Chapter 121: The Tenacious Goblin (Part 2)

Young Marshal couldn't wait to regain command of his troops, so he immediately led his guards back to the cavalry a li away; Jian Yu's 200 Blade Badge Warriors, at that moment assisting the undead behind them to press the line, were also taken back by the Young Marshal.

"Lord, with a great enemy before us, splitting forces now might not be wise," Yue Ji worried that this could affect everyone's morale.

Li Bucai obviously knew how detrimental changing formation at the moment of engagement would be to the battle, yet even without changing formation, when the first rank of Goblins pressed forward and grappled with the infantry, more Goblins would keep pouring in from behind. The enemy had 3,000 Goblins, so their assault could not be held; to defeat a stronger force with a weaker one, without unconventional tactics victory would be hard.

Li Bucai did not answer her, ordering, "Prepare yourself; when the archers begin firing, swiftly lead the infantry to retreat a li."

"Ret— retreat, the enemy is already pressing forward; if we retreat now, my lord must know that defeat will come like a mountain collapse. Once we retreat, it won't be just a li; we'll keep falling back to the Key Pass, and morale will plummet…"

Li Bucai curtly commanded, "No more words, go."

Yue Ji could only obey and leave.

At this moment the Goblins had pressed to within 30 meters; the farther they advanced, the more they feared the archers' arrows, so they moved doubly cautiously, and naturally their speed slowed considerably.

When Yue Ji returned to the infantry formation, Li Bucai raised his hand high above his head, made a flat‑shoot gesture, and as he swung his hand forward, the 160 archers on both sides had already leveled their arrowheads, aiming at the Goblins' footfalls and began firing.

As the rain of arrows came, the Goblins immediately curled behind their shields, which were over a meter tall square shields, propping them on the ground and hiding behind; the arrow rain could not affect them.

Li Bucai seized the chance to make a retreat gesture to Yue Ji, who instantly led the infantry to fall back; after the infantry withdrew a distance, the archers' movement speed exceeded that of ordinary infantry, and the Goblins' single‑file line consisted of infantry who could not catch up to the archers. After several volleys, Li Bucai urgently ordered the shooting to cease and to retreat.

When the retreat order was given, the previously orderly formation suddenly became somewhat chaotic, and they began to retreat at full speed. The Goblins saw the opponent falling back and then chased forward; in their full pursuit their original formation gradually loosened, and since this spot was close to the valley's end, the farther they went the narrower the gorge became. The formation of the original 1,000 Goblins, as the gorge narrowed, left less space between them; after pursuing a distance they became a dense formation, increasingly disorderly, and by the time they reached the Young Marshal a li away, they had changed from four ranks to six ranks.

This is exactly what Li Bucai wanted.

Upon Li Bucai's retreat order, the soldiers thought they were defeated and only rushed back into the first Key Pass of the narrow gorge. When they passed the Young Marshal, he had already rejoined the cavalry, preparing to lead a charge forward; seeing the infantry return, he sat on his horse and mocked Li Bucai's tactics.

Then the Goblins charged from afar; at a command, the cavalry surged forward, including Jing Ji's 60 cavalry; at this moment they were also assigned by the Young Marshal, totaling 200 heavy cavalry, 150 heavy archer cavalry, and 110 light cavalry.

The Goblins were pursuing the fleeing troops and from afar saw a unit of heavily armored iron cavalry charging; their formation was already chaotic, they hurried to redeploy but it was too late; before they could finish, among the 200 heavy iron cavalry, 150 archer cavalry had already surged forward.

The heavy cavalry first used their spears to knock down the Goblin Blade Badge Warriors ahead; when the Goblin spear‑wielders behind tried to block with spears, the archer cavalry mixed among the heavy cavalry had already nocked arrows, and a rain of arrows fell. The Goblins, being in a dense formation, could not form a spear wall, causing immediate chaos. As over 500 cavalry charged forward, among the more than 1,000 Goblins at least six to seven hundred were killed by spears, arrows, or being trampled by horses, creating a massive turmoil.

At this moment Li Bucai had already withdrawn his infantry to the rear, stopping their retreat there. The infantry, seeing the cavalry scatter the Goblins, were instantly invigorated; under Li Bucai's lead they turned and charged back. As Li Bucai rushed into the Goblin mass, the already chaotic Goblins became even more disordered. Wu Zhuoyue seized the chance, ordering the archers to fire a simultaneous volley at both flanks of the Goblins, felling hundreds while pressing them toward the center. The infantry had already surged forward; the undead charged first into the enemy ranks, and the Goblins' blades and spears could not affect them. In an instant, the Goblin horde was reduced to almost nothing.

Li Bucai, seeing that the situation here was settled, left a portion of troops to clear the remaining Goblins and led the rest to go support the Young Marshal.

After the Young Marshal's cavalry broke through the first Goblin unit, they charged straight at the second Goblin unit pressing forward. The second unit, a mile behind the first, also formed a single‑file line. Seeing that the first unit had already been scattered, that cavalry rushed toward them. When the cavalry reached them, just as Li Bucai had anticipated, the Goblins suddenly shifted from a single‑file line into several small triangular squads. Blade Badge Warriors on the outside used shields to protect the perimeter, while spear‑wielders hid behind the shields, angling their spears through the gaps, preventing the Young Marshal's cavalry from making a frontal charge. Most of the archer cavalry's arrows were blocked by the shields; only a few Goblins were hit by arrows and fell, having no effect on the formation.

The cavalry could only charge past the side of the small squads; although their charge speed was fast, turning required a lot of space. When they surged past the second Goblin unit, three cavalry squares composed of wolf riders stood before them. The archers that the Blade Badge Warriors had sent ahead were now protected in front of the wolf riders; unlike the distance to the first two units, they were only a hundred meters from the second unit. Originally they were used to cut off the cavalry's retreat after the first Goblin unit and to strike the cavalry, but now that the first Goblin unit has been annihilated, they can form a second encirclement with the archers and a few Blade Badge Warriors in front of them.

As the Young Marshal's cavalry surged through the second Goblin unit, they had already been split by the small squads into three groups. Before they could regroup, the Goblin Chieftain gave a command; the archers and Blade Badge Warriors quickly cleared the path, leading the three wolf rider squads forward, and in the middle of the Young Marshal's forces they completely split them into three groups. The second Goblin unit seized this chance to reform into a single‑file line again, protecting the outer side while tightening the encirclement, surrounding the Young Marshal's troops in the center.

The Goblin Chieftain went straight to the Young Marshal; at this moment ten blue‑clad guards tightly protected the Young Marshal. Seeing the Goblin Chieftain charge, four of the blue guards attacked it together, their weapons thrusting simultaneously. The Goblin Chieftain neither dodged nor evaded, using his ancient holy armor to harden against the attack; four crisp sounds were heard, and not only did the armor not break, the four felt a powerful force burst forth, pushing them back several steps. When they tried to attack again, two of them suddenly felt their bodies shrink, and the warhorse beneath their hips fell… It turned out that when they had just charged forward, the wolf rider under the Goblin Chieftain had slashed the horse's throat with sharp forepaws. The guards' mounts, unlike the heavy cavalry's, had no armor or protection; the slash cut the horse's trachea.