Chapter 909: Night raid hits the chain trap; night slaughter turns blood into a river

The pocket formation was shrinking. The iron shield wall rolled over from three sides toward the middle, each step making a muffled sound of crushing stones and mud. Long spears probed from above the shields at an angle as neat as thorns strung on a rope.

Qifugu's horse turned twice in place. The ground under the hooves was all muddy pits trampled out. The firelight all around clearly illuminated the fear of his five hundred cavalry. Some people started to retreat, horse buttocks bumping into horse buttocks, and the reins tangled together, unable to be pulled apart.

"Don't retreat!" Qifugu's curved saber slashed the air in the direction of Nuhe Ti's golden eagle banner in front. The sound squeezed out of his throat was so hoarse it was deformed. "He is right in front. Hack him, and everyone will live!"

No one responded to him.

Half of the five hundred cavalry were people who had lived through the ambush in Loose Stone Valley with him. These people had experienced one ambush and knew what it felt like to be surrounded, but in Loose Stone Valley, they were the side surrounding others, and today it was their turn.

The iron shield wall pushed to a distance of fifty steps.

Nuhe Ti rode under the golden eagle banner, his curved saber held horizontally without being lowered. The sound came from behind the iron armor formation and was sent to the ears of everyone in the pocket formation by the night wind.

"Qifugu, did you really think I couldn't guess how my vanguard died? Did you really think I wouldn't use the same method to deal with you?"

Qifugu did not reply; his teeth were clenched so tightly that the muscles on his cheeks were twitching. The way he gripped his curved saber changed from a horizontal hold to a reverse hold and back again. The blood on his left shoulder had soaked half of his iron armor black, and white flesh protruded from the torn wound beneath the bandage.

The iron shield wall pushed to thirty steps.

On the road he came from behind, another iron shield wall also closed in. Four iron walls trapped the five hundred cavalry and the hundred-plus scattered soldiers who had followed in a small open space less than two hundred steps square. The light of the torches shone from all four sides, illuminating every face red.

"Great Khan! Charge the right! That wall is thinner!" A cavalryman's voice exploded from the crowd, his curved saber pointing at the shield wall on the right.

Qifugu's horse head tilted toward the right side. His gaze swept over that shield wall, and the gaps between the shields were indeed two fingers wider than the other three sides, and the density of the long spears was also sparse by a few roots.

But he didn't charge.

Before Loose Stone Valley, Gao Jiong had taught him a sentence: surround three sides, leave one open. The path that looks like it can be run is the most fatal.

"Don't charge that side."

Qifugu pulled the horse head back to the front, and the curved saber pointed in Nuhe Ti's direction.

"Charge the front, charge the golden eagle banner. If we can't hack Nuhe Ti's head, no one will live today. If we charge a thin wall and get out, there is still a siege of twenty thousand people outside. We can't run!"

The horses of the five hundred cavalry squeezed and turned in the small space. Some people cursed, some shouted that the Great Khan was right. The noisy sounds merged together and were covered by the muffled sound of the iron armor pushing from afar.

The iron shield wall pushed to twenty steps.

The spear tips of the long spears could already reach the horse legs of the cavalry on the outermost periphery. One horse's front leg was pricked by a spear tip and jumped backward neighing, and the person on the horse almost fell off.

Qifugu kicked the horse's belly at this critical moment.

He didn't shout a slogan, didn't blow a horn, and didn't roar anything about living or dying. Both heels kicked the horse's belly with all his might, and the whole horse shot out from the spot like it had been hit by a whip, crashing toward the iron shield wall in front.

The curved saber drew an arc above his head.

The old brothers who had followed him the longest saw him charge, and without even thinking, kicked their horses and charged out. Twenty cavalry, thirty cavalry, fifty cavalry, like a chain broken by the first stone.

The muffled sound of Qifugu's horse crashing into the iron shield wall shook his whole body off the saddle. The bones in the horse's chest shattered, making a crisp cracking sound. The iron shield was pushed back half a step but didn't scatter. Long spears from both sides stabbed out from the gaps at the same time. One pierced the horse's neck, and one grazed the outer side of Qifugu's thigh, leaving a long cut from the hip to the knee.

The horse fell, and Qifugu flew off the horse's back, crashing into the bodies of the iron-armored soldiers behind the iron shield wall. The curved saber slashed in the air and hacked onto the shoulder armor of a soldier. Sparks burst from the contact surface of the iron and the collision.

When he landed, his knees hit a stone, and a dull pain came from that position. He didn't care. The posture of his knees hitting the ground directly turned into a squat. The curved saber swept upward from bottom to top. The blade drilled in from under the skirt armor of the iron-armored soldier and sliced open the inner thigh artery. Blood sprayed from the gaps in the armor like a pot of warm black water knocked over by someone.

More cavalry behind crashed into the iron shield wall. Some horses were stabbed to death by long spears, some cavalry flew off their horses, and some were blocked outside the shield wall with their people and horses, unable to get in. But there were always a few people who, like Qifugu, used their bodies, knives, and the corpses of horses to squeeze into the gaps of the shield wall.

