Chapter 754: First Volume, Chapter 754: Wolf Among Sheep

First Volume, Chapter 754: Wolf Among Sheep

Inside the garrison, Li Chou, hearing the hooves drawing nearer, felt his palms slick with sweat; the infantry on the First Line gripped their spears and lances tightly, forming a spiked horse-rejection defensive line.

Logically, light cavalry attempting a frontal breakthrough against a spear formation was tantamount to suicide.

Yet despite knowing this, the soldiers could not suppress their dread—for they were facing one of the Di Kingdom's most elite Expeditionary Brigades!

Just as every heart tightened in their throats, the hooves arrived before them—but the Snow Wolf Brigade cavalry did not charge head-on; instead, they split into two columns, veering left and right along the front of the camp, and in an instant, a dense hail of horse archers' arrows rained down from both flanks.

Although Li Chou had already deployed elite troops to defend the flanks, the torrent of ArrowRain inflicted massive casualties in moments.

Li Chou did not hesitate, shouting loudly: "Hold the line! Counterattack!"

The soldiers defending the flanks knelt on one knee or dropped flat; the bow infantry in the Central Formation returned fire against the attacking Snow Wolf Brigade cavalry.

Bow infantry held advantages in range and power over cavalry archers, but due to the pitch darkness and the cavalry's speed, targets were impossible to lock onto—they could only fire blindly, "more or less," rendering their counterattack futile.

In just a few breaths, the Snow Wolf Brigade cavalry swept past the garrison's flanks; the hooves faded, then returned, then faded again. The two cavalry units crossed and swapped positions, charging back from the opposite direction, unleashing another storm of ArrowRain.

Due to the flimsy camp—narrow in space and lacking effective fortifications—the unsteady defenders were crushed without any means to resist.

After repeated ambushes, the garrison's casualties exceeded three hundred.

Though the dead and wounded amounted to less than one-tenth of the total force, morale plummeted severely; the tightly packed Array began to loosen.

Li Chou screamed until his voice cracked: "Hold firm! If we're defeated, even if you flee to the ends of Heaven, you'll still die. The only chance is to hold out until reinforcements arrive!"

Under normal circumstances, Li Chou's garrison would have already broken and fled—after all, running when outmatched is human nature. But for these soldiers, from the moment they chose to surrender to Qin Feng and champion Imperial Orthodoxy, they had no retreat left.

Either advance forward, or die.

Forcing defenders into a cornered beast's fight has always been a military taboo—blocking every escape route means the defenders will have no choice but to fight to the last man.

Chen Mou understood this well, but he had no alternative—Sang Zhou had nearly fallen entirely under Qin Feng's control. Merely defeating Lü Ci and Li Chou's forces solved nothing, for scattered garrison troops would quickly regroup, and Chen Mou had no means to pursue.

So, they must be slaughtered—cutting grass and eliminating roots!

Waves of ArrowRain continued to pour into the camp; Li Chou could only defend passively, for if he left the camp or his formation broke, he would face merciless cavalry slaughter.

Meanwhile, Lü Ci, lying in wait several li away, had led two thousand cavalry back, ready to "crush" the Snow Wolf Brigade between two fronts.

This tactic was flawless—only cavalry could defeat cavalry; with numerical superiority and a double flank attack, crushing the Snow Wolf Brigade seemed effortless.

Unfortunately, Lü Ci overlooked one thing: the cavalry he faced were no ordinary troops—they were the Tiger Wolf Elite Troops who had driven Liang's border forces to the brink of annihilation, even forcing Qin Feng himself to avoid their sharp edge.

From the moment Chen Mou launched his assault on the camp, he had dispatched ten-plus Raiding Cavalry units to scout the surrounding area, monitoring every whisper of movement.

As Lü Ci's forces advanced, messengers immediately brought word back to Chen Mou.

Rather than consolidating his troops, Chen Mou split his two cavalry units into ten, each of one hundred men, led by their own company commanders, scattering in all directions.

Since cavalry operations grow harder to command the larger they become—even with nearly fifty messengers assigned, orders could not be delivered swiftly once battle began—now, by breaking into small units, command became far easier: messengers simply needed to relay orders to each company commander.

And with fragmentation, movement became far more flexible.

When Lü Ci arrived at the attack point with his vast two-thousand-strong cavalry force, he found Chen Mou's cavalry had vanished without a trace.

Before Lü Ci could issue further orders, the Snow Wolf Brigade cavalry began relentless, tireless harassment from all sides.

Ten cavalry units fired parabolic arrows at Lü Ci's main force from every direction.

Since they were firing at a large cavalry formation, precision was unnecessary—they shot and fled immediately.

Messengers constantly reported attacks to Lü Ci, yet they could never catch the small raiding units. The enemy cavalry didn't just move fast and maneuver nimbly—they fought while retreating. Most crucially, Lü Ci's force was a massive target, while Chen Mou's units were tiny; in the pitch-black night, exchanging arrows under these conditions had only one outcome.

The casualty ratio was utterly disproportionate.

Lü Ci's scalp prickled from the harassment; he finally ordered his main force to split up and pursue independently.

But this played exactly into Chen Mou's hands. As reports poured in from each unit, he learned Lü Ci's cavalry had fragmented into several small groups, chasing in all directions. Chen Mou immediately ordered all his cavalry to regroup, lower their bows, discard their lances, and using messengers to locate targets, launched repeated ChargeOrders against each isolated group.

In barely one Envoy, over half of Lü Ci's cavalry were dead or wounded, shattered and fleeing in panic back to the garrison to join the infantry in defense.

With Lü Ci's cavalry routed, Chen Mou grew even bolder, launching wave after wave of ambushes on the camp. As the front-line spearmen's formation finally collapsed, Chen Mou gave no hesitation—he ordered a full-scale assault, charging into the camp and cutting through it in all directions.

Although Lü Ci and Li Chou had long known the Snow Wolf Brigade's combat effectiveness far surpassed their own.

Yet six thousand eight hundred defenders, facing only one thousand Snow Wolf Brigade troops, were utterly powerless—this shattered their very understanding of warfare.

As the formation collapsed completely, the Snow Wolf Brigade's slaughter accelerated.

Just as Lü Ci prepared to order a full military retreat, scattering to preserve what forces remained, Chen Mou suddenly withdrew.

In the blink of an eye, Chen Mou and the Snow Wolf Brigade cavalry vanished without a trace.