Chapter 546: The Situation at the Enemy Jiedian (Part 1)

Jier first retreated into the forest where the enemies at the Jiedian wall could not see him, but he did not go too deep into the forest, because any further back would be the scouting area covered by the enemy's hidden sentries.

Regarding the eight hidden sentry positions that roughly surrounded the enemy Jiedian in a circle, Jier and Xueya Site had not only accurately marked the enemy's locations but also, based on the conditions surrounding these sentry positions, designated a plan for Xueya Site to kill them one by one later.

However, among the eight hidden sentries, two were occupied by Shapeshifting Monsters. Jier could not confirm the strength of these Shapeshifting Monsters, so he singled these two out to handle himself.

Xueya Site did not ask why Jier wanted to handle these two enemies; Jier did not say, and he did not ask further. Xueya Site thought that Jier must have his reasons for doing so.

Jier was very grateful to his companion for this point; if Bata'er Jiaoshi were traveling with him at this moment, the Priest would certainly have insisted on getting a clear explanation. And it would be very difficult for Jier to explain to the Priest that the identities of these two Shapeshifting Monsters were smelled out by the invisible Big Nose through its sense of smell.

This was too absurd; it sounded like a lie.

The fact was indeed so; Big Nose had only simply marked the locations of those hidden sentries, and the confirmation of the monster identities of those two sentries was still done by Jier through the Shadow Bird.

Yet the Shadow Bird was an important ability of Jier's at this time. Even though Bata'er Jiaoshi was a trustworthy partner, the Priest was, after all, a Priest of the Agricultural God Church. Exposing his own important intelligence information to the other party was equivalent to exposing it to the entire Agricultural God Church.

Jier did not want to completely limit his future development to the Agricultural God Church, even though he already had quite a few entanglements and connections with the Agricultural God Church and the Agricultural God.

Although the Agricultural God Church was spread throughout Human society and was an important part of it, its strength was still quite limited.

This was a view Jier had arrived at himself.

Because from the moment he arrived in the Southern Province, he discovered that the Agricultural God Church here, along with the Nongshen Believers who worshipped the Agricultural God, were obstructed everywhere and in critical situations. Not only was their strength scattered, but they were also always passively being manipulated by other forces.

Not to mention the matter of Changmai Village, just in Yemei Town in the north, the Agricultural God Church could not handle the population gathering caused by a single order from the local Noble. So many local farmers abandoned their villages and voluntarily gathered on the outskirts of Yemei Town; although this avoided the crisis that might have been stirred up by parasitic plants, it also exposed the incompetence of the local Agricultural God Church.

There was a lack of organization; they could not gather the Nongshen Believers from various villages together to look after one another and ensure the basic livelihood of the devout believers.

There was a lack of combativeness; they could not unite the numerous believers into a force sufficient to deal with either the parasitic plants or the local Nobles of Yemei Town.

There was a lack of responsiveness; after a large number of farmers from surrounding villages were summoned to the vicinity of Yemei Town by a single order, there was no prior preparation and no subsequent contingency plan. They simply retreated into the Agricultural God Church in the town, ignoring the believers outside the town, and instead obeyed the local Nobles in the town, providing personnel and effort when the other party needed the power of the Priests.

In Jier's view, this was simply putting the cart before the horse.

For the Agricultural God Church, what was most important was not the church buildings and personnel in the towns, but the various church believers in the villages outside the towns.

If Jier were handling the situation in Yemei Town, he would have immediately had the believers in the villages surrounding Yemei Town gather and move south, reaching the various church-autonomous villages in the south of Sasi County. He would have had the villages controlled by the church there support these suffering fellow believers who had moved south.

Having said so much, it actually meant that Jier also did not want to get too involved with the Agricultural God Church.

He could completely contact other divine churches more, to see what other churches were like, whether they could be more in tune with him, or, in other words, give him more benefits and interests.

To assist his growth and becoming stronger.

On this point, the help provided by the Agricultural God Church was not much, even though he had already obtained quite a bit of power from the Agricultural God Church.

For example, the two powerful blessing abilities he possessed: one was 【Grass and Wood Source】, which could provide him with infinite energy in a short time, allowing him to fight with abandon without worrying about physical exhaustion. Because Jier had not used this ability much recently, it looked like it could still be used for a long time.

The other was the 【Summon Spirit in Heart】 he was currently using. To be honest, the performance of this blessing ability at the moment made Jier somewhat disappointed, but he vaguely felt in his heart that it should not be like this, because this ability was personally bestowed upon him by the Agricultural God himself!

It should not just be simply summoning a somewhat intelligent big dog that others could not see and only he could see.

This ability should have more depth; otherwise, it would not match the stature of the Agricultural God himself.

