Chapter 606: Battle, Standoff, and Yeluba's Poisonous Scheme

The reckless Mao Mao warriors were blocked by two rows of defeated soldiers.

Their individual combat skills were not weak, but when acting in a group, they were far inferior to the human combat organization. Facing the human soldiers in the front and back rows, they recklessly rushed straight at the first row of soldiers, jumped up, and fiercely stabbed at the humans' bodies with the iron daggers in their hands.

But the effect was poor.

The defeated soldiers were, after all, soldiers trained year-round by Knight Hartna; although many of them had just been injured, their steps remained steady. Under the temporary command of a squad leader present, the front row blocked, and the back row took the opportunity to deal a heavy blow to the Mao Mao warriors.

The soldier swords slid past the armpits and shoulders of the soldiers in the first row; the well-maintained long sword blades flashed, and subsequently became stained with fresh blood.

The Mao Mao warriors let out mournful cries and retreated with the support of their tails. Several Mao Mao warriors were stabbed in their torsos and collapsed to the ground before they could pull away.

At this moment, the front-row soldiers drew their swords again and slashed downward, killing the injured and fallen Mao Mao warriors with a single strike.

"Ha! I've wanted to do this for a long time! These damn fur balls!"

"Cunning thieves deserve to have their brains split open!"

The soldiers cursed and stopped while they were ahead, because from the wooden house where the metal ingots were stored, dozens more Mao Mao warriors were rushing over.

"%%%!" (Scatter! Hunt from the flanks!)

A Mao Mao leader immediately voiced a command, which sobered up the Mao Mao warriors who had just recklessly charged in. They no longer rushed head-on into the human ranks, but instead formed groups of two, circling around the soldiers' front from the left and right, attempting to flank and ambush them from the sides and rear.

The squad leader commanding the soldiers immediately reacted and shouted: "Form into three-man combat teams! Everyone, these alien beasts are for real; they want to kill us. Are we willing to be killed?"

"Hoo-ha! Absolutely not!" more than a dozen soldiers shouted in unison.

"Then fight! Fight while breaking through toward the main force!" After shouting this, the squad leader also braced his shield and drew his sword, joining a group of familiar companions. In groups of three, each braced their shields to ensure defense in one direction, guarding against the scattered, hard stones thrown by the surrounding Mao Mao warriors, while simultaneously swinging their soldier swords at the approaching Mao Mao warriors to force the enemies back and ensure their movement was not affected.

There were not many such small teams with clear goals and combat movement as their core objective. Most of the defeated soldiers, after forming three-man combat teams, were surrounded by the Mao Mao warriors, who held an absolute advantage in numbers.

They could only resist to the death in a desperate situation.

There were soldiers who had their faces injured in the first wave; with blood streaming down their faces and panting heavily, they were the first to be knocked down by the continuously pouncing Mao Mao warriors. The Mao Mao warriors were all seasoned hunters in the mountains and forests; by looking at each enemy in the fight, they could easily find the target easiest to break through within the enemy's formation.

And they showed no mercy in using this as a breakthrough point: two Mao Mao warriors would entangle two other intact defeated soldiers, while the other Mao Mao warriors fiercely attacked the injured defeated soldier.

"Damn it..." The injured soldier struggled twice before being knocked to the ground. He swung the long sword in his hand with all his might, but the agile Mao Mao warriors all dodged it. Subsequently, his face and neck, unprotected by his helmet, were continuously attacked by the Mao Mao wielding daggers.

*Puchi, puchi, puchi, puchi*, in just a few seconds, he was stabbed more than a dozen times by the daggers. His neck was stabbed to shreds and slashed open, fresh blood gushed out, and the soldier's mouth was also mangled by the daggers thrusting inside; one tongue was nimbly plucked out by a Mao Mao warrior.

Once they had slashed the soldier's vital neck, the Mao Mao warriors pouncing on him all jumped away together, killing from behind toward the other two defeated soldiers who were still resisting.