The iron shield wall was torn open from the inside.

The gap wasn't big, only enough for three people to pass side-by-side, but the Qifu tribe cavalry behind poured toward that gap like black ants smelling blood, charging in regardless of anything. People in front were stabbed to death by long spears, and people behind stepped on the corpses to continue charging. The corpses were piled as high as a low wall, and people were still climbing up.

Nuhe Ti's personal guards filled in from behind the shield wall. Curved sabers and iron shields blocked the gap again, only to be torn open again, blocked again, and torn open again. Under the firelight, that gap was like a mouth that kept opening and closing, swallowing a few lives every time it closed, and spitting out a ground of minced meat every time it opened.

On the larger battlefield outside the iron shield wall, Amu Ri's vanguard and the three thousand-plus people on both wings were also being cut and surrounded.

Nuhe Ti's twenty thousand men didn't charge all at once; it was a precise cutting and encirclement, dividing the Qifu tribe cavalry who rushed into the continuous camp into more than a dozen small groups. Three or four hundred people surrounded each group from all sides, iron shields closed in from all four sides, and long spears stabbed from all eight directions, as if using iron bowls to scoop fish in the water one by one.

Amu Ri led the fiercest hundred cavalry of the vanguard and rushed to a position nearly two hundred steps deep into the continuous camp before they couldn't rush anymore. In front were iron cavalry soldiers lined up in three rows, the road behind was blocked, and the two sides were walls of fire formed by overturned tents and burning wooden frames.

"Charge through! Don't stop!" Amu Ri's voice had already broken in the chaotic battle, the sound like a copper pipe scraped by a knife blade, sharp to the point of piercing the ears.

The horse he was riding had been hit by two arrows and was still running. When it ran out five or six steps, the third arrow shot from the side and pierced the middle of the horse's neck. The arrow shaft went in halfway, and the horse's front legs went soft, its knees kneeling on the ground. Amu Ri flipped off the saddle, rolled twice on the muddy ground, and didn't let go of the curved saber in his hand.

When he stood up with one hand supporting the ground, three fully iron-armored royal court personal guards stood in front of him. The curved sabers probing from above the iron shields were less than an arm's length from the tip of his nose.

Amu Ri spat a mouthful of blood foam from his mouth onto the ground, and the blood foam landed on the surface of the iron shield and streamed down.

"Come on."

Three curved sabers slashed over from three directions at the same time.

Amu Ri blocked the first, dodged the second, and the third slashed in from behind his right shoulder, slicing to the position of the spine. When his body lunged forward with the power of that slash, the curved saber was still stabbing forward, the blade drilling into the neck armor of a personal guard. The two of them fell to the ground together.

After falling to the ground, there were still blades greeting his body, one slash, two or three slashes, each slash carrying the weight of the iron-armored soldier's entire body. By the time they finished hacking, his body was no longer in human form. His limbs were hacked off section by section from the joints, and blood surged from every broken opening, dyeing the muddy ground within half a step into a pool of thick black mud.

The same scene played out in every corner of the entire battle line.

The Qifu tribe herdsmen wearing scattered iron armor and broken leather armor stripped from the enemy exploded with a fighting spirit even more fierce than in Loose Stone Valley after being divided and surrounded by two thousand iron cavalry. Because this time there was no way back, no cliff walls of Loose Stone Valley to rely on, no geographical advantage of an ambush to depend on, only the slaughter of flesh against blade against blade.

Some people were hacked down and still hugged the opponent's legs on the ground, not letting go, letting their companions behind take the opportunity to stab their knives into the gaps of the iron armor.

Some people's curved sabers were knocked flying, so they just pounced on them and bit the wrist of the opponent holding the saber. Their mouths were full of teeth, three of which were broken, but they still didn't let go, until the opponent pierced their temple with a dagger in the other hand, and they slid down from between the teeth.

There was a young herdsman of fifteen or sixteen years old who wasn't even wearing armor, only a sheepskin coat. The short blade in his hand flew away in the first encounter. He rushed at an iron-armored soldier who was hacking at his companion with his bare hands, jumped onto the opponent's back from behind, and dug two fingers into the opponent's eye sockets. The iron-armored soldier screamed and stabbed his curved saber behind him randomly, stabbing three times before throwing the teenager off his back. When the teenager landed, there were still things dug out from the eye sockets hanging on his two fingers.

The firelight reflected into a dark red dome in the night sky. Thick smoke and the smell of blood rose from the battlefield, rolled by the night wind and spread in all directions. The stench of rust mixed with scorched meat could be smelled from dozens of miles away.

Qifugu had already killed who knows how many people in the chaotic battle inside the iron shield wall. His iron armor had been hacked with seven or eight gaps. The wound on his left shoulder had long since stopped bleeding because the blood had congealed into a shell that pasted the wound shut. The long cut on his right leg from hip to knee was flipping white flesh in the running, tearing and closing.

The road in front of him leading to the golden eagle banner was blocked tightly.

The iron shield wall of the personal guard camp was layered one after another, one layer after another. Qifugu and the hundred-plus people who had rushed in were squeezed and hacked in the gap between the first and second layers. The space was so small that they couldn't even swing their curved sabers, only able to stab and prick in short bursts.

