“It worked?”
Tsenpo Ling’s eyebrows shot up.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” The reporting envoy was a bundle of smiles. “Under Your Majesty’s wise leadership, we have evacuated all humans and livestock within a radius of several hundred kiloters.
“The Tang bandits, who can only sacrifice living bodies into terracotta soldiers, have failed to convert our stone combat puppets into one of them. Upon realizing there was no one they could use as tribute, they fled in a fluster. It was all within Your Majesty’s calculations!
“…” Tsenpo Ling nodded.
Indeed. It was the right decision to clear the area of any living beings.
“Since that’s the case, we shall not make war slaves anymore. All resources will be focused on creating combat puppets!”
Tsenpo Ling had been wanting to transit toward combat puppets, just that she had struggled to find a good ti to do so. This was an opportunity to push for that.
“Huh?”
All of the officials were taken aback. So even tried to speak up against it.
“Your Majesty, this…”
“Hmph!” However, Tsenpo Ling’s harrumph silenced them. “How is the envoy party we have dispatched to the Anxi Protectorate faring?”
Being at war didn’t an cutting off all communications. There were many cases of nations fighting while negotiating terms.
Tsenpo Ling wanted to know how deep Shu Yichao’s tenacity as a ‘vengeful spirit’ went, and whether it had affected his rationality. If it was possible to negotiate with him…
“They were hacked down by the terracotta soldiers as soon as they ca close, and the gifts we had prepared were all stolen,” the envoy replied sheepishly. “The barbaric Tang bandits are like jackals who only know of violence. They aren’t interested in negotiating with us.”
“As I expected.” Tsenpo Ling pressed her hand against her forehead.
Destroying all enemies at sight, unable to communicate with at all—that sounds exactly like how a vengeful spirit operates.
“Continue the evacuation of all living beings in the area. We have to stop the vengeful spirits from expanding their army. Send the remaining combat puppets to the Iron Gate Pass.”
It was a huge loss to have lost Great and Little Patola, but there was no way to turn back ti. They could only accept defeat for now.
However, the Iron Gate Pass must not fall, or else the Tibetan Empire would be put in a vulnerable position. They would be forced to take a defensive position in the Western Regions, unable to go on the offense.
Little did she know that a certain witch was happily delivering free kills in the Western Regions.
…
“How did things turn out like that?!” the mole king howled miserably.
Things had gone down differently from what he had expected.
He thought that he had already made thorough preparations for war, gathering a massive army of 100,000 and equipping their elites with the Tibetans’ superior armor and weapons.
His heart was bursting with pride when he did the military inspection parade. He could imagine himself first raising the Mole Tribe’s flag in Shule before going on to sweep through the Western Regions, eventually establishing the Mole Empire.
His na would go down in history!
Shortly after he dispatched his army, they bumped into the patrolling Tang army’s light cavalryn. These light cavalryn weren’t terracotta soldiers but new living recruits trained by the ghost horsen.
Thanks to Shu Yichao’s efficient use of his two miraculous potions, the Western Regions were more prosperous than ever. It was similar to rearing livestock—they only needed to keep the strongest male as the breeder, and the others could be transford into childbearing females.
It was no wonder the population exploded!
The Tang light cavalryn were baffled to see the mole army. A portion of them returned to the city to report the matter, whereas the others remained to harass the mole army.
Sothing awkward happened afterward.
The mole army had no mounted soldiers, so they had no way of catching up with the Tang army’s light cavalryn. On top of that, footsoldiers were weak against highly mobile units like light cavalryn, especially if they didn’t have the support of cavalryn themselves.
The mole king had been confident that his soldiers could hold their defense line. He believed that if he gathered his troops together, they could even crush the enemy’s defense line…
But here ca the problem—the Tang light cavalryn had no defense line at all.
Each ti the moles charged at the Tang light cavalryn, the latter would imdiately scatter before circling to their flanks and back lines, causing the moles’ assault to fall empty.