The Mao Mao warriors would either use their tails in pairs to hook the calves of the defeated soldiers from behind and then pull together to drag the person down, or they would jump from behind the soldier, leaping directly onto the back of the soldier's helmet, wrapping their tails tightly around the soldier's neck to ensure they wouldn't be shaken off, and then, holding daggers, bypass the helmet from behind to fiercely stab the soldier's eyes.

Or, more simply, several of them would go up from behind at once, suddenly knocking the soldier down, and then more Mao Mao warriors would swarm over, relying on their body weight to completely suppress the fallen soldier, constantly using the daggers in their hands to bypass the protection of the plate armor on the soldiers' bodies, stabbing and cutting the soldiers' bodies to make them lose too much blood and have no strength left.

Just like that, in only a moment, three soldier teams, nine people, were knocked down by Mao Mao warriors several times their number. Without losing a single Mao Mao warrior, they killed and injured nine defeated soldiers.

The injured defeated soldiers did not have long to live either. The Mao Mao warriors applied their methods of hunting large animals, cruelly creating small, non-clotting wounds on enemies whose body size was absolutely larger than theirs, relying on bloodletting to defeat and kill enemies much larger than themselves.

Using this method to deal with animals like Forest Deer and mountain bears was perfectly fine, so it was completely sufficient for dealing with humans.

As for the other two combat teams of six people, they fought while running, and without stopping their movements, they ran to the place where the large group of defeated soldiers was located.

The Mao Maos chased for a bit, then stopped, because the Mao Mao leader commanding from the rear saw that dozens of human soldiers over there were ready for battle, so it called back the warriors in the front.

But the battle had only just begun, and their revenge would not be satisfied by simply killing a few human soldiers.

To tell the truth, after discussing it, the few Mao Mao leaders who had walked out of the wooden house storing the metal ingots felt that just those metal ingots in the house were enough to make them a huge profit.

A two-hundred-kilogram metal ingot could easily be used to purchase an entire mountain range rich in produce from other surrounding Mao Mao tribes; just a few such metal ingots could compensate for all the losses of their tribe this time, and there would still be profit!

After all, those impure metal lumps they had been tricked with, although they were of no use, could be used to trick other Mao Mao tribes who were even less knowledgeable.

Furthermore, this cooperation with humans had allowed their tribal warriors—almost every Mao Mao—to be equipped with the iron daggers used by humans, and some leaders and elite warriors had even found ways to obtain some steel daggers of better quality.

"%%! ￥￥!" (Scatter! Kill the scattered enemies!)

A Mao Mao leader meowed loudly, and subsequently, some Mao Mao warriors scattered to move about, while the dozens of Mao Mao warriors serving as the main force stood in a standoff with the human soldiers in front.

"@@@##@#." (Stupid humans, they want a standoff, then let's have a standoff.)

"%%￥&." (That's right, one still has to eat during a standoff.)

Seeing the human soldiers gathered around a wooden house, nervously maintaining a tight combat formation, they were instead overjoyed and began to mock them.

Yes, around Yeluba's house, apart from the tents of a few scattered confidants, his own wooden house did not store much food that could satisfy hunger. Most of the food in the entire camp was stored in a dedicated wooden house, which was filled with entire bags of wheat grains and milled wheat flour transported from Changmai Cunzi.

But at this moment, this wooden house was ordered to be burned down by a Mao Mao leader; for a time, the entire wooden house was ablaze, the grain inside crackling from the heat, and soon it was all burning.

"Those damn savage beasts! Arsonist trash!" Yeluba saw the wooden house storing the grain being ignited, flames soaring into the sky; the fire could not be extinguished at all, and no one dared to walk out of the tight battle formation to put out the fire at this time.

He knew that these alien beasts were cutting off their retreat!

