Chapter 1141: "Flames of War Rise (6)"
The city that they had just come out from not long ago, was suddenly blown up into smithereens right before their eyes. The flames surged towards the sky, painting the dim horizon in a red glow!
The city was gone.....
In a blink, it had turned into ruins, a scene of fire and destruction as the earth shattering explosion greatly startling their hearts.
A noisy clatter suddenly sounded from among the group of refugees.
A large wicker basket placed upon a horse had suddenly fallen to the ground, and from the basket, a heap of blood stained metal badges had fallen out in a loud clatter.
Mu Chen's eyes stared very hard at the badges and he almost seemed to dash over in a hurry to fall to the ground next to the heap of metal, wiping the blood stains off the badges with his trembling hands.
[The Rui Lin Army, must have.....]
Mu Chen suddenly felt like a lightning bolt had hit him!
Upon the neck of every single Rui Lin Army soldier, hung a name tag just like these. When they died on battlefield and it was difficult to retrieve their bodies, their name tags would then be brought back to their hometowns to be handed over to their families.
Mu Chen had never once thought that the soldiers guarding the city to the death would actually be men from the Rui Lin Army!
Blood and mud had covered the armour they were wearing which did not allow people to see which army they had been from.
Having freed the warhorses, they had already fully intended to die together with the enemy and with the destruction of the city!
They knew that they would no longer be able to return to their home soil in glory and they had taken the name tags from everyone to place upon one of the horses that was leaving the city, hoping that the name tags that carried their last will would have a chance to be delivered into the hands of their family members.
"Argh! ! !" Mu Chen knelt on the ground and screamed with his head tilted back facing into the sky, as hot tears rolled down from the corners of his eyes.
He had promised Jun Xie that he would support the Rui Lin Army well. Although he had usually not interacted much with the Rui Lin Army, but everything he had done in this period had been to strengthen them. And today, he had not even known that the men who had shared the same battlefield with him were men from that very ferocious fighting unit!
At that moment, everyone was silent. After seeing the pile of name tags, they all understood that the Rui Lin Army soldiers within the city had expended their own lives to gain them time for their escape. They had used their own blood and even their lives to write the Rui Lin Army an immortal song of praise!
"Master....." Those disciples who had scolded the soldiers for being heartless and unfeeling just before they left now had their heads hanging down in shame.
The soldiers' rude and brash demeanour had exactly been because of the high regard they had for Mu Chen, as they knew that there would only be death for anyone who remained in the city, and hence, they had said such hurtful words to chase Mu Chen out of the city.
A light drizzle then fell from the sky, to splatter upon the land, turning everyone's clothes wet. The icy cold rain had in an instant, turned into a heavy downpour, the drops of rain splashing upon the name tags, drumming out clear sounding clinks, washing off the blood and mud off little by little.
Mu Chen lowered his head and carefully picked up those name tags to put them all back into the basket. He then placed the basket upon the horse and lifted his head, looking into the rain soaked path ahead of them.
"Let's go! We cannot let their sacrifice be in vain!"
Their hearts feeling as if it had been cut by a knife, they could not afford to stop themselves from continuing to go forward. They needed to live, to carry on the will of the Rui Lin Army soldiers who had remained behind in that city, to bring back the name tags imbued with their brave souls and strong will, to be delivered into the hands of their family!
Under the heavy downpour, the group that had stopped picked themselves up again, moving forward as the icy cold rain washed over them, but failing to wash away the sadness and pain in their hearts. The path beneath their feet was muddy and treacherous, but the unforgettable memory of the Rui Lin Army soldiers in the city, remained in their hearts as the eternal protectors of the Qi Kingdom!
Chapter 1142: "Flames of War Rise (7)"
On the battlefield in the west, the city had been extensively wrecked by the enemy soldiers. Mu Qian Fan stood within the military camp, watching as the Rui Lin Army leaders planned out the upcoming battle upon the map. Outside, the sounds of battle raged on incessantly, the cries from the slaughter ringing continuously in their ears.
Under the large tent, the armour of all the leaders were stained with blood but they did not even have the time to clean it off. In such an intense battle, every minute and every single second they had was fought for with the very lives of their soldiers.
"The Condor Country's allied army's numbers are too great! Our brothers are not able to hold them back!" One of the leaders smashed a fist upon the table in anger, blood immediately flowing out from the skin around his knuckles.
Another one of the leaders had his face creased up in a deep frown, as he stared at the situation upon the map, his expression highly cautious.
"Have the citizens of the Clear Moon City been evacuated?" He asked.
"A large part of them have been evacuated. This city here is becoming indefensible. Are we going to retreat?"
"There is nowhere for us to retreat to anymore. This road leads straight to the Imperial City and if we pull back, the Condor Country's allied army will go straight for the golden dragon. The defence of the Imperial City is not yet fully prepared and if they were attacked by the Condor Country now, they would not be able to hold the fort....." The Commander's brows were knotted tightly together, his eyes almost boring two holes into the map, wanting merely to find an avenue where they could just hope for a victory against the overwhelming odds.
