Chapter 718: The wrath of spirits (Part 1)

The gates to the small town opened slowly, but the cavalrymen afar did not have the intention to charge forward. Above the city gates was a colossal battlement with a dozen heavy crossbows taking aim. If the cavalrymen charged forward, massive losses would be sustained, trebuchets or heavy crossbows were at least needed to suppress the shots coming from the battlement for the city gates could be breached.

Mu En rode on a skeletal warhorse, he took the lead and charged out of the city gates. Behind him, the winged skeleton was leading six jade skeletons and one-thousand death knights. Behind these death knights were another few hundred undead soldiers.

The cavalrymen afar were startled when they saw so many spirits before them, then they swiftly got into formation.

The winged skeleton gave an order to Mu En’s mind directly. Following the winged skeleton’s instructions, Mu En said, “Who is your commander? Tell him to come out and speak to me.”

His voice was cold, coupled with the disguise, the cavalrymen thought that he was a death sorcerer. Nobody expected another death sorcerer to appear in this town. Since the main forces had not arrived, the commander of the emblem group of cavalrymen was at a loss of what to do.

A death mage was the hardest thing to deal with. Even though death magic seemed to be deteriorating, there were still dozens of death sorcerers above grade-7 in Qin. None of these people could be trifled with.

It was rumored that a death sorcerer’s attack range was more than one-thousand yards, more horrifying than an elemental mage. The cavalrymen backed away in discomfort, they did not even realize that their formation had become a little dispersed.

Their enemy was a group of spirits, which meant that their enemy knew no pain nor fear.

“A bunch of useless people.” Mu En spat out these words, scanning the closest two-hundred cavalrymen with contempt. These cavalrymen grew very afraid, then they suddenly turned around and fled to the rear.

There were only around two-hundred cavalrymen at the front, and they were in the face of more than a thousand spirits. The psychological pressure had caused these regular soldiers to crumble.

Above Mu En’s head, a black colored magic image with a diameter of more than three yards rose up slowly. There was a three-dimensional crimson eye in the middle of this image.

It was Spirit Gaze, a death spell which enabled one to observe dozens of miles into the distance.

The Spirit Gaze kept rising higher and higher. In the winged skeleton’s vision there were more than twenty-thousand troops dozens of miles away who were swarming towards the town. Including the cavalrymen at the front, the Qin army had deployed over twenty-six-thousand soldiers this time around.

Even though the Qin’s military system was different from that of Tanggulasi, both parties still shared some similarities.

One army from the Tanggulasi Empire contained twenty-five-thousand soldiers, while one Qin camp had ten-thousand men. If one Qin camp was allocated with more than fifteen-thousand auxiliary troops its strength would coincide with that of one Tanggulasi army.

An army of such scale was allocated with a number of sieging appliances, so it could engage in group battles.

The cavalrymen at the front, who were a few hundred yards away, had fear plastered across their faces. They obviously did not dare battle with the winged skeleton’s spirit army. The winged skeleton sneered, “The other party is clearly preparing to invade the city, otherwise it wouldn’t have brought along more than ten-thousand auxiliary troops.”

Usually, the maximum range of a trebuchet was five miles. Even if the town did not possess any superior trebuchets, the army afar would also come to a halt five miles away. Their infantrymen then would change equipment and prepare to invade the city.

The information grasped by the Qin people was considered ample, they knew that this town contained five-thousand soldiers on paper, but there were only five-hundred elites in reality. The rest were new soldiers who had never been to war. On the other hand, the over two-hundred Metatrin people who entered the town were all elites.

There were less than eight-hundred elites in the town. It was more than sufficient to use twenty-six-thousand soldiers to conquer this town.

The Qin people never thought of one thing, Saleen did not send a simple transportation team over. Saleen instead had personally led his subordinates to the Bitter Water County. No one knew that Saleen had a grade-8 spirit beside him. When Saleen was defending Metatrin City, the winged skeleton was still at sea.

This time around, the winged skeleton had followed Saleen to the Bitter Water County, bringing along the spirits who had been sealed within the Green Spirit rocks. There were over fifty-thousand soldiers and the winged skeleton was going to use these soldiers to organize a fleet. To ensure Saleen’s safety, he did not leave any soldier behind, he had brought along all of them.

The winged skeleton had no problems summoning one-thousand death knights in one go. It would also be very taxing on him to command too many spirits, in each battle, the limit was two-thousand and five-hundred spirits. “I really wish Master could advance. Once I become a grade-9 spirit, I will be able to command more than ten-thousand powerful spirits in battle.” If the winged skeleton had fully absorbed the Soul Flames of the spirit kings, he would even be confident of commanding more than one-hundred-thousand spirits.

The Soul Flames of the kings already contained the rough structure of rules.

The Spirit Gaze allowed the winged skeleton to discover an army in the distance. He knew that a battle was inevitable, which was different from his plan. The Qin people had never thought of using any other techniques.

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“The Qin people will use force to destroy this town before capturing Metatrin’s envoy, this means that the army afar will surely have professionals at the standard of a sorcerer. A sorcerer isn’t easy to deal with.” As the winged skeleton pondered, he had already given second command to Mu En.

Atop the skeletal warhorse, Mu En used the magic staff to point towards his front. Two groups of death knights beside him then urged their warhorses and charged forward.

The weapons used by a death knight were different from humans. They wielded huge blades which were mottled with rust, there were many corroded cavities on the blade’s surface. Each cavity contained an intense scent of death which would only be released when the blade was used. Once a human inhaled this scent, its toxicity would quickly be unleashed.