Jier lifted the effect of the Plant Concealment Cloak on his body, carefully bypassed this area, circled from the outer perimeter to another direction of the enemy Jiedian, and carefully peeked at the situation of the enemy Jiedian from the forest.

"The defense is still quite tight."

Jier shook his head. He discovered that the enemy's defense at this Jiedian was even tighter. Although the wooden Jiedian wall was newly built, it used the tall tree trunks originally from here; each tree trunk was seven or eight meters high, and even with two or three meters inserted into the ground, four or five meters remained above the surface.

This height was already a height that no one in the team except him could easily climb over.

Furthermore, the trees for dozens of meters outside the enemy Jiedian had all been cut into stumps, and the excess unused tree trunk timber was also neatly stacked far away from the Jiedian wall.

If they were to formally attack the enemy Jiedian, it would actually be quite easy to attack, because Jier could completely carry those tree trunks outside the Jiedian by himself and lean them one by one against the Jiedian wall to form a slope that could be easily charged up from the outside.

But the battle obviously could not be like this, because the number of enemies was several times that of their own side. With such a reckless frontal attack, even with Jier's assistance, their own Warriors would be wiped out by the enemy in one wave.

Moreover, the same fighting method as the battle at Changmai Village would no longer work.

Because this Jiedian did not arrange fixed single-person sentries, but instead built internal patrol platforms on the wall, and there were three groups of two people patrolling the patrol platforms inside the wall without interruption at any time.

Jier used the Far-sight Divine Art taught to him by the Great Bird deity to carefully examine these two-person patrol teams.

He discovered that these patrolling enemies moved with strength, their weapons and equipment were worn neatly, and they were fully equipped with Long Swords, Shields, and bows and arrows; they were clearly the enemy's Refining Qi.

And after Jier watched for a while, he discovered that three groups of two people patrolling did not mean that the enemy only had six people responsible for the wall patrol work; the enemy also had a group inside the Jiedian waiting for rotation. After one of the three groups patrolled the wall for a few rounds, they would come down from the wall, and then another group waiting for rotation would go up to take over.

At any one moment, there were four groups, eight enemies responsible for the wall patrol, which resulted in the enemy having sufficient rest, and their attention, energy, and stamina during patrols could be guaranteed at all times.

This was completely different in terms of vigilance from the eight single-person hidden sentries on the outer perimeter of the Jiedian.

It was like, it was like...

Jier tried hard to think; it was like there were two people who had separately issued the personnel arrangements.

The style and the personnel arrangement did not look like they were arranged by one person.

This was easy to compare. Clearly, the person who arranged the Jiedian wall was more knowledgeable about military aspects; the patrol plan made was more impeccable and efficient, and the mental state of the Defeated Soldier enemies participating was also better.

As for the single-person hidden sentries arranged in the forest outside the Jiedian, it was another style. Not only did they not consider the matter of personnel replacement, but they also did not care about the situation of these hidden sentry personnel encountering Monsters in the dangerous Southern Mountains forest.

Even if they did not encounter enemies like Shapeshifting Monsters, arranging personnel alone on trees in the forest as hidden sentries did not consider at all how absurd such a thing was. There were no enemies in the forest at all; what were these hidden sentries guarding against?

And if there were enemies, such as Jier and his group, had these hidden sentries played their intended role?

Not at all.

Jier and his companion, who had scouted in advance, easily walked past under the noses of these hidden sentries with vacant eyes, although they had also used the Plant Concealment Cloak provided by the Agricultural God Church, which counted as cheating.

But real combat was just like this; there was no balance, nor was there anything like justice or right and wrong.

Jier pondered the possible situations behind the enemy's two different arrangements.

He soon thought of the intelligence obtained from the interrogation at Lanse-Qingting Village, the intelligence obtained from the enemy's letters at Changmai Village, and the two different defense plans he saw now; this made Jier understand that the enemy was not of one mind internally.

Or rather, from the very beginning, the enemy was not united internally.

Internal power struggles always existed.

And they were finally manifested at Changmai Village.

Because previously, the enemy's team had always needed to risk the death of everyone to cross the Southern Mountains; on this point, no matter how much dissatisfaction or conflict the enemy had internally, they had to work together to deal with this difficulty.

And when they broke through the Southern Mountains and arrived here, or near Changmai Village, the enemy's differences completely expanded at this time.

Jier did not yet know what the enemy's internal differences stemmed from, whether it was power struggles or uneven distribution of interests. But at least he knew that this could definitely help him defeat these Defeated Soldiers and rescue the Changmai Village Villagers.

Subsequently, he continued to circle around peeking at the enemy Jiedian, and tried his best to stand at a high place on a large tree on the outer perimeter, letting his line of sight cross the enemy's towering wooden Jiedian wall to see part of the situation inside.