"Who can tell me! What exactly happened that caused these alien beasts to suddenly turn on us? Who knows? Speak up!" Yeluba shouted loudly.

The soldiers' hearts were pounding; they didn't know what had happened either, resulting in these alien beasts, who usually loved to cause trouble and stir up chaos, suddenly launching an attack on them.

Adjutant Piluo was not listening to what Yeluba was shouting at all at this moment; he had been worriedly watching the wooden house where Knight Hartna was located not far away, fearing that some alien beasts would rush in, launch a surprise attack to kill Knight Hartna, or force Knight Hartna to use his last portion of 【Courage Potion】 to fight at this time.

To tell the truth, just a moment ago, after he exposed that Yeluba's men had secretly taken the personal belongings of the two soldiers killed last night and framed the whole thing on two patrol soldiers who usually liked to steal things, most of the soldiers had already turned their hearts toward him.

At that time, Yeluba was full of panic that could not be faked, and he had to take up arms and lead people to retreat to his own lair. It seemed he intended not to face this accusation head-on, avoiding the emotionally agitated soldiers, and planned to wait until the soldiers calmed down before finding an opportunity to ease relations with others and re-establish his prestige among the crowd.

And Piluo was, of course, not willing; he was just intending to encourage everyone and let Yeluba's subordinates see the cruel nature of this person Yeluba, as well as the harm that Yeluba's own existence and the orders he implemented caused to everyone's interests.

He was about to succeed; many soldiers guarding outside Yeluba's house had been persuaded by him and were preparing to turn their weapons around and defect to his side.

But who would have thought that the alien beasts, who had been fine, would suddenly riot and rebel at this very moment.

As soon as they came out of the mine, they began a merciless slaughter of their soldiers.

This bizarrely appearing crisis moment, instead, allowed Yeluba to regain control of the hearts of the panicked soldiers.

In the panic, Yeluba walked out of his wooden house and loudly issued orders, making the soldiers, who obeyed subconsciously, drop the accusation and trial against Yeluba and prioritize facing the rioting alien beasts.

'It's hard to say whether Yeluba specifically sent people to provoke those long-haired lynx beasts. If so, I can only say this guy is too terrifying.' Piluo suspected in his heart, but at this time he could not do more and could only join the crowd as part of maintaining the battle formation.

And Yeluba, while cursing the Mao Maos for setting fire to the house storing the grain, was secretly feeling lucky in his heart.

Just now he had heard clearly that most of the soldiers outside his house had been persuaded by Adjutant Piluo; if the rebellion of these alien beasts had come a moment later, he might have been dragged out of the house and hung on the wall by someone.

'These damn traitors with no loyalty! Clearly, I worked hard to collect grain, feed you, lead you to raid villages, obtain wealth, and lead you to abuse the women in those villages—I did all these good things for you, and yet you are still disloyal to me! You all must die! You all must die!'

Yeluba thought this in his heart, but on his lips, he encouraged the soldiers who were worried about seeing the house storing the grain being burned: "Don't be nervous! Yesterday I sent a team to the northern village to transport grain; they will be back by tomorrow at the latest. Let's just eat something casual today, and then defeat these savage aliens. After we get new grain tomorrow, everyone can eat to their heart's content! Ha, how about we eat these hateful aliens? Skin them, and I reckon they can be sold for quite a bit of money! Then eat their meat, roast it, or stew it in a pot—it's all fine! Hahahaha—"

Upon hearing Yeluba's words, the soldiers also felt relieved one after another, their morale gradually rising, and many people laughed wantonly: "Hahaha! I've hated these fur balls for a long time; I've finally waited for this moment when we can wantonly hack and kill them!"

"That's right! These damn aliens! A good amount of my money was stolen by them!"

"Kill all these guys! Take back our property!"

