Chapter 74: Counter-Kill

Lv Chang looked toward the deep forest.

Because of the cover of the trees, his field of vision was blocked, unable to even see a few hundred meters away.

In a place like this, even if the enemy's ambush were right under one's nose, it would likely not be easily discovered.

Sunlight could not shine into such a dense forest, and the dark areas in his field of vision made him feel vaguely uneasy.

Perhaps the enemy's ambush was right there, staring at them.

"Colonel, people have arrived in the valley." A soldier climbed up from the foot of the mountain, panting.

"Let's go, down the mountain." Lv Chang waved his hand.

He was very clear about his mission today: to act as bait.

Since he was bait, he should just charge straight out.

"Send up the signal fire." Lv Chang remembered something and gave the order.

Of these one thousand men, five hundred were ambushed on the East Mountain, and five hundred were ambushed on the West Mountain.

The beacon fire was the signal to descend the mountain simultaneously, and this was also the signal for Chang Wei.

The forest was dense and one could not see very far, but the smoke in the sky could be seen by everyone.

"Kill!" Not long after the smoke rose, shouts of battle erupted in the forest.

Lv Chang led the soldiers as they charged down from the hundred-meter-high mountainside.

At this moment, two groups of people were gathered in the valley.

To the south were the bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold, pulling carts full of Armor, Weapon, Refined Iron, and other items.

To the north, the Beidi merchants were leading fine horses one by one.

The moment they heard the battle cries, neither the Beidi merchants nor the bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold panicked.

They immediately arranged the cargo carts into two rows, one side to the east and one side to the west to block the charge of the Yan King Army, while the men and horses gathered in the center of the carts.

At the same time, the archers of the Beidi merchant caravan and the archers of Qingfeng Stronghold drew their Curved Bow and aimed their Arrow at the jungle, waiting only for the Yan King's soldiers to appear before releasing their arrows.

The others picked up their swords and waited quietly.

"Listen to me, brothers, five taels of Silver for every head, fight for your lives and kill them." A man with a sharp face shouted from the middle.

His name was Song Ya, formerly the Third Chieftain of Qingfeng Stronghold.

But now, he was the First Chieftain of Qingfeng Stronghold.

Knowing that this time they were to use a ruse to eliminate the troops sent by Yan Wang, he had conducted some training when he arrived.

Now this training had taken effect; his men immediately used the cargo carts to set up a defensive Chariot Formation in the narrow valley.

Hearing that there was five taels of Silver per head, the bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold howled with excitement, licking their lips one by one.

The Beidi archer guards on one side were much quieter, but their eyes were filled with the madness before a slaughter.

"Kill!"

The battle cries grew louder and louder, and suddenly Lv Chang was the first to rush out.

"Whoosh, whoosh..."

A sound of arrows piercing the air rang out, and dozens of Arrow flew straight toward Lv Chang.

"Clang, clang, clang..." The sound of metal rang out in succession, and Lv Chang's face turned pale with fright.

Clearly, he had not expected the enemy to counterattack them in such an orderly fashion.

"I'm going to die." Lv Chang screamed in his heart.

But after the sound passed, he looked down; the Armor on his body was like a beach after the rain, but the Arrow had not pierced the armor.

Although they had tested it with bows and arrows in the military camp before, the fact that the armor held up against the arrows in actual combat now greatly boosted his confidence.

"Go to hell!" With a loud shout, Lv Chang climbed onto a cargo cart, leaped down from it, and smashed into the middle of the bandits like a Cannonball.

And at this moment, more soldiers rushed out.

They had rested for a night, and each one was full of energy.

They moved with ease amidst the rain of arrows, constantly leaping over the cargo carts to kill their way into the crowd.

The bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold and the Beidi guards were all dumbfounded.

In their common knowledge, this wave of arrow rain would definitely cause heavy casualties, but their arrows were shot out without even the effect of hindering the advance of the Yan King's soldiers.

This bizarre scene caused their morale to suffer an immediate blow.

But this was only the beginning.

A chaotic battle began in the narrow valley.

The Yan King's soldiers, wearing Armor that revealed only their eyes, rampaged among the bandits, completely ignoring the bandits' blades hacking at their armor.

The swords in their hands were constantly raised and lowered; blood splattered from the Qingfeng Stronghold followers, and screams rang out in waves.

"The seventh." Lv Chang was tall and sturdy; clad in Armor, he charged into the crowd like a steel bear.

Wielding his blade, he fought continuously with the bandits rushing toward him.

"The eighth!" With a horizontal slash, Lv Chang's blade cut the bandit's worn-out armor to pieces; he slashed horizontally again, and the bandit was almost cut in half at the waist, blood gushing out like a fountain.

Beside them, other Personal Army soldiers were also killing with bloodshot eyes.

Regardless of the blades on their own bodies, they struck at the enemy's vital points with every move.

In the brief engagement, the bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold and the Beidi guards suffered heavy losses.

The corpses of their own people covering the ground made the smiles on their faces disappear.

And the slaughter by the Yan King's soldiers continued.

"First Chieftain, something is wrong, the Yan King's soldiers are too tough, their armor cannot be cut, and half of our brothers are almost dead." A bandit covered in blood rushed to Song Ya's side.

Song Ya had never experienced a chaotic battle of this scale.

In the past, he would at most lead men to rob merchant caravans, and it was usually an ambush, and they had the advantage in numbers.

But now, as he looked out, his own men were constantly falling into pools of blood, and their numbers were dwindling.

"What do we do? What do we do?" Song Ya's legs were trembling.

"Wuwu..."

Just then, a sudden blast of a horn sounded from within the woods.

The grass swayed as Beidi swordsmen, each wielding a Curved Blade, charged out from the woods.

They charged down simultaneously from the mountains on both the east and west sides.

The Prince's Personal Army was immediately caught in a pincer attack, facing enemies from both front and back.

"This is bad."

Lv Chang was startled; there really was an ambush.

He saw an endless stream of Beidi soldiers charging down with Curved Blades, their numbers unknown.

The appearance of the Beidi reinforcements immediately boosted the confidence of the Qingfeng Stronghold bandits and Beidi guards, whose morale had been on the verge of collapse.

They entangled the soldiers they were fighting, waiting for the Beidi soldiers to strike the Yan Wang soldiers from behind.

"Clang..."

A Beidi soldier's Curved Blade slashed toward a Personal Army soldier.

After the sound of metal clashing rang out, he froze; his Curved Blade had not, as usual, sent the scales of the enemy's Armor flying everywhere.

He looked closely and saw that the Armor of these Yan Wang soldiers was like fish scales, one layer overlapping another, with the threads securing the plates protected inside.

It was not at all like the ordinary Armor of Great Song, where parts of the threads were exposed on the outside.

With this slash, not only did he fail to injure the Yan Wang soldier, but the web of his hand was shaken until it throbbed with pain.

He looked again and saw that the Yan Wang soldiers were wrapped very tightly in their Armor, with almost their entire bodies covered.

This left him momentarily at a loss for how to strike.

Just as he hesitated, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back.

Letting out a scream, he turned his head with difficulty to see numerous soldiers clad in silver Armor rushing out from the woods and slaughtering their way into the crowd.

"Kill!" Lv Chang and the other Personal Army soldiers saw it too.

They understood that these were the soldiers who had come to support them.

Instantly, the worry in their hearts vanished, and their morale soared.

The Beidi reinforcements groaned in misery; now, they were the ones being caught in a pincer.

Seeing the numerous Yan Wang soldiers charging out, the bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold were terrified out of their wits and, no longer daring to continue the fight, fled across the hills and plains.