Because Jier has a special ability that enhances his vision, he does not need to get close to the enemy's Jiedian; just by looking, he can see a great deal of intelligence information.

At the same time, he let the Spirit Dog, Big Nose, wait for his orders under the large tree where he was located; as soon as Jier saw a situation, he would immediately have Big Nose, whom no one else could see, go up to investigate carefully.

Although this giant dog, Big Nose, is not particularly clever, if the orders Jier gives are accurate enough, it can indeed get close to Scout, making up for Jier's current inability to approach the enemy Jiedian.

First, Jier confirmed the number of buildings inside the enemy Jiedian.

The enemy's so-called buildings were merely crude structures simply pieced together from thick logs, but at least they were tall and sturdy, so if there were any important places, they would certainly be among these buildings.

Inside the enemy's roughly oval-shaped Jiedian, seven such wooden houses, built entirely by piecing together wood, were scattered about—four on the west side and three on the east. Furthermore, most of the enemy Defeated Soldier were gathered loosely on the west side, where they had also set up many low-lying Tent that could only house two or three people; these Tent were similar to the ones Jier had captured from the enemy Scout at Blue Dragonfly Village, but the difference was that the Tent bore Knight emblems that had not been removed.

It appeared to be a Knight riding a horse and brandishing a sword, and at the four corners of the shield-shaped emblem, there were also four symbols: a flower, a shield, a horseshoe, and a fist.

Jier had never studied heraldry, which all Noble must learn, so he did not understand what these things each represented, but he could at least understand that the family of the young Knight to whom the enemy troops originally owed allegiance likely took pride in fighting on horseback.

He saw that the Knight emblem on one Tent seemed to be peeling off, so he sent the Spirit Dog, Big Nose, to secretly retrieve that soon-to-be-detached enemy emblem for him to see.

After receiving the order, Big Nose let out a happy "Woof!" and then ran straight toward the enemy wall.

When Jier saw it charging straight ahead like that, his nervous heart first tightened, but then he remembered that no one could see Big Nose except for him, so he relaxed.

He saw Big Nose charge straight up the enemy's wooden wall, accelerate and jump as it neared the wall, and leap over the top of the wall, reaching a height slightly above it.

There were even enemy Soldier patrolling on the wall nearby, yet these people were completely oblivious to the giant Spirit Dog, laughing and talking while they patrolled.

Big Nose landed inside the enemy Jiedian and headed straight for the Tent Jier had designated; along the way, it even bumped into many enemies, but these Defeated Soldier passed right through its body, and while they appeared to collide, there was actually no contact between them at all.

Upon reaching the side of that Tent, Big Nose first used its giant front paws to nudge the Tent, causing the entire structure to tremble violently.

Unexpectedly, there was someone inside, who rushed straight out of the Tent, stark naked, and began cursing loudly at his surroundings.

Jier could not hear what the other party was cursing about, but he saw a Changmai Village Villager—a woman who had barely managed to put on a skirt—run out of that same Tent, her face flushed red as she clutched a small bag and hurried toward one side of the Jiedian.

The cursing Defeated Soldier did not pay attention to the departure of the female Villager, still assuming that someone else was teasing him, and that they had specifically shaken the Tent to interrupt his activities while he was enjoying himself.

This Defeated Soldier seemed to get angrier the more he cursed, and since the surrounding Defeated Soldier ignored him, he became even more enraged and began kicking and stomping on other nearby Tent regardless of the consequences.

Subsequently, he got into an argument with other Defeated Soldier who had been disturbed.

Big Nose took the opportunity to grab a corner of the sewn-on cloth emblem with its mouth and pulled with force, successfully tearing off the piece of cloth embroidered with the emblem, but because of this, the Defeated Soldier's Tent was also pulled down in the process.

Big Nose carefully hid the emblem cloth in a corner, and the Defeated Soldier, discovering his Tent had collapsed for no reason, became even more furious and began fighting with the other surrounding soldiers.

Jier found it amusing and even had a whimsical thought: should he use this or that method to create various similar pranks within the enemy ranks to ignite internal conflicts among them?

But this idea was just a thought; even if Big Nose could not be seen by others, if such things happened too often, the enemy was not stupid and would eventually notice the situation.

Big Nose soon secretly carried the emblem cloth Jier had designated and climbed back over the wall.

The piece of emblem cloth hanging from its mouth looked just like a piece of fabric blown away by the wind; even if seen from afar by the patrolling enemies, no one would truly care about it.

"Good dog! Good dog!"

Jier jumped down from the large tree, took the emblem cloth from the Spirit Dog's mouth, and vigorously rubbed its head with his hand.

However, Big Nose's head was truly large; even when it tried to press its head against the ground, Jier still had to raise his hand to shoulder height to rub its head.

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