came from Yun Geti's throat; the tough bowstring of reason in his mind could not withstand these successive destructive blows at this moment, and it snapped completely and irreversibly.

In his turbid mind, he uncontrollably recalled the top-secret letter left by the Qi State secret agent Li Yu, as well as the generous rhetoric of the Great Qi when they sent those fine weapons.

In this desperate moment when all his foundations were pulled out by the roots, this brave but brainless grassland Khan finally tasted the endless calculations and vicious killing traps behind it in this extremely painful lesson of blood.

From beginning to end, this was all a peerless, chain-linked poisonous scheme used by Xiazhou Governor Chen Yan to borrow a knife to kill, consume the Turkic foundation, and finally show up to loot the Rouran nest.

"The Zhou people are treacherous and evil; the dog thief Chen Yan has deceived me too much."

Yun Geti raised his head, covered in sand and dust, and let out a miserable howl toward the hazy sky, shrill to the extreme, like a vengeful ghost demanding a life.

Under the extreme anger of this race-exterminating crisis, the churning blood in his chest could no longer be suppressed; he opened his mouth and spat out three mouthfuls of pitch-black heart blood mixed with visceral fragments.

The enemy's exasperation and impotent rage formed an extremely ironic and cruel contrast with the invincible iron cavalry of Xiazhou, returning leisurely and laden with immense wealth in the cold wind of the desolate desert.

Yun Geti's body, like an old sack emptied of its cotton, fell heavily from his horse's back, instantly sinking into the abyss of a coma from which he did not know when he would wake.