The night receded.
As a sliver of fish-belly white appeared in the sky, dawn quietly arrived.
The great battle outside Blackwater City had ended.
On the battlefield, the Barbarian Tribe Army was nowhere to be seen.
Smoke drifted through the air, carrying the heavy stench of blood.
Charred military banners stood slanted amid mountains of corpses. Broken blades, shattered armor, and the mangled remains of soldiers, warhorses, and Origin Beasts covered the wilderness.
Vultures swept over the dark-red-soaked earth, letting out eerie cries.
By then, the Blackwater Army and the Xuan Prefecture Army's Iron Cavalry, which had come to reinforce them, had withdrawn from the edge of the Northern Plains Forest.
They were returning to their barracks through the city gates.
In this battle, the Blackwater Army had already turned the tide.
The addition of the Xuan Prefecture Army had stripped the Barbarian Tribe Army of any possibility of resistance.
As the Barbarian Tribe Army retreated, the Blackwater Army and Xuan Prefecture Army pursued them, cutting through their ranks to encircle and annihilate them.
They inflicted enormous losses on the barbarian forces.
Before they retreated into the Northern Plains Forest, nearly ten thousand troops had been wiped out.
Added to the troops the Blackwater Army had worn down earlier,
the Barbarian Tribe Army had lost over half its forces in this campaign, along with vast quantities of siege equipment.
More importantly, they had also lost a High-Rank Shaman and dozens of Intermediate Shamans.
Such losses could hardly be called anything but devastating.
In fact, had the Northern Plains Forest not teemed with Origin Beasts and possessed complex terrain unfavorable to a large army's pursuit,
the two armies could have reaped even greater gains.
Now, tens of thousands of troops marched into the city in formation.
The commanders of each force