Unfortunately, the number of soldiers they held were too few, and were completely inadequate to resist the Condor Country's enormous army.
Although the Rui Lin Army was highly powerful, but their army of one hundred thousand had been split into four battlefields while the barracks in every outpost had only about twenty thousand men. Even if they combined with all the other forces in the Qi Kingdom, they would still not be a match for the Condor Country's allied forces.
The Qi Kingdom while in the hands of the previous Emperor, squandered away too much time, where the Qi Kingdom's army had missed out on the best opportunity for training. Even when Mo Qian Yuan had tried to rectify it immediately after he ascended into the throne, but within just this one short year, wanting to train up the other forces of the Qi Kingdom to become like the Rui Lin Army as Masters of iron and blood, was just plain wishful thinking.
And they could not afford to retreat anymore. If they pulled back one more step, their Imperial City would be in crisis and once the Imperial City was taken, the Qi Kingdom..... would have completely fallen!
As was the nature of all military men, none of the leaders within that tent was willing to make the decision to retreat. They were all wrecking their brains trying find an opportunity within the crisis.
"We fight! We can only continue to fight them! The has Duke left this place in our hands and had also allocated another ten thousand men to us. And with the primary force of the Qi Kingdom's army here with us, if we fail again, how are we going to answer to the trust the Duke and His Majesty has placed in us! ?" The Commander said through gritted teeth.
"We'll beat them till they cry for their mothers! It's just the Condor Country! I will give everything I have to take them on! I won't lose out once I kill one, and I will have earned with just two of them! If they want to exterminate the Qi Kingdom, then they will have to do it stepping over the bodies of us, the Rui Lin Army!" The leader shouted emotionally, hot blood surging within his chest.
The Qi Kingdom cannot fall! The Rui Lin Army will not fall!
"If our heads roll, it'll just leave a big scar! When we meet back in netherworld, we brothers will reunite and still kick up a storm!"
"Reporting! The Condor Country is charging us on the right!" A soldier said hurriedly, rushing in from outside the tent.
A leader lifted up the strong wine on the table and poured it down his throat. He then turned to the others under the tent and said as he waved: "Brothers! I will make a move first! In the netherworld, I will go open up a path for my brothers!"
Immediately after saying that, he turned and walked outside taking wide strides!
That farewell, was one where they would be parted between life and death, and there was no turning back!
Mu Qian Fan clenched his jaw as he watched, and when he could not hold himself back any longer, he strode up to stand before the Commander.
"This insignificant soldier requests to join the battle!"
The Commander looked at him and shook his head.
"Why! ?" Mu Qian Fan asked, his eyes flaring wide.
Chapter 1143: "Flames of War Rise (8)"
The Commander ignored him and merely said to the soldier who had brought in the report: "Bring a warhorse here and send Brother Mu back to the Imperial City."
"I'm not going back!" Mu Qian Fan shouted!
"You need to return! You are not a citizen of the Qi Kingdom and the affairs of the Qi Kingdom doesn't need any outsiders interfering in them!" The Commander said sternly.
Mu Qian Fan had wanted to resist further but inside the Commander's tent, the other leaders quickly tied him up and strapped him onto a warhorse to send it running into the direction of the Imperial City. Mu Qian Fan's eyes turned red and bloodshot, turning back to look at the battlefield gradually getting further away from him, watching the Rui Lin Army soldiers who fought back their blood, his heart bleeding.
How he wished to be like them, standing upon the battlefield and defending what is most important to one's heart with their own two hands!
After Mu Qian Fan left, the Commander let out a heavy sigh within his tent.
Outside the Commander's tent, emergency reports were being raised as the battle entered its more intense phase.
Inside the Commander's tent, the military leaders raised their wine cups and threw their heads back to drink. They then bowed to pay their respects to the Commander without a word and then turned to depart.
The Commander stood alone within the tent and watched the stalwart and determined backs of the brothers who had gone through life and death with him, his eyes misted up into a blur by tears. That gaze, was to become his last memory of them, as they would not be coming back alive.
In the empty Commander's tent, the Commander fell back onto the ground, his hands covering his face, his shoulders shaking faintly, a stifled cry coming out from his throat.
Men's tears do not shed easily, till it really hits the heart!
This battle, went on for three days and three nights. The thirty five thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers who held their position to the death all perished, with not a single one alive. The rest of the Qi Kingdom's army soldiers met their end tragically as well and the entire battlefield was filled with dead bodies, their blood flowing to the ground forming into red streams, meandering through every inch of the lands.
The Condor Country's army's armoured cavalry, stepped over the bodies of the Rui Lin Army soldiers, and attacked the enemy's main camp.
The soldiers at the camp fought with everything they had, using the last vestiges of their strength, to resist against the enemy cavalry.
Finally.....
