The Helian people's proud physiques became an utter joke in the face of Xu Zhan's absolute violence.
Several Helian decurions who had been standing nearby had their courage shattered by the residual force of that single mace strike.
They scrambled and rolled outward, shouting incomprehensible Turkic words.
The defensive line at the camp's entrance collapsed in that very instant!
The surviving barbarians' hands and feet went weak, and their weapons clattered to the ground.
Some turned and ran, not even bothering to grab their sheepskin coats that had fallen in the dirt.
Others crawled on all fours into their tents, burying their heads deep in the straw piles, frantically muttering "don't kill me."
This fervent fighting spirit scattered before the hooves of Xu Zhan's horse.
But Xu Zhan did not press the advantage with reckless pursuit. Instead, he methodically executed the plan that had long been set in motion.
He made three crisp, clean hand signals in succession.
Two hundred veteran soldiers of the Great Qian moved with perfect silence and coordination.
The formation quickly dispersed, splitting into ten guerrilla squads of ten or more men each.
They slipped directly into the chaos of the enemy formation, weaving through areas that were crowded but unguarded.
Once they reached their predetermined positions, Cao Kuo wiped the blood from his face and led nine veteran soldiers through the abatis and into the supply camp on the south side.
Clutching the remaining fire-strikers, they refused to tangle with the massed barbarian soldiers, diving instead into the shadows and the horse stables.
When they encountered a lone barbarian, they raised a crossbow and fired, without even breaking stride.
All two hundred men, dividing into two hundred deadly black points, melted silently into the boiling cauldron of the Helian camp.
...
Meanwhile, at the central camp.
Flames suddenly blazed up, illuminating half the night sky.
The chiliarch Badu burst through the ox-hide tent, wearing two layers of heavy plate armor.
"Where's the fire! Who's making that racket!"
Badu grabbed a fleeing decurion, hoisting the man into the air with one arm.
"Southerners... southerners are attacking the camp!"
The decurion babbled incoherently, pointing toward the front camp.
Badu's rage surged, and with five fingers tightening, he crushed the decurion's throat on the spot!
He casually tossed the corpse aside, drew the wide blade from his waist with both hands, and strode forward with long, brisk steps.
Whenever he saw a fleeing soldier, he cut him down with a single stroke to the head.
Soon, over a dozen severed heads rolled into the mud and water.
"The Great Qian soldiers have broken through! The line can't hold!"
A centurion with an arrow shaft jutting from his chest knelt on the ground, wailing as he clutched at Badu's horse's leg.
But by now, there was no more time for Badu to calmly restore military discipline.
Badu's face twisted in rage. He kicked the centurion aside, and his wide blade came down from above, cleaving the man in two from shoulder to hip.
Entrails spilled across the ground. The thick, heavy stench of blood finally cowed this mob of soldiers who had been driven mad by the night raid.
The routed troops stumbled to a halt, trembling as they stared at their own commander.
"Anyone who retreats dies! Anyone who shirks battle has their entire clan executed!"
Badu roared, trying to bring his soldiers under control.
His personal guards dragged over a thick log and drove the ox-horn banner, symbol of a chiliarch's rank, deep into the frozen earth.
The banner rose, and the collapsing defensive line on the left flank finally stalled.
The panicked barbarian soldiers found a rallying point and began to regroup beneath the banner.
Spearmen formed a barrier on the perimeter, archers nocked arrows and drew their strings, and the defensive line was being rebuilt at an astonishing speed.
...
Xu Zhan reined in his horse on a blood-soaked mound, watching the developments below with cold eyes.
He watched Badu cut down that centurion, watched the ox-horn banner sink into the frozen soil, and watched the scattered barbarian soldiers swarm back beneath the banner like ants drawn to a lump of meat.
Spears bristled upward, bowstrings creaked taut, and the disordered formation regained its discipline within moments.
His heart sank. This was bad!
If this ten-thousand-man formation was allowed to fully regroup, not even a god could break through this iron fortress today.
The window of opportunity was fleeting. Xu Zhan dug his heels sharply into his horse's flanks, and the black stallion let out a long whinny.
One man, one horse, charging against the current of fleeing soldiers, straight toward that ox-horn banner.
