125. The Iron-Blooded Cavalry

As expected, because the Doma Empire had evacuated all its supplies during the national retreat—and whatever could not be moved was either destroyed on the spot or hidden—the enemy commander, who had hoped to sustain his army through conquest and coordinate with local collaborators to seize the Doma Empire, found himself empty-handed. He had failed to encounter a single person or find a single scrap of supplies. Although he had captured several smaller coastal empires, the spoils were pitifully meager. He was now forced to consider which empire to attack next; if he did not secure a supply source within a few days, a retreat would be impossible.

The Goldstone Empire was too close to the Doma Empire, and the border towns adjacent to Doma had already been occupied by the enemy, providing the invaders with a much-needed respite.

When the enemy force split into two, one part completely blockaded the border of the Death Empire, while the other marched toward the capital of the Goldstone Empire. Although the siege resulted in heavy losses for the enemy, the commander deemed it a necessary sacrifice. They began the assault using crude siege equipment. While the Goldstone Empire was wealthy, it had not fortified its city walls to the same height as those of the Death Empire, which was precisely why the commander had chosen to target them first for supplies.

In an instant, the entire Goldstone Empire was in a state of emergency.

When Mo Fei learned that the enemy had diverted forces to blockade the border, he knew the Goldstone Empire was in trouble. He immediately dispatched orders to Kane, who had not long departed the City of Death, commanding him to assemble his forces and support the Goldstone Empire. The Goldstone Empire was a vital ally of the Death Empire; even setting that aside, it was imperative to prevent the enemy from securing more supplies. If these newly landed invaders were allowed to fully resupply, the consequences would be dire.

Upon receiving the order, Kane took all 45,000 cavalrymen from the City of Death. Combined with the cavalry from the imperial capital, Kane now commanded the largest cavalry force on the continent, totaling 125,000 troops. Of these, only 35,000 were Elven light cavalry; the rest were Berserker heavy cavalry. Clad entirely in pure black, they exuded an atmosphere of absolute oppression and shock.

The enemy commander, having landed on the shore, had never anticipated the involvement of the City of Death, nor had he expected the Death Empire to deploy its entire cavalry force. He had assumed that blocking the border of the Death Empire would allow him to focus his full strength on attacking the Goldstone Empire.

When Kane’s heavy cavalry army surged into the Goldstone Empire, they arrived just as the enemy was besieging the very same small town that Kane had once attacked. The soldiers and civilians of the Goldstone Empire stood united on the ramparts, raining down stones and logs upon the enemy. Below the walls, the ground was littered with enemy corpses, but the defenders had also suffered heavy casualties and were on the verge of collapse at several points along the walls.

It was time. Striking before the enemy noticed them would inflict the greatest possible damage. The signal for an all-out assault rang out, a sound like thunder that stunned both the besiegers and the defenders. But soon, the defenders witnessed a scene of breathtaking intensity they had never seen before. Over a hundred thousand heavy Death cavalrymen unleashed their full power on the flat terrain of the Goldstone Empire. Wherever the black torrent flowed, arrows filled the sky, and under their iron hooves, the ground was strewn with carnage. The enemy was crushed into mangled remains; trampled by the massive, heavily armored magical mounts, they had no chance of survival.

The soldiers on the walls could not help but cheer. Had it not been for the fear of disrupting the allied cavalry's charge, the city’s commander would have ordered a sortie to join the attack.

Because the terrain here was flat and suitable for large-scale maneuvers, the enemy commander had deployed nearly 500,000 troops along this route, with about 150,000 currently besieging the border town. This played right into Kane’s hands; with 120,000 against 150,000, if he failed to crush his opponent, then he would hardly be the Kane of legend.

The enemy was caught at the critical moment of their siege when Kane struck them from behind, directly eliminating their command post. The enemy officers inside were all killed in the rain of arrows. Without leadership, the 150,000 soldiers could not establish a proper defense. Unfamiliar with the terrain, they bunched together and were swiftly cut down by arrows, their bodies trampled underfoot as the cavalry swept through them like a gale.

After the battle, Kane did not linger. Based on intelligence from his scouts, he set his sights on the 300,000-strong camp preparing to attack another major city. Relying on the element of surprise, Kane did not fear the enemy despite them outnumbering his own force two to one. Once reorganized, the army moved out again.

In this battle at the small border town, nearly 80,000 enemy troops perished under the iron hooves, with only a small fraction escaping. Since they were not on their own territory, the enemy high command was still unaware that the Death heavy cavalry had been deployed. The three empires—Death, Doma, and Goldstone—were now filled with scouts dispatched by the Death Empire, and any scattered enemy units were sent straight to hell by these elite scouts. This resulted in poor intelligence and disrupted communications for the enemy. The enemy commander, not realizing the elite scouts of the Death Empire were behind it, assumed these incidents were the work of local remnants after the cities fell. He did not tighten security regarding communications, which only made things easier for the scouts. Although they could not decipher the intercepted documents, the fact that "I don't know, and neither do you" kept the Goldstone Empire in a state of chaos allowed the scouts to thrive, reveling in the slaughter of small enemy patrols.

After a previous incident where scouts were ambushed, the Death Empire began deploying them in squads of seven. The combat effectiveness of these expanded scout teams was astonishing; a patrol of thirty or forty enemies was nothing to them. They would strike without hesitation, and after a barrage of arrows, the seven scouts would leap out, their gleaming, custom-made scimitars mercilessly harvesting lives.

