Chapter 973: Iron Cavalry: Final Chapter

A distance of more than ten li was nothing to the Zhao Army’s iron cavalry; their superior warhorses could gallop the entire way and still retain enough stamina for battle.

In the center of the cavalry formation, the Sixth Princess stood in midair, clad in armor, gazing at the Qingming army’s formation, puzzled by the sheer number of steel fortresses. But once Qingming spotted the Zhao cavalry’s flank, they began reorganizing—troops erupted into chaos.

The red-clad woman said: “We can’t wait any longer! Their fortresses are too numerous—if their main force turns to face us, our casualties will skyrocket!”

The Sixth Princess clenched her teeth, suppressed her unease, and ordered the charge! She would break through Qingming’s formation before they could finish deploying.

Watching the iron cavalry surge across the hills and valleys, feeling the earth tremble beneath them, Wei Yuan’s blood boiled. In his youth, he too had led the charge, riding ahead with a small band of cavalry, cutting through enemy lines and returning again and again, as if walking through an empty land.

But time passed too swiftly—those fiery, youthful days were gone forever.

Now, before battle, Wei Yuan’s only concerns were whether there were enough carts, enough shells, and whether the rations were varied enough. Everything else was irrelevant; many heavy infantrymen hadn’t had their armor repaired in nearly a year. Now, infantry on the battlefield were little more than ornaments—just show up after the fight to take possession.

Among Qingming’s ranks, young officers sprinted like the wind, leading their units to designated positions, each carrying rapid-fire machine cannons, followed by a dozen men hauling ammunition crates.

The Zhao cavalry charged at great speed, but Qingming repositioned their machine cannons even faster. Some units didn’t even bother digging trenches—they simply mounted the cannons onto war chariots. Others simply dropped to the ground, channeled their spiritual power to blast shallow pits, and crawled inside.

Wei Yuan didn’t watch the rapidly approaching Zhao cavalry—he looked upward, where another anomalous distortion in space had appeared; clearly, another Yu Jing had arrived.

Below, the Zhao cavalry surged like a black-green tide. When they closed to five hundred zhang, the young officers lying at the front pulled their triggers.

Toot-toot-toot-toot!

A muffled roar echoed across the battlefield as countless bladeless flying swords shot toward the charging Zhao cavalry, instantly tearing bloody holes through their bodies—even the strongest warhorses couldn’t withstand more than a few strikes.

More and more machine cannons roared to life, soon converging into a storm. The war chariots in the rear began firing too—smoke billowed across the battlefield, and Zhao cavalrymen and their mounts were occasionally blasted skyward by heavy artillery.

In Qingming’s rapid-fire machine cannons, every fifth flying sword carried a yang attribute; when fired, it left a long, glowing trail, helping gunners identify impact points and guide them with their spiritual sense.

But on the battlefield, due to the firing rate, what was seen were dozens of fiery whips sweeping back and forth. Across the broad front, there were hundreds of these fiery whips!

One Zhao cavalryman burst through the smoke, miraculously slipping between two exploding shells, sustaining only minor injuries, and pressed onward toward the Qingming lines. But Qingming’s foundation-establishment cultivators reacted instantly—in an instant, six or seven rapid-fire cannons all turned on him!

In the space of a breath, dozens of flying swords pierced his body. Struck with overwhelming force, he was flung from his horse, carried backward by the blades, and crashed heavily into the mud.

His pure white warhorse let out a mournful cry and collapsed. The immense inertia carried it forward, galloping all the way to within several zhang of the Qingming line before stopping, spraying mud and dust over the Qingming gunners.

The white horse was already dead; its body riddled with dozens of holes. Only now did a torrent of blood gush forth, turning it instantly into a crimson steed.

This was the last cavalryman of the charging force—and the closest any Zhao cavalryman had come to the Qingming line during the entire battle.

Thus ended the first wave of Zhao’s fifty thousand iron cavalry—annihilated.

Zhao cavalry had been issued lances, but their range was insufficient; the vast majority never reached firing distance before falling.

The sound of gunfire gradually faded. The smoke cleared, revealing a scene of hell.

The cavalrymen lay dead in grotesque poses—some fallen with their mounts, their flesh and blood fused together; others cut cleanly in half by flying swords, their entrails dragged out; some decapitated, their headless torsos still frozen in combat stances… Broken lances, dull swords, shattered shields scattered everywhere like a metal graveyard.

The entire battlefield had become a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, thick with the nauseating stench of sweet rot mingled with rust.

Even many Qingming soldiers stood frozen, then some began vomiting on the spot.

The Sixth Princess turned pale. She still had fifty thousand cavalrymen left—but the situation was clear: sending them forward now would only mean suicide. Before she could recover, the red-clad woman suddenly yanked her behind her and shouted to her subordinates: “The Sixth Princess is unwell—she can no longer observe the battle. Take her back!”

“But—” the princess tried to speak, but the red-clad general clamped her hand over the princess’s mouth!

The red-clad general spoke with finality: “This battle is under my command—it has nothing to do with you! Say nothing. Go!”

Two Dharma-Form cultivators immediately dragged the Sixth Princess away. She moved like a soulless puppet, utterly hollow, carried off without resistance.

Wei Yuan watched from afar, filled with regret—he could only hope to meet her again another time.

He turned his gaze back to the empty air ahead and said: “Two elders, are you finally going to join the fight? If you do this, you’re tearing off the mask for everyone.”