Along the way, a dozen or so "brave" barbarians raised their shields and blocked his path: "Hmph! This man is recklessly bold! Brothers, seize him!"
But Xu Zhan did not slow in the slightest. With a sweep of his iron mace,
in an instant! One man flew three zhang through the air, knocking over a row of a dozen comrades behind him.
Then, wherever Xu Zhan passed, all who stood in his way were shattered like dry kindling.
Beneath the ox-horn banner, Badu sensed the danger and shoved aside the guards in front of him.
He watched the Great Qian cavalryman charging toward him, and noticed that this ferocious warrior was missing his right arm.
With only one arm, he dared to charge into a fifty-thousand-strong camp?
This must be Xu Zhan of the Northern Border Pass, no question!!
Badu threw down his wide blade and reached back to pull a long-handled iron mace from behind his saddle.
This weapon weighed a hundred jin, its head studded with spikes, designed specifically to crush heavy armor.
He vaulted onto his horse, kicked hard at its flanks, and the warhorse, biting through the pain, burst into a gallop.
"Maimed southerner! I'll send you down to the Yellow Springs!"
In the blink of an eye, Badu's mace was upon Xu Zhan. The weapon swung with a terrifying whistle, aimed straight for Xu Zhan's face!
Xu Zhan gave a low grunt, raised his mace in his left hand, and caught the blow from below with a hard block.
Clang!
A deafening crash of metal rang out. Sparks flew in every direction, illuminating both their faces.
Under the crushing weight of the hundred-jin mace, even the iron mace forged from meteor metal bent slightly!
The terrible force reverberated back through the haft, and the flesh at Xu Zhan's tiger's mouth split open. Trickles of blood dripped in strings from the iron handle.
His mount beneath him couldn't bear the heavy impact. It let out a pained whinny, its four hooves carving two deep furrows in the earth as it staggered back three steps.
Badu saw that Xu Zhan was not so formidable after all. Seizing the opening, his arm muscles bulged again as he let out a fierce roar.
The outlying barbarian soldiers saw their chance and crowded forward with torches, shouting encouragement for Badu.
"The lord is mighty! Kill him! Cut off his head and make it into a drinking bowl!"
"Hahaha, the Great Qian general will die in our hands today!"
All manner of obscenities, mixed with Turkic curses, howled from all sides.
These same barbarians who had been fleeing moments before had now regained the cruel hunting instincts of a wolf pack, just waiting for Xu Zhan's last drop of blood to run dry.
The barbarian spearmen behind Badu saw their chance and surged forward all at once.
Over a dozen fine steel spears thrust in from every direction.
From Xu Zhan's throat down to his horse's legs, every angle of escape was sealed off.
In the firelight, the spear tips gleamed cold, now less than half a foot from Xu Zhan's armor.
A desperate situation with no way out!
Every possible retreat was sealed off by the wall of Helian soldiers.
Badu's blow was already falling.
He raised his mace with both hands high, his horse rearing up, its massive shadow completely engulfing Xu Zhan.
The surrounding barbarian soldiers stared with wide eyes, waiting only for this southerner to be pounded into pulp so they could rush in and claim his head.
The wind died.
The clamor of battle in the camp faded away in that second. Every breath held still.
Not a single ripple crossed Xu Zhan's face.
He locked his legs around his horse's barrel and bent his upper body backward at an angle no ordinary man could manage, until his back pressed against the horse's rump.
The howling mace whistled past, grazing the tip of his nose.
At the same moment, his black stallion let out a scream, its four legs buckling under the wind pressure of the descending mace, its front knees crashing hard to the ground as it dropped sharply.
This downward plunge made the several spears aimed at the horse's legs stab harmlessly through empty air along the horse's belly!
At the same time, the barbarian soldiers thrusting at Xu Zhan's heart, unable to check their momentum, sent a dozen or so spears crashing violently into one another in the very spot where Xu Zhan had been sitting moments before!
The wooden shafts locked together in a tangle, and for a moment, they could not be pulled back.
In that sliver of a gap, when the old force had just spent itself and the new force had yet to be born—
Xu Zhan moved.
Gripping the tail of his iron mace in reverse, he used the strength of his arched back and waist to yank the bent weapon viciously back.
Zheng—!