The Condor Country's Commander in Chief sat atop his towering warhorse, and came to the Rui Lin Army's Commander's tent. Inside the camp, the dead bodies of the Rui Lin Army soldiers were everywhere. His brows knitted up together, as he looked at the Rui Lin Army who were famed to be the most ferocious strike force.
Even as an enemy on the opposing side, he could not help but respect and admire these soldiers of blood and iron.
It had been consecutive days of battle, and the progress of the four country allied forces had been repeatedly impeded and slowed. The other forces of the Qi Kingdom were not worth mentioning but the one that had given him the biggest headache had been the Rui Lin Army who had the least amount of men.
On this battlefield, the Rui Lin Army had totaled only about thirty over thousand. But it was exactly these thirty over thousand men who had properly chomped off three hundred thousand soldiers from his army!
One against ten!
That was what made this force so terrifying!
"Your army has been annihilated. If you surrender, I can spare you your life." The Condor Country's Commander in Chief said as he stared at the Commander's tent. He knew, that the Commander of this troop of Rui Lin Army was seated right inside the tent.
Throughout the entire battlefield, the only soldier of the Rui Lin Army still alive, was only this man!
It was silent inside the Commander's tent. The Condor Country's Commander in Chief raised his arm and had his soldiers surround the tent, where they sent thrust the long spears in their hands into the tent on all sides!
A loud clatter sounded!
The Commander's tent was shredded apart!
However!
A tall towering figure stood right in the middle of the collapsed tent. He was wearing silver armour, a long spear gripped in his hand, a fiery red cape draped carelessly behind him. His eyes were on fire, standing firm as a mountain, the brilliant light of dusk behind him, looking as if he was plated in golden glow.
"The Rui Lin Army only has men who die in battle, and none who surrenders without mettle! Come fight!" The Commander of the Rui Lin Army suddenly thrust out his long spear, unafraid of the soldiers who surrounded him heavily, as he flew right towards the Condor Country's Commander in Chief!
Chapter 1144: "A Soldier's Spirit Lives On (1)"
The tempestuous wind howled, kicking up a yellow storm of sand, as the Condor Country's army flattened the Rui Lin Army's encampment, making their way towards the Qi Kingdom's Imperial City.
In the Rui Lin Army's camp, the military tents were set ablaze, the fiery glow shooting upwards, lighting up the dimming skies . In the middle of the raging fires, the Rui Lin Army's Camp Commander stood erect, his body upright with his unbending back, exemplifying the steel hard will of the most ferocious strike force, never to fall!
Among the roaring flames, he stood tall and proud, countless arrow shafts pierced through his armour, into his body, together with the numerous blade wounds covered all over his body. Blood flowed as if from a spring out from his wounds, down his armour. His eyes had already lost the twinkle they had always held, the light gone out of them. He could no longer see the land he and his men had protected all their lives, and neither could his ears hear the howling of the wind.
Till death, he had not fallen before the enemy, the spirit of a soldier permeating his entire body, his hand gripped around the spear as he stood like a statue erected upon the blood soaked land!
The spear that had morphed from a ring spirit glittered with specks of light under the fire, its owner's demise not allowing it to remain much longer upon the mortal realm, but.....
Even when the Commander's blood had fully covered it completely, it was still unwilling, and was refusing to leave.....
Till its final struggles fizzled out completely, the spear gradually began to disappear within the howling wind and the raging flames, the Commander's stiffened body remained standing with the glow of the fire reflecting off his armour, forever..... and ever..... unyielding, indomitable!
Over thirty thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers annihilated, hundred over thousand Qi Kingdom army soldiers fallen upon the battlefield, their spilled blood causing a thick stench of blood to permeate everywhere throughout the entire piece of land.
The enemy army defeated, their soldiers dead, the Condor Country's army charged straight in, driving themselves into the heart of the Qi Kingdom. Several more cities were thoroughly cleansed by the raging flames of war, as the armoured cavalry of the Condor Country swept through them!
Without the cover from the army, the citizens in the various cities fled in a panic running in all directions, as blood and merciless killing filled their eyes. They were just citizens who did not possess any battle power, and under the Condor Country's merciless blade, they had nowhere to run!
Over ten cities were brutally taken out, without a single survivor left from all of them!
The Condor Country's army was approaching closer and closer to the Qi Kingdom's Imperial City, and the refugees who had fled from many places were weary and exhausted.
"Quick! Get everyone out of the city!" The Lord of the City said on the eve before the Condor Country's army were supposed to reach them, transferring all the citizens within the city out. Upon the city's walls, the soldiers standing guard held their swords in hand as they peered far into the distance, the blood within them boiling, every nerve within their body stretched taut.
[Just a bit more time!]
[Just a little bit more!]
They prayed countless times in their hearts, that they would have more time, to let their family members escape this hell in purgatory.
Even if there was only the tiniest sliver of hope, they wished that their family would be able to live.
