The final counterattack

"Commander, terrible news!"

"An urgent report came from the front. A plague has broken out in the enemy camp. It's said to be spreading extremely fast, and more than a thousand men have already fallen ill..."

Howard hurried over to report.

Every strategy and tactic had to take a back seat to a plague.

Once it got hold of someone, there was no escaping unscathed.

"What?"

"A plague!"

"Has the news been confirmed?"

Victor asked in disbelief.

It was no surprise for a major epidemic to follow a major battle, but a plague took time to develop.

Generally, it was caused by failing to dispose of the dead in time.

"Commander, the news is definitely true!"

"We interrogated several prisoners, and they all gave the same account.

The enemy's strange movements also bear it out.

Heavenly Wolf Canyon has limited space. Disposing of a large number of human and animal corpses all at once wouldn't have been easy.

According to the prisoners, they didn't burn the livestock carcasses immediately after the battle. Instead, they were curing the meat.

Human and animal blood mixed together in such quantities, and it wasn't all burned away immediately. Once the corpses started to rot, it was no surprise that a plague broke out.

Besides, there's only one water source in the valley. If people or animals fell into it during the chaos and weren't cleared out immediately, that could also have caused disease."

Howard answered with certainty.

The conditions for a plague to break out in Heavenly Wolf Canyon were all too favorable.

The enclosed terrain made it hard for the bloody stench to disperse all at once. It could still be smelled even now.

The Tuwu People were also accustomed to sharing water sources with their livestock and had no concept of hygiene.

In fact, the officers and soldiers of the Third Supplementary Army paid just as little attention to such details, but fortunately, imperial troops were bound by military law.

There were many things they did without knowing why, simply because military regulations required it.

"Pass down the order: all troops are forbidden from coming into close contact with enemy soldiers."

"Notify the cavalry battalion. Have them tie dry grass to the newly captured cattle, pour grease over it, and send another herd charging at the enemy tonight."

"Have the underlings Big Black arranged go into the nearby mountains and lie low. When the enemy falls into chaos, hit them hard from behind!"

Victor immediately gave his orders.

In theory, the enemy would surely have learned their lesson after being charged by flaming cattle.

The defenses at the cave entrance made that clear. The newly dug pits had been prepared to guard against another cattle attack.

But things had changed. A plague was raging through the valley.

The Tuwu People's morale had sunk to rock bottom. Even the slightest disturbance could cause their troops to collapse.

If they hadn't been trapped in the canyon, many of them would probably have deserted long ago.

Using the flaming cattle formation again now wasn't meant to achieve great results, but to awaken the fear buried deep in the enemy's hearts.

The wolf pack's attack would deliver the final blow.

Whatever the outcome, the army would have to retreat after this battle.

He wasn't about to risk his own life for the sake of claiming more credit.

If he caught the plague, it would be too late for regrets.

"Whine... awoo... awoo..."

Watching Big Black shake his head and wag his tail, desperately trying to please him, Victor strongly suspected that he was a close relative of dogs.

If not for his unmistakable, classic wolf king appearance, Victor would have thought he was a dog-type magical beast pretending to be one.

"All right, go ahead and do it without worrying. You won't go unrewarded!"

Victor immediately promised him a reward.

He hadn't treated the wolf king poorly. In less than a month at his side, Big Black had grown from a third-tier magical beast to a fourth-tier magical beast.

He hadn't advanced any further because Victor himself had only just reached the threshold of a fifth-tier knight.

Even with the power of Command supporting him, there could still be unpredictable risks if a magical beast became stronger than its master.

Besides, the power of faith was hard to obtain and had to be used sparingly.

He wasn't a god and had no believers making offerings to him. All his faith came from the admiration of the officers and soldiers.

The white mist of faith produced each day looked plentiful, but once condensed, there was pitifully little of it.

It took roughly two days to gather a single condensed strand of the power of faith.

Once enough power of faith accumulated, it would turn into a mysterious drop of liquid and be stored in the divinity.