The iron mace, pressed to its limit, suddenly sprang straight.
His entire body, like a fully drawn hard bow, rebounded upright!
The iron mace swung from low to high, carving a ghastly afterimage through the air.
Its tip struck like a viper's tongue, finding its mark unerringly in the exposed soft spot beneath Badu's raised right arm, just under the armpit.
No matter how thick the heavy armor, it could not protect that gap in the joints!
The blade tore through flesh and hide roughly, smashing the shoulder blade apart with sheer force.
Badu let out a blood-chilling scream, and his hundred-catty iron flail dropped from his hand to the ground.
His body lost its balance and tumbled heavily from the saddle.
His personal guards scrambled forward to pull him up.
But Xu Zhan gave them no chance. The black horse's front hooves lunged forward, and two bowl-sized iron-shod hooves came crashing down from midair.
Crack!
The horseshoes mercilessly crushed Badu's neck bones.
Xu Zhan then swung his iron mace, cutting straight through the shaft of the ox-horn great banner.
The banner toppled with a thunderous crash.
The freshly rallied barbarian elites watched helplessly as their chiliarch died a brutal death, and the banner that symbolized their army's morale snapped in two.
Whatever last shred of courage remained in their chests vanished entirely.
If even their mightiest chiliarch had been beaten to death by one man barehanded, then ordinary soldiers going up would only be throwing their lives away.
The left flank defense collapsed completely.
Countless barbarians threw down their armor and weapons, scrambling desperately to flee to the rear.
The discipline execution squad hacked down dozens of men but could not stop the tide of deserters—their blades went dull from the cutting.
In the end, even the execution squad themselves threw away their swords and joined the rout.
The ten-man squad of veteran Daqian soldiers had long since scattered into the shadows.
They did not chase down ordinary fleeing soldiers. Instead, they crouched in the dark between tents, repeating crossbows raised.
They targeted only those centurions who raised torches to rally troops, or the decurions who blew horns to pass orders.
The bowstrings sang in rapid succession.
Every barbarian officer who tried to step forward and command found two or three bolts blooming precisely in their throat or face.
The backbone of the lower command dropped one after another, and the vast central camp defense line collapsed into scattered sand.
Fire-thunder jars ignited the grain carts.
A gust of wind swept through, and in the blink of an eye, the flames leaped to the sky!
Fire shot up a hundred feet, setting every tent around ablaze.
The barbarians, bereft of their officers, went completely mad.
"Stand in the way and die!"
Some, to seize a fleeing warhorse, slammed their curved blades into their own comrades' chests and climbed onto the saddle over their fallen bodies.
Before they could even get settled, a spear from the side ran them through.
Massive numbers of barbarian soldiers slaughtered each other in the darkness, while horse hooves trampled wantonly over the bodies on the ground.
The inferno swallowed half the supply carts. This encampment, housing tens of thousands, had become a veritable charnel house.
The firelight lit up the night sky, and the rolling black smoke even tinged the distant Helian king's tent with red.
…
The thick smoke billowed upward, flames spreading all the way, even casting a red glow upon the Helian king's tent several miles away.
Outside the king's tent.
Ashina Gudu stood with his hands behind his back.
He wore a luxurious wolf-skin great cloak threaded with gold. The firelight played across his face, but there was no trace of grief at the loss of an army—only a murderous intent cold enough to freeze blood.
He listened calmly to the screams from the central camp, as though hearing the death cries of livestock.
Slowly, he raised his right hand and spat out two words.
"Deploy the vanguard."
Woo—!
A low, sonorous ox-horn blast tore through the night sky, smothering every sound from the central camp.
Ten thousand heavy cavalrymen, encased head to toe in pitch-black plate armor, emerged slowly from behind the king's tent like iron soldiers crawling out of hell.
This was the true trump card of the Helian royal court.
Ten thousand armored death-seekers forged in mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Even the warhorses beneath them wore thick iron barding, showing only a pair of bloodshot, wild eyes enraged by drugs.
The black cavalry's hoofbeats sounded like rolling thunder, perfectly uniform.
With every step, the very earth trembled.
This unbreakable wall of moving iron was advancing, devoid of any emotion, straight toward the sea of fire in the central camp, grinding everything underfoot.
