If You Won't Move, I'll Make You Move

"They really came prepared." Lin Xu's eyes darkened.

He was already prepared when he received Li Jianzhou's warning.

Since Jiang Shiyan dared to launch a territorial war, he must have something to rely on. Otherwise, he could have annihilated the attacking legion bit by bit with the lord's powerful magic alone.

What happened?

Compared to Lin Xu's calm demeanor, which he had anticipated, Li Meng stared in shock at the dull bronze seal in his hand. "Why can it only seal one of the other party's powers?!"

As Jiang Shiyan's trusted hero, Li Meng, although only an awakened NPC, has a deeper understanding of the lord than most humans.

The suppression of lower-ranking lords by higher-ranking lords is comprehensive. Even an Enfeoffed Lord can, by leveraging the authority of Pioneer Lord territory, negate multiple privilege bonuses granted to the other lord.

According to Jiang Shiyan and his initial estimates, Lin Xu's Spirit Realm territory had only just been established. A mere knightly territory, when facing an earl, or even just Enfeoffed Lord of an earl, would at least have three powers revoked. Yet, only one was revoked?

"This is almost equivalent to a large baronial territory. This lord's potential is far greater than we imagined..." Li Meng let out a long breath, composed Spirit Calming, and directed the army to advance slowly. "However, no matter how much potential you have, it's all empty talk if it doesn't translate into strength. Lin Xu, you shouldn't have anchored your territory in Xiang Province!"

"Is this the power of a high-ranking lord? Even a mere Enfeoffed Lord can exert power remotely to suppress a low-ranking lord..."

Sensing the isolated Spiritual Qi, Lin Xu gained a deeper understanding of the territorial war. He descended rapidly on the clouds and landed on the altar built on the top floor of the fortress. Instantly, pure Spiritual Qi from the underground city flowed into his body.

The Spiritual Qi on the territory was sealed off, but the Spiritual Qi stored in the dungeon remained unaffected.

"However, the transmission capacity of the spirit rune array is limited, so we can't use high-level spells recklessly anymore."

To maximize the effectiveness of his spells, he could only use them to aid in combat, instead of indiscriminately bombarding the enemy as before.

"Come on, let me show you how long I've been preparing for this battle!"

A group of corpse-drivers dressed in Daoist robes finally arrived at the battlefield, while hordes of zombies leaped and bounded towards the front lines from the hillside.

One major advantage of the profession of corpse driver is that they don't need to stand in front during magical duels.

From their vantage point, they could command the battle from a distance of one or two miles away simply by using their connection with the zombies.

Jiang Hanyan stood to the side and slightly behind Lin Xu, frowning as she glanced at the corpse-driving craftsman.

These cultivators, exuding a chilling aura, broke through to level 3 after continuous extreme training.

A level 3 corpse driver can create 3 corpses. There are a total of 91 corpse drivers in the territory, and a total of 273 corpses have appeared here.

Corpse refining.

At this time, Jiang's Jiang Lineage Army was still 2 kilometers away. Lin Xu used the altar under his feet to absorb Spiritual Qi and quickly reached the critical Spirit Kindling lamp was full of magic power and could not be accumulated any more.

"Balloons, prepare!" he ordered decisively. "Aim at the enemy lines, fire!"

"Aim at the enemy lines and fire!" the guard commanding the ballista ordered. The militiamen made slight adjustments to the ballista and immediately opened fire.

"Bang bang bang~"

Bowstrings trembled, and crossbows imbued with spirit fireed, their thick arrows slicing through the air as they attacked the slowly advancing enemy ranks, accompanied by the flashing of spirit runes.

"Fire from this distance?" Xu Yueming, standing next to Li Meng, grinned. "Looks like the general commanding the enemy is incompetent! Even with Old Meng's Heroic Domain buff, the archers' range only increased by 50%!"

Li Meng squinted at the approaching crossbow bolts, a bad premonition rising in his heart.

The next moment, arrows flew in parabolic arcs and landed precisely in the enemy ranks.

"Whoosh~"

The wind was fierce, and the crossbow bolt pierced a hole directly in the neatly arranged army formation.

Four or five people were nailed together in a row, their blood staining the ground.

Hearing the faint cries of agony around him, Xu Yueming's rugged face grew somewhat embarrassed. "How can the range be so exaggerated?"

Lin Xu withdrew his hand, feeling the pure Spiritual Qi emanating from beneath his feet, replenishing the energy he had used to cast the spell.

At the same time the ballista fired, he used his Arrow Shooting Technique to attach it to the bolt, fine-tuning its direction.

With the help of this "manual navigation," the range of the crossbow bolts nearly doubled, and they hit the enemy lines with greater accuracy.

More than 60 ballistae fired simultaneously, killing nearly 200 people in one go.

The militiamen worked hard, turning the winch to wind up the crossbow, and it took them a minute to complete the reloading. This was thanks to the spirit-patterned winch, which greatly reduced the difficulty of winding up the crossbow.

"After this battle, we should prepare some spirit-enchanted equipment to enhance the power of the ballista team," Lin Xu thought to himself, when he heard the ballista fire again.

He once again unleashed a spell to guide the crossbow bolts, tearing open cracks in the orderly enemy ranks once more.

Jiang Hanyan frowned slightly as she watched the enemy slowly advancing.

Despite being subjected to continuous fire from ballistae, the legion continued to advance at a leisurely pace, as if the casualties of several hundred men were of no concern whatsoever.

"The commander of this legion is not easy to deal with," Lin Xu frowned slightly.

In battles fought with cold weapons, the most important thing was to preserve the soldiers' physical strength.

Blindly launching an attack will only lead to the soldiers' physical exhaustion. After charging for a hundred or two hundred meters, they will be panting heavily and their combat effectiveness will be greatly reduced.

"If you don't move, I'll force you to!" he ordered the ballista crew. "Keep firing, don't stop!"

In addition to physical strength, morale must also be considered in combat.

Despite the NPCs' emotional detachment, this predicament of being able only to take hits without being able to fight back still affects their morale.

Therefore, Lin Xu specifically directed the crossbow carts to concentrate their firepower and continuously fire at a thousand-man battle regiment of the Jiang Lineage Army.

Instead of maintaining a synchronized volley, they continued to unleash a continuous barrage of crossbow bolts.

Sharp crossbow bolts whistled through the air like the scythe of death, tearing the once-dense formation to shreds.

The shattered corpses and the wailing cries of their comrades stirred the NPCs' numb emotions; at one moment, the casualties reached 3.

The thousand-strong battle group suddenly collapsed, and the soldiers abandoned their weapons and turned to flee.

The enemy lines have been shaken!

Almost simultaneously, near this routed enemy force, several battle groups subconsciously slowed their pace.

They hesitated.

Lin Xu calmly surveyed the battlefield, directing the ballista to aim at another thousand-man unit and fire again. Whistling bolts splattered blood and flesh across the grass.

Seeing the dire situation of their allies, the morale of this thousand-man battle group dropped even faster. With only 20% casualties, the entire formation showed signs of collapse.

"Damn it, this is so frustrating!" Xu Yueming slammed his fist on the stone wall of the castle, sending fine stone dust flying to the ground.