79: Iron-blooded heavy cavalry, bloody battle on the riverbank

"Charge! No matter how many Dharma Aspect Realm experts they have, under the suppression of the Spirit Severing Battle Banner, they'll be crushed by our army!"

The people from the Artifact Refining Sect were eager, clearly confident in their Sect's masterpiece.

The people from the five Immortal Sects all looked towards Xia Ying. Although they held power over Xia Ying's life and death, the Iron-Blooded Army and the Yan Armor Army supporting her from the Great Yan Dynasty only obeyed Xia Ying's command.

Xia Ying put on her silver mask and said coldly, "When the Iron-Blooded Army charges, the flash of a blade will be the signal for the flanks to deploy!"

...By the Qianlong River.

The surviving slave soldiers and Ghost Soldiers successively landed.

The attacks from demons and evil spirits probably cost them over a hundred thousand troops, and some were swept downstream by the rapid currents of the Qianlong River.

There were also some who met a more tragic end, dying in the aftermath of the king qin sword's light as Bai Qi slew the Dragon.

On the shore, over a hundred thousand slave soldiers, drenched in river water and looking disheveled, had low Battle Intent and seemed dazed.

As the remaining slave soldiers from the former Jinmu Kingdom, they held the status of second-class citizens. To fight on the battlefield, they needed double the military merits to enjoy the same treatment as Wu Dynasty soldiers.

Furthermore, they couldn't shed their slave soldier status before reaching the ninth-grade noble rank.

Their cultivation and equipment were far inferior to the Wu Dynasty's regular army, so how could they earn military merits?

From the start, they understood their fate was to be cannon fodder, and their overall mood was very low.

"Advance immediately! Don't block the way! Any who dare to stop will be executed without mercy!"

General Yue Changting barked, commanding the Ghost Soldiers to drive away the slave soldiers standing on the shore, making room for the Prefectural Army behind them.

The approximately seventy to eighty thousand bandit troops from the three major King Cities cautiously kept their distance from the Wu Dynasty army.

At heart, they were people who detested being restrained, and their gathering was only due to the three city lords' forceful conscription and martial suppression.

As the first batch of approximately fifty thousand Prefectural Army soldiers landed, a faint tremor suddenly came from afar.

The river water rippled unusually, gradually becoming clearer.

General Yue Changting's ears twitched. Having participated in several major battles in his youth, he knew well what that sound was.

"The army will charge immediately! Anyone within ten zhang of the supervising Ghost Soldiers will be killed without question!"

He ordered in a cold voice, making the remaining seventy thousand-plus Ghost Soldiers raise their execution blades and immediately kill the slow-moving slave soldiers.

The slave soldiers knew the Wu Dynasty generals' ruthlessness and cruelty, not daring to delay in the slightest. They charged aimlessly into the night as ordered.

Advancing offered a chance to live, but retreating would turn them into Ghost Soldiers, their Souls unable to rest even after death.

The ground's tremor frequency intensified, like a mountain flood.

The slave soldiers at the very front finally saw what was approaching.

Rows upon rows of heavily armored cavalry, both men and horses clad in blood-red armor, wielding battle blades that glowed with a crimson light!

As the heavy cavalry charged, a clear blade hum resonated in everyone's ears, and a brilliant white blade light slashed towards the sky, like a crescent moon, lingering for a long time.

"Awooo!!!"

From another direction, large packs of wolves, as big as tigers, suddenly burst forth.

They had massive frames and thick, blood-red fur.

On their backs were Blood Race warriors with white skin, red hair, and crimson eyes, clad in fierce iron armor and equipped with spears and short swords, emerging from the flank to assist the Iron-Blooded Army in assaulting the bewildered slave soldiers.

"Iron-Blooded Army, Blood Wolf Cavalry!"

One was a former elite force of the Wu Dynasty, the other the strongest cavalry of the Undying Kingdom. Neither was something the soldiers of the Jinmu Kingdom could resist.

The military momentum carried by the heavy cavalry was as terrifying as a mountain collapse and a tsunami.

The moment the slave soldiers saw them, they seemed to foresee the scene of blood and flesh flying after the collision.

General Yue Changting's face changed. He keenly observed the slave soldiers' intention to retreat.