To make things worse, the Tang light cavalryn would retaliate with arrows, and this was deadly to the mostly unarmored mole army. It also didn’t help that the moles were bunched together, so the Tang light cavalryn could easily hit a target without aiming properly.
It was not to say that the mole army didn’t have archers and ballistae.
However, the Tang light cavalryn would swiftly slip away the mont they noticed the mole archers and ballistae turning toward them.
It was a highly frustrating battle for the moles.
“Cowards!”
“Tang slaves!”
“Gutless trash!”
The moles hollered in anger, but they were unable to do anything about the Tang light cavalryn.
“Sir, this way!”
After so scouting, the Tang light cavalryn found an area in the mole army’s formation that had fewer archers, so they galloped over while continuing to fire arrows.
Tak! Tak!
Another wave of arrows fell on the unarmored moles.
“Brothers, charge with !”
This one-sided beating was so morale-crushing that one mole couldn’t take it anymore. He encouraged the hundreds of moles around him to break free from their formation and charge at the Tang light cavalryn.
“That idiot!” the mole king roared in anger.
While those were only Tang light cavalryn, Shu Yichao had so many mines and more than enough undead manpower that everyone in the Anxi army was well-equipped.
Hundreds of moles was not a force to be made light of, but when their enemies were ‘light cavalryn’ equipped with full-body armor and lances, their reckless maneuver was as good as a suicide attempt.
The twenty Tang light cavalryn retreated a distance to lure the hundreds of moles further from their army formation before baring their fangs.
“Kill them!”
A single charge was enough to destroy most of the moles. It was like a heavy grinder running over rows of neatly placed eggs; the towering horses easily stomped the moles into the ground.
With ‘kacha, kacha’ sounds, bones and juices flew everywhere.
“Jip jip!”
“Jip jip jip?!”
Witnessing the deaths of hundreds of moles sent shivers up the spines of the remaining moles. They instinctively leaned closer to their comrades.
“Your Majesty, what do we do?!” The mole king’s aides were panicking.
The mole king’s beard was trembling.
The battle had gone in a different direction from what he had expected. The gap between them and the Tangs was larger than he had thought. Even the Tang scouts looked to be too much for them to handle, let alone sieging the city!
While he was racking his brain for a solution, rumbles suddenly could be heard from afar.
“Your Majesty!” the moles howled. “The Tangs’ main army is here!”
The mole king anxiously turned his head over and saw a massive Tang flag fluttering in the air.
“How can a few hundred people be considered the main army… Ah?!”
What the mole king saw were not the traditional Tang cavalryn; they were platoons of ghost horsen mounted on sand monitors.
“That damned Tibetan mage!!!” the mole king howled. “She didn’t tell that the Tang army has these monsters!!!”
…
“Ah, so those red dots are moles!” Shu Yichao assessed the humongous mole army before him out of curiosity. “I didn’t expect there to be a vermin problem in the dead of winter.”
Sss, sss!
The sand monitors fidgeted restlessly and salivated at the sight of the mole army.
Damn… We didn’t expect there to be such a huge buffet waiting for us. These moles will keep us full for many days.
“All right.” Shu Yichao made up his mind. “Brothers, it’s ti to exterminate pests! Go ahead and feast all you want!”
Sss!
The excited sand monitors pounced on the monitors like ravenous lions.
“There’s no need to be afraid!” the mole king placated his troops. “Remain in formation and slowly retreat!”
“RUNN!!!”
However, the terrified moles ignored their king’s order and scattered right away. So of them had encountered sand monitors before and knew how terrifying these monsters were.
If they were up against steeds, they could still employ the human wave tactic to drown their enemies—the fragile steeds would swiftly fall in a lynch. However, the sa couldn’t be said about the sand monitors.
Sand monitors had hardened skin that even arrows couldn’t penetrate. They wondered if they could even bring down a single sand monitor here.
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