After commanding troops for several months, he had accumulated just one drop of the mysterious liquid.

Victor suspected it was divine power, but he had no way to verify it.

The only thing he could say for certain was that this power of faith could help magical beasts advance.

Perhaps it worked on humans too, but for safety's sake, he hadn't dared try it himself.

Heavenly Wolf Canyon.

Ever since the order forbidding them from drawing water from the pool, the soldiers had been forced to compete for the stream water flowing down from the mountains.

There was only so much water in the stream. To conserve it, the Tuwu People had reluctantly slaughtered their remaining livestock.

Even so, daily washing and cleaning the wounded's injuries remained a problem.

"The soldiers sent out to scout the route have been disappearing one after another. The enemy has most likely learned what's happening in the valley.

The drinking water my personal guards just brought from the stream also has a foul, fishy smell, as if animal dung had been soaked in it.

This must be an enemy plot. They're trying to cut off our water supply completely.

We can't wait any longer. We have to leave immediately!"

Deputy commander of ten thousand Knightley urged, his face full of urgency.

With the situation having reached this point, anyone with clear eyes could see that Heavenly Wolf Canyon was the graveyard the enemy had chosen for them.

Surrounded by mountains on all sides, with only one cave entrance leading outside, it seemed like a place that was easy to defend and hard to attack. In truth, it was a death trap.

The deep pool in the valley was the canyon's greatest weakness.

Once the water source was ruined, every advantage would turn into a disadvantage.

The enemy's methods were highly deceptive.

When they arrived, they had seen fish and shrimp swimming in the pool and mistakenly assumed the water was safe.

But only a few days had passed, and many fish and shrimp were already floating on the surface, a clear sign that the water had been contaminated.

"We haven't scouted the route yet. If we leave the valley now, there's a good chance we'll get lost in the mountains."

Commander of ten thousand Jeremiah sounded somewhat troubled.

Being cut off from water was deadly, but getting lost in the mountains was just as frightening.

If they lost their bearings, they could easily stray into magical beast territory.

Although low-tier magical beasts could do limited harm to the army, he truly didn't want to fight such a pointless battle.

"Getting lost is better than staying here and waiting to die!"

"As long as we don't go deep into the Dragonbone Mountains, the army won't be in danger.

If we wait another few days and the plague spreads further through the camp, we won't even have the strength to leave!"

Knightley argued earnestly.

From the current situation, catching the plague didn't kill a person immediately. It only left them weak all over and extremely feeble.

Some severe cases also developed high fevers and chest tightness, and coughed up blood.

"Very well!"

"You're right. We really can't wait any longer.

Pass down the order. The entire army is to pack immediately and begin a strategic withdrawal at noon.

The wounded and sick staying in the valley need not fight the enemy to the bitter end. They need only deceive the enemy for one day before surrendering!"

Commander of ten thousand Jeremiah issued the order in a heavy voice.

In name, it was a strategic withdrawal. In reality, they were running away.

This retreat meant the complete failure of the current campaign to encircle and eliminate the enemy.

The thirty-thousand-strong allied army had failed to take down a single enemy corps. With the khanate advancing triumphantly in its battles against the enemy, he would stand out most of all.

The khanate's upper ranks wouldn't care about the real difficulties he faced. Everyone would simply think him incompetent.

Worse still, Jeremiah had no way to explain himself. The Golden Horde Khanate's tradition was to judge only the result; no one ever cared about the process.

Even though he hadn't made any obvious mistakes during the preceding battles, he would still have to take responsibility.

In theory, he could redeem himself by wiping out the enemy, but he had no confidence in doing so now.

The only thing he could count on was the sick people in the valley.

Whether the enemy accepted their surrender or massacred them, they would come into contact with the sick.

And contact meant a chance of infection.

No matter how strong an army was, once plague came knocking, its fighting strength would rapidly decline.

If he couldn't annihilate the enemy on the battlefield, burying them in the plague was also a good option.