The rain gradually grew heavier. The cold wind from the north carried increasingly dense raindrops, making it nearly impossible to keep one's eyes open.
After this northerly wind passed, winter would probably arrive.
Raindrops the size of beans, swept along by the wind, pattered loudly against their helmets. The soaking rain seeped through the gaps in their chainmail and into the padding beneath, carrying coldness to every part of their bodies.
But the howling wind and pouring rain could not wash away the blood staining the warriors.
The camp was already carpeted with Gatu corpses.
Several horses had also fallen to the ground, most of them victims of two-handed swords.
The pooled water on the ground had all turned into thick, bloody mud, crimson liquid flowing down the gentle slope.
At the center of the camp, an unknown number of Gatu people lay sprawled in every direction. Some had even piled up on top of one another.
Most of them had only one wound, but every wound struck a fatal spot—the face, the throat, the heart, or between the legs...
Those were all Li Ang's kills. As long as he could take an opponent down quickly, he did not care where his blade—or his kick—landed.
Li Ang was drenched in blood. His blue-gray chainmail had completely turned reddish-brown.
His enclosed helmet had been soaked black with blood. With only his eyes exposed, the bloodstained helmet made him look like a demon.
There was a tear in the chainmail over his left chest, curled back to reveal crimson flesh beneath. It was a sword wound.
In the chaos of melee, no matter how skilled one was, it was difficult to evade blades and spears coming from every direction.
Yet when the sword in his hand swung again, it still struck like lightning, too fast for its gleam to be seen.
This time, however, the blade only managed to laboriously tear through half of his opponent's chainmail coif, cutting a gash across the man's throat.
His opponent did not die. Clutching his spurting neck, he fell and rolled on the ground—after cutting down more than a dozen men, the sword seemed to have grown somewhat dull.
Li Ang could clearly feel his exhaustion as well. He was not some madman with endless stamina; in truth, he was better at one-on-one combat.
He hooked up a nomad shield that had once belonged to an enemy with his toe and caught his breath.
A few meters to Li Ang's side stood Kloze, whose entire body gleamed blood-red. His polished plate armor had become exceptionally conspicuous after drinking its fill of blood, and his towering, burly frame made him look even more like a fiend than Li Ang.
The corpses around him looked miserable. Most could only be described as "pieces"; it was nearly impossible to find a whole body.
The only one that was still relatively intact was the cavalryman he had cut down last.
The crude greatsword in his hand had completely warped, yet it remained terrifying. The heavy blade swept sideways through the air with a shrieking roar, cutting across a rider's waist. The sword bent into an S-shape, while the Gatu cavalryman became a B-shape.
The greatsword had already dulled into a lump of iron.
Behind the two of them stood the Charge Squad in a line, but only eight men remained, every one of them dripping blood.
The enemy's, or their own.
Behind the Charge Squad was the wooden rampart, where a row of crossbowmen crouched and fired with all their might.
Below the rampart, Ansen had set down his sword. He was administering First Aid to two heavily wounded Meitengheim Infantrymen.
And inside the camp, there was no longer an enemy capable of standing.
"Bispa! Bispa!"
After suffering at least fifty casualties, the enemy shouted and fell back rather than continuing their charge—the camp was now filled with corpses and debris, forcing the Gatu cavalry to fight on foot.
And in a fight on foot, every big man in this camp seemed extraordinarily formidable...
In the age of cold weapons, casualties of one quarter were enough to shatter the morale of most armies, but these Gatu people had not broken.
They even retained good discipline and calmness.
That was the true reason the Gatu cavalry was so terrifying.
They had no discipline on the march, no real tactics, and no formation when charging. They looked like nothing more than a rabble—but they were never afraid of death.
They had their own social order and system of honor. To fear neither life nor death was a fundamental belief of that honor system.
Moreover, they had a reason they absolutely had to attack this camp—they had crossed the river from here in the first place. This camp was their road back to the grasslands!