As the citizens were continuously being moved out, a troop of soldiers instead came marching in from the city gates at the back.
"And all of you are?" The Lord of the City asked, his face puzzled, as he busied himself with the citizens' evacuation.
The leader of the troop of soldiers stepped forth, dressed in light armour, his face well weathered, a grey white beard verifying his advanced years in age, but within that pair of wizened eyes, it could be seen they held a chivalrous glint that shocked one who looked into them!
"My humble self am the previous High General of the Rui Lin Army, Long Zhan! I received news that our army on the frontline were annihilated and I have specially brought some men here to prepare to meet the enemy!" Long Zhan's eyes were ablaze, not exhibiting the slightest sign of senility nor his advanced age!
The eyes of the Lord of the City widened as he stared in disbelief. The name Long Zhan had rang loudly throughout the entire Qi Kingdom and beyond twenty years ago. That was in the beginning when the Qi Kingdom had just been established, when the Rui Lin Army had been at its pinnacle of glory, with the Rui Lin Army soldiers numbering several times what it was now!
Chapter 1145: "A Soldier's Spirit Lives On (2)"
At that time, the generals who served directly under Duke Lin, Jun Xian, were all men of extraordinary ferocity. But after the kingdom was established, the reigning Emperor seeked to weaken the Rui Lin Army's power and influence and he forced several generals who carried out outstanding military exploits to step down from their positions, stripping them of their military ranks, to serve as Lords of the City in several small cities in the hinterlands.
A group of generals who had been peerlessly fierce and powerful on the battlefield had had no other choice but to leave the army they had pledged their undying loyalty to because of the jealousy and suspicions of the Emperor, shedding their armour and blades, to go to a tiny city to administer over trivial matters.
And against all those repressive arrangements, no one from the Rui Lin Army said a single word in disparagement. They withdrew from the army cleanly, without a single word of grumbling heard from them.
And Long Zhan who stood before the Lord of the City now, was one of those highly ferocious generals who had been coerced to leave the Rui Lin Army!
And he was also the current Rui Lin Army's High General, Long Qi's father!
"Senior General Long Zhan! Why are you..... Why are you....." The Lord of the City was suddenly at a loss for words. All those generals who had been forced to withdraw then were assigned to faraway poor and barren cities. The city Long Zhan had been in was nowhere close to this place and even though Long Zhan was already so advanced in age, he had still gone on to *cloak himself in stars and wore the moon to dash here speedily through the night.
[*Translator Note from Cloud: (Chinese idiom) I assume it means - carried out through the night tirelessly]
"Although I am no longer a soldier of the Rui Ling Army, but these old bones were shaped and formed under the pummeling from the Rui Lin Army. In the current crisis of war, how could this old bag of bones just sit back and do nothing? This city sits upon the route one must take to get to the Imperial City and the Condor Country will need to pass here to lay siege to the Imperial Palace. Although I and my men are already into our withering years, but giving everything this old bag of bones has, I will still be able to buy us some time." Long Zhan said, strongly determined.
The Lord of the City was still in shock, but he suddenly realized that Long Zhan had come to appear here because the Rui Lin Army's spirit still lived deep within his heart. Even though he had left the Rui Lin Army, but the loyalty the Rui Lin Army had branded right into his soul would never be eradicated!
"General Long! Please accept a bow of respect from my humble self!" The Lord of the City immediately knelt, his eyes suddenly red as he lifted his head to look at Long Zhan and said: "I am willing to stand with General Long, to resist the Condor Country's army!"
Long Zhan guffawed out loud. "Great! As expected of a man from our Qi Kingdom!"
The Lord of the City got up and immediately issued the order for everyone to leave the city after evacuating all the citizens, as this place would soon turn to become the lowest depths of Hell.
However.....
Among all of the city's soldiers, not a single one shifted a step, as they continued to stand firm to guard their respective positions.
"The country must never fall. We are willing to die and live together with the Qi Kingdom! If with my blood and flesh, I am able to gain some time for His Majesty, that would be an honour!" The soldiers were strongly determined. Some among them had even just completed their coming of age ceremony and their faces were still slightly tinged with the green of youth.
[But when the country is broken, their home will be gone. When the country is faced with such a crisis, they must not allow themselves to even think of running to live ignobly.]
[Only when the country stands, one has a home!]
If the Qi Kingdom falls, then they will be no different from the homeless ghosts and drifting souls!
"Good! Good! All men of great calibre!" Long Zhan swept his gaze around to look at the hot blooded young men with tears in his old and wizened eyes, feeling as if he had returned to the past all the way where it had all begun, when he and his brothers had established the Rui Lin Army together with Jun Xian.
That same belief, supported and braced them as they climbed out from merciless battles one after another, their very own comrades who had lost their lives, pushing them forward to never take a single step backwards!
"Everyone hear my order! Defend the city with your very lives! We hold till the last breath, however long we can! We need to buy more time for our brothers within the Imperial City!" Long Zhan called out loudly, his trusty sword sealed under years of dust, finally unsheathed once more!
