Ambush Ahead (Third Update)

"What? Baron Dio led his army alone to lay an ambush ahead of time?"

Prince Nicholas was taken aback. After a moment's thought, he said, "The Remnant Allied Army has lost many of its elite troops, and its Boss Tier Kelman, still has considerable strength. For Baron Dio to Ambush Kelman with only a few hundred men is far too reckless."

Julien: "Yes, I tried to persuade him too..."

Prince Nicholas added, "However, it is indeed a brilliant idea. When I was formulating the battle plan, I only thought about defeating the vanguard and giving them a taste of their power, but I didn't consider setting up an ambush to annihilate them beforehand. Baron Dio is a military genius."

Julien wiped his sweat. "Yes, yes, actually I trust his judgment a lot, and I even entrusted him with command of the most elite cavalry..."

"Why didn't you go with him?" Prince Nicholas asked.

Julien quickly said, "We... we were worried about His Highness's safety."

In the midst of battle, Prince Nicholas didn't ask any questions, simply nodding slightly before spurring his horse to continue the charge.

Originally, Nicholas only planned to pursue for a dozen miles and then stop to return to Blackrock Fortress defenses. Now he changed his mind and decided to pursue all the way, even if it meant arriving at the battlefield half an hour later, it would still be able to support Bai Xiaowen.

Julien, following closely behind Prince Nicholas's warhorse, whispered, "Dio's going to be rich."

Cecilia's expression had returned to its initial indifference. "He has to survive first." With that, she spurred her horse and darted off like an arrow.

Blackiron Gorge.

Bai Xiaowen's initial advantage was actually only about an hour long.

In other words, he set off an hour earlier than the Remnant Allied Army. Considering the speed advantage of the Remnant Allied Army, that one hour was reduced by almost half.

There's not much you can do in just half an hour.

Fortunately, the terrain of Blackiron Gorge was treacherous, making it a natural Ambush location. Bai Xiaowen ordered his soldiers to dig rocks starting from the middle of the valley, turning the latter half of the treacherous path into an uneven area with a pit on the left and a ditch on the right.

Another group of soldiers cut down trees, transported them to the northern exit of the valley, piled them up, and poured grease on them.

As for the extra stones, apart from using some to set up roadblocks, the rest were transported to both sides of the mountain.

"They're here! Lord, they're here!" Harvey, who was keeping watch in the distance, shouted.

Bai Xiaowen, who was directing the soldiers to spread grease on the dry grass, nodded upon hearing this. "Everyone up the mountain. The veterans are in the first half of the valley entrance, and the new recruits are in the second half. Hurry up!"

There were about two or three hundred veterans. Apart from a few Elite Tier, most of the others were Standard Template soldiers of level 4 or above, and they still had a certain combat capability. These were the people Bai Xiaowen relied on to deal with the defeated soldiers of the Remnant Allied Army.

As for the new recruits, they were relatively weak. If they were to fight the elite soldiers of the Remnants head-on, they would be routed within a few rounds. Therefore, Bai Xiaowen assigned them to the mountain ridges on both sides of Blackiron Gorge as support.

A few minutes later, a jumble of footsteps sounded. Several wolf riders with obvious burns were in front, followed by Troll Headhunter and giant lizard riders. They were all in a chaotic and disorganized manner, rushing into the canyon.

"Good, this is truly a stroke of luck." Bai Xiaowen used his Insight skill to examine several wounded soldiers. These elite Remnants all had a negative status effect that halved all their attributes! He wondered what kind of trick Nicholas had up his sleeve to turn the tide of the battle.

The vanguard commander, the giant hammer berserker Kelman, rode a giant lizard at the rear. The several tribal leaders who had originally followed him were nowhere to be seen; they were either dead or lost in the chaos of battle.

However, only the Elite Tier suffer from the negative status effect of "all attributes reduced by half". As the Boss Tier, Kelman is basically unharmed, and his attributes have not been reduced.

Bai Xiaowen sighed inwardly. If Kelman had also been hit by the debuff that halved all his attributes, this battle would have been much easier. However, every cloud has a silver lining. If they could kill Kelman in full condition, their Battle Rating would be much higher, after all, he was Advanced Boss.

Soon, the first few of the routed soldiers reached the middle of the damaged canyon and discovered the anomaly.

Normally, such an anomaly would be reported to Kelman within ten breaths. But now, the Remnant Vanguard Army was in chaos, and by the time word spread and the anomaly was discovered, Kelman, who was covering the rear, had already reached the middle of the canyon.

Seeing the holes of varying depths dug in the ground, Kelman's expression turned somewhat grave. He jumped off his mount, his nose twitched, and he quickly caught a whiff of grease.

Kelman crouched down and touched a handful of dry grass on the ground.

His expression changed, and he abruptly stood up, shouting out the three classic words that many generals have already uttered, and many more will utter in the future:

"... There's an ambush!"

As the white flag with red stripes was unfurled, two rows of human soldiers suddenly emerged from the canyons on either side, shouting and throwing torches and stones downwards. Soldiers skilled in archery fired fire arrows!

With a loud thud, the flame landed on the dry grass and burned fiercely.

It is worth mentioning that these oils were all resources that Bai Xiaowen plundered in Redleaf Fief through the Plaguebane Industries.

The residents of Redleaf City have encountered such a temporary administrator. Whether it's lucky or unlucky, for the next few months, they will have to live a miserable life with only cornbread in their hands and no oil in their vegetables—if there are any vegetables at all.

Being Flame Scorch is unbearable, let alone being hit by a hail of stones. Many of the fleeing soldiers rushed toward the northern exit without thinking twice.

"My lord, the canyon exit is not far ahead, let's charge!" Several orc Orcs beside Kelman shouted loudly in the Remnant Tongue.

"Don't charge! Since the enemy has laid an ambush, the road ahead must be blocked. We must go back, turn the rear guard into the vanguard, and charge out through the southern entrance!" Kelman shouted. "Go and relay my orders!"

"My lord, given the current situation, it's impossible to give orders anymore..." an Orcs guard said helplessly.

Having just suffered a crushing defeat and been scorched by wildfires, the Remnants, amidst the billowing black smoke, stumbled around like headless flies. How could they possibly muster the strength to regroup and launch a counterattack?

Kelman sighed, "This is my fault... I didn't expect that humans would actually deploy a powerful mage capable of using forbidden spells in this remote frontier! Your injuries won't heal in a short time."

The Orcs guards were all bewildered and at a loss.

"Fortunately, Commander, you have the treasure bestowed by the Great Shaman, which temporarily healed your injuries. As long as you are here, we have hope!" An Orcs guard clearly saw Kelman as a lifeline.

Kelman nodded and said seriously, "Call everyone you can, and they're all coming with me!" With that, he jumped onto the giant lizard, turned around, and rushed towards the entrance to the south valley.