If an army without mages ran into the death knights, this army would experience the most painful battle. The winged skeleton noticed that the two-thousand cavalrymen did not have any mages amongst them. Among the one-thousand three-hundred infantrymen, there were less than ten white-robed mages. They were just vanguards who were used to harass the enemy after all.

The moment the death knights charged forward, the quality of Qin’s army was immediately exemplified. Of the over one-thousand infantrymen, eight-hundred split into two layers as they held up gigantic wooden shields. They did not have any chariots and the metal shields were used by the main body at the rear.

The infantrymen staged a defensive formation, eight-hundred infantrymen at the front with another five-hundred at the back. The infantrymen behind wielded compound bows and they fired arrows into the sky.

The reaction by the infantrymen was too mechanical. Both sides were too close, the death knights’ charge could not accelerate slowly. The skeletal warhorses simply increased their speed to the maximum magnitude.

The arrows made by Qin were razor sharp. Logically speaking, each of the five-hundred infantrymen would be able to fire three consecutive arrows before the knights arrived in front of the defensive formation. The death knights were traveling at too high a speed though. The death knights in front had already crashed into the wooden shields by the time the second wave of arrows was launched.

Behind the wooden shields, the sturdy wooden bracket, as thick as a wrist, was fractured. Relying solely on their bodies, the infantrymen could not resist the impact by the death knights. It was as though a gigantic rock had been thrown into a pond,the infantrymen at the front row got dispersed. The infantrymen in the back row swarmed forward with pikes, but they were shoved aside by the death knights.

To kill a death knight, one would have at least have to use an alchemical arrow which was infused with magic, or one could simply disperse the death knight’s Soul Flame.

The death knights slashed about wildly, causing the infantrymen to be utterly quashed, as human heads flew about. The infantrymen did not have fully sealed armor, they were only clad in light armor. All of them collapsed after being poisoned in the area where there was a concentration of the scent of death.

The white-robed mages at the back wanted to disperse the scent of death, but they were helpless. Some cavalrymen entered the formation and pulled the mages up onto their horses, they then fled into the distance.

The infantrymen could put their lives on the line, but these mages had to be kept alive. A grade-1 mage was a very rare asset, this logic was unquestionable in the hearts of the Qin people.

The winged skeleton could not let these mages flee. Waving a gigantic axe, he created a pathway measuring ten yards wide in the formation of the infantrymen. Mu En was utterly dizzy. Under the protection of the jade skeletons, he kept moving forward, and moving forward…

In the eyes of the enemy, Mu En was a maniacal death mage. This death mage was going after the white-robed mages after crashing and penetrating the formation of infantrymen.

Those white-robed mages were greatly petrified, “The death mage didn’t use any spells, he is actually chasing us with a few horrifying death creatures! Does he want to capture us alive?”

The white-robed mages had guessed correctly, the winged skeleton planned to capture them alive. By killing a mage directly, he was worried that they might have a legacy. That would infuriate the mage’s seniors. These mages could fetch a good price if they were captured alive though.

The cavalrymen thought otherwise, they thought that the death mage wanted to kill those white-robed mages. Even though the white-robed mages never cast an offensive spell to target the death mage. It was already an offense to disperse a death mage’s scent of death.

Originally, the cavalrymen, who had separated into a dozen brigades, wanted to conduct a retaliation by flanking the death knights. Now they had no choice but to split up and rescue the white-robed mages.

The winged skeleton was overjoyed. His speculation was right, the cavalrymen greatly valued these mages.

Everything was much easier now. The winged skeleton waved his gigantic axe. Brandishing a four yard long long axe, anything which came into contact with it would be sliced into two pieces. Under the protection of seven skeletons, Mu En’s courage gradually grew. Relying on the winged skeleton’s guidance, his magic staff pointed in various directions. Following the lead of his magic staff, one brigade of death knights would surely rush forward to assault the mages’ cavalrymen.

The Qin cavalrymen did not possess any targeted equipment, they only wielded cross spears. Weapons which could break armor or execute combined attacks were pretty good, but they did little damage to a death knight. Using a heavy sword was more reliable when dealing with a death knight.

The winged skeleton slowed down intentionally, allowing the Qin cavalrymen to cut in front of him and obstruct his path forward. Swiftly, he waved his gigantic axe about, slashing the cavalrymen and their horses into two pieces. The unluckiest people were several high grade swordmasters. If they had held their weapons in hand, they would not have been sliced into two.

No one had ever come across such a ferocious spirit. In the face of the winged skeleton’s massive strength, the Qin cavalrymen never stood a chance.

The white-robed mages were the bait. That led to the Qin cavalrymen rushing towards the death knights without any fear as though they were moths who were swarming towards light. The death knights’ huge blades danced in the air. Both parties possessed similar strength, but the death knights’ warhorses carried more charging impact. This caused the Qin cavalrymen to be on the losing end as the death knights went through without any hindrance. Wherever the death knights went past, fresh blood would spew through the air. It immediately took on a purple hue and a black scent of death.

On average, five Qin cavalrymen were needed to make a death knight fall off its horse. The fallen death knights would wave their huge blades and regroup with the team of undead soldiers at the back though.

Using the white-robed mages as the center point, a death vortex ensued, as the surrounding cavalrymen kept charging inwards to obstruct the winged skeleton’s path. Mu En appeared heroic. Every swing from his magic staff seemed like a guidance from the god of death, taking dozens of lives.