The nomad cavalry abandoned the tactic of using civilians to assault the city.
To these nomadic tribes, who lived by plunder, all the civilians they had captured were slaves—personal property. They feared no battle, but why did they fight in the first place? Wasn't it to get rich?
If they had to expend wealth they had already gotten their hands on during a war, then no matter how one looked at it, it was a losing bargain!
Thus, large contingents of soldiers from the Golden Wolf and Sand Scorpion Khanates poured out of their camps. Mounted on tall horses and accompanied by countless prairie direwolves and desert starving wolves, they slowly pressed toward Earthen City. Among the Sand Scorpion Khanate's soldiers were quite a few insect tamers, carrying huge boxes woven from grass leaves on their backs and constantly releasing poisonous insects of every kind from within.
Venomous desert twin-tailed scorpions, blue-eyed fire scorpions with wings, black widow and white widow venom spiders no bigger than sesame seeds, as well as desert giant scorpions that were only fist-sized when bound by magic but grew several meters long once released.
These insect tamers were also a specialty profession of the Desert Temple. They lacked the talent and potential to become mages or priests, but they were skilled in raising all manner of venomous insects and proficient in toxicology, able to breed their insects into ever more poisonous creatures. They possessed terrifying killing power on the battlefield as well. Even high-level Saint-ranked warriors and mages could suffer at the hands of their insects if they let their guard down.
Several hundred thousand cavalrymen surrounded Earthen City from all directions, while before them stood an even vaster wolf pack. Since invading the Eastern Great Plains, the nomad cavalry had slaughtered the elderly, the