"Great Khan, we can't charge anymore!" An old brother covered in blood behind him shouted, his voice shattering into dust in the chaotic battle.

Qifugu didn't look back. He slashed another blade at the edge of the iron shield in front of him. The blade slid half a foot on the shield surface, sparking a string of sparks. The curved saber probing from behind the shield was half an inch away from slashing his forehead.

"We can't retreat!" He squeezed two words out from between his teeth.

Not being able to retreat was the truth. The gap that had been torn open behind them had been closed again. People who rushed in later were blocked outside the gap, and people who came in couldn't retreat. All around were iron shields and curved sabers.

This was a millstone made of iron, grinding everything caught in the middle into minced meat.

Qifugu's curved saber finally hacked into the neck armor gap of an iron shield soldier after who knows how many slashes. The blade twisted into the soft flesh above the collarbone, bringing out a spray of blood mist. When the shield soldier's body fell backward, a gap the width of a person appeared on the iron shield wall.

He pounced toward that gap.

The thirty-plus people still alive behind him followed and poured into the gap. The iron armor and iron armor squeezed against each other in the narrow space, making a creaking sound. Some people were squeezed down and stepped under their feet, and some people's curved sabers were stabbed into their own people's waists, unable to distinguish who was who.

Inside the gap was the second iron shield wall, denser and tighter than the first, with the gold-bottomed black eagle pattern painted on the shield surface—the mark of Nuhe Ti's personal guard.

When Qifugu's curved saber slashed onto that gold-bottomed shield, his whole arm was trembling. The blade was chipped and notched on the shield surface, and the web of his hand was torn, blood seeping out from the gaps in his palm, soaking the hilt until it was slippery.

What probed from behind the shield was not a curved saber, but a long spear.

The angle of the spear tip stabbing from the upper edge of the shield was tricky to the extreme. Qifugu tilted his head to the right by half a head's distance, and the spear tip grazed his left ear, shaving off a piece of the earlobe. The broken meat and soft cartilage hung under the earlobe, swaying.

He grabbed the spear shaft with the hand not holding the saber and pulled it toward himself with all his might. The owner of the spear shaft behind the shield was pulled forward and stumbled half a step. Because of this step, the gap between the shield and the shield revealed a gap the width of a palm.

Qifugu's curved saber stabbed into that gap the width of a palm.

The blade couldn't be seen in the darkness, but a sense of frustration of piercing soft flesh and hitting bone came from his hand, followed by a muffled scream from under the iron armor. The spear shaft slipped from his hand, and the shield soldier's body tilted and fell behind the gap.

The gap became two points larger.

Qifugu squeezed his shoulder into that gap. The edges of the iron armor scraped against the shield surfaces on both sides, making a harsh metal friction sound. Half of his body had already squeezed into the second iron shield wall.

A curved saber slashed over from the right side.

Qifugu didn't have time to block. The curved saber slashed onto the iron armor on his right shoulder. The position on the armor plate that already had a gap was completely slashed through by this blade. The blade cut through the iron pieces, cut into the lining cloth inside, and cut into the muscle on his shoulder, a cut two fingers wide and deep.

He groaned and didn't retreat, instead backhanding his own curved saber and sweeping it horizontally toward the direction of the slasher on the right. The blade swept across the opponent's waist and abdomen in the darkness, and the sound of fabric being torn and a groan more muffled than his own came from under the skirt armor of the iron armor.

The space behind the second shield wall had been squeezed into by him.

But what came toward him was not Nuhe Ti's big tent, but a third iron shield.

Three shield walls.

Nuhe Ti had layered three layers of iron shield walls in front of his big tent.

Qifugu stood in the gap only four steps wide between the second and third layers. His whole body's blood had already dyed the iron armor into a red shell. The edge of the curved saber was rolled, chipped, and notched, and the web of his palm was torn into a blood groove, unable to grip the saber steadily.

Only a dozen people remained who had followed him in.

A hiss that didn't sound like a human voice came from his throat, mixed with blood foam and broken teeth, that hiss hitting the iron shield gap twice before scattering.

The third shield wall remained motionless.

The gold-bottomed black eagle pattern on the shield surface shone with an oily luster under the firelight, and the long spears and curved sabers behind the shield had already probed from the gaps, waiting for him to crash into them.

The slaughter on the outskirts of the battlefield continued. The four thousand people of the Qifu tribe were divided into smaller and smaller fragments, each piece shrinking, each piece bleeding. Nuhe Ti's twenty thousand-man iron armor formation was like a millstone that would never stop turning, grinding the flesh and blood caught in the middle circle after circle.

The night wind blew from the north, rolling the thick smoke and firelight rising from the battlefield toward the southern horizon. That dark red night sky could be seen on the horizon dozens of miles away, like a huge dark red wound hanging on the edge of the sky.

And further away from that dark red sky, on the city wall of Xiazhou hundreds of miles away, a pair of eyes was watching that direction quietly. ===== CHAPTER 910 =====