The consequence was that the enemy dared not send patrols of fewer than a hundred men. But this, in turn, had more serious repercussions. With so many men diverted to patrol duty, fewer soldiers were able to rest. After several days, many of the invading soldiers were visibly exhausted.

The elite scouts became even more audacious. Once they saw enemy patrols increasing to over a hundred men—a size seven scouts could not easily handle—they would simply link up with other nearby scout squads, regardless of anything else, and press them into service. The most outstanding and daring of these was an Elven scout captain named Deslin.

He was considered daring because he had once led his seven men to attack a patrol of over a hundred, and outstanding because he had managed to withdraw safely after eliminating half of the enemy force.

Sure enough, with his cunning, he discovered four other squads lurking and scouting in the region. Upon meeting them, Deslin gripped his scimitar, his eyes red with adrenaline, and shouted, "Brothers, you’ve been requisitioned! Follow me!"

The Elven scouts of those squads knew exactly what kind of man he was, and without a word, they followed. In this way, Deslin annexed these four squads, suddenly putting thirty-four men under his command. During this time, he became incredibly bold, sneaking to the outskirts of enemy camps and devouring any small groups that emerged. Now, even patrols of a hundred men were unsafe; previously, they might lose half their number, but now, they might never return at all. Deslin’s actions forced the enemy to divert the bulk of their forces just to guard against his raids.

When Mo Fei learned of this, he simply smiled without comment, merely sending a few more scout teams to that area, effectively allowing Deslin to keep the squads he had annexed. Mo Fei wanted to see if Deslin was truly a capable commander; if he survived the war after causing such a stir, he would be given a proper unit to lead.

When Deslin realized his master did not intervene, he knew it was a tacit approval, and he worked even harder. The Elven scouts following him were delighted, as they had never enjoyed such benefits before. However, when Deslin tried to annex other Elven scout squads, their captains would say, "I’d love to join you for wine and meat, but the Young Master said if you pull us away again, he’ll recall you to the capital to guard the walls. Think about it—I’d love to follow you, but if you’re not afraid of the Young Master, then..."

Before the words were finished, Deslin would turn and run. From then on, he stuck with his thirty-four men and never dared to recruit again. It was no joke—if he were sent back to guard the walls, he would die of boredom. He had to obey the Young Master; otherwise, not to mention the Princess's disapproval, even the Queen would deal with him. To be stuck guarding some remote place would be a fate worse than death.

Meanwhile, led by the Elven scouts, Kane and his army approached the 300,000-strong enemy camp at the foot of the mountains, which was preparing to attack another city.

"Are you certain there are only 300,000 inside? This camp is so large it looks like it holds 500,000 to me," Kane remarked. The camp was indeed built to the scale of 500,000 men; 300,000 troops would not require such a vast area.

"General, how would I dare report false intelligence?" the Elven scout whispered. "Ever since the General’s appetite for battle grew, we haven’t been slacking. This camp truly houses only 300,000 enemies. As for the 500,000 you mentioned, you aren't wrong, but the excess consists mostly of their wounded. It seems they are using this camp as a base for this front, and it likely holds their high-ranking officers. Over the past few days, our squads have killed many soldiers trying to deliver messages. Look at my men—every one of them is carrying a dozen letters."

"Letters?" Kane was puzzled.

"They might be orders of some kind, we just can't read them. The men say they kept them to claim credit with the Young Master later," the captain said, blushing with a sheepish grin.

Dusk was approaching, and smoke began to rise from the enemy camp. "It's dinner time for the enemy, General."

"Good. Whether it's 300,000 or 500,000, pass the word: don't penetrate too deeply. Destroy the outer perimeter of the camp and then pull out. We aren't in a rush. Hit them and run, let them stew in their own anxiety. Understood?"

The Berserker captains behind him whispered their acknowledgments and returned to their units to relay the order.

Normally, Kane would not have been able to infiltrate so close to the enemy camp without being detected, but the enemy patrols had been terrified by Deslin and rarely dared to emerge. Large-scale patrols had become a problem, so they had been significantly reduced over the last few days. In this sense, Deslin had indirectly helped Kane achieve this surprise attack.

The enemy soldiers waiting for their meal heard a sound that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. It was a rhythmic, drum-like pounding that escalated into a roar. In an instant, the entire camp was thrown into chaos. Brothers and comrades who had been laughing and joking just moments before fell to the ground. Those who survived were filled with terror at the sight of the black cavalry. Looking at the mangled camp, they could only wonder what kind of terrifying power could achieve such a feat.

Kane did not linger. He signaled for a retreat after smashing only half the camp. He did not realize the profound impact his action had on the enemy. The survivors carried this terror back to the entire invading force. The direct result was that in the later stages of the war, the enemy would flee at the mere sight of this black cavalry, making the resistance against the invasion far less difficult than expected.

The results of Kane’s heavy cavalry over those few days dealt a heavy blow to the enemy, slowed their momentum against the Goldstone Empire, and forced their commander to re-evaluate his entire strategic deployment. This bought Mo Fei more time and brought about an unexpected outcome for the Death Empire—a result that neither Mo Fei nor Kane had anticipated.