Chapter 1146: "A Soldier's Spirit Lives On (3)"
Smoke rose in all directions, anguished wails could be heard throughout. The citizens who had escaped from the city were weary and heavy hearted. They could not see hope, nor saw any way forward, and the sounds of slaughter behind them made their legs go weak, but the longing to survive pushed them, with no other choice but to continue to move forward.
"Mother, where is Father?" Huddled inside a basket, a young child stared in fright with a pair of innocent eyes under the rumble of fighting, as he saw the city he had lived peacefully within growing smaller and smaller before his eyes.
The body of the woman who was carrying the basket on her back stiffened, and tears immediately rolled down from her eyes. She did not make a sound, not daring to utter a single sound, but just covered her mouth with her hand, as she stifled the choking sob lodged within her throat.
"Father! Father! Mother, I want Father! Father told me that he will bring me to go ride a horse..... Father said he will teach me martial arts....." Not getting a response from his mother, the frightened young child could only cry out helplessly. That highly pitiful cry, made everyone in the group fall completely silent.
The child cried helplessly, remembering the image of his father dressed in light armour, tall and imposing, looking like the invincible God of War in his heart. He still remembered those strong arms that would lift him high up in the air, remembering the promise his father had made when he was being carried upon a horse.
The woman could not hold back the grief inside any longer and she crumbled to the ground to cry with her hands covering her face.
Her husband, was a guard in the city. From the moment that he had escorted her and their son out of the city, she knew, that her husband..... will never come back again.
The child continued to cry helplessly, and together with the woman's wail of utter despair, it was as if a heavy chain had been looped around everyone's throat, that made it hard for them to breathe.
A youth who was walking among the group of people clenched up his fists tightly, as blood dripped down through the gaps in between his fingers onto the ground. He suddenly turned himself around, and ran off in the opposite direction from where the group was heading towards!
"Little Tu! Where are you going!" A lady cried out in shock, suddenly in a fluster.
The youth's steps hesitated momentarily and he froze a moment before turning himself around. Upon that still slightly childlike face, was a strong determination.
"Mother, the soldiers of the Qi Kingdom have spilled their blood across the battlefield in order to protect our homes and our country. And now the Condor Country's Army is coming here and the people within the city will not be able to hold them back. I am going back there!"
"You're just a child! What can you do by going back!" The lady's face was filled with horror.
The youth instead replied: "Although I do not possess high spirit power, but I still have my ring spirit! I might not be able to kill much of the enemy foes, but I refuse to believe that if I give it everything I have, I will not be able to take down a single soldier from the Condor Country!"
The youth's words were tinged with a slight childishness of youth, but they still made up a highly shocking declaration!
"I'll go back together with you!" Another youth came over to stand by his side.
"And me!"
"Count me in!"
"Damn it all! We men of the Qi Kingdom will never be turtles who hide their heads! Any with bloodlust, we'll all go charging back! Don't be like a sissy and go hide in another city. I completely despise softies like that!" A brawny man holding a heavy forging hammer roared!
With that one thunderous roar, all the men from within the group stood forward at once. Although they were just common citizens who did not know how to wield a sword, but just as that youth had said, they all still had their Ring Spirits!
Even if they were unable to defeat the enemy, they would still be able to stake their lives on it and every single one enemy taken down was another one enemy less!
If their lives could be given in exchange to lessen a bit of the enemy's army, it would still lessen that one bit of pressure on the Imperial City!
Hot blood pumped within the chests of the men. They cast a final gaze upon their family and then turned strongly determined to charge all the way back to the city!
Chapter 1147: "A Soldier's Spirit Lives On (4)"
Inside the military camp, Long Qi stared at the letter he held in his trembling hands that he had just received, his cold hard face showing a crack of his emotions.
"Chief General....." The Rui Lin Army soldiers were staring worriedly at Long Qi.
Long Qi was silent for a long while before he suddenly stood up. He put the letter on the table and grabbed his cape to secure it upon his shoulders. Picking up his sword, he ran out from the camp and leapt onto his warhorse, charging straight towards the battlefield!
A soldier within the camp looked in shock at Long Qi who had suddenly turned murderous. He turned feeling highly puzzled and saw the letter that Long Qi had left behind on the table. He subconsciously picked up the letter and swept his eyes over it!
In that instant!
Every word on that letter drove the soldier into deeper shock!
[To be opened by: Long Qi, my son]
[Your old man has been relieved of my armour and returned to pasture for many years. Finally, a battle has arrived that allows me to return to the battlefield. Today, I stand together with the Lord of the Green City in battle, swearing to defend the soil of the Qi Kingdom to the death. If you receive this letter, it will mean that your old man's soul has returned to the Heavens and do not grief when you see this letter. You know that men of the Long Family shed blood and not tears. Our bodies are branded with the Rui Lin Army's spirit and do not besmirch the Rui Lin Army's name! I look forward to seeing my son eliminate more of the enemy's leaders on the battlefield and protect the Qi Kingdom's empire from being stolen by thieves!
