But at this point, the Barbarian army had not given up either. At the very least, the orders issued earlier by the two Commanders of Ten Thousand were still being carried out, and their direct troops had already formed up.
This was also thanks to the fighting of recent days. Most of the soldiers in these units were battle-hardened veterans, and although they were indeed terrified of the mysterious weapons used by the Blue Lake Bay defenders—
—they had seen the power of Flowering Shells during the siege. These weapons might have been harder to evade, but their destructive force was not much greater. They were nothing more than deafening blasts and fragments. As long as one did not take a direct hit to the head, one had not lost the ability to fight.
Moreover, these veterans knew that they had to engage the enemy as quickly as possible. Once the two armies were tangled together and friend became indistinguishable from foe, they would no longer have to fear those terrifying weapons landing on their heads.
The best option would have been for the Barbarians to mount their warhorses and charge swiftly into the enemy formation. But their horses had been thoroughly panicked by the thunderous cannon fire and could not be controlled at all. They could only dismount, form ranks, and prepare for infantry combat.
From another perspective, however, the Iron Bone Tribe's elite units still possessed considerable resilience. Even in adversity, they would not give up easily. They truly deserved their reputation as the elite who had ranged across the Northlands Wasteland.
The Legion Commanders of these units also tried to keep urging the Barbarian cannon-fodder troops at the front, hoping to make them launch another charge, if only to obstruct the enemy bombardment.
The commanders of those