At the critical moment of the Prefectural Army landing, if the slave soldiers fled in fear of death, the Ghost Soldiers behind them, and even the fifty thousand Prefectural Army already ashore, would surely be routed.

The heavy cavalry could crush all the armies on the shore.

He immediately issued a severe order.

"Those who flee in fear of death will have their relatives implicated! Those who die heroically in battle, or who take enemy heads, even if they die, their families will receive merits!"

The Wu Dynasty prioritized the twenty-grade military merit system.

Any official caught in corruption faced the death penalty, implicating their entire family.

The heaven monitoring mirror had been upgraded to a mid-tier Divine Artifact by Xia Xuan, consuming a thousand tyrant points. Now, it could not only project and descend consciousness but also greatly increased its range of inspection.

It could probe anywhere within the Four Seas and Five Regions where the name of the Wu Dynasty was known.

Every military merit tally was extremely authoritative.

The slave soldiers, in their four months of contact with Wu Dynasty soldiers, had also heard of this.

For a time, they had no choice but to stop their retreat.

Death awaited them on both sides.

Killing one enemy could allow their relatives to live better lives under the harsh taxes and severe punishments.

Many developed a desperate resolve, and the tide of defeat was forcefully halted.

Meanwhile, the bandit troops from the three King Cities scattered like startled birds in a forest, nearly disrupting the barely stabilized situation.

The Ghost Soldiers, upon catching them, unhesitatingly beheaded them.

"Prefectural Army, unarmour and prepare for battle!" General Yue Changting temporarily took Bai Qi's place, commanding the entire situation.

The first fifty thousand Prefectural Army soldiers to land were elites who had Cultivated the Divine Demon Body Refining method. Their Physical Bodies were robust, no less than thousand-forged profound iron. Only by shedding their blood-soaked armor could they more flexibly exert their strength.

Fifty thousand Wu Dynasty warriors prepared for battle shirtless by the river.

The slave soldiers at the very front charged towards the heavy cavalry and wolf cavalry without regard for their lives, like a swarm of mice attacking a cat.

They couldn't stop the charge of the Iron-Blooded heavy cavalry, but they delayed the wolf cavalry for a moment.

In their desperate, almost insane "gnawing," they knocked down many wolf cavalry and surrounded them to death.

But this situation did not last too long.

Goose down snow began to fall from the sky.

On the ground, ice crystals spread, freezing the slave soldiers' legs in solid ice.

The night was deep, and many did not realize what it was at first.

The wolf cavalry seized the opportunity to quickly harvest lives.

Behind them, another large army arrived: the Snow Clan Frost Spirit Guards.

"Your Majesty, we still need to add more troops," Yuan Tiangang suggested beside the imperial carriage.

Xia Xuan overlooked the battlefield, frowning slightly: "Fifty thousand Iron-Blooded Army, one hundred fifty thousand wolf cavalry, one hundred thousand Frost Spirit Guards, over one hundred thousand Yan Armor Army... where are the other fifty thousand Iron-Blooded Army hidden?"

His human emperor body's gaze penetrated dozens of miles, yet he still couldn't find any trace of Xia Ying's other fifty thousand Iron-Blooded heavy cavalry.

However, there was nothing to worry about; he had made preparations long ago.

Between heaven and earth, ghosts wept and gods howled.

The netherworld rebirth nest landed with a rumble, and above it, the yuanfu mountain great formation still floated.

All the Ghost Soldiers of the Jinmu Kingdom had been recalled to the netherworld nest before this, and now they surged out like a black torrent, resisting the Eastern Prefecture Alliance's army.

Among them were Divine Aspect Ghost Kings transformed from the corpses of the Seven Kings City's Divine Dharma Aspects, as well as a considerable number of Spirit Aspect Ghost Kings and Horned Ghost Kings.

As soon as the Ghost Soldiers emerged, the situation immediately stabilized.

"It's this strange thing again!" Xia Ying gritted her teeth, the memory of the palace coup still fresh.

"Xuan Emperor, you are truly leisurely, still having the mind to care about the battle! You should think about how you're going to escape with your life!"

Blade Without Dao, the Grand Elder of Sword Cliff, sneered.

A domineering and unparalleled blade light, like a silver river, flashed past in an instant, easily severing the head of the Taotie Ghost King.

The imperial carriage lost its pulling beast and was about to fall, but was steadily held up by a large golden hand.