Long Zhan.
"It's the Senior General..... The Senior General....." The soldier fell back to sit upon the ground in shock. Another soldier who was patrolling suddenly saw the first soldier looking like he saw a ghost and he came running inside in a hurry.
"What happened?"
The first soldier's face was filled with despair as he gripped at his comrade's sleeve tightly!
"The day before, news that the Green City had been destroyed came in. Do you still remember that!"
The soldier was surprised a moment before he nodded quickly.
The battle at the Green City, was said to be extraordinarily intense. A city that should have been abandoned had suddenly put up a strong and powerful defense!
According to rumours, the people who took part in the battle had not only been the Lord of the Green City and his soldiers, but a powerful troop of reinforcements had joined them. In the end, even all the men of the Green City had turned back after being evacuated to join in with the battle!
A single Green City, had well and proper held the enormous Condor Country Army back for the entirety of three days and three nights!
At the moment the city was breached, a sea of the enemy's dead bodies lay, and there wasn't a single person still alive within!
"It was the Senior General! Those reinforcements was actually the Senior General! ! ! Argh! ! ! ! !" The soldier continued to wail in despair.
The other soldier immediately froze, his face quickly overtaken by shock. He could not believe what his own ears had just heard.
"Go stop the Chief General! Go stop him quickly! He has gone to take on the enemy by himself! !"
On the battlefield, Long Qi's eyes saw only red, the maliciously murderous aura flaring out from his entire being, driving all the enemy soldiers back with none daring to take a single step forward!
As his hand lifted, his sword cut down!
Long Qi was like the Reaper on the battlefield, using the endless slaughter and countless blood sprays to numb himself.
Men of the Long Family sheds blood and not tears.....
He knew that from the moment his father had been made to withdraw from the army, he had always longed for the day to come when he would be able to return to the battlefield, to don his armour, to slay the enemy! His father had waded in battles for far too many years, and the soldier's spirit had already been irrecoverably branded into his blood and bones. The day would come where he would finally be able to step into the flames of war, in a brilliant display of his radiant glory on the merciless battlefield!
[Father had been born with the soul of a soldier, to live through the battlefield, to finally die in the battlefield.....]
Long Qi suddenly looked up at the skies, and a roar tore out from deep within his heart!
The long spear gripped within his hand swung in an arc, the blood hanging off the tip scattering across the land!
"I, Long Qi, swear to the Heavens, that as long as there is still one man still alive in the Rui Lin Army, no one can ever think they can take the lands of the Qi Kingdom from us!" Long Qi said as he sat atop his handsome tall stallion, his long spear thumping into the ground, his murderous gaze sweeping over every enemy soldier around him!
Chapter 1148: "A Soldier's Spirit Lives On (5)"
Consecutive days of fiery war put the Qi Kingdom in a deep quandary. Surrounded on four sides, the Rui Lin Army and the Qi Kingdom's Army fought bravely, but were finally still not a match for the merciless battering from the four country allied army forces!
Mo Qian Yuan in the Imperial City then issued an order, to have all their forces who were resisting the enemy outside to immediately pull back to the Imperial City, in preparation to make a final stand against the four country allied army.
Initially, the Rui Lin Army soldiers who had moved out from the Imperial City had numbered a hundred thousand. But returning back to the Imperial City, there were only a pitiful twenty thousand of them.....
Eighty thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers had been buried in the battlefield, and on top of that, several hundred thousand soldiers of the Qi Kingdom's army were lost!
When the army returned to the Imperial City, all the citizens were lined up along the sides of the street, peering at the returning soldiers. All the soldiers who had come back after having fought with their lives on the line, had their armour already turned red with blood. Many of their injured were carried into the city, and not a single one among them did not have clothes free of mud and blood.
Looking at these men who walked in weary and utterly exhausted in order to defend their country's soil, the citizens in the Imperial City could no longer hold back the anguish in their hearts and many broke down in tears.
A hundred thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers when they left, with only twenty thousand returning, and the Qi Kingdom's army only numbering about one hundred left.
Six hundred thousand the Qi Kingdom's army had numbered, and that number had diminished by four out of five!
This war had truly taken a dire toll on the Qi Kingdom!
Anxiously anticipating the return of their husbands, the ladies could not find the faces of their beloved. Eagerly anticipating their father's return, the children failed to see those strong shoulders sturdy as a mountain. Worriedly anticipating for their son's return, the elderly could not find those familiar figures!
Four hundred and eighty thousand of the Qi Kingdom's soldiers had not been able to come back alive!
And, this war was still not over! A more deadly battle would descend upon them very soon!
Upon returning, Jun Xian immediately went to the Imperial Palace to see Mo Qian Yuan.