After all the Gatu people at the front retreated dozens of meters away, another centurion who had been patrolling the flank led his men to the line and shouted something loudly.
Then he drew his saber, sliced his own face, and smeared the blood that ran down over his forehead.
This self-mutilating act seemed contagious. His subordinates all drew their sabers in unison and added cuts to their own faces.
Everyone's forehead was streaked with vivid red fingerprints.
The gagged Gatu warlord in the camp saw this and made a "kakaka" sound from his throat, as though laughing.
Then he tried to press his neck against Sarah's blade.
But Sarah quickly pulled her sword back, causing the warlord's suicide attempt to fail.
At the bottom of the gentle slope.
After the entire group had mutilated themselves and given themselves matching new faces, a cry of "Wusa! Gatu!!" reignited the battlefield.
"Wusa! Gatu!!"
All the Gatu people took out their bows and began firing volleys into the wind and rain.
Their self-mutilation seemed to be a ritual, and the result of that ritual was that they no longer cared about the captured warlord!
"Fall back! Raise your shields!"
Soaked bowstaves lost elasticity, weakening the arrows, and their accuracy was even worse in the wind and rain. But when more than a hundred archers fired at once, they did not need much accuracy. No one could withstand a barrage of random arrows.
The rain of arrows fell amid the raindrops like a swarm of locusts.
Li Ang raised the round nomad shield and retreated to the rampart. The crossbowmen did their best to return fire, but their crossbows were also hard to aim accurately in the storm.
The Meitengheim people's weakness at using shields was laid bare at this moment.
Kloze's steel armor rang with clangs. The heavy plate blocked several arrows, but bodkin-tipped arrows still pierced the gaps at his shoulders. He rolled behind a large wooden board, barely managing to hide his body.
The other Meitengheim Infantrymen were nearly driven into a desperate situation as well. Lacking shields, they were forced to take cover in the nearby barracks. The tents and wooden roofs could at least hold for a while.
The crossbowmen were likewise battered by the arrow barrage.
Most of them did have shields, but they had nowhere to hide atop the rampart. The arrows flying wildly through the wind and rain still inflicted considerable casualties.
Half held up shields for cover while the other half fired their crossbows in reply, but the clear disparity in numbers and rate of fire made it difficult for them to even raise their heads.
Fortunately, most of them were from Long River Town. Facing the Gatu people, they did not run.
After several volleys, three Mercenary Crossbowmen fell from the rampart, splashing into the river on the other side with tremendous sprays.
The Gatu people sent out another fifty-odd men to dismount and charge. The big men skilled in fighting on foot had been suppressed by the arrow barrage, no one in the camp dared show their heads, and even as they rushed into the camp, the outer Gatu archers did not stop firing.
This was indiscriminate covering fire!
Li Ang picked up Ansen's sword and met the enemy, shouting, "If you're afraid of dying, you can jump into the river and escape! No one will blame you!"
He was saying it for the crossbowmen to hear.
The crafty lord's words actually contained a trap... Perhaps some people really were afraid of dying and wanted to flee, but who would admit it at a time like this?
So his words drew a round of laughter. "Afraid of a dick! Anyone who runs is a chicken!"
That was the voice of the swimming expert.
After the laughter died down, the true bitter battle began.
The Gatu people's fearless charge quickly packed the front of the camp with bodies.
This was indeed the kind of chaotic melee Li Ang wanted, but it was absolutely not the scene he wanted to see.
Kloze led the Charge Squad in a savage fight, every fierce man already bearing vivid red wounds.
The crossbowmen had also jumped down from the rampart. Drawing the infantry swords at their waists, they stood before Ansen and Sarah and entered close combat—they had run out of bolts.
Just as Li Ang paid the price of feathered arrows lodged in both his thigh and shoulder to painstakingly stab through a war rider, he heard a deep, clear sound from afar.
"Woo... woo... woo..."
It was the sound of horns.
Accompanying the horns came an even deeper thunder of hooves, immense in momentum, drawing ever nearer from the distance.
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