There were quite a few soldiers dissatisfied with the long-haired lynx Beast, and now that they had completely fallen out with these aliens, many were actually extremely happy; they stomped their feet while striking their Soldier Shields with the Long Swords in their hands, producing a sound that gradually became rhythmic, which, combined with the soldiers' shouting and intimidation, actually made the Mao Mao—whose height, weight, and combat organization were nothing to speak of—feel uneasy.

The Mao Mao were somewhat uneasy, but this was only for those Mao Mao Warriors who were pinning down the Human soldiers from the front; the other scattered Mao Mao were flying with joy, as the things left behind by the Defeated Soldiers in their respective tents, the spare weapons and equipment, and the bulging money bags were all like harvest-ready Fruit Trees waiting for the Mao Mao to easily pick them!

The Mao Mao surged into the soldiers' tents like the wind, first grabbing the soldiers' spare weapons and equipment in a rush, then returning several times to take away the treasures and coins in the tents, even dismantling and taking away the tiniest metal tools; these things they took away were now all theirs!

And while they were busy, time slipped away bit by bit in this strange standoff.

Soon, it was past noon, and the sun overhead was scorching this Human Yingdi that had been cleared of Forest, baking every creature without the shade of trees until they were dizzy and their throats were burning.

"Captain! The men need to drink water!" A Squad Leader among the soldiers wiped the sweat from his head and even took off the Helmet that protected his head.

"Asking me for water? Can I conjure water for you, or should I take a leak and have everyone share it?"

Yeluba was also very thirsty; there was, of course, something to drink in the house behind him, two buckets of water for washing, but these things could not be brought out now, or rather, for dozens of hungry and thirsty soldiers, two small buckets of water could not be of much use.

Although he could not give it to these soldiers who were no longer loyal, some of his trusted soldiers who had remained loyal and guarded him could eat something and drink some water.

"You, you, and you two, come into the house. Now that those aliens want to loot the Yingdi and drag out the standoff with us, I happen to have some precautions for the upcoming battle to give you."

Yeluba whispered to the few trusted soldiers around him, and then the few of them retreated into the house one by one.

And once inside the house, Yeluba took out the little food and water he had in his room and solemnly handed it to the trusted soldiers who had entered: "Your protection earlier let me see your loyalty; you trust me, and I trust you."

He signaled for these soldiers to eat the food and drink the little fresh water: "Don't mind that this Bread has been eaten by me, and don't mind that this water was only meant for washing hands and faces; there is only this much, so eat more and drink more to maintain your combat strength! The battles ahead will still depend on you!"

"Captain!"

The few trusted soldiers looked at Yeluba with emotion; Yeluba himself was incredibly thirsty, but he still prioritized giving the little water to these trusted soldiers to drink.

"Captain! We swear to fight for you! Until we die in battle!" the soldiers whispered in unison.

"Very good, that is the loyalty I mean, but I truly cannot bear to see you die in battle. Hmph, if anyone is to die, it should be those traitors first. Damn Piluo! Damn disloyal ones, damn alien Beast! Not one of them can do things properly or follow orders. I only have you all; remember, in the coming battle, let them consume each other first, and you and I will need to look for an opportunity to withdraw from here."

Yeluba sighed: "It's a pity we couldn't wait for the trading partner scheduled by Knight Hartna; those Metal Ingots that everyone has been collecting these days will likely go to those aliens for cheap."

Speaking of Knight Hartna, Yeluba had a new idea.

His eyes rolled, and he had a vicious thought. If Adjutant Piluo were to die at the hands of those rebellious alien Beast, then after Knight Hartna learned of his adjutant's death, he would certainly consume a 【Courage Potion】 and go on a killing spree.

But by then, he would inevitably go to kill those alien Beast first, and at that time, he, Yeluba, might be able to take his men and hide first; after Knight Hartna killed all the rebellious alien Beast and his potion wore off, leaving him severely wounded and dying, he could then appear with his men—perhaps he could be the one to have the last laugh here?

Once this thought appeared, it could not stop occupying his entire mind.

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