The man who had once fought to secure an empire for the Qi Kingdom, and singlehandedly established the Rui Lin Army, Duke Lin, was now already silver haired. The consecutive days of endless bloody battle had made his face age by a decade in this short span of two weeks.
"Your Majesty!" Jun Xian did not even have time to shed himself off his blood stained armour and he had come straight to the Palace to see the Emperor. Coming into the main hall, he immediately fell to his knees before Mo Qian Yuan and said: "Your vassal has failed Your Majesty's orders, I beg Your Majesty to deliver the punishment!"
Mo Qian Yuan quickly came down from the throne and helped Jun Xian up.
"Duke Lin..... You have already done enough. You have fought valiantly and exhibited the resilience of the Qi Kingdom." Sitting in his throne, Mo Qian Yuan had continuously received reports from the frontlines everyday. Every single one of those battle report made him highly restless, making him wish he could just jump onto a horse, to throw himself into a bloody battle with the four country allied army to the end!
"Your vassal is ashamed." Jun Xian's face was solemn.
Only when one had fought on the frontlines, could he truly know just what kind of a horrifying and hopeless situation the Qi Kingdom was facing.
The Rui Lin Army had under Jun Wu Xie's and Mu Chen's careful nursing and strengthening, become much stronger than before. But even when that was the case, faced with a million lions, they were still powerless to resist!
Jun Xian had taken the command from the Commander's tent, and he had seen countless Rui Lin Army brothers who had fought with him as they waded in blood die upon the battlefield, as their battle front was pushed back by the enemy soldiers a bit at a time, where they had not even been able to retrieve the bodies of their fallen comrades!
"Duke Lin, Heaven has decreed it so, and we have given it everything we've got. If the Heavens has determined that our Qi Kingdom is to perish, and we have done everything we've could to resist it, then there is no need to blame yourself. If not for you holding back the fronts, we don't need to mention two weeks. Our Qi Kingdom would not have even held out for seven days, and would have already been obliterated by the four country allied army by now!" Mo Qian Yuan was not trying to comfort Jun Xian, but was speaking the hard truth. The four country allied forces, had a million soldiers from each country, while their Qi Kingdom was small and their military scant. An army of a mere six hundred thousand, how could they hope to hold back such an immensely staggering number of enemies! ?
Chapter 1149: "Blood for Blood (1)"
When the army returned, they did not even have time for any rest. Once all the soldiers came into the city, they had immediately commenced on the final preparations for the upcoming siege!
The four country allied army advanced quickly, and fire beacons were lit all around the Qi Kingdom!
Deep in the night, the guards upon the walls of the Imperial City blew the bugle, signalling the enemy's attack!
Under the night sky, with the Condor Country commanding them, the forces of three countries had already arrived at the Imperial City. The armies of the three countries gathered and the monumental immensity of the enemy forces was truly terrifying to see!
The decisive battle, was about to begin!
This night, no one was able to get any sound sleep.
.....
At the border of the Qi Kingdom, an enormous army quietly advanced!
Everywhere the army passed, all that they saw was destruction and ruin. The torched and burning battlefields and fallen cities, showed them in no uncertain terms, the intensity of the battles that had taken place.
The armoured cavalry pounded through the blackened lands, and everyone saw the scene before them. They were all soldiers, and they had fought their fair share of battles, but.....
When they saw the mountainous piles of bodies, they could not help themselves but be stunned.
An infantry soldier suddenly stepped upon a broken metal badge. He bent over and picked it up, to wipe off the blood stains upon it. Upon that broken metal badge, it was clearly inscribed with three characters that read Rui Lin Army!
"Give it to me." A slightly chill voice suddenly rang out from the front.
The soldier was taken aback but he immediately brought the badge and offered it up with two hands to the young youth riding high up on a massive stallion, right at the forefront of the ranks.
The youth was dressed in silver light armour, his looks not considered to be highly good looking, but the cold and grave expression on his face, made none of them dare show him the slightest disrespect.
The youth held the broken badge in his hand, his thumb rubbing against the protruding characters that read Rui Lin Army, and his icy eyes quickly hardened.
"Report! Your Majesty! Five miles ahead, we've discovered an army carrying the banner of the Prosper Country!" The scout had rode his horse back as fast as he could and immediately dismounted to deliver the news.
The youth seated atop the stallion kept the Rui Lin Army badge carefully away and looked up, the frosty eyes quickly filling with chilling murder.
"Prosper Country..... Great. We'll start with them. Hear my command! Advance quickly at once!"
In the Prosper Country encampment, within the Commander's tent, the Chief Commander of the Prosper Country's army was seated leaning back in his chair, as several rather good looking ladies knelt at his feet. The ladies were in a wretched state, their hands and feet shackled with chains, their bodies covered in wounds from a whip. They were citizens of the Qi Kingdom and after their city was overrun by the Prosper Country's army, they had been taken by their Commander and were put through inhumane torture.
"Chief Commander, the Condor Country and the rest have already reached the Qi Kingdom's Imperial City. Aren't we going to move out as well?" An officer of the Prosper Country asked in puzzlement as he looked at his Chief Commander.
The Chief Commander took the wine offered by the lady prisoner and slowly took a sip out from it before he shook his head to say: "Go there for what? When the Qi Kingdom falls, it's the Condor Country that will get all the benefits anyway. If we go there now, we will just be fighting the battle for them. His Majesty has ordered us to assist the Condor Country to invade the Qi Kingdom, but when the Qi Kingdom's Imperial City falls, he doesn't allow us to pillage and plunder the city. Wouldn't we just be dirtying our hands for the Condor Country's benefit? Anyway, the Qi Kingdom are no longer able to put up any significant resistance and the armies of the other three countries would already make up a force of almost three million, even without us, they would surely be able to deal with the puny force the Qi Kingdom has left!"
The Chief Commander then said with a distasteful smile: "Whether we go or not, it'll turn out the same. I'd rather we just get our brothers to slowly ready ourselves to go back home instead."
Chapter 1150: "Blood for Blood (2)"
"That's quite true, we fight with our lives and squander so many of our men but we don't gain anything from it. What is His Majesty thinking?" The officer said, becoming a little depressed.
The Chief Commander then said: "We aren't really getting nothing out of it though. The Condor Country has promised that after the Qi Kingdom has fallen, they will not be taking any of their lands. They only want the Imperial City and the other three countries will split the rest. It won't be much longer that the Qi Kingdom will belong to us and the other two countries, and the Qi Kingdom will henceforth be no more under these Heavens!"
"Is that even possible? What is the Condor Country aiming to achieve by doing this?" The officer asked curiously.
"Who knows? These are things we do not have to bother about anyway." The Chief Commander then said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Actually, from what I can see, just the Condor Country's army alone will be enough to take the Qi Kingdom. So why did the Condor Country want to join forces with us?" The Condor Country was a mighty country inferior only to the Fire Country. The Qi Kingdom is just a tiny place and such a small country before the Condor Country should be easily taken. But they had roped in three other countries and even promised to not lay claim to any of the lands in the Qi Kingdom. That was a point that made one can't help but think to be rather strange.
"Tsk..... You are underestimating the Qi Kingdom's military might a little too much! A large part of the Qi Kingdom's army is indeed weak and vulnerable, but don't you forget, the Qi Kingdom has the most ferocious strike force under the Heavens, the Rui Lin Army! The Rui Lin Army might number only a hundred thousand, but with just that one hundred thousand men, they could very well be able to swallow up a million lions! The Condor Country seeks to take down the Qi Kingdom, but are unwilling to face them head on just by themselves. If it had been only the Condor Country's army alone, even if they managed to take down the Qi Kingdom, it would be expected that the Rui Lin Army would have bitten off a huge chunk of their meat. So, they had chosen to ally with three other countries, to split up the Rui Lin Army force, to reduce their losses instead." The Chief Commander explained.
At the mention of the Rui Lin Army, the officer subconsciously shivered. On this side of the battlefield, the number of Rui Lin Army soldiers they had encountered had not numbered more than twenty thousand, but the losses they had suffered under them had been unprecedentedly terrifying. The twenty thousand Rui Lin Army soldiers combined with a hundred thousand of the Qi Kingdom's army, had properly knocked off eight hundred thousand from their strength, with the majority of them killed by the Rui Lin Army soldiers.
If they did not have the Rui Lin Army men among them holding the fort, and had faced only the Qi Kingdom's army, they wouldn't have taken much time to make mincemeat out of them.
"We have heard from the start that the men from the Rui Lin Army can take on ten men against a single one of theirs but I had thought that that was merely a baseless rumour. Now that I have seen it for myself, I know for a fact just how terrifying they really are. It's little wonder why for so many years, a tiny country like the Qi Kingdom, did not have anyone dare to invade them. With the Rui Lin Army among them, any country that has any ideas towards the Qi Kingdom, will have to prepare themselves fully for it."
The Chief Commander then continued on with a sneer: "The Qi Kingdom only has the Rui Lin Army as a significant force and it was all due to the foolishness of their previous Emperor, with his uncalled for suspicions and jealousy, that he forcibly reduced the Rui Lin Army's numbers after the kingdom progressed, dismissing many of its most ferocious generals, and gradually reduced the Rui Lin Army's numbers over the years. If the previous Emperor had not been so foolish, the Rui Lin Army would not be left with just one hundred thousand soldiers, and if their numbers had doubled by just one time, we would have had to seriously reconsider lending a hand in this."
The dumbest people under the Heavens, were those that broke their own arms, and it had been the Qi Kingdom's previous Emperor who had lent them the greatest hand in this invasion!
"But it does not matter how brave or ferocious they are, they will still end up a pile of bones in the end! After the Qi Kingdom falls, the most ferocious strike force under the heavens, the Rui Lin Army, will henceforth cease to exist! Ha ha ha!"